Waking and sleeping they're with me still."
Three generations of the Shannons had hewn the lonely clearing further
into the bush of Ontario and married the daughters of the soil, but the
Celtic strain, it was evident, had not run out yet. Payne, however,
came of English stock, and expressed himself differently.
"It was a--shame," he said. "Of course he flung her over. I think you
saw him, Pat?"
Shannon's face grew grayer, and he quivered visibly as his passion
shook him, while Payne felt his own blood pulse faster as he remembered
the graceful dark-eyed girl who had given him and his comrade many a
welcome meal when their duty took them near her brother's homestead.
That was, however, before one black day for Ailly and Larry Blake when
Lance Courthorne also rode that way.
"Yes," said the lad from Ontario, "I was driving in for the stores when
I met him in the willow bluff, an' Courthorne pulls his divil of a
black horse up with as little ugly smile on the lips of him when I
swung the wagon right across the trail.
"'That's not civil, trooper,' says he.
"'I'm wanting a word,' says I, with the black hate choking me at the
sight of him. 'What have ye done with Ailly?'
"'Is it anything to you?' says he.
"'It's everything,' says I. 'And if ye will not tell me I'll tear it
out of ye.'
"Courthorne laughs a little, but I saw the divil in his eyes. 'I don't
think you're quite man enough,' says he, sitting very quiet on the big
black horse.
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