“I’ve sent one of the boys to Graham’s for a wagon,” said the Sergeant.  “You saw the man who fired at him?”

“Yes, sir,” said Trooper Payne.

“You knew him?” and there was a ring in the Sergeant’s voice.

“Yes, sir,” said the trooper.  “At least he was riding Winston’s horse, and had on the old long coat of his.”

Sergeant Stimson nodded, and pointed to the weapon lying with blackened muzzle at his feet.  “And I think you could recognize that rifle?  There’s F. Winston cut on the stock of it.”

Payne said nothing, for the trooper signed to him.  “I fancy Shannon wants to talk to you,” he said.

The lad knelt down, slipped one arm about his comrade’s neck, and took the mittened hand in his own.  Shannon smiled up at him feebly.

“Winston’s horse, and his cap,” he said, and then stopped, gasping horribly.

“You will remember that, boys,” said the Sergeant.

Payne could say nothing.  Trooper Shannon and he had ridden through icy blizzard and scorching heat together, and he felt his manhood melting as he looked down into his dimming eyes.  There was a curious look in them which suggested a strenuous endeavor and an appeal, and the lips moved again.

“It was,” said Shannon, and moved his head a little on Payne’s arm, apparently in an agony of effort.

Then the birches roared about them, and drowned the feeble utterance, while when the gust passed all three, who had not heard what preceded it, caught only one word, “Winston.”

Trooper Shannon’s eyes closed, and his head fell back while the snow beat softly into his upturned face, and there was a very impressive silence intensified by the moaning of the wind, until the rattle of wheels came faintly down the trail.

CHAPTER V

MISS BARRINGTON COMES HOME

The long train was slackening speed and two whistles rang shrilly through the roar of wheels when Miss Barrington laid down the book with which she had beguiled her journey of fifteen hundred miles, and rose from her seat in a corner of the big first-class car.  The car was sumptuously upholstered and its decorations tasteful as well as lavish, but just then it held no other passenger, and Miss Barrington smiled curiously as she stood, swaying a little, in front of the mirror at one end of it, wrapping her furs about her.  There was, however, a faint suggestion of regret in the smile, and the girl’s eyes grew grave again, for the soft cushions, dainty curtains, gleaming gold and nickel, and equable temperature formed a part of the sheltered life she was about to leave behind her, and there would, she knew, be a difference in the future.  Still, she laughed again, as, drawing the little fur cap well down upon her broad white forehead, she nodded at her own reflection.

“One cannot have everything, and you might have stayed there and reveled in civilization if you had liked,” she said.