Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/19

Rh warm and dusty in the grass that seeded where a burn had run last year; evil in the rotting weed above the water-line, and strangely intoxicating in the dry breath of forest-fires that made haze of the blue tumbled hills to westward.

Dick stooped as he pulled, taking the smite of the heat on his burnt forehead, and his sweat ran down to the earth, as each tangled loop of river was rounded, and each bold breast of forest slid by. He was tough as the men of the north needs must be; brown, and wiry, and spare. But the long months of canoe-work had slacked his leg-muscles more than he knew, and Moonias, setting his untiring pace in the strength of a half-breed nursed on the river, became a living instrument of punishment. But if Moonias was punishment to Dick, the man who trod the thwart of the blunt-nosed scow which left a wake like a liner was hell. For he was What Was, and What Might Have Been, and What Couldn't Be. He jerked into life again memories which Dick had buried with care, and their resurrection was a shameful and unpleasant thing.

And Tempest, breasting the sweep through the long hours, had memories too. He was thinking of something which Molson of Regina Barracks had once told him concerning a certain Corporal of E Division who had offended Molson.

"For absolute cold-drawn callousness and impudence you can commend me to him," said Molson. "He has the blackest sheet of any man in the Force, and yet he's the best man we've got on the trail. You can't whip him off it once he has sensed it. He'll go till he's dead and after. And he knows his worth, and takes advantage of it. Eh? Oh, well; what's the matter with all of this sort? Drink, cards, women—anything at all. He takes his pleasures where he likes, and he's completely indifferent to punishment. We give him all the lone patrol work we can, and he's superb at it. I should imagine he has been pretty effectively through the mill in his time."

"Gentleman, of course?" said Tempest.

"Sure. A lineal descendant by right of spirit from 'the Worshipful Company of Gentleman-adventurers trading with Prince Rupert in the North Seas' in the days when