AWK 
 

 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 35350839F9 
 
 From far Dakota and otherwhere 
 
 3 1924 021 680 206 
 

 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021680206 
 
FROM FAR DAKOTA 
 AND OTHERWHERE 
 
FROM FAR DAKOTA 
 AND OTHERWHERE 
 
 BY 
 
 HENDRY DURIE ROSS 
 
 THE GRAFTON PRESS 
 
 PUBLISHERS -Yvpf^ NEW YORK 
 
 I {' U I' 
 UK IV! i 
 
3 5 3^ 
 
 /? ^'^ir^ifu 
 
 Copyright, 1905, 
 
 By The Gkafton Phess 
 
 In the United States and Great Britain 
 
To E. M. 
 
 Whether we be bred tn the Home- Land, or In the 
 mightier " Empire beyond the narrow seas," or In the 
 One First Republic; whether we be entirely expatriated 
 In the shape of German Philosopher, French Marshal, 
 Russian Noble, Turkish Official or Indian Chief. Still we 
 turn, across the generations, to Scotland, naming her 
 
 PATRIA, 
 " Mine Ain Land," 
 
 Scotland has not only been the chief factor In the mak> 
 Ing of The One First Empire (bear witness her Thought, 
 her humane and democratic colonization, her success in 
 peaceful commerce, her si<iil in " The Noble Game of 
 War"), but she has done even better. Individuality 
 counts for most; and Scottish men and women are the 
 most individualized. 
 
 It Is my privilege to have, in you, a friend who typifies 
 the blossom-form of humanity at its highest. And you 
 are Scotland's mal<e. 
 
 Permit, then, that the least of the Scots (albeit a colo- 
 nial) dedicate this too Imperfect work to you. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Clotilde 1 
 
 Dale 41 
 
 Deseet Born 49 
 
 "Times ain't now what they used to be" . . . 63 
 
 Vision 79 
 
From Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 CLOTILDB 
 
 THE place is a town in the Red River Valley, the time 
 1877. 
 The " New Comers " had organised as a set off, 
 or rather complement, to the " Old Settlers' 
 League," and this night finds us at the first ball given by the 
 former guild, the same being held in the Court House. 
 
 Van de Graffe arrived late; but found a partner notwith- 
 standing, herself having been tardy — ^which was lucky, see- 
 ing the men outnumbered the women three to one there; 
 . wherefore the man coming late was, as a general thing, " out 
 of luck." As De Grafi"e piloted her through the crowd upon 
 the floor, his attention to his girlish partner's constant chat- 
 ter ceased upon a sudden. He was no less surprised than 
 gratified to behold his neighbour Clotilde also dancing, and, 
 as if to favour his waning interest in his present companion, 
 whose too copious small talk began to bore him, the music 
 then ceased, abruptly as usual. Thereupon, having con- 
 ducted his lady to her place, he, as soon as civility permitted, 
 left her; but 'twas too late. Clotilde had accepted other 
 escort to supper, he perceived. 
 
 The disappointed man lounged across to one of the floor 
 managers. 
 
 " Hal," he bespoke that functionary, " what makes the 
 men stare so.? Anything wrong with my toggery.? " 
 
 " Of course ! Thought you'd have known better by this 
 time. Sport a dress coat, will you.? " 
 
Fkom Fae Dakota and Otherwh^be 
 
 " I thought to try an innovation. It's about time ! I'm 
 no tender-foot, either. In civilisation they would set the 
 dogs on a man that went out o' nights in a ' Prince Albert,' 
 even if they spared him jail. ' A new and dangerous species 
 of tramp that,' says they, ' I guess.' " 
 
 " So? Culture changes with longitude. Five years ago 
 a buckskin suit with guns on the side was the proper thing 
 here. You ought to know better than to dare the boys this 
 way. I wore a dress coat once out here, just after I came 
 — three years past. You'd better look out for Tim White. 
 He's sure to be on your track ; put a chunk of stinking cheese 
 in one claw of my coat that time; couldn't think what ailed 
 folk until I reached for my gloves." 
 
 " A good trick to play just once. After that it gets 
 monotonous. Like to see him try it on again, for all he's 
 thick in the neck." 
 
 " Trick nothing ! How d'you propose to hit a man, unless 
 his fists are up, when he just sits there and laughs, and 
 laughs, and laughs — the more you rave — ^with half a hundred 
 other asses braying chorus.'' I've been there. You keep 
 clear of him, I tell you; else take your med'cine and say 
 nothing, notice nothing. Then the joke's on him; likewise 
 the drinks — maybe champagne, seein' it's to-night." 
 
 "I'm not caught yet." 
 
 Having satisfied his hunger and dutifully greeted various 
 acquaintances, De GraflFe, being now partnerless, seated him- 
 self in the embrasure of a window and began to watch with 
 rising zest the proceedings of the largest gathering of the 
 sort he had ever beheld convened in the valley. 
 
 It was a most heterogeneous throng, though by no means 
 to be named motley ; for each community in the West has some 
 centre of culture, while the social instinct is high in that 
 fierce democracy. The spectator anew wondered at the men's 
 preference for the frock coat — then ... , " What 
 
 [2] 
 
Clotixde 
 
 shall evolve from the race-blending in the course of the 
 generations? «... The Britisher is the man of most 
 mixed lineage in Europe. His blooded horse and mastiff 
 dog are samples of the same factor among the lower animals 
 
 . . . proper creatures all — ^with the best of records. 
 If interbreeding, in the end, signifies excellence in the pro- 
 geny, then the West has a high destiny ahead." 
 
 Here were Anglo-Celts of Britain, sons of old Gaul a few, 
 descendants of these mother lands a many, Canadians both 
 French and British, Yankees and Southerners. Here were 
 faces clearly Norse, and others Teutonic. Some few exhibited 
 the complexion and physique of Southern Europeans, Span- 
 ish, ItaKan, Greek even; nor were traces wanting entirely of 
 unconquerable Judah, the demarcation line being drawn only 
 over against Cathay and Libya. These might not enter, 
 save possibly in sudra guise as pullers of corks, or porters 
 of ice cream. 
 
 The district Judge was an old settler. De Graffe noticed 
 that the Jurist's handsome daughters danced on occasion 
 with their " hired man." To have called that young fellow 
 " servant " would have eventuated in a fight. He was a son 
 of one of the wealthiest farmers in western Ontario, in search 
 of independence and experience, presumably. Though his 
 present partner's ease and gracious demeanour bespoke a con- 
 vent's polish, he was none behind her in appointment or in 
 address. Beholding Miss Smith's lovely oKve skin, blue- 
 black hair, and superb dusky eyes a stranger might have 
 suspected Spanish descent; the initiated, however, knew her 
 for a fourth descendant of a Cree squaw on the maternal 
 side. 
 
 That fairy in mauve, so blonde and blooming, thought the 
 spectator, is a figure presentable in any assembly. Her 
 dancing is perfection. Furthermore her EngHsh is better 
 selected than that of most Americans, being absolutely slang- 
 
 [8] 
 
Feom Fae Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 less, clearly enunciated, and perfectly constructed. Many of 
 the " merchants' " wives, though, eye the beauty askance. 
 True, they had called upon her — at the instance of their 
 husbands — ^whose views were politic, or else new minted from 
 the lately established " Lodge " — ^but how should these high 
 and mighty dames of established precedence deign to closer 
 acquaintance, seeing that only six months ago the pros- 
 perous, clever and well-born young lumberman, smitten by 
 her Norse loveliness, had wedded this nobody ; thereby depriv- 
 ing her mother of that good dame's chief assistance in con- 
 ducting the business of the town laundry? 
 
 One of the sets now forming consists, in part, of the town 
 telegraph operator, a stylish little woman, rumoured some- 
 what of a rake, accompanied by a taU, fair, unassuming 
 young man of self-reliant bearing, whose normal attire — the 
 corduroy and spurs of the ranchman — ^were here exchanged 
 for one of the few full dress suits to be seen. The very well 
 informed knew him heir to an English baronetcy, and the rest 
 of the world as " a dam'd nice fellow — don't know where he 
 came from." Opposite to these, led forth the genial Prus- 
 sian drover and contractor, his partner, scion of genuine 
 " F. F. V." stock. The commandant of the Garrison, who, 
 with many of his ofBcers, had driven a score of miles to be 
 present, danced with the mayor's wife, whose lesser half, now 
 a magnate in finance, and chief engineer of the poHtical 
 machine, aforetime held an intermediate position betwixt 
 " heeler " and " boss " in the ward politics of Chicago, and 
 came first to the territory as a " carpetbagger." St. Clair 
 and a French Canadian girl went to complete that set. In 
 another more plebeian square the prettiest woman was a 
 Mennonite born ; her husband, that Irish sergeant on the way 
 to win the straps of a second lieutenant, had, while peacefully 
 foraging across the border after prairie chicken, seen the girl 
 of his heart in the Communal village on the Reserve. Love in 
 
 [4] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 the end had bidden her set at defiance Kaiser, Mir, and 
 parents. Wherefore, by this her marriage she had gotten 
 welcome demission and excommunication from the community 
 of Teuto-Slavic Quakers. 
 
 Of course there is much differentiation into coterie here; 
 nature, prejudice, idiosyncrasy binding those of similiar tra- 
 ditions and culture into groups, broken in upon, necessarily, 
 by incursions from neighbouring cliques and cabals. Youth 
 is the most noticeable adjunct everywhere. There is vim, 
 physique, activity, ardour, brightness of eye, headlongness 
 here, in pleasure, as yesterday and to-morrow in affairs, but 
 the sage balance of eld is for the most part a-wanting ; which 
 phenomenon may, speaking from a business standpoint, in 
 part account for " booms " and their disastrous reactions. 
 
 There presently appeared a disturbing factor in a more 
 distant set, and chaos came about. Few, even of those who 
 have been taught, have ear sufficient to accomplish gracefully 
 a figure in a square dance. Perfect training in the mere 
 strategy of the figures gives only a glozing show of accuracy, 
 if the inborn and unteachable rhythmic sense be wanting. 
 Yet everybody thinks the feat an easy one, for the most part. 
 Now an adventurous youth, clearly unacquainted with the 
 rudiments of the dance, participated in the present. His 
 very first step had been an error. His floundering uneasi- 
 ness over re-repeated blunders deprived him of all presence 
 of mind. Wrath or amusement caused other members of the 
 set to neglect the time beat. Their dissonance caused sundry 
 participants in neighbouring sets to do Hkewise, the shouts 
 of the " caller off " to the contrary notwithstanding. Soon 
 the floor was covered with a procession of dervishes, each 
 dancing on his or her own accoimt. Here gaped a damsel 
 partnerless and lost; there a pair swept bowing to a vacant 
 spot where a side couple should have been ; yet another lone 
 man roared athwart the din, seeking to ascertain the location 
 
 [5] 
 
Feom Fab. Dakota and Othekwheee 
 
 of his lady, or their vis-a-vis. 'Twas a Lancers no more, but 
 a mere pow-wow. The voice of the " caller off " had risen to 
 an eldritch falsetto, like a hawk's screech. " Swearing like 
 a little man, right out loud," to use the subsequent editorial 
 comment, he swooped, again hawk-like, upon the author of 
 the confusion — for he had marked him from the beginning — 
 clutched the shrinking, luckless wight, conducted him unre- 
 sisting and ashamed to the door, and there having arrived, 
 adjured him. 
 
 " If ye'h want ta' dance, go home and play it alone — or 
 else to th' injuns — or t'hell, if ye'h want ta'," but on pain of 
 sudden and terrible death, — " T' keep away from here any- 
 how." One single, uncontainable kick sped the failure on his 
 downstairs way. Then from the pausing, expectant crowd 
 went up a shout of laughter — ^western; more appreciative, 
 more inextinguishable than that of Homer's men. 
 
 De Graife was mopping the mirthful tears and otherwise 
 subsiding from convulsions when a wayward influence changed 
 and contracted his features from lines of merriment, instan- 
 taneously to those of pain, astonishment, inquiry. He had 
 smelt a perfume. 
 
 " Faint, spirit faint, even in nearness to her," thus ran the 
 retrospection, " faint as a new-born breath .... majes- 
 tic, luring, as Venus' cestus .... Yes, surely 'twas hers, 
 this subtle, potent, evanescent, imperious, fickle wraith 
 . . . . from what flower garnered, — or tropic bloom, or 
 northern frail violet.'' Whether at all extract of any blos- 
 som, or perchance not vegetal, but a natal gift to the woman's 
 witching personality .... a mystery." 
 
 The single waft seemed to have come from some near 
 quarter, whence in a cardroom he heard mingling female 
 voices, not cognisable. It came and was gone. His con- 
 sciousness of present things departed. Memory reft him 
 from the garish Dakota ballroom to remembered heights 
 
 [6J 
 
Clotilde 
 
 overlooking the Hudson. He is again a new graduated 
 Columbia man, supposedly recuperating from the strain of 
 examinations. He reviews, lives over again, the memorable 
 time of a first love. 
 
 Men, who to-morrow will greet the genial comrade by his 
 nighest name, abbreviated to " Loo," pass, casting disdain at 
 him out of their eyes because of that " claw hammer." 
 Women, some approvingly, some even invitingly, glance Hke- 
 wise at the high-statured, high-featured dreamer; marking 
 him perchance — ^black haired, with httle colour, lean, agile 
 as the leopards on England's shield — but he is oblivious. 
 His thoughts have reached Saratoga now; and therewith 
 comes her image ; thenceforward a fixed one in his mind. He 
 sees her, betimes, languorous, fragile, delicate, anon animate 
 as morning, capricious always, drawing men's regard as the 
 moon the sea, infinitely resourceful in the game of hearts, a 
 very crowning achievement of social culture; but a hothouse 
 bloom, not ever touched by alien wild winds nor strengthening 
 frosts, the pathetic appeal to chivalrous treatment showing 
 in eye and drooped lip. Some real delicacy of fibre together 
 with much exquisitely worn exaggeration of the same, ren- 
 dered the eff'ect. Guinevere bore the mint mark of society's 
 best, frankness, tact, policy, finesse, superficial culture, plus 
 capacity for real conversation; and more than ordinary 
 feminine charm thereto. 
 
 Oh, winning as the cooing dove, she swam to his arms in 
 retrospect. Soon gone — bright, light, reckless, restless as 
 the sea mew — gone too, ruthless as the poised or pouncing 
 falcon, his abiding concept of her now. 
 
 After illusions had begun to give way before the lessons 
 of experience he knew her for a woman superficially sensitive, 
 betimes sentimental, yet at the core of being egotistic and 
 hard; in reality perhaps too silly, too unreasoning to take 
 thought of other ways. From pampered childhood up she 
 
 [7] 
 
Fkom Far Dakota and Otherwheke 
 
 had come closely in contact with the wordling he and she, 
 developing, as she matured, a quick intuition as to things 
 amatory, and comprehending humanity in but the one phase 
 —the social and trifling; as to larger provinces of concep- 
 tion she was without receptiveness or judgment; wholly lack- 
 ing in definite volition, albeit stubborn. 
 
 What dear depths of true womanliness he dreamed to dis- 
 cern in her " that once of old " ; capacities for all graces made 
 apparent in her changeful moods, now joyou-s as childhood, 
 then dependant all as girlhood, anon regal as the zoned 
 Semiramis ; the bliss to him, all too despondent to hope for 
 her condescension, when the regal creature had first con- 
 fessed her care — and how it all came back again ! 
 
 But when his " crank " notions, breath of his life, had 
 come to be broached, dwelt upon, insisted upon, there had 
 followed a letting in of noon's light into love's dim bowers. 
 His opinions regarding the duties of wealth were a stumbling 
 block to her understanding. What to her this talk of 
 obligations.'' What were riches' functions if not to minister 
 solely to the elaboration of life — life as she knew it — to fill 
 fuU the measures of changeful joys.'' Duty was to do as 
 one's own " order " did. Elsewise " duty " was a word dim, 
 awful, not to be pondered upon overmuch ; too terrifying even 
 for Lenten meditations. His living concept of the word she 
 thus translated into mechanical terms. 
 
 " I admit that your opinions do you credit. 'Tis con- 
 sidered the right thing to be advanced; it gives one the 
 reputation of — well — cleverness — originality; very well for 
 
 pastime or day-dreaming, but Please be practical! 
 
 What have you in common with the lower classes.'' " 
 
 Thus would she meet his enthusiasm for reforms (impos- 
 sible in one generation, save by violence) set forth by him 
 with the serene self -certainty of youth. Even though he were 
 Utopian, so ran on his meditation, was it love that met his 
 
 [8] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 insistance? Was it not rather incomprehenslve obstinacy, 
 the outcome of luxurious self-love — even more than con- 
 ventional training — philistine indeed? At such times he had 
 seen his sweetheart clear to the mind's centre. Then mighty 
 aiFection, large tolerance, like a wave would go over him, 
 tossing and rending the cold, clear, suggestion of mere intel- 
 ligence. Doubt, revolt, surrender swayed him alternate. 
 
 Capricious fancy brought him West Point, large broad 
 moonlight, calm flood and frowning heights, stars, and the 
 woman-star of hearts, turning here, before his astonished 
 ken, to a comet, wreckful, baleful. The things his under- 
 standing had so often discerned — only to be repudiated heart- 
 ward for disloyalty — made certain now by demeanour and 
 word; wherein were displayed all of pert instability, fickle- 
 ness, entire devotion to things material and luxurious. This 
 woman whose virtue had lain in his hand — merciful, while hot 
 with youth's heart-beat — not too scrupulous a hand always — 
 hke an apple to be plucked, now avows her waning liking; 
 while delicate innuendo gives his scarified boy's vanity to guess 
 at the supplanter in the person of a not too refined nor youth- 
 ful plutocrat ; whose social ambition, vanity, and mayhap 
 overforced sensuality, makes him willing to purchase a 
 gracious virginity. Such is the man's reverie, pardonably 
 brutal, all self-centred, partly unjust, yet having grounds 
 in reason. Some passing objective interest rouses him 
 momently, to fade again soon. Then he reverts. 
 
 He had been unable to give her up definitely, even upon 
 that revelation. He possessed a comfortable fortune, but 
 not a sufficient one in her sight. To keep her troth he specu- 
 lated like an inexperienced man, and lost all in consequence. 
 
 Indication of facts remain, though this tale displays but 
 his way of looking at them. Out of all her caprices, her 
 selfish heart had singled this one as the strongest. Guinevere 
 was not without a rudimentary conscience, so she occasionally 
 
 [9] 
 
From Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 upbraided herself for inconstancy; the outcome of which 
 would be an exhibition of renewed, persisting affection. But 
 irksome discontent at his stand against her importunities, 
 and ever-fluctuating, hypercritical mutability, might make 
 her, next day, cold as winter air. When his financial dif- 
 ficulties came on she had commiserations, caresses, impotent 
 suggestions, mixed with veiled, tolerant surprise at his pre- 
 dicament. Dilatoriness, constrained consent, covered her 
 baseless visions of improbable possibilities. Nor dared she be 
 mercifully cruel; but hesitated to give herself the one evan- 
 escent pang a farewell would infiict. 
 
 De Graff^e " went west " full of forebodings. After an 
 intermitting correspondence, misery of a suspended doom on 
 his part, irritation belike on hers, separation did its work. 
 News came of her engagement. Previous disappointments 
 mitigated the shock. Nevertheless it stunned and numbed 
 him for a time. 
 
 Even after these seven years of wandering, of eff'ort, of 
 ultimate success in the work he had chosen to simplify him, 
 when that perfume found his nostril, bringing back the 
 refluent flood of memories — the days and ways he had 
 abandoned — its subtle suggestion stung to revolt almost. 
 What God hath power over bygone things? 
 
 "Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour to think? . . . . " 
 
 Nay, but 
 
 " The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy 
 tresses, 
 And all of a man that regrets, and aU of a maid that allures." 
 
 " Hold on, though ! (H'm, I hav'n't thought to quote verse 
 in self-pity for one while before.) Those fever-cooling lines 
 were writ for women of another mould, for the Vala, for in- 
 
 [10] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 stance, who swirls stately by there." (Gentler than sleep, truer 
 than truth, Clotilde moved as a midsummer's ocean waves, 
 swinging to rhythmic nature's tidal music.) "Here were 
 peace after sorrow. Even lulling Hesperia ! " 
 
 This Prussian peasant girl was the fairest and state- 
 liest woman present. Now fully aware, he remembered that 
 he had actually seen her reenter the room after supper, 
 without consciously marking; remembered thereto that she 
 was shy as a child while in unwonted company. 
 
 Had she not glanced expectantly at him as if looking for 
 recognition, or to give it if she might .'' He grew wrathful at 
 himself for having allowed dreams to come betwixt him 
 and his manners. " Would she be hurt.'' " She must think 
 him a " cad " ! No, no ! She would not dream that surely. 
 The notion made his pulse sink a little. Even the dismal, 
 impotent sorrow and wrath of his late retrospections had 
 not done so much. 
 
 But this was his friend. A woman, yet a comrade; frank 
 as a man ; not the recreant mistress of boy love. " Comrade- 
 ship," quoth he inly, " is robust, surviving and over-ruling 
 customary amenity ; is not super-sensitive, nor prone to think 
 evil. She is superbly handsome and beautiful at once — with 
 such plastic perfection and such glory of color ! " 
 
 In this democratic assembly it were idle to speculate how 
 she came, but he surmised (correctly, as it appears) that 
 Judge Smith's daughters had forced her there. They, he 
 knew, made much association with Clotilde. When him- 
 self had offered his escort she had refused; which, while it 
 hurt, had gratified his conservative sense. He believed yet in 
 chaperonage — this radical individualist. Always his heart 
 beat higher as he marked her grace of carriage, and her 
 subdued ease. He sat on, enjoying the noble poise, the 
 gracious self-reliance, the more for his perception of her 
 dimpling, smiling, frank enjoyment of the novel pleasures. 
 
