Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/308

306 "Damn her," exploded Slicker. "No, I won't beg your pardon, Jennifer. Lam the man of the family, and you should have told me this before."

"Dear, there is really nothing to tell." Jennifer patted the smooth, sunburnt cheek. "Perhaps I imagine it all. But I don't feel that houses can ever take the place of trees and lakes again. I want the West. Oh, I want the West."

Slicker did not know that Jennifer had left her heart there. But he agreed.

"Go back, then, honey. You could get your old house for a song any day. Hamilton's wife hates the place, and Hamilton is a sheep. He does as he's told, and if you offered there'd be no trouble. But—there's been a lot of talk, you know."

"I know. But—in what particular way?"

"You know things were said about you and Heriot." Slicker frowned at the fire. "I know it all for lies, of course. But if you go back—you may as well know it, Jennifer—there are some who'll say that you came to hunt him up over this Andree business."

"Oh!" Jennifer felt her face burn. "I never thought" she said in a choked voice. "I never thought of—you didn't think I meant to go back, Slicker? I couldn't go there!"

Slicker slid his arm round her, drawing her head against his shoulder.

"Honey, dear, did I do it clumsily? I'm so sorry. What with brutes like Ducane and Heriot I guess you've had enough of me. Best stay where you are with the little auntie, and when I get a post I'll have you both up to keep house for me, if it's any place short of Herschel Island. I will only be at Regina three or four months, you know, and I'll write and tell you every last thing about it, honey."

He kept his word faithfully, and each week through those months of snow and frost brought her a letter headed "Regina Barracks": a letter that was a medley of boyish slang and manly thought and frank love for herself. There were fervid descriptions of "our mess," and "my horse," interlarded with tales of the "swank recruit" who "came such a buster" in riding-school, and the "tiger of a drill-