"One isn't always in his usual form, and there are folks who get famous too easily." They talked until nearly midnight, sitting close to the stove, while a doleful wind that moaned without drove the dust of snow pattering against the windows, and the shadows grew darker in the corners of the great log-walled room each time the icy draughts set the lamp flickering.

Then the officer, rising, expressed the feelings of his guest as he said, "It's a forsaken country, and I'm thankful one can sleep and forget it." He had, however, an honorable calling, and a welcome from friend and kinsman awaiting him when he went East again, to revel in the life of the cities, but the man who followed him silently to the sleeping-room had nothing but a half-instinctive assurance that the future could not well be harder or more lonely than the past had been.

Still, farmer Winston was a man of courage with a quiet belief in himself, and in ten minutes he was fast asleep.
When he came down to breakfast his host was already seated with a bundle of letters before him, and one addressed to Courthorne lay unopened by Winston's plate.

The officer nodded when he saw him.
"The trooper has come in with the mail, and your friends in Canada are not going to worry you," he said.

"Now, if you feel like staying here a few days, it would be a favor to me." Winston had in the meanwhile opened the envelope.