 [11] 
 
Feom Far Dakota and Otherwheee 
 
 II 
 
 Adjoining the sections owned by De Graffe and his 
 neighbour St. Clair the land, all around, was settled 
 by Germans. Clotilde's father was one of them. The 
 first time De GraiFe ever saw the girl her resemblance 
 to some picture he had seen, whereof the name evaded 
 him, struck him forcibly. The now, that she was robed in 
 long sweeping gown of faint blue or green, for movement 
 and light affected the shade, the likeness was the more con- 
 firmed ; the clear cut, large, fair features, the pure rose tints 
 of the complexion, the abundant wheat-yellow hair, the 
 Amazonian arms, the deep bosom, the sinuous waist, the splen- 
 did hips and the foam-swift feet were all Teutonic, of 
 an almost idealised type. Who could doubt that she were 
 deadly strong, fearless and self-sufficient, as beseemed her 
 battle-call of a name. J* Not fierce at all, nor overbold, while 
 frank and infinitely debonair. One of Shakespeare's women, 
 sweet-natured, sensitive as Undine, a joy to look at, a crea- 
 ture to unbend the brows of hate, of care, of memory. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon during the previous summer he 
 had been mooning about in his lonely cottage, disconsolate 
 and restless, irking at the tendencies that had fixed him in 
 that walk of life. His achievements — fortunes — successes — 
 dwindled to futilities on such occasions, sorely mortifying 
 his normal wont of self-content. He had nothing congenial 
 to employ himself upon at the moment. In deference to 
 custom, to neighbouring opinions, and to the laws of the 
 Territory, he could not toil physically. 
 
 He would have violated all these to go a-hunting, but the 
 season was not yet come. He was satiated with books and 
 his piano sounded tinny. Dinner too, lay heavy (Cook being 
 holidaying, he had prepared the meal himself). He could 
 
 [12] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 concentrate upon nothing. Ennui gripped him, together 
 with a touch of the blues. The splenetic mood was too tense 
 for tobacco to relieve, or for sleep to break. He prowled 
 about like a dyspeptic panther. There came prospect of 
 relief when he heard a low knock; the which he adjured yet 
 testily to — " Come in, can't you.'' " Beholding the embar- 
 rassment of the unexpected caller, repentfully he called upon 
 his normal geniality ; but all the resources of his hospitality 
 were unsuccessful for a while. Yet, in time, when Otto 
 found that " Herr De Graffe " spoke bad German and kept 
 good beer, his restraint, passed, in a measure. 
 
 Sharpers in the nature of " claim jumpers " were plentiful 
 at that period. Their machinations had already succeeded 
 in ousting some foreign-speaking settlers from lands of 
 which they were in lawful possession. Knowing him a native 
 and cultured in affairs, De GrafFe's neighbour now sought his 
 advice in that relation. The former took time to wonder at 
 the civic disparity between these foreigners, on the one hand, 
 and Americans and Canadians on the other, touching litiga- 
 tion. To the native, or the British-born citizen, law is a 
 thing tolerably familiar in outline, an institution to be re- 
 garded, entitled to all respect, but no more to be supersti- 
 tiously feared than the rack of long ago, a creature of the 
 Common's will, which if it dare obtrude upon, or be oppressive 
 towards its creator, quickly finds itself abolished. But 
 with the continentals of Europe (save perhaps some mad 
 anarchists), jurisprudence seems to be a fetish, not to sub- 
 serve a use, but to adore blindly, and to obey question- 
 less. Proceeding from a semi-divine source, It is not to be 
 treated upon an equality of standing, much less to be 
 famiharly handled; even if perverted, it is not to be fleered 
 at; being irresponsible, unmoved, as awful in majesty as an 
 Alpine summit. 
 
 The specific scamps in Otto's affair, the host declared,. 
 
 [13] 
 
From Fae Dakota and Otheuwheke 
 
 were " blufBng." Should they dare resort, as they threat- 
 ened, to a " contest " themselves would be most in danger. 
 He put the still hesitating German upon the right track for 
 reliable legal advice, and then they had some more beer. 
 Thereafter Otto was De GrafFe's to command, at once tutor 
 in agriculture and liegeman in all else; the sentiment par- 
 taking of that awe which the Teuton's ancestors might have 
 cherished for some kindly necromancer who devoted his arts 
 to purposes of beneficence, while scoffing at popular, legal, 
 or ecclesiastical censure ; for this light way of admeasuring 
 the terrors of Courts savoured to the old-world rustic's judg- 
 ment — of a nobler sort of civic blasphemy. 
 
 A great resemblance was to be observed betwixt father 
 and daughter. There was the same splendid, knit, physical 
 massiveness about both, tempered in the blooming child with 
 grace and young activity, the same clear chiselling in the 
 features, so far as the sire's leonine beard permitted his to 
 be discerned. The identical placidity dominated the eyes of 
 both. The Auroral tintings of the girl's gave place in the 
 man's face to weather-beaten wholesomeness, the skin graven 
 with many lines. Time, labour, care, a curbed temperament 
 and arduous days spoke in the stoop of Otto's wide, thick 
 shoulders. 
 
 Clotilde was reading " Cymbeline " the first time that ever 
 De Grafi'e saw her. Her opinion upon Imogen was no school- 
 girl's, he found. His urbanity forbade the questions he 
 should have wished to ask, but her frankness solved that. 
 Their Pastor in the Fatherland, a mighty scholar, had a 
 cultivated wife as well. The then little Clotilde was a 
 favourite of both the good folk. The wife had taught the 
 maid much of the best music and a great regard for their 
 native bards, while the Pastor looked well to her English 
 speech and reading. Of that household also had come her 
 manners, so far in advance of her station. Thence also came 
 
 [14] 
 
CliOTILDE 
 
 her ability to cook, in a civilised and cultured manner, cakes 
 toothsome and varied. This was an agreeable change in De 
 Graffe's diet, albeit he had a French-Canadian man cook, 
 whom many envious neighbours looked upon as a chef. 
 
 They became fast friends, without suspicion of flirtation. 
 Her English soon lost most of its remaining irregularities, 
 while his German took on a less archaic form. Then, too, he 
 could not fail to mark how she watched (and cross-questioned, 
 for reasons) his construction, and enunciation; so he began 
 to drop slang. On her part, Clotilde never repeated an error, 
 once he gave her the proper idiom. This too, he remarked, 
 wondering at her retentiveness, not knowing that after bed- 
 time she would rehearse every one of the new phrases, words 
 and accents ; losing sleep, but fixing the knowledge irrevo- 
 cably in her memory. Thus he overestimated her aptness, 
 for she was pure Teuton, slow but retentive ; as contrasted 
 with the prehensile semi-Celtic nature, erroneously called 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 It fell betimes, when lonesomeness, weariness of the flesh, 
 depression, or epicurean hunger beleaguered, straightway he 
 sought out his she-comrade, meeting on all occasions sym- 
 pathy and solace. The difference of sex, perhaps too con- 
 sciously ignored to be genuine (but sincere, if believing that 
 he believed, for he was no accurate self-knower) made the 
 friendship piquant, unique and alluring. 
 
 One trait, ahke in father and child, galled him and would 
 not down before either indignation, sarcasm or humour, to 
 wit: an over-respectfulness, natural in their view; for not 
 only his speech and demeanor bespoke him of the upper 
 class, but the " Van " prefix bid these regard him as noble, 
 notwithstanding his pre-revolutionary. New Holland an- 
 cestry. To the old country plebeian the noble and high placed 
 was an institution as natural as daylight. There was naught 
 of subservience in the attitude. The " Van " or " Von " was 
 
 [15] 
 
From Fab. Dakota and Otherwheee 
 
 as much a matter of course as were they. Before he arrived 
 at a reasonable conclusion, De GrafFe suspected momently, 
 that this was a courteous ruse, disguising some faint sus- 
 picion of his sincerity, assumed by them to keep him at a 
 stand, outside of hearth friendship; whereat he would sulk 
 by the week, nor go anigh them. But surmise and the con- 
 sequent resolution would melt anon, when, having met one 
 or other casually, he listened to their undoubtable expres- 
 sions of disappointment, or the conjecture, implied, that he 
 had wearied of them. 
 
 On a time, after the aforesaid suspicion was laid, while at 
 Otto's house, a photograph dropped out of De Graffe's breast 
 pocket. He had been searching old documents that day; 
 amongst them a packet of letters, the which, and the picture, 
 he had thrust aside, whistling amusedly, to be re-read at 
 leisure. Clotilde was in a somewhat abnormal humour, elfish 
 as opposed to her wonted placidity. She seized upon the pic- 
 ture, and, marking his eagerness to have it back, perversely 
 refused to return it until she knew its history. Good- 
 humoured persistence and protest were useless. Finally she 
 defied, doubting his muscular ability to take it by the strong 
 hand, his latest threat. Provoked at the imputation, he went 
 about, chivalrously enough, to do so, but found that the milk- 
 white arm was strong, so strong that he must put out power 
 enough to cause hurt, if he would win in that way. 
 
 Then he committed an error. Changing tactics, he did a 
 stupid thing. Instead of hurting, he kissed her — very 
 nearly — the miss was owing to her adroitness — in fact, so 
 very nearly as possibly to make it worse than had the attempt 
 been a success. 
 
 Clotilde, with one splendid gesture, set herself free — ^blue 
 icy flame as to the eyes — speechless. He was self-possessed 
 enough to be a little glad at her ire, gentle enough to be a 
 trifle abashed as well. Her wrath, passing quickly, changed 
 
 [16] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 to a proud hurt look. That touched him. Yet he would not 
 acknowledge compunction but, at some expense, smiled de- 
 risively; taking thought of the photograph's original's fine 
 scorn for such vulgarly rustic doings. 
 
 " It is little to smile at," exclaimed Clotilde. " I had 
 thought better of you than such — such stupidity." 
 
 She had chosen the biting word. Accusation of great 
 villainy he could have taken conceitedly, but that " stupid- 
 ity " was humiliating. 
 
 Wherefore he replicated maliciously. " Thanks ! I have 
 seen Karl kiss you. You liked it." 
 
 " That does make no diif erence. You are not Karl. Karl 
 is my cousin. We have grown together, since we were babies 
 too. I am no American to be a hypocrite and forget the 
 playmate when I grow to ceremony. Besides, my cheek is 
 my partner's in the kissing dance where you saw that. I 
 did kiss him when he went away, too." 
 
 He began a dignified apology — floundered — assumed a 
 
 frosty height. " Perhaps an American " He saw a laugh 
 
 in her eyes. "Why hurt the girl.'' " (inly) — then aloud, " I 
 can only say — ^Ah ! you would laugh, would you ? Then I 
 am sorry, genuinely so, if I have offended you. Won't that 
 do? Besides, you're not hurt, you know." 
 
 " You are good — Yes ! you are. I should not have spoken 
 so. It was mean and false. It is all nothing. But — but 
 you — ^you are a gentleman and " 
 
 He snorted like Job's war horse. 
 
 " That's worse ! " 
 
 " Ah," she gently replied. " Would you then have tried 
 to punish her joke so.?" pointing to the cause of the strife 
 which De Graffe, unhesitating in sincerity, picked up, rent, 
 cast into the stove ; answering, " If she were as well worth, 
 or had provoked me so — yes! even seven years ago. Now 
 I'd do it, for mere deviltry, any time." 
 
 [17] 
 
Feom Far Dakota and Otherwheee 
 
 Perhaps Clotilde believed the spontaniety of words and 
 act; yet she tolled her head, incredulous. 
 
 They were closer friends afterwards, by reason of in- 
 creased mutual respect. Men like a woman to be chaste of 
 lip ; and women, I fear, like a man to retain, over his chivalry, 
 a latent but rousable spice of the ancestral savage whose 
 wooing was done by main force. 
 
 Gradually the girl learned, by piecing stray hints together 
 which he dropped in anecdote at intervals, many things con- 
 cerning his past life and ways of thought; and put a more 
 sorrowful construction on the circumstances than his present 
 state of mind might warrant. It was with amazement that 
 he, coming once out of a short reverie, after one of their 
 confidences, surprised her gazing at him with nearly mois- 
 tened eyes. He indicted her of the offence and she, out of 
 a sympathetic heart, and unsophisticated, pleaded guilty, 
 saying in mitigation : 
 
 " You did look so sad that I was sorry for you, mine 
 friend." 
 
 "And was it for me, you kind one? But you were mis- 
 taken. I suppose one looks sad always when thinking or 
 remembeping — glad when hoping. But know this : I hate to 
 be pitied. Especially when there's no reason for it, at least 
 none for my past. And yet 'twas kindly thought." 
 
 Her continental frankness, differing from our English- 
 speaking reserve, suspicioned no rebuff, and in this instance 
 rightly. 
 
 " Ah, do not talk lightly. You are wise and honest. You 
 have had a sad experience. You went — you came — ' out 
 west,' into exile (it is not like your home) for your opinions' 
 sake. You have the cause of justice and the people at heart 
 and you are not happy. I am not sorry then — I am proud 
 of — mine friend ! " 
 
 She caught herself, too late. Her face flamed, while ap- 
 
 [18] 
 
Clotilbe 
 
 prehension shone in her eyes ; then with drooping countenance 
 she fled incontinent. 
 
 "You good— Eh?— Ho! Clotilde !— What is up? She 
 certainly acts very unwontedly to-day, uncommonly freaky, 
 so to say. Wonder if my brusqueness offended her? " Cause 
 of justice and the people." Cause of fiddlestick and a charla- 
 tan. That was when I was a boy. I must be a demagogue, if 
 my talk raised that notion. I came west — ^what for? That's 
 the question of the present day, as Jacobson said. I thought 
 I knew then, but Fate knew better, I'm thinking. I know 
 though, because I was, am, and will be merely a crank; for 
 ever and ever, and an ass ditto. She should know, does know, 
 that, anyhow. I'm not a bit sorry — for coming; but as to 
 her knowing — ^well, yes, I am that, too. There's no danger 
 for her in that case. I wish she wasn't so keen — ^her know- 
 ing — ^I'm a fool, I said, and she — she is a woman, a woman 
 fit to teach mankind what real womanhood is. And that's 
 no small word in these days of perversion." 
 
 Ill 
 
 De Graffe, free of retrospections, followed Cldtilde's 
 figure and caught her regard directed upon him, a proudly 
 asking look in eyes otherwise a trifle surprised in their 
 expression. When his look answered, hers wavered and 
 she coloured. Now the dance ends and she is momently 
 alone. He moves athwart towards her. She brightens. 
 Again that reminiscent perfume wafts to him anew. He 
 begins to speculate if spells are so mythical after all, turns, 
 looks, beholds Guinevere. The recognition is instantaneous, 
 and mutual. 
 
 « Gu— Mrs. Simpson? " 
 
 " You.?— Here.?— Louis? " 
 
 [19] 
 
From Fae Dakota and Othekwhere 
 
 The hands touched a little perturbedly — all the agitation 
 either displayed. The starry-eyed woman was the Guinevere 
 of old. Of old.'' No. A harder composure stamped the 
 fine features, that buckler nature gives to woman or diplomat 
 or unsearchable Indian. 
 
 They chatted — fenced — about immaterial things. In the 
 end, this : " I remember hearing of your coming out here- 
 about, years ago ; but thought you had abandoned it long 
 ago. Is it not true that you were your Uncle Vaughn's 
 heir.?" 
 
 " Quite true, but, you see, I have opinions yet — am," 
 drily, " a slow thinker, perhaps, and was always ' brutally 
 determined ! ' " 
 
 The woman seemed to search her interlocutor more closely. 
 The ironic, half-contemptuous ending, following upon a 
 beginning in the old tone, bespoke change in his attitude 
 towards her and the world. She interposed no word; but a 
 shade of a shade, in eyes and in brow, indicated annoyance. 
 
 " But," De Graffe went on with an intensifying touch of 
 amusement in his tones, " may I ask how I find you here — 
 among the barbarians ? " 
 
 She regarded him very fixedly then, seeking for an indi- 
 cation of some previous knowledge; finding none, the ex- 
 quisite shoulders went up a hair's breadth. How well Jie 
 knew that motion, peculiar to her among many. His critique 
 had progressed so far as to assert that aU the fair gracious 
 modesty of the virgin passed away was replaced by none of 
 the poise and goodly bearing of matronhood — a sterile splen- 
 did blossom of a woman, but left. She had the air of one ex- 
 pecting homage forthwith, as of right. Her level regard, 
 had he named, he would have called " fine " in a man, too 
 " you-be-dam'd " for a woman. 
 
 "Can you not surmise.'' What brings any of us here?" 
 
 She swept the room at a look, disdain predominant. Then 
 
 [20] 
 
CliOTILDE 
 
 that loss of respect became self-conscious and avowed in him. 
 Many years had it taken for the sentiment to crystallise. 
 He took the " us " hint aptly. The conservative is inex- 
 pungable if grafted upon childhood and early youth, even 
 though that youth develops most radical opinions. Besides, 
 De GraflFe was of the latest reforming school, wherein ex- 
 tremes meet. He did not believe in divorce ; was only glad 
 to hear that Mrs. Simpson was engaged for the next dance ; 
 and looked about for Clotilde, not pressing his interlocutor 
 for an extra even. One would scarcely have guessed that 
 dismay at a shattered idol's case, together with some con- 
 temptuous pity, contended in him, nor that indignation and 
 depreciation held sway in her brain, while the two continued 
 to converse in superficial amenity. The details she gave are 
 not apposite here, and may be intromitted; only these fol- 
 lowing: De Graff e lost his total indifference of feature, 
 despite a will to remain frigid; he took on, progressively, 
 something of the port of a spiritual director, as he after- 
 wards named it. 
 
 Finally quoth she, " You are — ^will be — my friend still, 
 Louis.'' " accompanying the query with a modulation, a look, 
 that once would have bewildered his reason. 
 
 " Be sure of that ! " — meaning if he meant anything 
 definite, that he was weakness' friend, and that his good 
 wishes withal should be exhibited, not as she wished, but 
 as he willed. " You insist upon my opinion, or advice, then.'' " 
 
 " Yes, surely yes, Louis." 
 
 Thinking he was touched, Guinevere rehearsed the circum- 
 stances, perhaps more fully, at least as fully, as to her 
 counsel. 
 
 " Your lawyers are the best authority upon your standing 
 in court. About that it would be impertinent for me to 
 speak. Your — ^husband, you say, is all in fault. Par- 
 don my brutality. But you have means enough, I believe. 
 
 [21] 
 
Feom Fab. Dakota and Otheuwhebe 
 
 Would not a separation do as well? People have not begun 
 to gabble yet, I know. You have no idea of the ordeal 
 ahead." 
 
 Bluntness was not habitual with him; but then revenge 
 was sweet here, where he might pride in combining it with an 
 act he esteemed righteous. Her gaze, so astonished and up- 
 braiding, with a lure in it, too, bade him modify tone and 
 speak more complacently. 
 
 " Surely you will not think the worse of a friend's speaking 
 his truth. What is concealment but insincerity? I cannot 
 help saying that I reprehend divorce. You also repudiate 
 it, as an institution. Don't you? But, if divorce must be, 
 one's own State is the place for vindication. There is a 
 double suspicion of foreign divorces." 
 
 She was no less pragmatic. " You will not, cannot help 
 me? " Flute-sweet and persuasive sounded that thrilling 
 voice. 
 
 "Always, if this must be." 
 
 " Ah, you are changed, so changed ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes," he sighed — for memory's sake. " That is 
 the fate of us all." 
 
 Just here Guinevere's partner claimed her. Straightway 
 De Graffe sought out Clotilde; and, e'er reaching her, 
 began to find that he had been under some strain during the 
 interview. The fight with emotion had left its marks, it is 
 true ; but the very presence of the girl quieted him more than 
 his volition could have done. 
 
 The wave mounted to her true cheek as he said, " And may 
 I have this dance, or is it too late? I had not expected this 
 pleasure or I should have been here earlier. You stole a 
 march on me." 
 
 " I did not know whether I should come. It is never too 
 late. I shall be glad." 
 
 "I am fortunate. Have you enjoyed this evening, then, 
 
 [22] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 as I hope you have ? " — looking into eyes which he supposed 
 the dance had made so joyous. 
 
 " Indeed I have been happy," she answered ; which reply he 
 interpreted in his own way, the same not helping his to similar 
 emotion. 
 
 They waltzed. " You do dance well," said she, as they 
 strolled about after several rounds. 
 
 " Come ! Come ! That flattery is too gross. I do not, 
 ' being mechanical ' ; but you — ^you large, light-footed per- 
 son ! Why fairy stories are true, I find. You change to air 
 and rhythm. Said I not well, Germania ? " 
 
 The conceit pleased ; of course she had heard of Germania, 
 long ago. With a bird-like flex of the neck she looked up. 
 
 "Why doubtful.? It's so! Let me disgrace your grace 
 again, if you are rested." 
 
 The animation passed. " No, I do tire you — keep you. 
 You have met an old friend." Well she divined whom. 
 
 " How do you know 'twas not an enemy .'' And I want to 
 be tired, please." 
 
 " Not so. I do not believe it. So gracious a lady ! You 
 do look noble together." This in pure simplicity. 
 
 " Say that again, or send me away, and we shall quarrel. 
 You think me insincere. I had not expected that from you. 
 I guess you want to be rid of me though, the others — ■ — " 
 
 " It is mean to say so. You do dance weU. As for the 
 others — that " 
 
 " Say, ' mine friend ' — quick ! " 
 
 " Mine friend— -only " 
 
 " Blessings on your sweet temper. I am a brute. I'll tell 
 you — you know anyhow — that was my nearest friend once. 
 But we change every seven years." 
 
 " I like not — I do not like that. It is cynical and not like 
 you at all." 
 
