substantial hams of bacon and bear's meat. As she looked
over the heads of the little group on the broad benches
round the fire, she saw the firelight and lamplight glint
cheerfully on the old-fashioned muskets and flintlock
pistols that decorated the walls--relics of the old
romantic days when the two companies of French and English
adventurers traded into Hudson's Bay.

She had an idea. She would ask the sergeant of Mounted
Police in charge of the detachment of four men, whose
little post was within half-a-mile of the homestead, what
he thought of the situation, and he would have to tell
her. Sergeant Pasmore was one of those men of few words
who somehow seemed to know everything. A man of rare
courage she knew him to be, for had he not gained his
promotion by capturing the dangerous renegade Indian,
Thunder-child, single-handed? She knew that Thunderchild
had lately broken prison, and was somewhere in the
neighbourhood waiting to have his revenge upon the
sergeant. Sergeant Pasmore was a man both feared and
respected by all with whom he came in contact. He was
the embodiment of the law; he carried it, in fact, on
the horn of his saddle in the shape of his Winchester
rifle; a man who was supposed to be utterly devoid of
sentiment, but who had been known to perform more than
one kindly action. Her father liked him, and many a time
he had spent a long evening by the rancher's great
fireside.

As she thought of these things, she was suddenly startled