Douglas began to wonder if the events
of the previous evening were not, after all, the imaginings
of some horrible nightmare.

On, on, over the plains of frozen snow. The sun was so
strong now that Douglas was obliged to put great goggles
over his eyes, and Dorothy pulled a dark veil down over
hers, for fear of snow-blindness. They had left the flat
prairie behind, and were now in the bluff country which
was simply heights and hollows lightly timbered with
birch, poplar and saskatoon bushes, with beautiful meadows
and small lakes or "sloughs" scattered about everywhere.
They passed many pretty homesteads nestling cosily in
sheltered nooks; but no smoke rose from their chimneys;
they all seemed to have been deserted in a hurry. Their
occupants had doubtless fled into Battleford. What if
they had been too late to reach that haven of refuge!

At noon the travellers stopped in a little wooded valley
for dinner. It was more like a picnic party than that of
refugees fleeing for their lives. The Scotswoman actually
made a dish of pancakes for the troopers, because she
said there was one of them who reminded her of her own
son, whom she had not seen for many a long day. The
sincere thanks of the hungry ones were more than recompense
for the worthy dame.

They all sat down on buffalo robes spread on the snow,
and Dorothy was immensely taken with the gentlemanly,
unobtrusive way in which the troopers waited upon the
women of the party. But they were all mostly younger sons
of younger sons, and public school men, so after all it
was not to be wondered at. The high standard of honour
and duty, and the courage that was a religion animating
the force--the North-West Mounted Police--was easily
accounted for. She began to understand how it was that
some men preferred such a life to that of the mere quest
for gold.

Every one seemed in the best of spirits. Wounds were not
mentioned, so it went without saying that these, owing
to the healthy bodies of their owners, were giving no
trouble. The only interruption of a non-harmonic nature
was when a burly Muskymote dog of Rory's team took it
into its head that a little _tete-noire_ dog had received
a portion of frozen fish from its master out of all
proportion to its inconsiderable size, so, as soon as
Rory's back was turned, showed its disapproval of such
favouritism by knocking the favoured one down, and trying
to bite off the tips of its ears. As the other dogs, with
their pe