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108 these naked stories. To him who encountered Cowboy Jack the breaking of the chair was the vital point. Jennifer laughed softly. These men did not know what they were doing—for their land, for their nation. They did not know.

She looked again at Dick. Already slackness had gone out of him. One knee was bent, one hand gripped up as though his nature watched for the sudden call. Jennifer could understand that. It was the birth-mark of more than the roving men, for all the children of a new land carry it; carry the force and the charged tenseness and the untiring alertness which makes for conquest, for the wresting of something from nothing, for the building of nations in the land they hold by birth and purchase and hard-won exchange. And yet, in such as these was surely some throw-back to the men who came in with Prince Rupert; some blood of the lawless, of unauthorised passions and whim, of the temper that will not get into line, of the daring that swings a man to the front rank where the big guns roar.

Dick stirred a little, opening his eyes. They were heavy with a great sleep as they lifted to Jennifer where she stood against the grey window.

"You there still," he said. "But why did they call you Jennifer? That is Cornish for Guinevere—and she left Arthur."

His voice told that he groped yet on the hazy edge of dreams. Jennifer moved nervously; and then he sprang up, locked suddenly into his senses again.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I was sleeping. And I'm disgracefully dirty. I have just come in."

"I know. Oh, you have had a terrible, terrible time."

"Kennedy is very young," apologised Dick. "You must excuse him."

"But—didn't you?"

"Not at all, thank you. It was an extremely ordinary patrol. But I can't forgive myself for coming before you in these clothes."

"Oh, how could you think I'd mind that? I'm glad always"

Dick skilfully effaced the sentence before she realised