 " That's true in a way. It's the other me. However, I 
 
 [23] 
 
Fkom Far Dakota and Othebwhere 
 
 would not exchange my — well, never mind. You would not 
 believe it anyhow." 
 
 Guinevere and her lieutenant swung past, just here, the 
 couples crossing, so that the women were aface at times. 
 Then might have been seen, exchanged, a mighty regard — 
 swift and inclusive. The mondaine's nonchalance was blent 
 with that quiet, unexceptional, overlooking contempt of 
 patrician for plebeian, while yet constrained to admit the lat- 
 ter's potency. 'Twas Hera losing the apple. The girl's 
 was an expression of composed admiration, in grapple with a 
 worthy self-consciousness of power. 'Twas Artemis, goddess 
 of forest and of heath. 
 
 The time of departure having arrived, De Graffe escorted 
 Clotilde to the carriage. When she had gone, feeling as if 
 virtue had passed out of the place, and disdaining any less 
 rhythmic partner, the fellow went to smoke upon a tiny bal- 
 cony overlooking the main door of the building. Athwart, 
 was the entrance to the grounds, where he noticed a group 
 of tough-looking characters loitering ; also he marked that 
 beneath him, in the lower story, in the Register's office in fact, 
 there burned a light. Hardly had he observed these things 
 when the light went out ; one figure emerged and joined those 
 at the gate, while another, a clerk of the office, evidently, in 
 evening dress, presently entered the ballroom. De Graffe 
 thought it strange that people should be making " a search " 
 at this hour. A low-voiced colloquy began among the folk 
 at the gates. The air was still and moist, and carried sounds 
 further than these men thought. Primarily, the smoker paid 
 no more attention than to surmise that they might be mem- 
 bers of that persistent gang of " claim jumpers " who had 
 of late annoyed his neighbours, but as the excitement waxed 
 among the speakers their words necessarily grew louder. 
 Whole sentences sometimes obtruded themselves upon his ear, 
 disturbing pleasant thoughts. Then suddenly he overheard 
 
 [24] 
 
ClOTILDE 
 
 something which made him listen with deliberate intent. His 
 eyes began to widen and to gleam, and his teeth to clench. 
 At the same moment joined him — likewise in search of a place 
 to smoke — St. Clair, his neighbour, a Canadian. 
 
 " H'st," De Graffe whispered, before St. Clair could speak, 
 and he pointed to the gang. " Listen ! " 
 
 Three of them, constituting its pluck and its brains, were 
 clearly white and known to the two spectators as originators 
 of all the vexatious land contests which had lately disturbed 
 the countryside. The moon sailed clear of some cloud rack, 
 so that all could now be distinguished, individually. The 
 main prey of this " tin-horn " gang were the non-English- 
 tongued Europeans, whose ignorance of the soundness of 
 their tenure, had, heretofore, caused some of them to abandon 
 their homesteads, overawed by threats of litigation and vio- 
 lence put forth by the larcenous pests. 
 
 The rest of the men composing the small mob were half- 
 breeds; executive tools these, who cannot conceive yet the 
 potency of the Aryan, while emancipated from Indian law; 
 sinning more through instinctive perversity than deliberate 
 wiU. One of them was of higher gifts. He possessed the 
 superlative cleverness of the Indian nature and was a leader 
 thrice over among the Metis, because of physical prowess and 
 a quantum of courage (as we estimate that quality) ; be- 
 cause of acuteness ; and because of a greater knowledge 
 gained by schooling, together with a wide acquaintance with 
 the whites. He was all aboriginal in his build and in his swift 
 alertness. His large eyes gleamed in the dusk with the sul- 
 len glitter of beryl stones. 
 
 " Well, I'm dam'd ! " exclaimed St. Clair suppressedly ; 
 while the still air wafted the following to the hearers : 
 
 " That St. Clair has some dandy land," quoth one of the 
 whites, " prairie an' wood, too. We could run the smuggled 
 stuff right up there — safe — without leavin' th' river once." 
 
 [25] 
 
From Fae Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 "Yes, damn him, but that's patented land," rejoined 
 another. " He bought from Smith, y'know ; an' I don't go 
 much on the smugglin' as a steady thing, anyhow." 
 
 "Well! There's that De GrafFe. They're God-dam' 
 monop'lists," spake the third. " Them two's got land enough 
 
 for ten. Let's bum the sons o' out if we can't do naw- 
 
 thin' else." 
 
 " Easy done it. Them two's good men — ^t'let alone. 
 Either one'd fight on the drop o' a hat an' spend his bottom 
 dollar gettin' even in court, besides. Ye'see one's n' American 
 an' th' other's a Kanuck. Same litter o' pups — when you come 
 down to it. They're educated, know the law; an' they 
 got grit." 
 
 " You fellers is easy skart ! " He of the glittering eyes 
 
 exclaimed. " Them's the very sort of sons o' I'm 
 
 after. Wish 'twas ten years ago. Then the Metis took no 
 odds from anybody." 
 
 The third speaker among the whites retorted, " Breed's 
 nothin'. I'm n' American m'self. W'd clean out . " 
 
 "You bet. Bill! Metis!" exclaim_ed number one. " Th' 
 Metis didn't count when the expedition got after your cur, 
 Riel, in 'seventy. Don't you scowl at me, y' black bastard. 
 Th're ain't enough o' yer kin round t' make you fight here — 
 not by a mile thick. Them's your odds — an' then y' das'nt." 
 
 " Bully man, On-ta-ri-o, c'rect 's Hell ! " applauded the 
 first. 
 
 An old man among the Bois-bride spoke now in the interests 
 of peace and good will. The kindly accent the highland Scot 
 uses in speaking English sounded very quaint as it proceeded 
 from the copper-skinned veteran who hailed from among the 
 Scotch half-breeds of Selkirk settlement, clearly. 
 
 " Soorely poys ! Soorely ye'r no goin' tae fall awt. Tak' 
 thoucht off thae wark pefore ye, laddies." 
 
 The whites, with sundry strange oaths, disclaimed any 
 
 [26] 
 
Clotiide 
 
 pugnacious intentions, but reaffirmed their refusal to be 
 " walked on by any sort o' black-and-tan." 
 
 Scowling at the new indignity to his clan hereat, the yet 
 diplomatic Baptiste declared himself ready to " drop the 
 dam'd foolishness," and expressed a desire " to get down to 
 business " ; but bis peaceful words belied the clouded brow 
 and the tense hps. They all knew what a liar he was, of 
 course. 
 
 " Y' not ve t'ink o' hoi' man H'Otto's claim. I'tink me, ve 
 'ave that dam' easy," interposed one of the dusky brother- 
 hood of the French half-breed persuasion. 
 
 The suggestion took well. The others blamed themselves, 
 frankly, for negligence. Here was a victim easy to their 
 hands. 
 
 A shock went through Baptiste at the words. He fairly 
 hissed, " Le' me have yon girl an' an' ye fellers kin' have the 
 rake off else ! " 
 
 " That's pretty stiff, son." 
 
 " Remember ther's things th' folks an' th' law won't stand 
 nowadays." 
 
 " Law be dam'd ! I know places it'd take the law a hell of 
 a time t' fetch yet. What do I care for ye'r law ! Je suis des 
 Metis, I say ! " 
 
 There followed some demurrer to this suggestion, but the 
 violent element predominated in the council, even to rebel- 
 lion's edge. And the whites knew, when once the Indian blood 
 got desperate in them, that the breeds were neither to hold 
 nor to bind and they were at the mercy of these, their fol- 
 lowers, in the event of disclosure. Nay, more ; if disclosure 
 came, not only the dreadful truth would be elicited of their 
 deeds, but there would be added to the evidence a web of cun- 
 ningest additional perjury as well. They dared be moderate 
 in villainy no longer. There came a tightening of girths on 
 the ponies, tethered in the scrub opposite the gate. De 
 
 [27] 
 
From Far Dakota and Otheuwheke 
 
 GrafFe gripped St. Clair's shoulder hard, saying hoarsely 
 the while: 
 
 "Go! Tell Wilmot! Six deputies will do. You'll 
 come ? " 
 
 " I'll do it ! but, where are you going? " 
 
 " Mounted ! Off ! I have Sultan along — can cut them 
 out. Hurry ! Damn it, hurry ! " 
 
 " But " — and St. Clair tried to detain him. 
 
 " Man, she's on the way home ! " 
 
 "Who? Eh — Hold up! Do! You must have a gun, 
 Louis. Wait! — Old man — Damn it! If I had a horse he 
 shouldn't go alone. Why they'U kill him. De Graffe sweet 
 on the Dutch girl? Or is it? — I guess I'm not a gentleman. 
 Sure we're bound to do that for any woman. She's fit be- 
 sides. Yes, she's a beauty and really a lady. But then, De 
 Graife — with his air ! Oh, God help her ! I'll eat that Bap- 
 tiste's heart if anything goes wrong to-night. What fools 
 we were ! " 
 
 St. Clair was dangerous looking then. A slight projection 
 of the under jaw gave his fresh, blonde face an aspect of 
 possible ferocity in its most genial moments, which expression 
 now was pronounced. All the time he was running swiftly 
 towards the sheriff's house. St. Clair rushed amain. The 
 burly sheriff bounded from house to the ballroom ; and, seeing 
 his hurry, the posse he chose asked no questions until they 
 were in the saddle. 
 
 Meanwhile De Graffe was some time on the trail, his 
 evening attire unchanged. A mad sight, made the dress- 
 coated, white-gloved figure, careering along on the large, 
 fierce, black horse's back. Doubtless badger and gopher 
 holes were miraculously missed; for he took to the grass to 
 deaden the sound of the hoofs. For all his watch the pur- 
 suer never sighted the band, although the clang and beat of 
 their gallop sometimes came back to him from afar. Across 
 
 [28] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 the cataract of wrath, his sub-consciousness was aware of the 
 loveliness of the night. There was a moon in heaven; but 
 great league-wide flakes of broken cloud would trail over her, 
 checquering the far-seen dim plain — treeless and fenceless — 
 to the north and the west, with mottles of ivory sheen and 
 ultra-violet shade. The atmosphere was pregnant with scents 
 of mown grass, and of balm of Gilead and of briar from the 
 woods to the south of the trail. The air remained absolutely 
 windless, weighted with dew that cooled the hot face with 
 gentle moisture. The stretch of the horse's body, and the 
 recoil of his quarters, was swift, unflagging ; as rhythmic as 
 a machine. The pace was hasty as a speeding arrow in fact, 
 but, in seeming, to the rider, slow, unendurably — six miles, 
 twenty-eight minutes — a world's diameter, years in passing. 
 
 Not until he was within a mile of it did he see a light at 
 the German's homestead. Then, through a window, came the 
 spurt of a match, then a lamp's light, — a period of quiet 
 (" On, good Sultan " !), then the beat of the robbers' ponies' 
 feet ceasing; knocking— a parley — loud voices, rising 
 always — then a crash! The charge of the pursuer's horse 
 burst through the assailing band, but they raillied, pressing 
 him away. 
 
 Two of the invaders went down, almost simultaneously, as 
 the cool madman leaped from his plunging horse — ^before 
 that short ebony whipstock inlaid with heavy silver fihgree — 
 a Mexican trophy. The strokes were given down-cutting or 
 backhand in approved broad-sword style. Instantaneously 
 upon that the avenger clutches yet another by the throat and 
 the weighty staff', all too vigorously wielded, crashes down; 
 utter, savage joy informing the smiter as he hears the skull 
 sheath crackle and splinter. Swiftness had done all so far; 
 but now certain of the enemy had laid hold. The throng was 
 too great for him to achieve an unhampered stroke, but anon 
 he wrenched free. Again came the descent of the lethal stick, 
 
 [29] 
 
From Fab. Dakota and Othekwhere 
 
 in a grip turned steel by frenzy, and another coppery brave 
 bit the dust, unsensed. 
 
 Then at a bound De Graffe gains and stands between the 
 vacant door posts ; for the door had fallen when he heard 
 that crash. His arms free, his back safe, his countenance 
 daunts his assailants; the lesser in heart cowering behind 
 and pushing on the audacious leaders. There is no parley nor 
 truce. In that lull the doorkeeper has time to think. 
 Frantic anxiety sharpens his features. He listens, mighty 
 intently, for the rescuing hoof strokes. He might have 
 asked for truce, on the girl's account, but, two of the whites 
 being down, the aboriginal element is now in the ascendant. 
 After the leaders had taken the brunt, these have grown reck- 
 less and will at least have spoil and vengeance. The blood 
 lust is up in the felon souls, confident in numbers. Baptiste's 
 swarthy eyes glow anew with prognostication of victory, 
 albeit even yet he shirks from grappling with the grim 
 warder of the doorway. 
 
 De Graffe, as the half-breed's revolver glinted blue, had, 
 even as he flung himself forward to wrest it away, time to 
 blame himself for so recklessly perilling a woman's safety, in 
 that he had not spared, at starting, the mere additional min- 
 ute necessary to arm himself. Yet, never doubting of his 
 power to win, he launched his body in that tiger spring; 
 but the detonation rang even as he leaped. With the hearing, 
 he felt the prick of the buUet traversing his lungs and 
 pitched, sprawling forward — prone, shocked, impotent, 
 though retaining consciousness. He was numbly aware of a 
 second struggle at the door. Was it not a skirt that brushed 
 his face? A woman who struggled to his side? As in a 
 dream, he saw brawny Otto go down like an oak dragging 
 the lesser forestry, raelled in a knot of four antagonists. 
 
 Lo, surely the Valkyries were abroad. Briinnhilde — nay, 
 Clotilde appears, now verily "battle's glorious maid," 
 
 [30] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 girt for the strife, the towering neck and splendid arms 
 agleam as in the dance of a former hour, the sweeping gown 
 kirtled like the dsedal huntress. Stormy and superb ! 
 
 'Twas himself had taught her to clench fist so, and to give 
 such body-driven shoulder stroke that there bowled over one 
 f oeman from the left ; while the puissant dexter met the brass 
 of Baptiste's brow, sending him headlong. The beastly breed, 
 supple as a wildcat, is up instanter. He feints, dodges ; and 
 now his arms are about her. But store of brawn for a dead 
 lift hes under the hly skin. Spurned like a nursling anon, the 
 snaky carcass of him staggered, tossed afar when the indig- 
 nant Artemesian put out her might. Again his senses 
 swam in mist, delirious, dream-disordered. The German 
 woman — ^the high-built wagons — tumult of war — ^Roman 
 legionaries aghast — or was it a picture seen once or here 
 now.'' Hereat a brown bare foot stamped, in wrestle, all too 
 near his face — ^for venomous Metis had sprung again, ham- 
 pering Clotilde's wrist. The prone man, striving and heav- 
 ing uselessly to rise, vomiting blood, has an inspiration born 
 of primeval wrath. His teeth, sound and white as a young 
 hound's tushes, with the fell abidingness of a mastiff's, close 
 on the very tendon of Achilles. 
 
 Now he, grimly aware of coming death, forgets not his 
 humour; appreciates, where once he felt disgust at the un- 
 gentle Lochiel's quip on a similar occasion : " Mine enemy's 
 flesh is the sweetest bite I ever tasted." Nor less was the 
 yell that went up from Baptiste than that sent over the 
 trench by Pelus' swift-footed son — ^but in quality shrill as 
 incarnate agony and terror. 
 
 Clatter, clatter — patter, patter rumbles the hard ground, 
 increasing to a continuous roll. Earth shakes to a cavalry 
 charge. The screech of the breed is overborne by bass and 
 baritone voices. Heading the relief, furious sheriff and fierce 
 Kanuck are upon the outlaws. 
 
 [31] 
 
FuoM Far Dakota and Othekwhere 
 
 De Graff e's head clears a little. If the daughter of Woden 
 of late were here, now, verily, righteous, ireful, vociferous, 
 red-bearded, mauling Thor, in the person of Wilmot, heads 
 half the gods to aid the Valkyrie. He sighs, as happily as a 
 child snugly tucked abed and sleepy — and lapses. 
 
 The law's fierce vindicator had followed Sheridan of yore, 
 Chief and the edge of battle recalled by the hurly-burly, his 
 blood shook with rapture of combat. The roar of " Fighting 
 Phil " was on his lips. Nor was St. Clair backward, nor yet 
 the ex-partner of the telegraph operator, as they dropped 
 into that writhing knot about Otto. 
 
 When the barely outstripped posse came up, in five minutes 
 more, there was little to do but " rope " six fugitives who had 
 scattered on the arrival of the rescuers. Sorely mauled, old 
 Otto had half -strangled twain and by the newly arrived help 
 all four of his intimate assailants were shortly bound. The 
 sheriff had done his devoir on two more. The last of De 
 Graffe's victims was just getting over his stun; the penulti- 
 mate one having gone to his place. The one primary felon, 
 squirming, but well-nigh throttled, lay beneath Clotilde's knee, 
 who, looking disdain upon the captive of her hands, blushed 
 rarely at the congratulations withal. Ere yet that consum- 
 mation arrived, easeful sleep had sealed De Graffe's sense in 
 oblivion and held him for a mighty space thereafter. 
 
 IV 
 
 For a month De Graffe's life was in doubt, for he had lost 
 much blood — besides the location of the bullet was dangerous. 
 He was scarcely able to stand when Court convened in that 
 county; but would listen to no proposition of postponement 
 of the trial. 
 
 Information had been laid against him by some of the 
 
 [32] 
 
Clotii.de 
 
 natives, relations of the half-breed — ^high-placed ones in that 
 country of social anomaly, the west — so the grand jury, at 
 the behest of the District Attorney (a staunch friend of the 
 defendant), on his representing to that august body that 
 this was not only their legal duty but the best thing for the 
 accused, had brought in a " true bill." (" True bill? " quoth 
 the foreman as he countersigned it, " then Pilate wa'nt far 
 wrong when he put that question 'bout truth.") This action, 
 be it said in passing, jeopardised the District Attorney's 
 chances at the next election, but De GraiFe went stumping in 
 his interest and so saved the situation. 
 
 De Graffe's real plea was " justifiable homicide," of course. 
 As the evidence was clear, proceedings were merely perfunc- 
 tory, on the issue. The petit jury did not need that the Court 
 charge to bring in a verdict of " not guilty." They would 
 have done that, if necessary, in the Court's despite, without 
 retiring. 
 
 The doctors had predicted a quick recovery after the 
 dividing time of doubt — following the strain of trial — ^was 
 passed. Pass it did without relapse; but exertion and emo- 
 tion, merely formal as the trial was, retarded convalescence, 
 maugre the professional opinions, based upon the vitality 
 and recuperative powers of the patient. The after recovery 
 was slow — almost seemed to be at a standstill; receding 
 from, rather than approaching, the point of absolute re- 
 covery. 
 
 " There's something worrying him. He has a spite at life. 
 Doesn't care about anything," asserted one medico; and the 
 others finally agreed with him. 
 
 Guinevere could not have pleaded the pagan, spontaneous 
 repulsion of perfect health, but she had the thorough, deli- 
 cate, nervous horror for weakness or illness. Her own was a 
 constitution functionally perfect, but always menacing de- 
 cline, which yet could, and did, withstand uses sufficient to 
 
 [38] 
 
Fkom Fae Dakota and Otheewheke 
 
 overthrow others supposedly more robust ; but in this instance 
 her desire, reborn or rewakened by circumstances, which sen- 
 timent she dared to name by the more resonant word, bade 
 her oftentimes seek the couch of the sick man, with, in his 
 estimation, puhng commiserations and offers of solace to the 
 piece of nigh bloodless clay lying there. Her main duty in 
 the convalescent stage consisted in bearing those gifts of 
 edible nature in which the sick are supposed to revel. At 
 such times, the wounded man's wish to remain as complacent 
 as in health, in order to cover his present abnormal irritabil- 
 ity, only served to exhibit signs of agitation; which the 
 watchful returning love thought to presage a good hope for 
 her. Not the least of De Graffe's trials was that of com- 
 mending her purchased gifts. Now Clotilde's jellies and 
 broths were unpeered; while St. Clair and the others sup- 
 plied rarebits — calves, poultry, game — to such an extent as 
 to make life merely wearisome. 
 
 It was well into autumn when he made his first effort to go 
 about unassisted; doing it furtively. He stood, ghostly, in 
 the doorway his prowess had saved aforetime and was, feel- 
 ing weakness come over him, staring about for his Briinn- 
 hilde, well-nigh to have been only the comforting " Valkyrie 
 of the tomb," transmitted to an angel guardian. She was an 
 integral part of his life now; too late, too late, he ruefully 
 took thought. When had she other than smiled indulgent, 
 the smile a very anodyne, at all the petulance, the irascibil- 
 ity, his shattering had engendered. All, all, so little ac- 
 knowledged that divine healing beneficence, that tireless 
 patience, taking rebuff cheerfully, and crabbedness thank- 
 fully. There is no use in repeating the content of his cynical 
 spells, his analysis of woman's gentleness into instinct and 
 hereditary training. He was sick and did not honestly be- 
 lieve it, even when the mood was upon him. 
 
 Guinevere rode up at an ill moment. He cared not to dis- 
 
 [34], 
 
Clotilde 
 
 guise his feelings, and regarded her with the impatient 
 look of one nerve- jar red, one who would be alone, one who 
 loathed all things. He looked about for his gracious rustic — 
 by hereditary instinct perhaps, like any other male baby. 
 Her grace of rusticity most urbane (he realised it for the 
 first time) always was disappearing, on work intent, as soon 
 as the burden of greeting this visitor was over. He cursed 
 inly that furtive touch of a snowflake of a hand on his 
 shoulder, comparing these sterile shows of tenderness with 
 all the other vigils and patiences in peace, and her iron 
 maidenhood in strife. The debonair face (" the Lord is 
 debonair," saith the old poet), full of great quietude, sup- 
 pressing sorrow for the patient's sake, had been present to 
 him in his bitterest agony of pain or of weakness, cooling the 
 fire of delirium, shining across bloodless, tranced total over- 
 throw and, later, the angry pangs of recovery. These 
 memories did by no means improve his little-sweet temper. 
 His manners were brusque, on the road to real rudeness. 
 
