Anything that was different from the past would be a relief, and the man who had for eight long years of strenuous toil practiced the grimmest self-denial wondered with a quickening of all his faculties what the future, that could not be more colorless, might have in store for him.
It was dark, and very cold, when they reached the wooden building, but Winston's step was lighter, and his spirits more buoyant than they had been for some months, when, handing the sleigh over to an orderly, he walked into the guard-room, where bronzed men in uniform glanced at him curiously.

Then he was shown into a bare log-walled hall, where a young man in blue uniform, with a weather-darkened face was writing at a table.
"I've been partly expecting a visit," he said.

"I'm glad to see you, Mr.Courthorne." Winston laughed with a very good intimation of the outlaw's recklessness, and wondered the while because it cost him no effort.
He, who had, throughout the last two adverse seasons, seldom smiled at all, and then but grimly, experienced the same delight in an adventure that he had done when he came out to Canada.
"I don't know that I can return the compliment just yet," he said.

"I have one or two things to ask you." The young soldier smiled good-humoredly, as he flung a cigar case on the table.

"Oh, sit down and shake those furs off," he said.