"
His companion appeared astonished, but said nothing further until he
brought out the cards. They played for an hour beside the snapping
stove, and then, when, Winston flung a trump away, the officer groaned.
"I guess," he said disgustedly, "you're not well tonight or something
is worrying you."
Winston looked up with a little twinkle in his eyes. "I don't know
that there's very much wrong with me."
"Then," said the officer decisively, "if the boys down at Regent know
enough to remember what trumps are, you're not Lance Courthorne. Now,
after what I'd heard of you, I'd have put up fifty dollars for the
pleasure of watching your game--and it's not worth ten cents when I've
seen it."
Winston laughed. "Sit down and talk," he said. "One isn't always in
his usual form, and there are folks who get famous too easily."
They talked until nearly midnight, sitting close to the stove, while a
doleful wind that moaned without drove the dust of snow pattering
against the windows, and the shadows grew darker in the corners of the
great log-walled room each time the icy draughts set the lamp
flickering. Then the officer, rising, expressed the feelings of his
guest as he said, "It's a forsaken country, and I'm thankful one can
sleep and forget it."
He had, however, an honorable calling, and a welcome from friend and
kinsman awaiting him when he went East again, to revel in the life of
the cities, but the man who followed him silently to the sleeping-room
had nothing but a half-instinctive assurance that the future could not
well be harder or more lonely than the past had been.
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