 The courtly dame brought the news of her release from 
 bonds matrimonial, the lure of her beauty spells laid wide, 
 and faint, veiled innuendos of the reward awaiting his long 
 probation did he care to cull it. Surrender enveloped her. 
 The tenderness, revived, she had for him, roused by freedom 
 and memory, she could, not nor scarcely cared, to suppress. 
 Hers only asked a look to come against his lips. Had the 
 blood-heat of wholeness been his perhaps she had rued her 
 attitude. He was but a man and she had rare charms of 
 person. Lately, also, he had begun to despise her. But now 
 his was the phase of homesickness. He loved the womanly, 
 the mother-soul in woman, nor admired the hetaire type. He 
 was tamed, as well. Pride and self-reliance called for a mate. 
 Extracts and attars were discerned to be less sweet than 
 prairie roses at sun-up. 
 
 " If you can reconcile yourself to the release, I have 
 
 [35] 
 
From Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 nothing more to say," was all he answered to her budget 
 of news. Then he stared gloomily past her. 
 
 Guinevere's all-expressive eyes rayed protest, but she at- 
 tempted no verbal defence on that particular head. 
 
 As the interview culminated, however, her suavity took on 
 some of the ruffled aspect of majesty, when a vassal, long- 
 suffering in loyalty, develops radical tendencies, and a too 
 great familiarity in council. She waxed warm. He drew 
 on his remaining forces and grew colder and more polite. 
 Their latest ' exchange of words approached to a lapse of 
 manners conventional in her case; while wrath, downright 
 and careless, spoke plainly in his bent brows and shaken voice. 
 She had sneered at Clotilde and lied (as he supposed) in 
 sneering. 
 
 Now Guinevere merely intimated that Clotilde cared for 
 him. She did not attribute selfish motives, either. Thus they 
 parted; she to go away with a great self-pity at heart, yes, 
 and a lessening indignation at him; for she was not of a 
 definitely ireful temperament. As much, too, as was in her 
 voluptuous sense and her fickle, tepid heart, she loved him — 
 and the more so for his masterful present attitude. De 
 GrafFe went indoors ; realising the strain that had been 
 upon him by its effect when the interview ceased. He lay 
 down upon a sofa and there Clotilde, seeking to scold for 
 disobedience of doctor's orders, found the man, restless, quiv- 
 ering, wan and very, very cross. He repudiated quiet and 
 would talk. She perceived his agitation and interpreted it 
 wrongly. She answered unheedful of the bent of his words, 
 but her last pierced him sore. 
 
 " Going away ! where to.? " 
 
 " To Minn'ap'lis. Mine father fears so foolishly that there 
 is danger for me here. I do not wish to go, for the truth I 
 do not " 
 
 Selfishness spoke out of him, and querulousness, the out- 
 
 [36] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 come, partly, of over-indulgent nursing. " You — you will 
 leave? — No, pardon that. It's unmanly and unthankful; 
 presumptuous, too." 
 
 She bent over him beseechingly. " Do not speak of kind- 
 ness — nor unkindly — to me." The voice was weeping faint. 
 " But, mine friend, soon you wiU be well — sh — e " 
 
 " She !— I heard that— Whom.? " 
 
 " Ah, sly boots, you know well. " Her attempt at roguish- 
 ness was a failure, and pathetic. " She who has been so good, 
 so kind, so unhappy, all the time of your illness." 
 
 He laughed, ruefully enough, for Clotilde was going away, 
 her mind made up. And who could be more determined than 
 gentle Clotilde.? Faint, faint hopes, hardly vital enough to 
 have been really cherished, were dashed. 
 
 " Why laugh so.? It is terrible to hear." 
 
 "Why not.? — or curse — when you believe me a fool — as 
 I am. But not as you surmised; not that lower depth 
 
 yet." 
 
 " Do you think a woman cannot see ? Shame to try to 
 deceive your friend! I do so hope " 
 
 " No more of that, if you are my friend ! Woman see, 
 forsooth! Not if this be a sample of the boasted intuition! 
 You must explain." 
 
 " She was your first lufF, your true lufF. She does luiF you 
 yet. I did see it and she — she told — me." 
 
 "Did she so.? Oh, I have no doubt! She is fit for any 
 efi^rontery. She loves herself, I guess. True love! Light 
 love! No love! My true love died seven years ago; or was 
 never born but in a fantastic brain. Dear, my dear, I am not 
 fit to touch your bonny cheek, but 'tis you I love — no other — 
 love you and know it hopeless ! Take that with you wherever 
 you go. It is not much — ^but my all. You do not care except 
 to pity ; and I want none of that." 
 
 He continued to gaze at her face, downcast, which when 
 
 [37] 
 
From Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 he saw the rose and lily contend upon, his grew glad as 
 morning. 
 
 " Surely " — ^hoarsely, this — " surely you cannot ! 
 
 Clotilde, do you care? " 
 
 " Ah, 'tis you are cruel now. You are ungentle — more 
 than I could believe." 
 
 " Never, dear, never just now ! Thoughtless, impatient, 
 I have been, but cruel never. Why should I wish to hurt you, 
 dear.? You were always gentle and shy." He took her yield- 
 ing hand. " Let me live — Tell me ! — Whisper then." 
 
 And sweet Clotilde whispered, and hid her face where it 
 belonged, tearful a little and panting, nodding and cuddling 
 to his whispered questions. At length, raising a brave re- 
 gard, she said aloud, " Mein Herr, I shall be right jealous of 
 you — and your dreams." 
 
 " I hope so, for so I shall be sure you continue to care. 
 But again, jealousy means agitation, for which you are too 
 royal and loyal. You could not stoop to petty passions. As 
 for dreams, be sure they are gone to oblivion. Sweeting, say 
 it out loud. ' I luff you — ^Louis.' " 
 
 But the tender quip stung her to memory of other than 
 love passages. 
 
 " Oh, I have been too happy ! I must — must — go away. 
 I am not worthy. I should shame you ! No, it is not your 
 jest that hurt, but the thought it brings. I know — ^believe — 
 you. But the difference comes back in those great things — 
 so little, too. Do let me go, best one. I would not spoil your 
 life, nor mortify your pride — I who am rustic, ignorant." 
 
 "Take my word seriously, my Clotilde. You can only 
 spoil my life by going now. You are headstrong, blind — 
 blind in foolish, philistine misconstructions. Believe it, I 
 am the honoured one here. By God, you shall not go ! " 
 
 He had grown bright-eyed, active and voluble — ^his olden 
 self, as the passion of pleading heightened; but the reaction 
 
 [38] 
 
Clotilde 
 
 followed when he saw her will to persevere. Floating mists 
 began to flit before his senses. Even his own voice rang hol- 
 low and foreign to his own ears. The laidly darkness of syn- 
 cope well nigh overbore his consciousness. He sank panting 
 and sweating back to his rest; thrusting out a hand across 
 the darkness to clutch some stay of life in that of his be- 
 loved. The weak touch finished it. Agitation, pity, sense 
 of his utter sincerity, of her own loving heart, swept super- 
 conscientious scruples aside; while the clinging hand, the 
 sorrowful, faint face appealed as much as love's eloquence to 
 the maternal in the woman. 
 
 " Louis mine, canst hear thy cruel luff" — almost wailingly. 
 " I cannot go, cannot leave thee, if I would ; for thou art 
 stronger than I. Thou art my better me ! I luff thee over- 
 much — am selfish — thoughtless only of thee. Thou hear'st.'' 
 WiU it do.? » 
 
 Her words were a reviving essence. He lay and listened, 
 gathering strength. 
 
 " Yes — no — not enough ! Give me the elixir of life, so that 
 I can realise it all." 
 
 But he had had his first draft already, to appearance. The 
 beat of hope, of renewed, unfevered life, blushed through 
 the pallour. The old habitual valiance, so long foregone, 
 relighted his eye. Nearly he was his wonted leopardian self 
 again. 
 
 "What would'st have— thou.? For I will 'thou' thee, 
 being that you cherish our German home word better than 
 formal ' you.' " 
 
 " Yes, ' thou ' me always, and — one more thing — that do 
 presently. Remember you were once very angry when I 
 would have kissed you." 
 
 " Do. I not.? — and my foolishness the day before? " 
 
 "Jove! was that it.? That blush might have saved me 
 much sorrow. If I had dared believe ! I, asinine, remarked 
 
 [39] 
 
Feom Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 that you were a strange girl. I see it all. Clotilde, ' here- 
 upon I will kiss thee ! ' " 
 
 As a bird to her mate, before he might rise, she swooped; 
 bending above him statuesque shoulders and face, trenching 
 his head about in her hair's golden cloud, the " heaven blue " 
 of her eyes over against his, deeply dark as mid-ocean's azure. 
 
 " Thou shalt not need ; shalt not exert thee, my sore 
 wounded; mine ill used; my valiant heart! Rest thee; for 
 hereupon I kiss thee ! " 
 
 "She gazed, she reddened like a rose 
 Syne pale as ony lily," 
 
 but kissed him bravely enough, and awkwardly; that being 
 her first love kiss. 
 
 He says the last anguish of illness left him then, for his 
 heart was at peace. 
 
 " My Clotilde, you can never conceive how lovely and 
 stately you are — in mind's and in body's beauty — ^in high 
 dignity and in gentle softness. Oh ! thou " eternal 
 womanly ! " 
 
 [401 
 
DALE 
 
 IN 1876 the territory east of the Missouri River had 
 fallen partly under the reign of law. The Sioux were 
 weU in hand, having learned their lesson; while the 
 Chippewa were, as always, friendly. The white swarm 
 now began to preempt the Dakota prairies. Your " old- 
 timer " will yet speak exultantly of those days. The rush of 
 new acquaintance, the ardour of hope, the plenty, and the 
 pleasure, revive in their talk. Towns were few and of small 
 population, but they did the business of cities. It was a 
 spontaneous carnival-time, riotous and reckless, joyous and 
 evanescent, whereof the present is, there and now, the re- 
 actionary, the penitential result, perhaps. 
 
 Howbeit, for the present purpose. Dale " struck town " 
 during the summer of that year. He was of a tall, loose- 
 jointed, muscular physique, with a face which he could make 
 absolutely expressionless. His speech had the drawl of Mis- 
 souri. Though reticent, he proved genial enough, as became 
 a self-respecting frontiersman. People liked him, yet he was 
 a suspect. Rumour began to whisper strange things of his 
 antecedents. 
 
 And so, uncontradicted rumour, reaching soon to assertion 
 positive, pronounced him, in the end, outlaw and fugitive. 
 None the less. Dale left his mark. After his passing, people 
 told things that yet go to his credit. 
 
 He worked, during the harvest, with a threshing crew, 
 doing yeomanly work as " feeder." On a certain evening the 
 work was protracted to an unusual hour. There remained in 
 the end but the half of the last stack of a " setting," or 
 cluster of stacks, to finish. 
 
 Now the owner of the machine was eager to complete this ; 
 firstly: because it threatened rain, which would injure the 
 uncovered grain; secondly: he wished to move the traction 
 
 [41] 
 
Feom Fab Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 engine to a new " setting," against the morrow's work. But 
 the crew were weary and famished. The owner's remon- 
 strances got no heed ; and, at length, the men began to move 
 towards the cooking tents. Dale, though occupying the most 
 fatiguing position, seconded the proprietor, doing it suavely 
 enough, at first. 
 
 " Boys," quoth he, In his imperturbable drawl, " 'tain't 
 doin' th' square thing by th' boss, nur' th' machine." 
 
 One of the " boys," theretofore the champion of the gang, 
 remarked that the boss, and the machine, might find quar- 
 ters in a locality seldom mentioned in any save a theological 
 magazine, while himself would find rest and refreshment in 
 the tents. Dale's patience left him then, but not a particle 
 of his coolaess. He seized the champion (who wilted in his 
 grasp) and announced his intention of " moppin' th' arth," 
 not only with his remains, but with those of " th' hull dam'd 
 caboodle," on pain of " finishin' this ye'r stack righ' ofF'n 
 th' handle." 
 
 Under such influence the stack was finished, the " boss " 
 gratified, and the crew confirmed in the opinion that Dale 
 was " a hell of a nice fellow, if you let him alone, but a mighty 
 bad man when his back's up, gentlemen." More than one 
 member of that crew had fought as la:rge men as Dale, and 
 never thought to dare; but these adversaries were not ac- 
 credited with outlawry, nor Missourian birth, nor facile ac- 
 curacy in shooting. 
 
 Threshing being over, Dale returned to town upon a cer- 
 tain election day. Two-thirds of the new settlers were 
 foreign-born, and had but lately taken out their declaratory 
 papers; the which conferred the power of voting in Dakota. 
 The majority espoused the prevailing political cult. The 
 leaders were " old-timers " versed in all the wiles and ways 
 of frontier politics. Then and there, a man might have his 
 own opinions and express them unchallenged — save on elec- 
 
 [42] 
 
DaI/E 
 
 tion day. Then he might, as a great concession, write and 
 vote his own ticket in silence and thankfuhiess. This phase 
 is not yet entirely of the past. 
 
 At the election in point, a " tenderfoot," in his temerity, 
 dared to beard the " bosses " and to seek to make heretics — 
 that is to say, proselytes — political. Argument, angry re- 
 monstrance, threats, produced no effect on this little German 
 immigrant, of Democratic proclivities, whereupon a certain 
 stalwart — one of a twain who enter this tale later — threat- 
 ened as a last resort to smite him sore; when in rushes Dale, 
 and invites the oppressor, and his followers — ^whom the Mis- 
 sourian indignantly nominates as " currish heelers " to the 
 combat. The chieftain is politic, though unterrified, and in- 
 vites Dale to " mind his own knitting." 
 
 The war ends in words ; but the German speaks, thereafter, 
 to his partisan heart's content; while Dale, who, contrary to 
 his wont, had been looking on the rye when it was amber, 
 remarking that himself has " consid'rable of a jag on," 
 retires to sleep, conscious of virtue and of offensive par- 
 tisanship ; leaving strict orders, meanwhile, that he be 
 wakened should danger menace liberty of speech anew. 
 
 Dale became a bartender after that. Lee's hostelry, where 
 he took up his abode, stood two miles north of town, where 
 the stage route crossed the International Boundary into 
 Manitoba. 
 
 One day Lee was struck, while reading the papers, by the 
 account of the death of a road agent named Jim Collins. 
 Apparently the robber had met unexpected resistance in 
 that particular foray; for he perished valiantly fighting 
 odds. 
 
 Said Lee upon occasion, " Dale was a stolid sort of a fel- 
 low, but it struck me theil that he spoke thick when he said, 
 ' Yes, that Jim was clear grit.' Seemed even then he spoke 
 as if he knew the man. ' That Jim ' sounded like it somehow. 
 
 [43] 
 
From Far Dakota and Qtherwheke 
 
 I looked up when he spoke, I remember; but his back was' 
 turned so I didn't see his face. Of course I had heard talk 
 of his being o' that sort himself; and I put his feeling down 
 to that ; after thinking things over. I didn't know I'd read 
 him the ending of his own brother." 
 
 A restless, determined-looking stranger came to town 
 about the time above indicated. It was noticed he imme- 
 diately interviewed the United States Deputy Marshal and 
 the County Sheriff. The resulting communication was as fol- 
 lows : The new arrival was a marshal of Texas " on the slot " 
 of one John Collins, whom his State looked for to answer 
 various indictments for stage and train robbery, as well as 
 certain resulting homicides. 
 
 The description and the accompanying photograph satis- 
 fied the local authorities that Dale was the looked-for man. 
 As to his immediate apprehension, however, there entered 
 two weighty deterrent considerations. Sure it was that this 
 man would decamp, did he suspect the proximity of the 
 Texan. Moreover, he was determinate in valour, vigilant 
 against surprise; and on shortest notice, deadly accurate in 
 the use of his revolver. Now the latter was the lesser con- 
 sideration to men accustomed to the risking of their lives; 
 but, the reward depended on his being brought into Court 
 alive. 
 
 It was finally agreed upon, as the best procedure, that the 
 Dakotan officers should make a final identification of the 
 fugitive; and meanwhile the Texan agreed to stay retired, 
 lest rumour carry his advent to Dale. 
 
 Two men better qualified for such a venture than mar- 
 shal and sheriff it had been hard to find. Experience of 
 peril each had had in plenteous measure — finesse, address, 
 presence of mind, quickness of eye, strength of body each 
 possessed as well. 
 
 They found Dale in his place, behind Lee's bar — a scar 
 
 [44] 
 
Dale 
 
 over the eye giving the clinching clue to his identity. Whether 
 their simultaneous presence raised his suspicion or not, he 
 refused to be drawn forth, even by the inducement of a little 
 game of " draw," an amusement to which he was, erstwhile, 
 very partial ; but on sundry specious pretexts kept his van- 
 tage ground, behind the counter; whence none might assail 
 his back with impunity. Yet he chatted amicably enough 
 while dispensing the liquors which his interlocutors con- 
 tinuously called for. Those drinks in quantity, be it said, 
 were such as scarcely a prohibitionist might except to; each 
 of the three taking a barely perceptible quantity — ^locally 
 known as the " thickness of a finger nail " — at each round, 
 shirking, often, even then, and alternating with a cigar. 
 
 Once, while the marshal held the bartender, as he sur- 
 mised, in close dispute over a throw of dice, the sheriff, under 
 pretext of obtaining a match, tried to get inside the counter 
 and alongside Dale with intent to close with him. The latter 
 perceived the manceuvre, and forthwith, without removing his 
 eyes from the marshal's face, he put down his hand to the 
 ledge in front of him, saying to the sheriff meanwhile, " Hoi' 
 on, pard. I don't want no help behind my bar. If yo' want 
 an'thin' I'U be happy to help yo', Cha'lie ; but I do' want no 
 assistance." 
 
 The sheriff's fierce eyes doubtless glittered and he thought 
 to rush upon the speaker — but the cool glance of his com- 
 panion, who knew that himself stood aface with death in 
 that event, brought back reason. The sheriff laughed the 
 matter off, while brusquely condemning Dale's churlishness ; 
 whereat the latter smiled his quiet, self-contained smile, 
 merely saying that it was his " treat, this hitch." They, at 
 a late hour, returned as they had come ; hoping against hope 
 meanwhile that Dale would not hold suspicion of their errand, 
 and so decamp. 
 
 The hope was realised, contrary to all expectation. Dale 
 
 [45] 
 
FaoM Far Dakota and Otheh.wheee 
 
 next day reappeared in his place, seemingly no more restless 
 than before. 
 
 One day of entire seclusion, however, had thoroughly 
 wearied the Texan ofBcial ; and on the day following his seclu- 
 sion he went to the post office — a log building fronting on 
 the main street and facing to the eastward. To the north 
 of the main door was a small window. The marshal, having 
 received his mail, sat down in the southeast corner of the 
 room. On his right stood a doorway, at right angles to the 
 street entrance, entering upon a dark passage. Scarcely 
 had he begun to read, when steps echoed outside. Looking 
 through the window he saw Dale pass. He had the necessary 
 instant for preparation. 
 
 Dale, or more correctly CoUins, entering, was met by the 
 usual formula. 
 
 " Hold up yo' hands ! " 
 
 Up they went as instinctively as if thrust out to swim ; for 
 Collins, taken absolutely by surprise, knew the futility and 
 the danger of hesitation. He evidently recognised an old 
 acquaintance ; for the first words were to that effect. 
 
 " Hello, Bill ! Well, you've got me, I reckon." 
 
 " Guess so, keep 'em up tho' ! " 
 
 Collins fixed his own on the marshal's eye and a colloquy 
 went on, for a minute perhaps ; the officer's reply mostly con- 
 fined to monosyllables ; while the outlaw continued to stare 
 unwinking, hoping to blur or lull the adverse watch. In the 
 meanwhile his fingers bent and unbent, while the hands and 
 arms, feigning fatigue, drooped at the wrist and elbow, 
 making little hawklike clutches and swoops towards the hol- 
 sters, concealed inside the vest — signs checked by the com- 
 mand, " Keep 'em up, I tell ye' ! " 
 
 Perhaps the marshal's eye wavered as he searched with his 
 free hand for his nippers or perhaps his revolver's muzzle 
 was deflected by the motion. At any rate, in the flashing of 
 
 [46] 
 
Dale 
 
 an eye, there came a pounce of " Dale's" taloned right hand 
 to his left breast, whereat the marshal, being warned, fired, 
 his bullet, as the inquest showed, scoring the outlaw's wrist ; 
 grazing the heart and so transpiercing the body in its pas- 
 sage. The stricken man did not fall at the shock, but stood, 
 after the first shudder, holding his drawn revolver aimed 
 against the door leading to the dark passage, through which 
 the marshal had bounded upon perceiving the futility of 
 his shot. 
 
 The postmaster, a frontiersman, who had seen shooting in 
 his time, took in the proceedings entirely through the postal 
 wicket, and prepared to dodge, if revolvers turned in his 
 direction. Another spectator, not without fame as an Indian 
 fighter, crouching, peeped from behind the large stove and 
 gnashed his teeth while thinking of his own — now discarded — 
 revolver. 
 
 Collins' fight was with no other than the marshal how- 
 ever ; it is doubtful if he knew of the presence of these others. 
 He stood rigid, unflichingly, aiming lidlessly at the closed 
 door; twitching spasmodically at times. Vengeance, taking 
 the form of volition, held back, defiant, the supineness of 
 death. And his time came. The marshal growing impa- 
 tient, thrust forth his head and weaponed hand, whereupon 
 Collins' revolver spoke doom. The Texan pitched forward — 
 dead — stricken through the brain. 
 
