showing gratitude.

"I am reform. I will take coffee, if Jen Galbraith will make some. Too
much broke glass inside is not good. Yes."

Galbraith went into the sitting-room to ask Jen to make the coffee.
Pierre, still sitting on the bar-counter, sang to himself a verse of a
rough-and-ready, satirical prairie ballad:

"The Riders of the Plains, my boys, are twenty thousand strong
Oh, Lordy, don't they make the prairies howl!
'Tis their lot to smile on virtue and to collar what is wrong,
And to intercept the happy flowin' bowl.

They've a notion, that in glory, when we wicked ones have chains
They will all be major-generals--and that!
They're a lovely band of pilgrims are the Riders of the Plains
Will some sinner please to pass around the hat?"

As he reached the last two lines of the verse the door opened and
Sergeant Tom entered. Pretty Pierre did not stop singing. His eyes
simply grew a little brighter, his cheek flushed ever so slightly, and
there was an increase of vigour in the closing notes.

Sergeant Tom smiled a little grimly, then he nodded and said: "Been at it
ever since, Pretty Pierre? You were singing the same song on the same
spot when I passed here six months ago."

"Eh, Sergeant Tom, it is you? What brings you so far from your straw-bed
at Fort Desire?" From underneath his hat-brim Pierre scanned the face of