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40 Marion thought of all this and a great deal more during the rest of the week. She found it difficult to sleep, for she would awake in the middle of the night overwhelmed with a presentiment of impending disaster. Saturday came, and also Sergeant John North. He and Rolfe brought the injured miner to the hospital, and when the constable had left, North remained. Marion thought that he had never looked so handsome as when he stood before her that afternoon, clad just as he had come from the trail. He was a noble specimen of a man, well-built, and over six feet in height. His face, bronzed and weather-beaten, was strong, and his mouth and chin firm. His face was smooth-shaven, for Sergeant North was careful of his personal appearance, particularly so whenever he visited Kynox. His eyes, grey and steady, were never known to flinch from danger. When they glowed with anger or indignation, as they did on special occasions, their owner was a man to be feared. But now they shone with a tender expression as they rested upon Marion Brisbane’s slightly flushed face.

Sergeant North was a reserved man, and little accustomed to the company of women. Years on the frontiers of civilization had brought him into contact with many stern realities of life. Surrounded by the ruggedness and the grandeur of nature in every possible form, he had gradually and unconsciously become moulded by its mystic influence. The ways of polite society were to him a closed book, and the petty social chatter made no appeal. He loved the open, the great spaces, and the winding trails. The iron of the land had entered into his being, and the silent, mysterious alchemy of the north affected his soul like magic. Combined with all these subtle influences was the law