 " So," said Collins gaspingly, and still watched over 
 against his enemy lying prone, lest he live yet. The post- 
 master here came forward, saying wrathfuUy, " We've had 
 enough o' this. Get out o' here! Your man's dead, any- 
 how." 
 
 " All right, gov'nor," spoke Collins through his stifi'ening 
 jaws, while still contemplating his work. 
 
 " Yest, I reck'n he is — dead — and so — ^be I." 
 
 He stepped backward haltingly towards the door, keeping 
 
 [47] 
 
Fkom Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 aface of his still victim. When his head touched the low door 
 lintel the rigour passed like a flash, the tense eyes and arms 
 relaxed and he fell to the ground amain, his feet still in- 
 doors, the face, yet frowning, staring into the clear, gray- 
 golden afternoon sky. 
 
 The town had just bought and laid out a new cemetery; 
 so these two were the first fruits of the new city of the silent. 
 
 Correspondence with the relatives of the men showed that 
 they had been warm friends once, the officer having been Col- 
 lins' groomsman. 
 
 Thus now the erstwhile comrades — ^whose ways destiny had 
 severed — ^their duty, their life's work, and their life's mis- 
 takes over, lie reunited again, under bond to keep the peace 
 of mighty and merciful death. 
 
 [48] 
 
DESERT BORN 
 
 A DEAMA IN ONE ACT, WITH SOME DESCMPTIONS 
 
 Time — September, 1903. Place — a once fashionable street in an Eastern 
 Canadian City. The roadway occupies the front of the stage. 
 Back of this runs the granolitiiic sidewalk; then boulevard, merging 
 into a cramped lawn, extends back to the basement of a very sub- 
 stantial stone house of ancient type. The house-front occupies the 
 rear centre of the stage; a space on each side proclaims its isolation 
 and its roomy grounds. A flight of stone steps ascending on an arch 
 rises from the lawn to a high double-leaved front door of massive 
 oak. Above the highly built basement the first-floor vrindows are 
 all shuttered, save one nearest to the doorway. The house is in com- 
 plete darkness. 
 
 The large portico has pillars of stone and is roofed, like the house, 
 with slate. There are divans on each side, from doorway to steps. 
 Some easy chairs stand in the curtained entry. The moon, shining 
 in a clear sky, irradiates all it can reach. The house-front and the 
 portico are shadowed. House and grounds are somewhat out of 
 repair and neglected-lootdng. 
 
 The door opens suddenly and Elodie emerges. She switches on the 
 lights in the roof of the portico. She is tall and very splendidly 
 formed. Her features are clear cut, and statuesque, dark as tropic 
 eventide, and as sumptuous — Calv6 in Messalina — She is a mistress 
 of the art and mystery of dress. Cardinal and black are the try- 
 ing dominant colours which she dominates; for her bearing is as 
 proud as it is gracious. 
 
 She is apparently filled with tedium. She spreads her arms wearily, 
 then drops them langvudly. 
 
 Elodie — ^Why did I not go to the theatre? Why? 
 
 I wonder if he — if he — guesses. Oh, he is deep — deeper than 
 deep waters. And yet he is not. He is clear, transparent, 
 too. He is a man. These others are — ^mere fools. He is 
 very strong. Sometimes I hate him! He is a fool, too. Is 
 he sincere? Yes! No! — I do not know. I must know. He 
 fences skilfully. He can feel another mind like a woman 
 when he wishes. Other times, one might believe him stupid. 
 He is not selfish nor stupid — nor yet holy. His family being 
 
 [49] 
 
From Fab Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 an official one, he is in society- — and hates it. He is not 
 " stuck up," but a gentleman — the best. These others ! But 
 he is very honourable and scrupulous — in places. [A long 
 pause in the languorous broken monologue.] Bah! (with a 
 passionate flash) he is a mystery. What is he to me? [A 
 pause.] I wish I knew. Does he care.^" [A step sounds 
 through the still air, coming down R. on an invisible side 
 street. Elodie clasps her hands and stands " frozen " as a 
 creature of the woods.] I would know that step in Para- 
 dise ; have known it from girlhood. Have — I — not — dreamed 
 about it — in the years.'' There is authority; a man sure of 
 what he wants and where he is going. Ah ! (mirth invades the 
 sombre face) I must play a little. [She switches off the 
 lights, hides behind the curtain, scarcely to be discerned from 
 the shadows.] 
 
 [Hector comes down from R. His costume of Halifax 
 tweed, with belted coat, close-fitting knickerbockers and 
 puttees serves to exhibit the excellence of a robust and active 
 physique and the proper carriage of it. He wears a soft, 
 wide-leafed gray hat. His features predicate self-reliance. 
 
 His gait slackens. He breathes deeply and slows to a 
 saunter, humming a chanson of which the words are more 
 or less inaudible, save the concluding, " Dans la ville de By- 
 town," which is always clearly heard, though muted.] 
 
 Hector — H'm! Well, it doesn't matter! Good old 
 Canada! After prairies, Rockies, South Sea Islands, Nip- 
 pon, Cathay, Ind., Sahara, Andes, Yukon, smell of native, 
 dear Autumn is good. The others are none too bad. The 
 baking, blistering desert was nearly as good as this. Turn 
 about that and the Manitoban winter, and this would be more 
 perfect than Samoa, where there is no word for weather. 
 Yukon is not bad. But this lifts the chest without exposure 
 
 [50] 
 
Desert Born 
 
 to frozen antres, and reddens the blood without strain of 
 endurance. [He pauses, pondering.] Some desert wanderer 
 went to my make-up in the long ago. He must have been 
 a most prepotent ancestor. It outcrops every once and 
 again in our breed. I am a pure atavism. The throw-back 
 is complete. [He stares long at the darkened house, then 
 looks at his watch.] Blind as sleep, that front ! Nine o' the 
 clock were not too late to call on her. [He " checks " at the 
 open window.] Was that a shadow — [Pause] or only the 
 curtains moving.'' There is no wind, though. [Pause.] It 
 is the curtain. The rear windows are probably open. Empty 
 it looks — ^but does not feel. I've a mind to burgle. [Pause.] 
 I'll do it. [He runs across the boulevard and lawn, leaps 
 like a terrier, clutches the stone sill of the open window, jams 
 his toes into the rock-faced masonry, heaves up, reaches in- 
 ward, grips the inner moulding and seats himself on the 
 outer sill.] 
 
 'Tis as well no one is about this street so deserted. I'm 
 sorry I did it. But now that I'm here I will see. [He stares 
 in, then drops to the ground springily.] This is presump- 
 tuous. I am making too free altogether. Was it my pulses 
 or did I hear a gasp.? Someone, not she — might have been 
 there. It would be ghastly, that. Even were it herself, my 
 privilege as an old friend may have lapsed in fifteen years. 
 
 I saw her in February last, on a street car. I knew her, 
 but did not know. [Pause.] I suppose I stared as she went 
 out. She smiled, bowed. When I next saw her — in May — 
 we spoke. I went home with her; have called every time I 
 was in town [Damn prospecting — ^here]. In the last month 
 I've fairly haunted her — ^with her air so hospitable, so cor- 
 dial, herself elusive as a fairy. Does it matter to her? I've 
 made a decision as to me; can't help myself. Sometimes I 
 would like to. It is not comfortable to feel gyves. 
 
 She is not an ideal; temperament afire; there's a history 
 
 [51] 
 
FaoM Far Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 somewhere. Her associates are a mixed lot. How she takes 
 wholesome influence, though! She absorbs the smallest 
 glimmer of the right thing as the air does light. She is 
 superstitious as any fetish worshipper, yet is never afraid. 
 Illiterate in any real sense, she speaks as we do. She gets 
 it out of the air, I guess. She has the courage and tact of 
 an ambassadress, yet cannot tell — well — gold from alloy. 
 She believes that those fellows whom she told me about, that 
 other whom I know, to be ensamples of the aristocrat. 
 They're really bad lots, of no particular culture or rearing, 
 certainly not gentlemen of Britain, veneered gentile — bour- 
 geois — ^merely, fellows with allowances exiled out here. 
 I make a point of introducing Headley. She does not recog- 
 nise the type. The other, Hinchley, said he had the V. C. — 
 medal left with his mamma — until I took the field. He knew 
 I'd been in the scrap — ^wiggled and explained — " a mistake, 
 a German order." He is a beast ! It's a bad story I heard 
 in Dawson. Frank Gascoyne believes it. His treatment of 
 his " pards " equals his treatment of the Indian girl who 
 showed them where to dig. They're dead and she's a whore, 
 a drunken one at that, who tells quarter of the truth in her 
 penitent moments, half of it in her revengeful moods, all of 
 it never. But she tells more than he dare deny: Eloide 
 believes in me ; I believe it. " English Kanucks are the best 
 men and the best gentlemen." That's herself in a sincere 
 moment. She too is desert-bom and plays with degenerate 
 tame cats unfearing, though she thinks them leopards. 
 
 Hdbet! She is in my blood, not all to my satisfaction. 
 She is on my nerves — ^with doubts, too. A boy of thirty- 
 five — that's me ! I will not lie to myself. 
 
 I'll have her, if she wills. She can will like a man and 
 lure like golden Helen or Scotland's Rose Marie. It is 
 enough. The bronco is calling a lately roped mate to come 
 out from among the tame horses, calling to come out on the 
 
 [52] 
 
Desert Bokn 
 
 freer ranges, the prairie that never knew barbed-wire — fence- 
 less from rim to rim — whose only barrier is attraction. She 
 will feel that call! [A voice bubbling with laughter chimes 
 out. The slats of the Venetian blinds rattle at one of the 
 closed windows. In speech the voice has a far-away sugges- 
 tion of accent.] 
 
 Voice — Oh ! Good-evening. 
 
 Hectoe — ^Wretch! you were there! 
 
 Voice — Be'ind a chair, dare devil. 
 
 Hector — ^You are not timid; so I do not apologise. But 
 I surrender. Judge me. I salute and find doom good. 
 [He salutes.] 
 
 Voice — Go out into the moonshine and do it again. 
 [Elodie's shape appears darkly at the open window. Hector 
 does as directed; then stares into the shades.] 
 
 Elodie — ^It is better than life — this. It is a street of 
 the stage. 
 
 Hector — Better than an autumn evening's dream. It 
 is fairyland and I making the essential ass of it. But I feel 
 like it. I like it ! You understand. 
 
 E liODiE — Surely. 
 
 Hector — The night and we are alone. We are romance. 
 Witness my heart and the night of your eyes. 
 
 Elodie — ^You are splendid! 
 
 Hector — ^Faustina spares, commends.'' 
 
 Elodie — That is not my name. Who is the lady.'' If 
 it wasi' — This is idle. The costume is most becoming. 
 
 Hector — That I might see yours ! 
 
 Elodie — ^You shall. You deserve it. 
 
 Hector — Most men feel the effect of a costumed woman 
 as their dogs do a caress — glad but unknowing — ^I am of 
 those who comprehend — Let me see at once. 
 
 Elodie — ^I am not ready. I want more of romance. 
 
 Hectok — ^I would show it to you proper, if this were 
 
 [53] 
 
Feom Fab Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 velvet and silk. [He indicates his costume with a sweep.] 
 These [Pointing to his shoes] sown with seed pearls. This 
 [Indicating a cane which he carries betwixt the mid-fingers 
 of his left hand, which is clenched and rests upon his hip] 
 a rapier. 
 
 Elodie — Never mind! Imagine it! You are fit in all 
 other ways. Since ever I 'ave known you, you 'ave looked — 
 drilled. It is not the word. You are militair. It is not the 
 word; for you 'ave no strut, what d'they call swagger. 
 Non! It is le bel air I mean. [Hectoe bows ceremoniously 
 and with much grace. She claps her hands in a fashion 
 which is clearly personal and characteristic] Mon Dieu! 
 You make un chevalier, le chevalier seul. 
 
 Hectoe — [With a sweeping obeisance.] Down to the 
 ground ! 
 
 Elodie — Come up! [She closes the window. Lights 
 glow through the muffling curtains and in the hall. An inner 
 lobby door opens — then closes. The outer door opens — then 
 closes. Hectoe has ascended and is waiting. Elodie comes 
 out. She touches a switch. A cluster of incandescents floods 
 the lobby with light. Hectoe's resolute lips part and all 
 his face and attitude are changed. He even breathes 
 quickly.] 
 
 Hectoe — Splendour of God! [As if he were a somnam- 
 bulist.] 
 
 Elodie — Sacrilege! Mais Mercie! 
 
 Hectoe — [Recovering.] You are surer than you used 
 to be. 
 
 Elodie — ^What is it about years and discretion? 
 
 Hectoe — That does not apply. Substitute, " increasing 
 subtlety." It is not d'the word. [Smiling.] I have it — 
 power ! 
 
 Elodie — ^Down to the ground! [With a sweeping 
 courtesy which produces a corresponding genuflection.] 
 
 [54] 
 
Desert Bobn 
 
 Hector — It is a stage — no, a court — a functioned 
 court. I simply have to pose the musketeer when one of their 
 queens reincarnate — The Gallant is the proper thing here 
 and now. 
 
 Elodie — [Having seated herself in one of the easy chairs 
 and he on a divan near her.] You are scarcely changed at 
 aU. [She switches the lights off.] You were always so 
 gallant, in a quiet, stern way. You are a boy yet. 
 
 Hector — Until ninety! Once man forgoes the joy o' 
 life, the bliss of mere being — he is well on to being dead — to 
 being really old, that is. But the years! The years have 
 brought to a superbly handsome, but unformed, girl of six- 
 teen accomplished carriage, grace, dignity — to me stamps 
 and sealings of time merely. 
 
 Elodie — Never! Your face is not changed a bit. You 
 were always determined-looking, and you always had air. 
 
 Hector — Most people do not think so. I like your saying 
 it, though. You can see, even if your partiality exag- 
 gerates. At any rate you recognised me that day in Febru- 
 ary last. 
 
 Elodie — ^Why did you not speak.'' 
 
 Hector — Were fifteen years yesterday that I should pre- 
 sume on a resemblance and the possible mistake of a lady.f* 
 
 Elodie — But you knew me, just as I knew you. We do 
 not forget the friends of the growing days — you and I. 
 You never called. 
 
 Hector — I did not know where. 
 
 Elodie — ^Was there no directory? 
 
 Hector — I did not expect to find Elodie St. Louis. It 
 seemed impossible. You were not of the type of those who 
 keep their maiden names. How comes it? 
 
 Elodie — You thought 
 
 Hector — Madame whom? [A pause.] That cloak, cir- 
 cular — what do you call it anyhow.'' — helped. 
 
 [55] 
 
From Fae Dakota and Othekwheee 
 
 Elodie — [Gazes at him, then, with her characteristic of 
 the smitten palms, laughs.] I have been told so before! I 
 wonder if that is stupid directness or cold-blooded audacity. 
 You are not simple, you know. 
 
 Hectoe — ^I am not only simple, but a simpleton. To re- 
 turn ! I could not easily forget, while I am I, notes in secret 
 places — roses — moonlight. 
 
 Elodie — ^Why should I? Do you remember the moon of 
 a night just like this, and a canoe and a wild Kanuck 
 girl.? 
 
 Hectoe — Do I remember an hour in Arcady? 
 
 Elodie — ^W'ere is Arcady.? How can you, though? 
 
 Hectoe— How can you remember? Why not I then? 
 
 Elodie — ^Well! You are not a woman. 
 
 Hectoe — You are — ^but, had my surmise been correct, 
 when I met you in February last, you — woman — would not 
 have recognised me; for you would then have been bond- 
 woman to man, your memories of youth's romance obliterated 
 by the demands men-children make. 
 
 Elodie — Do not be too sure of that. I doubt they re- 
 member sometimes — and regret. [She pauses.] Come, tell 
 me of the canoe on the lake — ages and ages ago. 
 
 Hectoe — First, there are to be no evasions to-night, no 
 woman-craft. [He bends towards her unsmilingly, but with 
 kind eyes. She gazes at him, at first absorbedly and lan- 
 guorously. Her expression of abstraction gradually passes. 
 Her mouth sweetens and her eyes begin to dance. She leans 
 very close and touches, slightly clutches, his sleeve, about 
 the wrist. It is partly a caress, partly a reproving pat.] 
 
 Hectoe — How I remember that, too ! It is Elodie. 
 
 Elodie — I did not know. But the story 
 
 Hectoe — ^In the midst then; when the lily pad did not 
 come, because you bungled the pluck at it 
 
 Elodie — Your fault ! you never showed me how ! 
 
 [56] 
 
Deseet Born 
 
 Hector — I did. 
 
 Elodie — Not properly; for you only plucked several in 
 passing, and threw them over to me, calling out mere — 
 directions. 
 
 Hector — [Laughingly.] The motion was checked, for 
 you held tight ; the bow swung over, the gunwale dipped. 
 
 Elodie — And you threw yourself far over and saved a 
 capsize, and I — I let go my hold of that lily stem. 
 
 Hector — But you kept the grip on your nerve. 
 
 Elodie — Do you think I did.-* Truly? 
 
 Hector — Assuredly ! Else we were among the weeds — 
 no swimming there! To face facts, I was so busy looking 
 after my own grip on my own nerve that I could only envy 
 you. 
 
 Elodie — Quite so. That is why, after saving the situa- 
 tion, you beached the canoe and emptied it. That is what 
 made you say such nice things to me when I shivered betwixt 
 my fear of you and my fear of the death you had dashed 
 aside; what made you heap.aU the cushions under and about 
 me and forced me to wear your coat. 
 
 Hector — ^What else could a fellow do? It was my fault, 
 to begin with. You were splashed, too, and your dress was 
 thin. — ^I remember the snow-drift white abundance of it. — The 
 warm day had ended in a coohsh night. [Laughing.] You 
 were a reckless handful in those days. 
 
 Elodie — [Looking deeply into his eyes.] What taught 
 you how to comfort me? — for you knew the way. 
 
 Hector — Did it comfort you? You were almost a child 
 and I knew that what consolation a child — I mean, I could 
 not help it. [Hoarsely — abstractedly.] " The long, long 
 kiss, the kiss of youth and love." 
 
 Elodie — One, a comforter! You taught me then what 
 " gentleman " means. I have never forgotten. 
 
 Hector — " Gentleman " is sometimes a synonym for a prig 
 
 [57] 
 
Feom Fak Dakota and Otheewhbre 
 
 who balks nature, to the betterment of none, and to his own 
 irrevocable loss, of a time worth bearing to the grave in 
 memory — and retrospection ! 
 
 Elodie — No ! — Perhaps ! I 
 
 Hectok — There was another time. Do you remember that 
 last walk we had, on the evening of the day before I should 
 strike west, in the dark and rain of a dreary deserted street — 
 in the earthly paradise? — You touched me as you did just 
 now. 
 
 Elodie — ^And clung — a little — to my friend my gentU- 
 homme. 
 
 Hector — " Take me," you said. [Whispering.] 
 
 Elodie — [Whispering.] Why did you not.'' 
 
 Hector — ^Why did I not.? Why.'' Why.? I wanted to, 
 but, like a fool and a boy, I was madder in love, in lust, with 
 untrammelled days, than with woman, the civiliser. I wished 
 to be untied, irresponsible. 
 
 Elodie — Gentleman again — not irresponsible. 
 
 Hector — A fool always, a mime, a mummer. 
 
 Elodie — [Recovering — Slightly.] And there were other 
 girls. 
 
 Hector — Perhaps! Motives are mixed things. No man 
 knows his entirely. 
 
 Elodie — You have only hinted at all the things, places, 
 you have known or seen. You " do not advertise " your 
 adventures. Where all have you gone.? Tell me! 
 
 Hector — I have been going up and down and around the 
 earth! I find that I, unconsciously, had a purpose. I was 
 looking about, though I did not know it, for a place really to 
 live in — to be— to develop all of me. Do you understand? 
 
 Elodie — ^You often lost your heart? 
 
 Hector — Oh, it came back, like any other ranging hound, 
 when it had run its game down, or grown weary. 
 
 Elodie — Yes ; that is a trick of hearts. 
 
 [58] 
 
Desert Bokn 
 
 Hector — ^You know it, too. 
 
 Elodie — ^You are very rude. — Is this your sincerity ? You 
 demanded mine.'' 
 
 Hector — I'm not — and it is. 
 
 Elodie — But did you often lose your heart? 
 
 Hector — It came back just as often! It is here, unin- 
 jured, intact. About your legions.? [Smiling.] How the 
 fellows in our office used to plague the heart of your first 
 [Good old Terry !] with jealousy ! You liked him best of all. 
 I know it. 
 
 Elodie — Is that why ? I did like him, love him. I 
 
 nearly made a runaway marriage with him once. Now — I 
 think we were a pair of silly children, and I, one with the 
 worst of taste. Speak the truth now ! Cannot a woman be 
 in love with more than one man at the same time — when one 
 is a girl.? 
 
 Hector — Change the sex of the question and I'll tell you 
 the impulse of a boy. 
 
 Elodie — [Pensive and mocking.] That time is gone by. 
 I am an old maid, for I am as old as you. 
 
 Hector — Not by a century — ^by a twentieth of it at least. 
 Let the young folks wonder at it, in their unideaed billing and 
 cooing — ^yes, stupid, animal, unreasoning passion. Young 
 people! A woman is not in her plenitude of charm or 
 physique until she passes thirty. 
 
 Elodie — ^It is flattery, but I like it. Remember our agree- 
 ment. I find it hard to live up to it, for I am a woman. 
 
 Hector — Never ! I am living up to it. It is neither flat- 
 tery nor yet mere personal opinion. It is a provable — a 
 proved — scientific fact. 
 
 Elodie — Away ! 
 
 Hector — ^Well, then, tell me about your " transactions in 
 hearts." 
 
