We'll saddle in an hour or so." Two of the men went out, and the stinging blast that swept in through the open door smote a smoky smear across the blinking lamp and roused a sharper crackling from the stove.

Then one returned with the kettle and there was silence, when the fusty heat resumed its sway.

Now and then a tired trooper murmured in his sleep, or there was a snapping in the stove, while the icy wind moaned about the building and the kettle commenced a soft sibilation, but nobody moved or spoke.

Three shadowy figures in uniform sat just outside the light, soaking in the grateful warmth while they could, for they knew that they might spend the next night unsheltered from the arctic cold of the wilderness.

The Sergeant sat with thoughtful eyes and wrinkled forehead, where the flickering radiance forced up his lean face and silhouetted his spare outline on the rough boarding behind him, and close by the farmer sucked silently at his pipe, waiting with a stony calm that sprang from fierce impatience the reckoning with the man who had brought black shame upon him.
It was about this time when Winston stood shivering a little with the bridle of a big black horse in his hand just outside the door of his homestead.