He and Jen had met but five or six times; but the impression left on the
minds of both was pleasant--ineradicable. Yet, as Sergeant Tom often
asked himself during the past six months, why should he think of her?
The life he led was one of severe endurance, and harshness, and
austerity. Into it there could not possibly enter anything of home. He
was but a noncommissioned officer of the Mounted Police, and beyond that
he had nothing. Ireland had not been kind to him. He had left her
inhospitable shores, and after years of absence he had but a couple of
hundred dollars laid up--enough to purchase his discharge and something
over, but nothing with which to start a home. Ranching required capital.
No, it couldn't be thought of; and yet he had thought of it, try as he
would not to do so. And she? There was that about this man who had
lived life on two continents, in whose blood ran the warm and chivalrous
Celtic fire, which appealed to her. His physical manhood was noble, if
rugged; his disposition genial and free, if schooled, but not entirely,
to that reserve which his occupation made necessary--a reserve he would
have been more careful to maintain, in speaking of his mission a short
time back in the bar-room, if Jen had not been there. She called out the
frankest part of him; she opened the doors of his nature; she attracted
confidence as the sun does the sunflower.

To his question she replied: "I do not know where our Val is. He went on
a hunting expedition up north. We never can tell about him, when he will
turn up or where he will be to-morrow. He may walk in any minute. We
never feel uneasy. He always has such luck, and comes out safe and sound
wherever he is. Father says Val's a hustler, and that nothing can keep
in the road with him. But he's a little wild--a little. Still, we don't
hector him, Sergeant Tom; hectoring never does any good, does it?"