 Elodie — There have been a few. [A long pause — ^Hector 
 
 [59] 
 
Feom Fae Dakota and Othekwheke 
 
 watches her half-averted face. In the end she looks at him. J 
 There is one now. 
 
 Hector — [He stares outward. She in turn watches his 
 face. The heads are not far apart.] Ah! [A pause.] I 
 am always late. 
 
 EtODiE — If you meant it! 
 
 Hector — ^I think I meant it always. Now it is Who 
 
 is he.'' 
 
 Elodee — [After some hesitation — ^her agitation not wholly 
 controlled.] Mr. Hinchley. 
 
 Hector — [Aside.] The awful beast — He the satyr! 
 
 Elodie — [Imperiously.] I am waiting. 
 
 Hector — [Turning to her.] You will get no congratula- 
 tions. 
 
 [They stare controlledly now at each other — angrily at 
 first. She breaks the pause, suddenly in the end — speaking 
 brokenly.] 
 
 Elodie — ^You say things no one else does to me 
 
 Hector — Or dares to, my lioness. The tame cats have to 
 sit up — waiting the time to snarl — when your bonds find you. 
 Why do you not resent my attitude, my words .f" Have you 
 grown tame.!" 
 
 Elodie — [Moans, weeps just a little. With a look.] Oh, 
 be kind to me. I cannot bear it! [Hector's face softens 
 — He strokes her hair.] — Not tamed, not tamed. I forgive 
 you that. But you do not caye. And you take advantage 
 of your courage. 
 
 Hector — [Contritely as to face, which his sympathetic 
 voice confirms.] I am a bully! but you well know I cannot 
 bear to see your rare tears. 
 
 [There ensues a prolonged pause. She has recovered her 
 poise. She sits with bent head staring at the point of one of 
 her own shoes. He has stood up and remains so, looking at 
 her gently.] 
 
 .[60] 
 
Desert Born 
 
 Elodie — You can be as kind as cruel. I must have your 
 good opinion — will take your — ^your — pity — yes, pity, even. 
 / mind you ! It is I who speak. Moil 
 
 Hector — ^It is bravely said and I know you. It is sin- 
 cerity we are hunting. It is to be soul to soul.'' Look you! 
 You and I know what passion is — ^none better. 
 
 Elodie — ^Passion .'' 
 
 Hector — That heaves us, helpless, as the wind the seas. 
 
 Elodie — Ah, how well you understand! 
 
 Hector — Elodie ! 
 
 Elodie — Hector! Hector! Mon Dieu! — Tu est Mon 
 Dieu! 
 
 Hectok — [Very flushed and imperial.] Why this cur 
 then.? 
 
 Elodie — I have always lived cramped. I must have place 
 — ^wealth. 
 
 Hector — [Momently taken aback.] "In silk attire?" 
 No ! Power — that is your desire — scope! 
 
 Elodie — ^You have said the word I could not find — power 
 — scope. 
 
 Hector — [He ponders.] You must come with me. 
 
 Elodee — ^Where.'' How.'' 
 
 Hector — ^I mean to save you from vulgarity, at least — 
 from a beast, a loathly beast at worst. Will you queen it 
 over a gentle people of the Pacific, a turbulent of the Sahara, 
 a treacherous of the Andes? Would you be of the great 
 plains, a miner of the North? You are as barbarian as I 
 am. These places have places waiting for us ! " Two wishes 
 make a will," a big fellow has said. Two wills make the 
 destiny of a community — say I, who do not write, but do 
 things. I am not boasting ! I have matched men the world 
 over — and nature! I am fit to win, alone, the place I 
 choose. I have not cared to choose before. To be and to see 
 was enough. With you " my comrade and perfect equal " 
 
 [61] 
 
Feom Far Dakota and Otherwheee 
 
 achievement were questionless. Your help would count like 
 that of Athene. I will neither bind nor be bound. I will be 
 true as yourself. I am chucking some traditions, too. 
 Come! 
 
 Elodie — ^As I am? 
 
 Hectoe — ^As you are. 
 
 Elodie — I will follow you. I also can be true. [Short 
 pause.] I do not care; I will follow you. 
 
 Hectoe — Care ? 
 
 Elodie — ^You will tire. 
 
 Hectoe — Tire of infinite variety, of force, of judgment 
 thereto? 
 
 Elodie — ^You do not say all. You shall know 
 
 Hectoe — I know all ! It is the last word in our lives on 
 that head. I believe in you. You are you ! 
 
 Elodie — ^I fear, though you call me fearless; but I will 
 follow you. Lead me to perdition if you wiU. 
 
 Hectoe — ^To truth and realisation rather, Elodie. 
 
 Elodie — ^My — my Hector! 
 
 [They kiss passionately, then go out.] 
 
 £cuetain.] 
 
 [62] 
 
" TIMES AIN'T NOW WHAT THEY USED TO BE " 
 
 TIMES ain't now what they used to be when gold was 
 flush and the boys was frisky." 
 That, I gather from converse with " old-timers," 
 is the thought, formulated or unformulated, of 
 every man who lived on the frontier whil^f uch a blessed place 
 existed outside the covers of a book. 
 
 In the seventies Law had forded the Red River of the 
 North, and had succeeded in establishing a camp on its west- 
 ern shore. This primal conventionality was tolerated by the 
 " boys " seeing that a pressing necessity existed for taking 
 order among the new draft ; but, as they were not otherwise 
 given up to convention, the decorum of the first Courts was 
 much modified by local custom. A historian of the Saxons of 
 the ninth century, looking in upon a session at Cranberry 
 in the nineteenth cycle, might more clearly have realised, to 
 the vast improvement of his narrative, more of the aspect of 
 a stormy hundred-court than had he studied contemporary 
 proceedings in a Boston court house. 
 
 Not but that essentials, practice, procedure and rules of 
 "evidence were well observed. Albeit the place was new, there 
 was ability enough and to spare on bench, at bar, in jury box 
 even. But (believe it, O seldom-smiling Themis!) more free- 
 dom and humour were displayed than might have pleased 
 older and more staid settlements. I do not believe that 
 Justice suffered in the upshot. 
 
 The juries then had a way of their own. They repudiated 
 the dogma of an infallible judiciary — the fear of an appeal 
 never having been before their eyes — and they criticised the 
 Law as delivered by the court; nay, they even amended it, 
 did they regard that as necessary. Contrawise, the court 
 soon got over its traditional diffidence regarding the facts 
 
 [63] 
 
From Fak Dakota and Othebwheke 
 
 and would speak vehement words to jurors who brought in a 
 verdict plainly contrary to evidence. After adjournment a 
 juror might talk to the judge as though he were that official's 
 grandfather, of course ; so that evened things up all round. 
 
 The years rolled over and about the time the boundary 
 survey was in progress the president appointed a new judge 
 in " 1st. Jud. Dis. D. T." They who had theretofore known 
 said he was a " buzz-saw on the fly " ; and when he came the 
 report approved itself. 
 
 There were very few white men settled in the Territory as 
 yet. Much challenging took place at trials and as every- 
 body knew everybody's record, prejudice was frequent; as 
 well as a desire on the part of some citizens to avoid service 
 altogether. One did not know when one's own time to defend 
 might arrive. Consequently, to save the trouble of a special 
 venire, or the calling of talesmen, the clerk and the sheriff 
 usually subpoenaed the entire white and " black-and-tan " 
 adult male population of Cranberry County; there being no 
 other denizens in that end of the Territory save Indians and 
 " breeds " living with the tribes. And these latter-men- 
 tioned folk did not pass — as a rule. 
 
 The system had its drawbacks, as the panel thus included 
 litigants, witnesses, men under indictment, even lawyers and 
 court officers ; when a long term was anticipated. 
 
 The new judge was not a " tenderfoot " entirely. He came 
 from Wisconsin ; which State in the eyes of Dakotans was not 
 yet cast out of the true pale, having, they affirmed, some 
 saving remnant of frontier ways left in it. Anyhow, 'twas 
 better than stagnatingly civilised " N' York " or effete Mas- 
 sachusetts, " if carpetbaggers must come to rule freedmen." 
 
 The opening of court constituted a gala day always. In 
 older communities to the eastward the judge arrives and takes 
 his place like any other workingman, without visible dis- 
 turbance to the everyday round of affairs ; business rushing 
 
 ,[64] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " j 
 
 along oblivious of the presence. On the frontiers they 
 reverted to the customs of other days, involuntarily of course 
 and spontaneously. A century ago, in the motherland, if: 
 there were a garrison about, a guard turned out to reinforce 
 the sheriff and bar in escort. The commons ceased work to 
 take in the pageant and to make holiday. At Cranberry the 
 function revived ; but informally, as it were. Sans ceremonie, 
 the officers at the Fort, the sheriff, court officers, and lawyers 
 rode out to meet' the stage. The returning cavalcade met the 
 lesser citizens at the point where the town gates would have 
 stood, had the place been medieval. The judge shook hands 
 with the dignitaries, hailing such others as he knew per- 
 sonally by* their nighest name, meanwhile. Then they all re- 
 turned to their hostelries and irrigated. 
 
 This new judge proved genial enough; but at his first 
 visit, having few acquaintances, he appeared stiff. He had a 
 reformatory mission on his conscience, as well as a big 
 calendar. The buzz-saw began to whiz forthwith. The 
 practice, therefore, had been to call the calendar on the first 
 afternoon, then to " lay off and have a good time " for the 
 balance of the day. Perhaps the court got a hint, or else his 
 intuition was strong, that a juror's brains were a little caked 
 or so upon the morning following the convening of court; 
 for at his first session he not only called the roll, and 
 instructed the grand jury, but impanelled a petit jury, as 
 well, for the immediate trial of a case ; only to discover that, 
 by reason of high pressure and consequent over-speed he had 
 run against a snag. 
 
 It finally appeared that there was a series of snags. 
 Seemingly, someone had maliciously and with malice afore- 
 thought been driving whole rows of piles in the river bed of 
 justice, with intent apparently to damming it ultimately. 
 When the examination of the panel began the first man 
 developed into an Indian. 
 
 [65] 
 
From Fab, Dakota and Othekwheee 
 
 This was a nephew of Big Cloud the Chippewa chief, newly 
 returned from the Jesuit Schools in Minnesota. You could 
 not have told him from a white man except that he was better 
 informed than the average local Aryan, spoke better English, 
 and stood head and shoulders taller, brainier, and handsomer 
 than the other talesmen. As for his complexion, the sheriff, 
 seeing him drinking at a bar, had mistaken him for an intel- 
 ligent half-breed. He was ordered to step aside; which he 
 did, looking very sullen ; for he was ambitious. He departed 
 to threaten the bartender with exposure; but John straight- 
 ened that up by giving him two quarts of alcohol. Then the 
 young man went home rejoicing; and the teepees rang to the 
 booming of his gong and his screeching, yelping " Hi ! 
 Yaw ! " all the next night. 
 
 Anon it turned out that a " breed " of the tribes, two Ger- 
 mans, and three Norwegians could not understand English, 
 albeit they had taken out their declaratory papers. Down 
 went they. Then four parties to cases, together with 
 some witnesses, were purged out. The judge gloomed, the 
 clerk looked meek, and the sheriff, going out, swore 
 bitterly. 
 
 Thereafter, the jury purged and, a case proceeding, quoth 
 the examining lawyer, "Your name, please?" 
 
 " Travis," answered the juror, stroking a blonde mous- 
 tache, to cover a little bland smile, mayhap. 
 
 The counsellor did not know this man, who was tall, broad, 
 straight, immaculately dressed and shaven. 
 
 " Your occupation," he said, after a pause. 
 
 " Ah — er — soldier," with the accent, unmistakably, of a 
 cultivated Englishman. 
 
 By the Court, who knew a gentleman, "Rank, sir?" 
 
 " Major in His Majesty's — ^th Engineers." The coun- 
 sellor wilted and was dumb. 
 
 " And you, sir? " proceeded the Court in ire, addressing 
 
 [66] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " 
 
 the Major's neighbour, also of a somewhat military cast — of 
 a touchy temperament as well — ^by the look of him. 
 
 " Your Lordship, I am Lieutenant Colonel Tree of the 
 Canadian Active Militia. I am further in charge of the 
 Canadian Surveying parties now employed on the Inter- 
 national Boundary. I should be glad to know the meaning 
 of this outrage. I have been given to believe that your 
 customs in this part of the States are barbarous. Heretofore 
 I doubted; now experience forces me to believe the tale. 
 This proceeding, though perhaps meant as a practical joke, 
 may turn out a serious mternational complication; seeing that 
 my friend Lord Travis, our commissioner, to say nothing of 
 my humble self, are forcibly detained — kidnapped might be 
 a better word — ^not by ruiBans, but by your officers and by 
 virtue of your process " 
 
 " Enough, Colonel ! The Court is in session — By my pro- 
 cess you say.'' — ^Rather by " Here he put the brake on. 
 
 " Well, in a sense, it is ; but most indirectly, I do assure you. 
 Under the circumstances it is the Court's duty to apologise. 
 I can say no more. Gentlemen, you are free to go. — Stay! 
 SheriiF ! SheriiF ! ! CaU him, baiHfF ! " 
 
 The sheriff came, glaring defiance at the Court and 
 vengeance at the surveyors. 
 
 " After this case is over you will adjourn Court until 
 8 A. M. to-morrow. — Major! Colonel! — a word with you." 
 
 He sent a bailiff to certain United States Army Officers 
 who happened to be at the end of the hall. These followed 
 the trio into the retiring room. The sheriff laughed and did 
 likewise. His apology was so ample and so excellent that 
 the angry Colonel soon became friendly. 
 
 " Well, you see," Lord Travis was saying, " our party has 
 never been hereabouts before; camp being beyond Turtle 
 Mountain. We had some spare days and wanted to see 
 Cranberry and the er — excuse me, sheriff — ^natives. Do you 
 
 [67] 
 
From Fae Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 know — the west is worse oppressed than Russia, judge? One 
 does not dare do or say, to ask or answer for fear of a joke. 
 It's a nuisance ! I've been victimised a thousand times ; for I 
 am a perfect gudgeon — pardon — sucker — to bite. Always 
 hoped to get even though. We were er — well — ^belated over- 
 night. I surmised when the sheriff served us with process 
 that he suspected us of smuggling ; undeceived upon looking 
 over the paper, I concluded he had a joke to spring. So 
 then we were from St. Paul on a shooting excursion — thought 
 he might conclude our eye teeth were cut, you know. 'Twas 
 precious hard to get Tree to acquiesce, especially as I did not 
 fully explain my strategy. I thought he might spring it 
 prematurely. He wanted to wire our minister at Wash- 
 ington, — after that — ^to clear out at night — Shake sheriff." 
 
 " I'll never call an Englishman green again, major," said 
 that functionary, " though you're the first I ever met that 
 wasn't. Kanucks are cute enough; can go us one better 
 sometimes. Aren't you ashamed, Colonel .!" Why didn't you 
 hold your Colonial blasted end up.? This continent's dis- 
 graced." 
 
 " Shake, sheriff ! " exclaimed the mollified Colonel, laugh- 
 ing till the tears came. 
 
 Then all the military men went to the Fort ; the judge and 
 sheriff promising to join them at dinner and the post-prandial 
 game of " draw." 
 
 The fun had dissolved the ill-humour of all save the judge. 
 His was merely bottled and the cork popped as soon as the 
 others were gone, fizzing over clerk and sheriff. And, aye, the 
 storm grew loud apace! Profane adjectives and verbs 
 hurtled. The sheriff was the best " knocker " in the place — 
 whence his office partly. He resolved to thump the judge 
 when he caught him out. 
 
 The clerk was a god in a machine. He allayed the storm 
 with " winged words, soft as snow-flakes." People called him 
 
 [68] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " 
 
 the " golden-tongue " and he was (rare in the then Dakota) a 
 pillar in the Methodist Church. So an orator and a theo- 
 logian you may call him Chrysostom. But he was a machine 
 politician as well. He never lost his place or raised his 
 voice in that hurly-burly ; so reason gained sway over passion 
 in the end. He explained the paucity of juristic material, 
 the customs of the country, the stubbornness of the denizens 
 against innovation in that respect. He was deadly politic, 
 saying naught about the hurt a violent reform might, could, 
 or would do himself at elections. True the judge was a 
 federal appointee and he the judge's ; but the Registry of 
 Deeds began to pay better than his present holding, and he 
 meant to try for the nomination at the approaching con- 
 vention. The sheriff was sure to govern there like a natural 
 law; having the hearts of the people to a unit. He (the 
 sheriff) was mortally sure of reelection as long as he lived 
 and was furthermore touchy on any doubt, expressed or 
 implied, as to his dictatorship in local politics. Diplomacy 
 with an alloy of " guff " served the clerk well in his capacity 
 of peacemaker — the humour of the two belligerents being a 
 further factor. 
 
 The sheriff knew the law and his duty as well as any 
 officer alive, but he better knew the unwritten law of the place, 
 " common " in the olden sense, " custom to the which the 
 memory of living man runneth not to the contrary " or some- 
 thing like that. He explained this to the appeased Court, 
 appealing for corroboration to the clerk, and getting it. 
 But, he proceeded to say, himself was there to be instructed. 
 It was for the Court in its wisdom to institute new things — 
 which in the abstract he admitted might be more formally 
 legal — ^but for himself to institute were ultra vires. Never- 
 theless, he should enforce the rulings, even though the people 
 rise and mutiny. All then was amity; but suddenly the 
 judge's jaw dropped. 
 
 [69] 
 
From Fab Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 " Great Csesar ! The Grand Jury ! I'd forgotten ! We'll 
 have to purge them, too. Summon them, sheriff ! " 
 
 " Oh, they've adjourned long ago." 
 
 " Upon my soul their sense of public duty is high. What 
 have they done ? Any bills .'' " 
 
 " No, there's a row over organisation, a fight about the 
 clerkship. Some want Bob Blank because he's the only one 
 that writes copperplate and they think that'll strike you. 
 T'others want Louis Leys, but he's not on deck; won't have 
 it." 
 
 The judge groaned. " Bring them here at once." 
 
 The sheriff departed, grimly set on keeping his word as to 
 the new order of things. He had a couple of scrapping 
 matches before he gathered the dispersed ; for his information 
 anent the new procedure almost caused an insurrection, as 
 in the event of haste it cut away three dollars per day for 
 every day of session from half the white population, to say 
 nothing of immemorial rights violated. 
 
 The Court gave them a jobation, pointing out that these 
 dilatory proceedings on the jurors' part meant vast unneces- 
 sary expenses to the county. They in turn thought of 
 applying for a writ de lunatico mquirendo, for the Court to 
 examine into its own sanity. 
 
 Prior to his lecture, the judge had enquired into the 
 eligibility of each grand juror. The panel fortunately was 
 composed of English-speaking folk, Americans and natur- 
 alised Canadians. The sheriff had been cautious herein. 
 Besides, Captain Court was foreman and he knew a thing or 
 two about eligibility; having undergone that phase of 
 approaching civilisation in California in the glorious era, 
 '49 te '59. Who was Captain Court, say you.'' He was 
 invariably a member of each and every grand jury — for the 
 rest I'll tell you—" Yea," quoth the Earl, " but not to-day." 
 
 In the good old days there was neither a court house in the 
 
 [70] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " 
 
 county nor a surplus in the treasury; in fact there was a 
 
 deficit; warrants selling at thirty-three and one-third per 
 
 cent discount. Court sat in the public hall. That's the 
 
 place where the shows at other times hung out. They call 
 
 them opera houses now ; though 'tis often the same building. 
 
 The bench was on the stage. The dressing room — about 
 
 eight by ten in square dimension and perched on the roof of 
 
 an annex, formed the retiring room. The jury rooms were 
 
 in a vacant, or rather half -finished, building across the block ; 
 
 that is, you went out of the back door of the hall, crossed the 
 
 yards and entered the new house by its back door. No, there 
 
 were no " blind pigs " then. They stared fearless and 
 
 licensed on the main street. There were no hypocrites either, 
 
 as yet. 
 
 • ♦ • • • 
 
 The new dynasty was established; the judge supplying the 
 intellectual, the clerk the pseudo-moral or diplomatic, the 
 sheriff the (latent) physical force necessary to peaceful revo- 
 lution. Freedom of speech left unimpaired, the jury took it 
 out in growls — ^leading to submission. Novelty is grateful 
 to the sons of men. From fearfully hating, they began to 
 cherish and take pride in the unbending Mr. Justice. 
 
 Court had sat a week and sawed great quantities of wood. 
 The jurors began to be actually overworked, whereat they 
 kicked in earnest, and when a Westerner is in earnest he is 
 in earnest, with a great big " E " modified by a single damn, 
 mark you — if, then, he utter anything stronger, look out for 
 a dynamic joke. The grand jury were in line with the judge. 
 They were patres conscripti, and respectable citizens (i.e., 
 none of them smuggled — more than a quart of whiskey at a 
 time — ^nor sold liquor to the Indians). 
 
 The purged petit jury convicted all offenders until it came 
 to Wedwood. " He might be guilty " (by the jury), " but 
 then he was a fellow no one could help Hking." The line had 
 
 [71] 
 
FaoM Fae Dakota and Othekwhebe 
 
 to be drawn somewhere. The jury stayed out twelve hours. 
 The Court had need of them for other cases. " The defend- 
 ant w,as clearly guilty " (by the Court) , " yet they came not 
 out." Judging by the absence of noise there was no con- 
 tention going on in there. Truth is, they resolved to acquit 
 the accused " on general principles, because he was a decent 
 sort of cuss." Yet, remembering the disposal of other cases 
 similar in evidence, they had grace enough to fear the frown 
 of the Court. They had been permitted to dine at the hotel 
 in charge of a bailiff. At 8 p. m., growing ravenous again, 
 they sent to inform the Court that they did not agree as yet, 
 but did possess human stomachs withal. 
 
