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Rh thrown interested him always. But to-night he welcomed them with special graciousness. One of them would serve his need before the night was out. He glanced over them, wondering where his choice would fall. There was Ogilvie, pinched and shakily conscious that he was an old man in his youth. There was Lampard, the cheerful commonplace Canadian in the Hudson Bay Store. There was Slicker; Parrett, the new Dissenting minister; Heinmann, a German boy travelling through to Peace River; and Falconer from Lac La Biche. They drowsed and talked and smoked in their steaming clothes, with the smell of cast furs in the corner growing stronger as the heat increased.

Dick, pulling a thread as long as his arm, broke suddenly into song, with the elements riding their Valkyrie gallop outside.

The outer door burst open, and a blast of icy wind licked past Robison as he stood on the sill with his shoulders peppered with snow.

"Sergeant home yet?" he asked, and slammed the door in obedience to a tenfold command.

"No," said Dick. "Do you want anything?"

Robison intimated that he did; and Dick went through with him to the little court-room, gave the special bit of information required, ripped some memo-forms off the block, and noted on his way back that Robison stumbled on Ogilvie's out-thrust feet and shot him a perfectly unexplainable look of fury in reply to Ogilvie's apology.

"There is something the matter here," said his unflagging-brain. But he continued his song untroubled as he shut Robison out in the night.