"No. Not as long as they behave. In fact, I hardly know what I am to
do. Maybe you can tell me." His smile was peculiarly frank and
winning. "You see, it's my first command, and my instructions,
although comprehensive, are rather vague. I am supposed to see that
mining rights are observed, to take any criminals who kindly offer
themselves up to be arrested, and to sort of handle things that are
too tough for the miners themselves."

"Why, you are a policeman!" said Necia, at which he made a wry face.

"The Department, in its wisdom, would have me, a tenderfoot, adjust
those things that are too knotty for these men who have spent their
lives along the frontier."

"I don't believe you will be very popular with our people," Necia
announced, meditatively.

"No. I can see that already. I wasn't met with any brass-bands, and
I haven't received any engraved silver from the admiring citizens of
Flambeau. That leaves nothing but the women to like me, and, as you
are the only one in camp, you will have to like me very much to make
up for its shortcomings."

She approved of his unusual drawl; it gave him a kind of
deliberation which every move of his long, lithe body belied and
every glance of his eyes contradicted. Moreover, she liked his
youth, so clean and fresh and strange in this land where old men are
many and the young ones old with hardship and grave with the silence
of the hills. Her life had been spent entirely among men who were