admired in him a quality lying dormant in himself--decision; Mab Humphrey
spoke unkindly of no one. Besides--but no!

What was Sergeant Fones's country? No one knew. Where had he come from?
No one asked him more than once. He could talk French with Pierre,
--a kind of French that sometimes made the undertone of red in the
Frenchman's cheeks darker. He had been heard to speak German to a German
prisoner, and once, when a gang of Italians were making trouble on a line
of railway under construction, he arrested the leader, and, in a few
swift, sharp words in the language of the rioters, settled the business.
He had no accent that betrayed his nationality.

He had been recommended for a commission. The officer in command had
hinted that the Sergeant might get a Christmas present. The officer had
further said: "And if it was something that both you and the Patrol would
be the better for, you couldn't object, Sergeant." But the Sergeant only
saluted, looking steadily into the eyes of the officer. That was his
reply. Private Gellatly, standing without, heard Sergeant Fones say, as
he passed into the open air, and slowly bared his forehead to the winter
sun:

"Exactly."

And Private Gellatly cried, with revolt in his voice, "Divils me own, the
word that a't to have been full o' joy was like the clip of a rifle-
breech."

Justice in a new country is administered with promptitude and vigour,
or else not administered at all. Where an officer of the Mounted Police-
Soldiery has all the powers of a magistrate, the law's delay and the