The men who keep the peace of the prairie are taught what heat and
thirst are, when they ride in couples through a desolate waste wherein
there is only bitter water, parched by pitiless sunrays and whitened by
the intolerable dust of alkali. They also discover just how much cold
the human frame can endure, when they lie down with only the stars
above them, long leagues from the nearest outpost, in a trench scooped
in the snow, and they know how near one may come to suffocation and yet
live through the grass fires' blinding smoke. It happens now and then
that two who have answered to the last roster in the icy darkness do
not awaken when the lingering dawn breaks across the great white waste,
and only the coyote knows their resting-place, but the watch and ward
is kept, and the lonely settler dwells as safe in the wilderness as he
would in an English town.
Trooper Shannon was an Irishman from the bush of Ontario; Trooper
Payne, English, and a scion of a somewhat distinguished family in the
old country, but while he told nobody why he left it suddenly, nobody
thought of asking him. He was known to be a bold rider and careful of
his beast, and that was sufficient for his comrades and the keen-eyed
Sergeant Stimson. He glanced at his companion thoughtfully as he said,
"She was a pretty girl. You knew her in Ontario?"
Shannon's hands trembled a little. "Sure," he said. "Larry's place
was just a mile beyont our clearing, an' there was never a bonnier
thing than Ailly Blake came out from the old country--but is it need
there is for talking when ye've seen her? There was once I watched her
smile at ye with the black eyes that would have melted the heart out of
any man.
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