I think you saw him, Pat ?" Shannon's face grew grayer, and he quivered visibly as his passion shook him, while Payne felt his own blood pulse faster as he remembered the graceful dark-eyed girl who had given him and his comrade many a welcome meal when their duty took them near her brother's homestead.
That was, however, before one black day for Ailly and Larry Blake when Lance Courthorne also rode that way.
"Yes," said the lad from Ontario, "I was driving in for the stores when I met him in the willow bluff, an' Courthorne pulls his divil of a black horse up with as little ugly smile on the lips of him when I swung the wagon right across the trail.
"'That's not civil, trooper,' says he.
"'I'm wanting a word,' says I, with the black hate choking me at the sight of him.

'What have ye done with Ailly ?' "'Is it anything to you ?' says he.
"'It's everything,' says I.

'And if ye will not tell me I'll tear it out of ye.' "Courthorne laughs a little, but I saw the divil in his eyes.

'I don't think you're quite man enough,' says he, sitting very quiet on the big black horse.

'Any way, I can't tell you where she is just now because she left the dancing saloon she was in down in Montana when I last saw her.' "I had the big whip that day, and I forgot everything as I heard the hiss of it round my shoulder.