 " Very well," spake the judge. " Send them bread and 
 water, lots of both." 
 
 The sheriff leaned over and whispered. 
 
 " They say they've got to have something to drink."- 
 
 " Well, is not the water good hereabout? " 
 
 " But they're dry." 
 
 " You have my instructions." 
 
 The sheriff took the message to the jury's bailiff. Shortly 
 a sound of roaring and gnashing drifted across the yard, Uke 
 unto the noises of a menagerie just before feeding time. It 
 was muffled by distance and intervening walls, but quite 
 audible in the still room, where a dull equity case was in 
 progress. 
 
 The sheriff came back and the low colloquy began again. 
 
 " If they can't have whiskey they're willing to compromise 
 on beer." 
 
 " I'll commit every mother's son of them for a month, if I 
 hear another word of it. Let them do their duty. It's easy 
 enough to say ' guilty ' or not. They may get drunk as 
 Billy B. Damned, afterwards." 
 
 Again the sheriff went forth. It was growing dusk out- 
 side. He never wavered in his resolve to uphold the judge; 
 
 [72] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " 
 
 but he knew that a crisis was at hand for all parties. He 
 delivered his message. 
 
 " Then it's ' not guilty ' " called a juror, to him standing 
 in the passage. The dark eye gleamed triumph. The sheriff 
 had that jury. 
 
 " That's irregular! The verdict should be rendered only 
 in and to the Court. Boys ! Go back and reconsider or I'U 
 report this — ^Let's see — I'll try what I can do. Go back — ■ 
 a while, anyhow." 
 
 He strode over to his own saloon, brought out a three-gal- 
 lon beer keg — or keg of beer — carried it across lots, set it 
 down under the jurors' window, sat down upon it, watched — 
 pondered, arose — ^went away and returned; this time with a 
 lariat; which he delivered to the bailiif in charge, saying, 
 " Throw that into the room in there. Jim Blake sleeps there. 
 It's his. Tell them there's someone underneath the window." 
 The bailiff knocked; delivered rope and message. One win- 
 dow of that little upper room was cautiously raised. Then 
 was heard the puzzled murmurs of a dozen men who peered 
 through the darkness. Suddenly a cry went up. " Yes, 
 there he is ! BaiHff, arrest that eavesdropper. Tie him up. 
 Take this rope." 
 
 Within a quarter hour the jury brought in a verdict of 
 " Guilty." The next panel found an empty keg in that 
 room ; and complained about it bitterly. The Court at first 
 doubted their finding of emptiness, but the deprived look of 
 the later jury convinced him easily, the more as he remembered 
 the jollity of the preceding one. Now jurors look, in 
 delivering a verdict, as solemn as if at their blood-brother's 
 funeral ; at least they are expected to do so. It's considered 
 the proper way to look. The men composLag the former jury 
 had not worn that approved expression. 
 
 The same dozen of kickers who tried the facts in Wed- 
 wood's were drawn shortly on a civil case. They had a 
 
 [73] 
 
Fkom Fak Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 genuine difference of opinion on the merits. They kept 
 coming in for instructions and information; making the 
 stenographer's life bleak and miserable. The judge, know- 
 ing them to himself alone as " that beer-keg crowd," imputed 
 their ardour to buncombe; so did the sheriff. When their 
 twelve hours were up he scarcely needed orders to supply 
 their bread and water ration. They now scouted these ten- 
 fold, as " they had the sheriff where the hair's short." 
 
 So they thought and said — even said. 
 
 " You fellows think you're smart. I'll go you one better. 
 If I hear another whimper out of you I'll give the snap 
 straight away to the boss. I can stand it as well as the best 
 of you ; and ye all know it. What can you prove against me, 
 anyhow? Keg and rope, eh? Do'n know anything about 
 'em. Shouldn't wonder, though, as I happen to know there 
 was a man beneath the window about that time. I guess 
 you know who he was. Do your talking quick or by the livin' 
 eternal I'm off to the judge with my report ! " 
 
 These men were not without judgment, so they begged off. 
 Some ate bread — some even drank the unqualified lymph, but 
 the pitchers did not need replenishment withal. The fac- 
 tional fight was suspended in order to plot against the Court's 
 peace of mind. At last they " could not agree." 
 
 " Where is the difficulty, gentlemen.'' " asked the judge 
 upon their introduction. They explained; which involved 
 more legal charges, more reference to the weary stenographer. 
 
 " There, gentlemen, I think you have all the facts as 
 adduced. You alone are to judge of these. You have also 
 my latest instructions. You are rational men all ; the law 
 at least presumes so. There appears to me no reason — 
 now that your latest doubts are removed — why you should 
 not arrive at supper — that is, a verdict. I am acting within 
 my powers in sending you to reconsider. Reason — calm, 
 cool, dispassionate reason — will, I feel assured, elucidate the 
 
 [74] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " 
 
 matter. Let this reflection and a sense of your high duties 
 be your guide." 
 
 As they went crestfallen, he muttered sotto-voce: "I'll 
 keep you there tiU you rot ; though I wrest all the law from 
 Glanville to Marshall." 
 
 The sheriff guessed at the resolve. 
 
 " And I'll lick every of them when this 
 
 term's over," says he to himself, inly and with deep joy. 
 
 " A moment, gentlemen," continued the judge to the re- 
 tiring jury. " Bailiff, it is rumoured that intoxicating 
 liquor was conveyed to a jury during this term. This must 
 never occur. It is flatly against all law and lays the offenders 
 open to punishment for contempt, a punishment I should not 
 be slow to inflict. Grentlemen, and you, Mr. Bailiff, I feel 
 myself authorised to speak thus in the present instance; as 
 this jury had made requisition for such stimulants. It is 
 totally out of the question ; so, Mr. Bailiff, I authorise you 
 to exercise any force in resisting a violation of these my 
 instructions." 
 
 "Does your honour mean that I may use a lethal 
 weapon .-' " 
 
 " Should you think it necessary I authorise you so to do, 
 bearing in your memory, however, the responsibility in- 
 curred by an unwarrantable use of such." The judge had 
 a very pretty gift of irony and sarcasm withal. 
 
 That " lethal weapon " exposed the Viking's culture to 
 the judge. Heretofore he had thought. the bailiff heavy; 
 opining that steadfast look presaged ignorance or stupid- 
 ity. Those who knew understood it for depths of humour. 
 The judge's subsequent investigations disclosed a remark- 
 able history in the subject. Linguist, scholar, orator of 
 approved potency, hermit by choice for three-quarters of 
 the year, no less the man of affairs therefor. " Thighed and 
 shouldered like the billows, footed like the stealing foam, 
 
 [75] 
 
Feom Fae Dakota and Otheewheue 
 
 bathed in clouds of golden hair " — and likewise beard, with 
 the front of Harold Fairhair, such is the Viking yet ; though 
 silver begins to invade the gold. Valorous as Lion Heart, 
 gentle as Francis of Assisi, yet he lives a man of men. He 
 has been and is one of nature's born arbiters. Of old 
 Chippewa, Sioux, Bois-brule accepted, to-day Kanucks, 
 Yankees, Virginians, Scandinavians, Germans, French, Hun- 
 garians — even Mennonites, his immediate neighbours — rec- 
 ognise him as such. He has no ambitions, no spites. 
 
 He asked a deputy sheriff to bring his shotgqn to the 
 jury room; giving some other instructions beyond ear-shot 
 of the Court. The deputy, an old crony, brought the gun 
 there. Now the Viking, having been of old a hunter and a 
 fighter, was as careful as a veteran soldier to keep his arms 
 in order. It pleased one's very soul to look upon that speck- 
 less piece, perfect to the newly-placed caps (it was a muzzle- 
 loader), with stoppers in place too. 
 
 The bailiff seated himself before the closed door, placing 
 the gun in a corner opposite his chair. It was wonderfully 
 quiet, he remarked, among that jury; the hum, arising to 
 shouts that denote a contention, being absent. Fitfully an 
 indistinguishable spurt of conversation would rise and die, 
 apparently between two or three of the jurors only. The 
 Viking, after an hour had passed, could have sworn that at 
 least nine of them were sound asleep. He knew the nose 
 register of all, having been in camp with every man of them 
 in his time. Clearly that crowd had come to an agreement — 
 of a sort. In this way three hours crawled over. The 
 watcher's own eyes were waxing heavy. At once a juror 
 emerged. 
 
 " Verdict.'' " spake the Viking thickly. 
 
 " Ne'ry verdict — I want " — the man began to sniff in- 
 quiringly ; and at length said, " Give us a nip o' that or else 
 I'll give you away." 
 
 [76] 
 
" Times Ain't Now What They Used to Be " 
 
 "Nip o' what?" 
 
 " That flask ! Come, hand over ! You've got a weapon 
 concealed about you." He playfully tapped the Viking in 
 the neighbourhood of the breast pocket, with a disappoint- 
 ing result. The assailed in turn, all solemnly, reached forth 
 his hand; gripped his gun, and half presented it at the 
 robber. 
 
 "Concealed weapon.? Look at this. I have my instruc- 
 tions from the Court." 
 
 The juror grinned, saying, " From the Court ! I see." 
 Then he winked wonderfully ; while the bailiff gazed into his 
 eyes stolidly, meditatively. "Where's the gag?" con- 
 tinued the juror, stretching out a finger which rested, in the 
 long run, on a barrel stopper. Suddenly his eyes began 
 to brighten. He sniffed questionly — sniffed again — and 
 again — took hold of the gun near the muzzle, set the stock 
 on the floor, despite gentle resistance, extracted the stopper, 
 took a mighty sniff; then hoisting, put the "lethal" tubes 
 to his mouth. Then he shouted, "Boys!" Three of his 
 comrades looked out, sniffed and advanced tumultuously. 
 They clave to the gun. 
 
 " Do you mean to deprive me forcibly of my weapon? " 
 
 " Go to bed ! Blazes ! Thunder ! Hell ! " 
 
 They took that gun into the jury room. Tongues be- 
 gan to buzz in there soon. Then shortly they came out and 
 desired to be taken into court. 
 
 The judge and clerk sat in the otherwise vacated chamber, 
 sulky and dismal, when the twelve good and true men were 
 ushered in. These rendered a verdict for the plaintiff (as 
 they should have done ages ago), and then went away — all 
 save one, who lingered to speak to the judge on some affair; 
 whose nostrils in turn widened a trifle when the man came 
 close to him. 
 
 The judge walked hotel-ward with the bailiff, taking care 
 
 [77] 
 
Feom Fab Dakota and Othekwheeb 
 
 to sample his breath by the way. It was innocent ; but still 
 the judicial mind was not at rest. However, he suppressed 
 his suspicions, being satisfied with the verdict. 
 
 At parting the Viking spoke thus, " By the way, Judge, 
 that jury, as a whole, took my gun forcibly." 
 
 The judge knew him by now ; or else intuition helped him. 
 
 " What, two barrels ? I should have said no more than two 
 'pints.' You're a devil of a lot, you denizens and natives, 
 about here. It's worth a liberal — or Hbertine — education to 
 have known you ! " 
 
 " The judge," said the Viking, years afterwards, when 
 he narrated to us of a later day that anecdote, " has got 
 judgment enough to go 'round a Supreme Court and then 
 have to spare for a whole legislature. It wasn't my fault! 
 I knew those fellows never would come in without a ' snifter ' 
 — not for the refusal of a ' snifter,' but for cussedness. 
 That would have been hard on the judge and on Charlie " 
 (the sheriff). After a pause; long, long prolonged, he said, 
 "Reckon he was convinced about that, too!" 
 
 Then all we listeners said, " You bet " ; for most of us had 
 known Charlie; while the judge's decisions, de facto, are 
 those of a certain State Supreme bench much quoted in all 
 other courts of the repubUc, 
 
 T78T 
 
VISION 
 
 THE house of a deceased minister of the Crown was 
 troubled in its members. Behold the sons and 
 daughters thereof had gathered from the ends of 
 America to spend a long holiday together beneath 
 their mother's roof-tree, Frank from his precedents and 
 poKtics in Dawson, Ralf from his power-houses and bridges 
 somewhere at the back of Mexico, and Clara and the Mani- 
 toban baby from Winnipeg. For a time they were happy, 
 in that theirs was a united family, each vying with each in 
 cherishing all the others. But the trouble came; Ralf had 
 fallen in love with Eugenie Ladoceur, whom they all had 
 known from childhood; and Eugenie was inehgible. She 
 taught drawing, and her sister was the manager of a great 
 department store, with a salary as big as if she had been a 
 man, and this same managerial lady was talked about con- 
 siderably more than even she deserved. You must see the 
 inehgibility at the thousandth of a glance, or else you are 
 a person of no standing. 
 
 Mrs. Gascoyne was U. E. L. in immediate descent, deriv- 
 ing through F. F. V. of Scotch ancestry. She said nothing, 
 but thought, " ineligible." Clara would have proclaimed it 
 from the housetops if necessary; only reception rooms are 
 more convenient. 
 
 Now Mrs. Gascoyne was yet a power in the land. Her 
 husband had found a mate born to be a statesman's wife. She 
 had brains, culture, tact, presence, and mode; but then she 
 had sincerity, which is a drawback. She could not except to 
 lovely, gracious " Genie " (Louise had had her sister, the 
 one unselfish love of her too facile heart, minted in the con- 
 vents), but — oh, that family! 
 
 Upon a day Ralf was going to Britannia to meet Eugenie. 
 
 , [79] 
 
From Far Dakota and Otherwhere 
 
 They all knew it without explicit information. Frank, after 
 an early luncheon, spoke straightwise to him. 
 
 The babies of the two houses had made mud pies together 
 in amity, before Sieur Ladoceur went under, or the elder 
 Gascoyne won eminence. Louise had practically supported 
 and educated her family from the time of her own girlhood. 
 She and Frank were the same age, a decade in advance of 
 Ralf. The LadoceurS were anghcised more than most of 
 their people; but their home life remained old French; 
 greater hearth-homeliness and at the same time, greater 
 ceremony, reign there. The difference catches us if we come 
 intimately in contact with it. Frank knew this by ex- 
 perience; yet blundered by making an indirect appeal to 
 Ralf's insularity. Besides the brief was not to Frank's 
 liking. He took it for his sister's sake, mostly. He could 
 have pleaded the contrary with eloquence; for he, too, was 
 a democrat, believing in naught else than culture. He was 
 persuaded that Ralf would please himself in any event, so 
 irrational and self -contradictory an animal is man — even the 
 most acute and the most subtle. 
 
 An non-analytic worshipper of the God of things-as-they- 
 are, Ralf in turn accepted conventions, social and religious, 
 as implicitly as the theory of strains in a truss; nay, more 
 implicitly, for he had never questioned the former, while he 
 •had tested and closely investigated the other. Up to the 
 present, Institution had held for him the vahdity of Natural 
 Law. In the face of irreconcilable propositions this sound 
 reasoner was unhappy. The setting of his heart's jewel was 
 incontrovertibly vile. What though she descended from the 
 aide-de-camp and kinsman of the courtly and invincible 
 Frontenac — father, brothers, sister were off colour. A shift- 
 less old loafer, gamblers, " tin-horns " at that — a woman 
 scandal hissed at. Oh, yes, Louise was a brick ; but she was 
 talked about. It was impossible entirely to refute Frank's 
 
 [80] 
 
Vision 
 
 asinine proposition. The words came home again, " We are 
 of the best ; Colonials though we be, we are aristocrats none 
 the less — literally and etymologically — natural selections 
 and descended of such; men who rose emergent, eminent in 
 the formative period. A man owes as much to his stock as 
 his stock gave him; he has no right to graft to a decadent 
 stem — How do I know them decadent.'' — ^Well — er — the 
 facts prove it." 
 
 Ralf replicated and Frank, who had crammed himself 
 against the gorge of his judgment, took refuge in prevari- 
 cation and professionalism, dodging the issue and ignoring 
 the cogency of the answers. He insistently reverted to the 
 biography of Eugenie's brothers and sister; the degenera- 
 tion of her father. " Louise," quoth he, " the big, hand- 
 some, generous, typical free-woman — the she-Napoleon that 
 she is — ^will never do. Eugenie is all right, capable of any 
 culture, fitted for it; good, gentle, strong, too, but an 
 ' impossible.' " 
 
 Then the slow, sure, thinker " became black as to his 
 liver " and Frank listened to many plain truths and some 
 exaggerations. Ralf went on his way sore. 
 
 Brother's jobation, sister's pin-pricking sarcasm (she his 
 pet and his worshipper, mother of the Marvellous Manito- 
 ban), the alienation and silence of the haughty mother, all 
 his kin together, with the conventional self at odds with the 
 Subliminal— it was a distracting pass for even the most 
 resolute and successful of young men. It is saying much for 
 his personality that the basic constancy never wavered in 
 him. The mental picture of his own lady's clarity, grace, 
 sweetness, adaptability, and gentle potency, held him as 
 steadfast as the pole holds the pointing needle of his own 
 transit, despite all perturbation. 
 
 His party had preceded him. Apparently it was a busy 
 day in the city; scarcely any other visitors were about. 
 
 [81] 
 
From Fae Dakota and Otheuwheue 
 
 Said he to Louise, " A family party, I perceive, brother 
 Charle and cousime Anna et cousme Josie, et Eugenie, et 
 monsieur Moi — c'est cousin Rolf — bon! You girls may 
 stay ashore and spoon with your respective cousins, or 
 else hire a skiff. Genie and I go canoeing. Cousins are 
 nice. Anna thinks so ; and you, Louise, can make a vis- 
 a-vis out of a saw-log. I don't mean that you're that, 
 Josie." 
 
 He plumbed Louise's dark, deep eyes and in the depths 
 discerned a lurking appreciation. She had always recog- 
 nised, with fellow-feeling, Half's native resolution. His sim- 
 plicity puzzled her. She had heretofore thought him stupid 
 if not vacillating. He reflected in turn that Frank was a 
 phrase-maker; she was Napoleonic. Lo! the perfection of 
 feature, the will dominating even passion in the shadowed 
 brow; the fiery nostrils, the lips firm and sensuous. Louise 
 might be exceptionable, but she was splendid at all points, 
 in face and in form, and volitionally. 
 
 My twain dawdled betwixt the promenade pier and the 
 pavilion upon the so-delicious a day in late August. 
 Des Chenes smote west and north away at their feet. From 
 the east came the immemorial muted growl of the rapids, 
 softening at intervals to a tenor note of complaint. Had 
 it not been for a decided artemisean stamp and contour, 
 Eugenie's figure might have been misnamed voluptuous- 
 looking. Her countenance was pronouncedly aquiline. But 
 the large, soft eyes and the rosy, tender mouth were suffused 
 with much innocent winsomeness. Her voice, again, pos- 
 sessed unusual range and modulation, while the flex of neck, 
 upturn of eye, pouting together of lips, before they gushed 
 speech, were most reminiscent of a song-bird. She was full 
 charged with Gallic animation. Unmistakably, wilfulness 
 and passion were latencies in her; graving, moulding, car- 
 riage proclaimed it. But the expressional indices most po- 
 
 [82] 
 
Vision 
 
 tently declared that these stormy elements should in her sub- 
 serve unselfishness — perhaps even abnegation. 
 
 They were a proper pair to look at. Gascoyne towered 
 tall and broad beside the beauty. His was a trained athleti- 
 cism. His hide was tanned almost to the shade of his tawny 
 hair. Sagacity and deliberation predominated in his coun- 
 tenance. A mastiff's tenacity and passion slept beneath the 
 dignity and good-nature. 
 
 Ralf had lately given Eugenie a copy of " Cyrano De 
 Bergerac." They were talking about that great play; Ralf 
 intoning with relish, 
 
 "'Lean forth, adorable coquettes, 
 
 With masks and plumes and aigiilettes. 
 We are the Gascony cadets ! ' 
 
 " I've lost the rest. Do not say you do not like it, you 
 scion of the lean, Dane-dog, Gascony man ! " 
 
 Eugenie shrugged adorably, he thought. 
 
 " You are adorable — ^no you're not, either." 
 
 " I believe you spent days about Ladoceur " 
 
 " And in the Archivist's office " 
 
 " Searching for " 
 
 " For traces of the Frontenac man. I found some in a 
 mouldy box, in the loft of a dilapidated stone stable, and 
 bought the parchment at the price of old rags, for you — you 
 ingrate ! " 
 
 " It is well to be born, but of what use nowadays.? " 
 
 He was hopeless of satisfying " the understanding- 
 feminine." 
 
 "I think it a horrible play," she proclaimed teasingly. 
 
 " Because it is a transcript of life, and not a sentimental 
 drama ending in rose light and pleasing tears of sensi- 
 biHty.?" 
 
 [83] 
 
Feom Fae Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 " Partly that. De Guich is an ignoble noble. Nor was it 
 necessary to give the good gentleman such a nose, nor to 
 spend so much wit on it." 
 
 " But he supplies the wit. No one else dares ! " 
 " He jested, but was always unhappy." 
 "Unhappy.'' the man who could very truly say, 'and to- 
 night, when I enter God's house, broadly shall I sweep the 
 azure threshold with that which, despite of all, I carry forth 
 unblemished and unbent.' He all unhappy? No, no. He 
 had lived." 
 
 " Lived to suffer, yes. Oh, she was stupid, she was selfish, 
 she wantonly tortured him. She should have seen ! " 
 
 " Can women see so well, Genie ? " Her breast sank and 
 rose ; but she looked him fair and true in the eyes — " be- 
 cause," he proceeded, " if so, you know I love you." 
 
 She was powerless to turn away her eyes. She gasped a 
 trifle, while that delight of his eyes, " the black blush," 
 shone vivid through the exquisite brune. Surprise was 
 dominant, but an experienced eye might have pierced to the 
 elemental womanly fear and delight. 
 
