Raw Gold

over yonder, at the west end of that

f that old saw about distance lending enchantment, for, looking down on the placid stream slipping smoothly along between fringes of scrub

er by the great boulders that gave the ford its name. The blue ridge up the river I gave scant heed to; the Writing-Stone was only a name to me, for I'd never seen the place. My attention was all for the scene at h

k that a good old fellow like Hank Rowan has been murdered and left to rot on the prairie li

e that we will," MacRae answered evenly. "We'll know bey

natural to him as emotional flare-ups are to some. Whatever he felt he usually kept bottled up inside, no matter how it hurt. I never saw him fly to pieces over anything. He was something of an anomaly to me, when

impassive mask of self-control, lay the battling spirit, an indomitable fighting streak; it cropped out in a cool, calculating manner of taking desperate chances when the sleeping devil in him was roused. He would sidestep trouble-and one met the weeping damsel at many turns of the road in those raw days-if he could do it wit

worn trail and glanced sharply down at the ruts. The dust in t

ss lately," he explained. "But there hasn't-not fo

place, where rifts of sunlight filtered through the tangled branches; one yellow bar, full of quivering motes, rested on the wide-open eyes and mouth, tinting the set features the ghastly color of a plaster cast. The horse he had ridden lay dead across his legs, a

muttered. "They tried to mak

d then-for time pressed, and a dead man, though he may be your friend and his passing a sorrow, is out of the game forever-we dragged him from beneath the dead horse, wrapped him in the canvas pack-cover, and buried him in the soft

leeping without hardship in a dry buffalo-wallow, and noon of the next day brought us to Wals

their neighborhood uprose the smoke of half a dozen dinner fires. By the post storeroom, waiting their turn to unload, was ranged a line of the

e, as we swung off our horses before the building in which the offic

r's train. At least, he's due, and I can't account for a

h. And if the men in scarlet had been a bit swifter, or I a little slower, I'd have had ample leisure to observe life in the Force from the inside-of the guardhouse. As I said, we went into the ante-room, and there I got my first peep at the divinity that doth hedge-not a king, but a commissioned officer in Her Majesty's N. W. M. P. An orderly held us up, and when MacRae had convinced him that our business was urgent, and n

cknowledged it by a barely perceptible flip of a fat paw, then put a little extra stiffening into his spinal

when the human sausage bethought himself of something more important, and held up one hand for silence. He produ

, away down in his chest c

ae saluted again

e-thieves or whisky-runners or a bunch of bad Indians. A peaceable citizen would sure do well on the other side of the line if sheriffs and marshals took a lay-off to feed themse

Englishmen who got commissions in the Force on the strength of their family connections. Lessard-the major in charge-is the brains of the post. He gets out and does things while these fatheads stay in qua

our horses, Mac led the way toward a row of small, whitewashed cabi

h 'Bat' Perkins when I drop in here. Bat's an ex-stock-hand like ourselves, and

ve neglected to mention the fact, those two coin-collectors didn't overlook the small change when they held me up for La Pere's roll. There was a sort of sheebang-you couldn't call it a hotel if you had any regar