sometimes--what makes you look that way? You look as if you were
thinking it my fault that Gordon is in trouble."

"You're wrong there," I protested, truthfully enough.

"But you have that air," she declared. "And I'm not to blame. If he
hadn't been so--so--I'm sure he'd get out of the Mounted Police fast
enough if he didn't like it. I can't imagine him doing anything against
his will. I never knew him"--with a faint smile--"to stay anywhere or do
anything that didn't suit him." She took to staring out across the
grounds again, and one hand drew up slowly till it was doubled into a
tight-shut little fist.

"Well, he's in that very fix right now. And he's likely to continue so,
unless some one buys his release from the service and makes him a
present of it. You might play the good angel," I suggested, half in
earnest. "It only costs about five hundred dollars"--Mac had told me
that--"and I'm sure he'd be properly grateful."

The red flag waved in her cheeks again. "I don't particularly like the
idea," she said, rather crossly, still keeping her face turned away from
me, "and I'm very sure he wouldn't care to have me. But dad thinks a lot
of him; he might do something of the kind when he gets here. Dear, I
wish they'd hurry along."

She had me at the end of my rope at last, and I felt like breaking away
right there; any one not utterly calloused would, I think, have felt the
same squeamishness with that sort of a tale crowding close. If she had
been expecting bad news of any kind it wouldn't have been so hard to go
on; but I couldn't beat about the bush any longer, so I made the plunge