 His — the chaste and strenuous — ^books, had been iron, 
 masonry, concrete, rock, and no lady looks though; so that 
 when a mist swept the kind pitchy depths the world tottered 
 for him. 
 
 Was he mistaken? Was she? Her naive word deepened 
 the tan in turn. 
 
 " Oh, Ralf, I am so glad." 
 
 " My love — my undefiled ! — Here comes the canoe. Now 
 we will go away out there " (he indicated all the sun- 
 filled waste) " and be happy. It is like being in a glass 
 case, fitted with gramophones, here." 
 
 He beached and overturned the canoe, examined the 
 gumming, and ascertained the integrity of the bark and the 
 lining, Des Chenes should have been flattered. Never before 
 
 [84] 
 
Vision 
 
 had he taken such trouble when going out. They were old 
 enemies. 
 
 " How," quoth Eugenie, " did you get that canoe? " 
 
 " Got some river-men, who live in the village, to bring it 
 up from the ' sorting-gap ' last evening." 
 
 " You knew how I love a canoe with ' a lord of the paddle 
 to steer,' " she exclaimed as the sure, long, swift, un jarring 
 ghde began ; for he was " a lord of the paddle." 
 
 "Likewise a canoe loves my 'little squaw,' because you 
 treat her with consideration and respect." 
 
 These useless brothers, these country cousins of many 
 varying degrees of consanguinity and rusticity had " ac- 
 quired merit " by teaching his sweetheart the art, trade, and 
 mystery of canoeing, at any rate. She could swim like a 
 tireless mermaid and even make a fair attempt at navigating 
 a " burled " saw-log. 
 
 The Peace of God found them. Speech was needless a 
 while. Their eyes made that; deep answering deep, as ever 
 the vessel swept triumphant up the sun-path. The blissful, 
 blushing girl before him, Ralf was stilly elate. He had 
 burst all barriers, alone, and by the strong hand. He 
 scorned that hesitant who dreamed that vile contact could 
 smirch celestial nacre, that cad who deemed, an hour agone, 
 that the fortuitous circumstance of mere worldly position 
 represented aught in the face of natal character; perceiving 
 clearly and permanently that nothing constitutes social dif- 
 ference, provided fineness of spiritual fibre informs the per- 
 sonality. He knew himself, now, for earthenware alongside 
 cunningly carven bronze. 
 
 The bay lay hull down in time. A purple haze blurred the 
 northern shore and deepened into ultramarine on the Laur- 
 entian hill slopes. The deciduous trees had begun to turn, 
 while never a leaf had wilted. Great reaches of field and 
 pasture, Interspersed with the gold and cardinal glow of 
 
 [85] 
 
Feom Far Dakota and Otherwheke 
 
 maples, or the comparative gloom of changeless evergreens, 
 variegated all the wide southern coastwise stretches. East- 
 ward the spray whitened like a snowdrift, where the rapids 
 plunged. It was a day for even the moribund to joy in mere 
 existence. 
 
 Ralf laid in his paddle; moved carefully across to her 
 place. The lips met in the long, long kiss of troth-plight. 
 
 " Paradise, Genie ; you and I alone in this good old bit of 
 the good old world — Good old gods ! " 
 
 " I have touched heaven, chSrie. But they must never 
 hurt you." 
 
 " They Oh, the saints? I thought you meant mtf 
 
 Theys." 
 
 " May I not thank them, Ralf.? " 
 
 " Most assuredly ! I do even on the off chance — That's 
 brutal, though. But you never answered my question. 
 Does a woman know.? " 
 
 « Slyboots ! » 
 
 " But I thought " 
 
 The honest man in him blushed, but the knave got as- 
 surance. 
 
 " I thought you — as a Protestant ^" 
 
 The scoundrel laughed exultantly. 
 
 " I suppose I am in a way. I think I am a Presbyterian, 
 ' adherent,' as much because it is the church of my people as 
 anything. I am no theological expert. Your faith is one 
 a man could live clean in, and die bravely in. I should not 
 like to change — or see you change — out of impulse. If one 
 grew into new beliefs it would be different. There's one 
 thing, however, I could not stand my own, that is the inter- 
 ference of Presbyter or Priest." 
 
 " That is a small matter, mon gentilhomme. Our Lady is 
 above them." 
 
 [86] 
 
Vision 
 
 " She is so. All men recognise the mother-woman." 
 
 " Chere ami! " 
 
 " Good word ! We will be sure lovers, but ' pards ' as well. 
 Hullo! Tricks.? Des Chenes, you jade! " 
 
 A Norther had scouted over the hiUs and fallen upon the 
 slumbering waters. The Northers steal about like unquiet 
 ghosts and make boating on that lake an irksome pleasure. 
 The scout had caught the canoe broadside. Soon the 
 skirmishers followed and the calm was broken utterly. Ralf 
 headed for the shore that lay in the bay. There was no 
 other feasible landing. His vasty thighs and shoulders b&- 
 stood him well then. 
 
 An interval — the line of battle forming — the waves 
 heaved — another and the waves leaped. So it went until 
 the white-caps ramped and raced shoreward. The steers- 
 man swept the seaway with an eye that traversed all the 
 strategy of the lake ; thinking of foregone boyish days when 
 they used to coquette. Now there was no flirtatious joy in 
 his eye. Responsibility had bitten him of late years. Care 
 is the price of success. 
 
 Deep down he was angry. The uncritical are anthropo- 
 morphic. Des Chenes, it would appear, was playing the 
 elusive, feminine role. To be avenged on himself she struck 
 at his true love. Believing that he beKeved he was a church- 
 man, this wholesome out-of-doors man knew really of none 
 other power than the great cosmic one, intelligent ap- 
 parently, which is normally stern, sometimes infinitely kind; 
 invariably ironic. 
 
 Eugenie had taken a paddle when he turned the prow. It 
 was as well, he concluded; occupation kills apprehension. 
 
 " See that the cushion is well under your knees, sweet- 
 heart; else you'll be sorry," was what he said. 
 
 The waves spumed the canoe so as to make it difBcult at 
 once to preserve the course and to make progress. The sun 
 
 [87] \ 
 
Feom Fak Dakota and Otheewheee 
 
 shone clear as ever. The wind rose and rose. Soon an im- 
 intermittent gale prevailed. 
 
 Eugenie's stroke began to intermit after a long space of 
 this toil. Ralf rebelled mutely against her exertions. No 
 less the waves were combing at the crests — ground swell 
 combers. The lash overtook and deluged his back. Eugenie 
 heard him swearing. She liked that. It gave her heart. 
 She stuck to her work determinedly, never attempting to 
 turn about; so much she knew. But her voice came to him 
 up the wind. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" 
 
 " We must do a trick, sweetheart. When I call, ' ship ! ' 
 lay in your paddle." 
 
 The waves roared and raced foaming, but at regular 
 intervals would roU up a great, broad-backed fellow, as wide 
 as a house, smooth and dun. Ralf bided such a sending and 
 it came. " Ship ! " he called and pivoted the staunch canoe 
 before the next comber came on; and now they faced the 
 ramping squadrons. Semi-diagonaUy the prow met and 
 climbed the gnashing roarer, and the many following. 
 
 " Never mind the paddle, sweetheart. Bail if you like. 
 Careful, beauty! — ^Ah, would you.''" A comber fleeing to 
 the rear had pitched an extra quantity of spume over 
 Eugenie. 
 
 Now Eugenie could face her lover. " Oh, it is terrible, 
 mon ami; but it is lovely, too ! " she called, before setting 
 to the work of bailing. 
 
 The motion, the seethe and the shriek, the dampness and 
 the sting of the torn fleeces, uplifted her. She showed the 
 face of a pythoness. These were an inspiration to her, 
 plumbing hereditary depths, intoxicating, deliriating. 
 
 " Genie, take your knife, cut your boot laces — and aU 
 other things that can hamper movement." 
 
 " There is danger, my love? " 
 
 [88] 
 
Vision 
 
 " Not much ; but there is nothing like being prepared. 
 We'll beat them, I tell you ! " 
 
 He looked a man. The great, velvet, Valkyrian eyes 
 exulted him. 
 
 " There was never a woman In all the ages like my Genie ! " 
 he bellowed. 
 
 " But the men ! " she piped. " Ah ! mes braves. They 
 know and keep cool. They laugh, even, or swear, or shut 
 their lips close — and fight and do not care— except for us. 
 And one of these chosen, I have for a lover. I am safe! — 
 And at any rate I do not care — since they " 
 
 " You are fit to know all, my own. There is risk, of 
 course. But we — we two together must win — will win." 
 
 " I say I do not care, moi. I want to live — with you, for 
 you. We spoke about beliefs. They do not matter. We 
 wiU be together whatever comes." 
 
 " We are by no means come to that. If it must be, 
 though, ' the great waters shall wed us.' " 
 
 The conversation was fragmentary, the sentences delivered 
 in broken snatches ; tuneful, alto pipe waited upon by melo- 
 dious bass roar. The slight additional strain of talking 
 caused Ralf to become aware of limitations ; a new sensation, 
 not pleasurable. Strain brings fatigue, to the most robust, 
 if sustained overtime. None the less he continued. 
 
 " There is one thing better, to live and let the silly kirks 
 join us. I mean to have some more of this life, with you." 
 
 Another comber drenched his love and gave her more work 
 of its surplusage. 
 
 There came to her an unwonted sound. 
 
 " I should have sworn the more," roared he responsive to 
 her looks, most contritely. " I didn't mean to groan. I left 
 my coat ashore when I beached the canoe." 
 
 "Your coat.?" amazedly she answered. 
 
 "We could turn and run for it if we had something like 
 
 [89] 
 
Feom Fab, Dakota and Othekwheee 
 
 a headsail to steady her. We could do the trick, I think, 
 then." 
 
 Forthwith the girl's fingers were at her belt. There was 
 fumbling, a rending, a wiggle. 
 
 "WiU this do?" she asked ashamedly but exultingly, 
 indicating the tweed of a bicycle skirt which had been torn 
 down the seam ; conscious of male eyes upon bloomers of like 
 cloth. 
 
 " You sensibly garbed angel ! " Then he howled his 
 instructions as to rigging, ending in, " Do not budge until 
 I say, ' Hoist ' ! — then be prompt." 
 
 He must wait until a black roller offered a friendly 
 shoulder. The interval was full of speculation. He knew 
 that none of the frail skiffs at the boathouse could stand 
 these seas, but certain yachts were swinging at anchor near 
 the pier. And, oh for a hand of those blackguardly brothers 
 to succor his Eugenie! 
 
 The wave came. Again the superb craftsmanship and its 
 consequent success. " Hoist ! " and prompt as a riverman 
 Eugenie obeyed. The reversed prow hesitated, hung for an 
 instant, then leaped away from the pursuant breaker, rose 
 over the next like a mallard and headed shoreward, racing 
 amain. 
 
 "You did your trick, mon brave!" she called over her 
 shoulder, for she was once more aface of the direction of the 
 course. Soon, having little to occupy her attention, the 
 terror took hold. " I am frightened," she cried wailfully. 
 
 " Never let Them — ^mine — ^know it. They're strangers. 
 We are safe in shallow water in twenty minutes at this rate. 
 More — I — ^we — could swim ashore now." 
 
 Her spirit raUied loyally. 
 
 " I will not be saved alone. You said together or 
 else " 
 
 " But you must not go out." 
 
 [90] 
 
Vision 
 
 " What should I do alone, my heart ? " 
 
 " Comfort my bird ! true heart ! We win and be damn'd 
 to them. We shall live, not die, together! There's Charle 
 and Josie and the girls and a mob of women — and neuters," 
 he continued, hoarsely, paddling and staring. " Over goes 
 Josie's skiff. Charle takes off from the pier's side. He 
 can't unmoor that yacht alone. You'll drown, you ass, to 
 no purpose! No one man can navigate that clumsy bitch 
 alone." He croaked and panted by now. 
 
 A " dead-head " is a saw-log so saturated as to float 
 approximately vertical, slightly below the surface. When 
 the butt beds in the silt it is called a " snag." The storm 
 had loosed the anchorage of a number of the latter. They 
 bobbed about, " dead-heads " once more ; the tops occa- 
 sionally emerging, like the snouts of plundering dolphins, 
 in the trough, anon to be submerged by the following crest. 
 
 The canoe slid down a breaker. There in the shifting 
 pit of the trap lurked her worst enemy. Eyesight, thought, 
 act, were nearly one; but might not avail. The frail hull 
 lit fair amidships on the log's end. It shattered her bottom 
 as a " Whitehead " that of a battleship. The jolt threw 
 Eugenie clear. Ralf, all astrain and contorted, was tossed 
 midway on the snout. It got his solar plexus, just touching 
 him. A punch on any of the outposts of the great sympa- 
 thetics spells demoralisation, dehumanisation, oftentimes. 
 
 When Half became an ego again, the inevitable compensa- 
 tion followed. He was a drowsing merman, heaving in the 
 sunny swell of a sea " where it is always afternoon," his head 
 coached in the crook'd elbow of his own sea maid. Well he 
 knew that arm; but he was too languid to look up. He 
 cared nothing, remembered nothing — was merely aware of 
 bliss, bliss with a drawback, for a bull-seal was bellowing 
 wildly somewhere. It was annoyingly arousing. He stared 
 about, looked up and lived and was a man of shame. 
 
 [91] 
 
Feom Fab. Dakota and Otheewhere 
 
 Strained, desperate, awatch of that bull-seal. Genie's profile 
 smote him and with it horror, the memory as of a loathsome 
 dream. Shock, loss of self, inbreathing of suffocating waters 
 that waked the beast, clutching at shreds of the canoe, at that 
 " dead-head " — clutching at something? — that — that lived — 
 and strove to quiet him in human speech. 
 
 The waves were as nothing to him, spent. " I have been 
 no dog. I will not insult the saviours of drowning men. I 
 have been a loathly octopus. Ye powers, let me save her, 
 then give it to me." And again, " To me, my little soul — 
 to me. Rest you, rest you here. I am me now." 
 
 The leal heart responded in a gasp. " Oh, this is so 
 ' comfy ' — ^what do you mean.? " 
 
 " My grasping at you." 
 
 "Grasping? Never once. You were mad. Shoved me 
 away — called out again and again ' Keep clear, sweetheart ! 
 — Keep clear! — Clear, I tell you! — Keep clear, damn you!' 
 That is what you said. Oh, I am done." 
 
 And he was done. The waves washed over just as that buU- 
 seal — one of the " tin-horn " brothers — said : 
 
 " Let go, Gascoyne. Give her to me. Can you keep up, 
 
 though? Hell! " Ralf went under. The impact drove 
 
 him to the sandy bottom, a scant three feet below. The 
 shoaly beach extends far out in the bay. Charlemagne 
 proved his get and christening then.. He found his feet, 
 plucked up the shoulders of these two, beneath arms as lusty 
 as a young stallion's forelegs and began to drag them 
 ashore bodily. Whelmed repeatedly, overturned oftentimes, 
 he stuck to his burden like a bull-terrier, a man, and a 
 Kanuck. The saints, and more exalted personages, got 
 opinions on their governance which cost the critic sore 
 penance at next confession, I doubt. A Canadiene's pro- 
 fanity, when in a dangerous place, would curl the dead horse- 
 hair of Voltaire's wig. 
 
 [92] 
 
Vision 
 
 Louise met them waist deep. Provident, she cloaked the 
 half -nude Genie; then, turning, plucked up the tottering 
 Ralf. She was a woman of stature and development. The 
 spasmodic impulse might have sufficed to bear his bulk to 
 the dry sands. But her contact waked him and he broke 
 away rudely. 
 
 " You must not trouble. Nothing matters now. But 
 I'll — die — dry." He rushed ashore and crashed down, sense- 
 less as a tree. 
 
 Two hours after that collapse Ralf wakened sound and 
 whole. One instant again was provided wherein to revel and 
 luxuriate. His mother bent over him. Momently the woes 
 trooped about him like the harpies. She saw the change 
 and misunderstood. 
 
 " My son — ^my nearest ! You are hurt." 
 
 Petiilantly as a very new-born son he rejected her touch, 
 and lay staring forlornly. 
 
 But anon a vision of a night came back. An uncom- 
 fortable camp makes a man remember home, and home's soul. 
 The realisation comes only to men fully mature. Inly he had 
 said, " 'Tis the best a man can do. He cannot begin to pay 
 even. If love is not its own reward then they go without 
 any. But a fellow can show he knows. I will." 
 
 It broke even the pride of despair. He nestled and cud- 
 dled to her, an action more poignant — ^more appealing — ^in 
 the self-sufficing man than it had been in his baby days. 
 
 " I know what mothers go through, mine. Don't feel 
 hurt. You can't help me here, even you. I am sound and 
 — done for " 
 
 Thoroughly nonplussed, she could only croon and moan 
 over her favourite. 
 
 " She's dead and I'm a cur," he continued in the un- 
 resonant monotone. " She lied to save my self-respect. I'U 
 tell you! " 
 
 [93] 
 
From Far Dakota and OTHEnwHEaE 
 
 She who had heard his deeds rehearsed so lately, listened 
 to another version; at the ending sentence averting her face 
 while her shoulders shook convulsively. Then she turned 
 a weirdly grim face towards him. 
 
 "And you did that.-* Dress and come with me." 
 
 He arose, preparing to look on a dead face. His mother 
 met him at the door, unspeaking. She led him across the 
 roomy hall of the summer-house, thrown open to the incur- 
 sion of such eminent wayfarers ; then opened a door without 
 knocking, ceremony proclaiming death's presence, or utter 
 absorption. 
 
 A pale, pale Eugenie reclined in the depths of a vast 
 padded easy chair. The sun flooded over her through an 
 uncurtained wide window. Ralf 's heart swerved, leaped — and 
 his head swam. He fled to her, like one winged, took her 
 about the knees and buried his face in her lap. 
 
 "What have they done.? — what told my love? — ^my dear 
 love.'' " cried Eugenie. Over his head sounded a kiss, and 
 the rich laughter of eld. 
 
 " My daughter, he said, ' Keep clear, God damn you '. ' and 
 has come to apologise." 
 
 " It was unpardonable, under the circumstances, but 
 you overstate it. Oh, mother" — a waver in the rich 
 cadences — " Handsome, kind, humorous — you have forgiven 
 mei" — Teach me. I have heard Scotland loved France 
 once." 
 
 " Small wonder, the Scot proves his judgment, even yet, 
 by choosing a mate among the daughters of New France, 
 to mother his men-children. I thought my son had gone 
 mad. Then I thought he might be hurt to the death. Then 
 I knew, for my mannie told me. But, though I feared he 
 might die in coming — I brought him. I forgot that joy 
 sometimes kills ! Ralf, my bairnie ! — I love you well, my wee 
 lady. You are worthy of even him." She vanished. 
 
 [94] 
 
Vision 
 
 A small, soft, timid hand wandered tenderly over, then 
 more bravely amid that tossed, tawny mane. 
 
 " Look at me," she said. 
 
 He did it avidly. " Mother is sincerity. Genie." 
 
 " Do I need to be told so, Ralf .'' — ^What did she mean.'' " 
 
 " I thought you had died. But, Ho ! Ho ! the great waters 
 failed. It was a royal betrothal, though. We saw each 
 others' souls — my soul ! " 
 
 " Still you thought I lied." 
 
 " I'm precious proud of myself, I assure you. Won't 
 you forgive me? How is Charle, though.?" 
 
 " Never mind Charle — But oh, you are thoughtful ! He 
 also is un brave, but — ^he will keep. But he is a man and is 
 content to do things — and cares not to be enquired after by 
 another man who can do things. A woman, that is a coward 
 — ^Don't stare, I mean me " 
 
 " Yes, like Jeanne D'Arc ! I'll beat you if you say it 
 again." 
 
 "Beat me, after swear — My all! My all! They — mine 
 — ^were good to me. They kept you, perhaps." 
 
 " We shall never fall out over that, ma Canadierme. We 
 are to be friends, remember. I have something to do, how- 
 ever. Clara and Frank shall do the ' kow-tow.' Excuse me 
 a minute." 
 
 " Come here ! Frank has — is — Oh, never was such a gen- 
 tleman! He has been here already." 
 
 " She must — The ' Mater Imperatrix ' will make her, if 
 I don't. There are no family differences to be concealed 
 from you now. You are one of us." 
 
 Now Eugenie grew very angry.- 
 
 " Do you wish me to believe that men — that my one man 
 — are brave brutes merely? I will never Come in!" 
 
 Clara fled to him, and hugged. He endured it as a sullen 
 boarhound endures the attentions of an importunate child. 
 
 [95] 
 
FaoM Fak Dakota and Otheewheke 
 
 Then Clara turned to Eugenie — she was a slightly gush- 
 ful young matron normally, but people who could see 
 remarked upon her distant resemblance to her mother at 
 times. She could be dignified. 
 
 "I did not come to explain anything, Eugenie. I came 
 to ask you if we might start anew. You saved " 
 
 " He does not deserve it. Do not let him hear it. Yes, 
 we will start anew, if you care to." 
 
 Clara kissed her there and then. 
 
 " He was going to beat me and make you ' kow-tow ' — 
 whatever that is." 
 
 " He is fearfully and brutally and malely stupid." 
 
 " Think if Mr.— if Frank " 
 
 " Eh.'' " — ^the door stood partly open. " Were you speak- 
 ing to me.'' " 
 
 " Damn you ! I want to speak to you. Never mind ! 
 Resist not evil. I only want to shake you, so don't wiggle. 
 I'll soon be through. — Good old man ! " 
 
 The ladies had looked on, astonished. 
 
 " I'll attend to you female women shortly. Clara, if you 
 don't bring the Manitoban I'll take you girls, one after the 
 other, and toss you. He enjoys it — ^you wouldn't." 
 
 The women went " daring " him and the men shook hands 
 once more. 
 
 [9B]