years."

Ingolby blinked at Jowett reflectively, and his mouth gave a twist that
lent to his face an almost droll look.

"What good would it do if they got ten years--or one year, if the bridge
was blown up? If they got skinned alive, and if Marchand was handed over
to a barnful of hungry rats to be gnawed to death, it wouldn't help.
I've heard and seen a lot of hellish things, but there's nothing to equal
that. To blow up the bridge--for what? To spite Lebanon, and to hurt
me; to knock the spokes out of my wheel. He's the dregs, is Marchand."

"I guess he's a shyster by nature, that fellow," interposed Jowett.
"He was boilin' hot when he was fifteen. He spoiled a girl I knew when
he was twenty-two, not fourteen she was--Lil Sarnia; and he got her away
before--well, he got her away East; and she's in a dive in Winnipeg now.
As nice a girl--as nice a little girl she was, and could ride any broncho
that ever bucked. What she saw in him--but there, she was only a child,
just the mind of a child she had, and didn't understand. He'd ha' been
tarred and feathered if it'd been known. But old Mick Sarnia said hush,
for his wife's sake, and so we hushed, and Sarnia's wife doesn't know
even now. I thought a lot of Lil, as much almost as if she'd been my
own; and lots o' times, when I think of it, I sit up straight, and the
thing freezes me; and I want to get Marchand by the scruff of the neck.
I got a horse, the worst that ever was--so bad I haven't had the heart to
ride him or sell him. He's so bad he makes me laugh. There's nothing he
won't do, from biting to bolting. Well, I'd like to tie Mr. Felix
Marchand, Esquire, to his back, and let him loose on the prairie, and
pray the Lord to save him if he thought fit. I fancy I know what the
Lord would do. And Lil Sarnia's only one. Since he come back from the