Shannon’s hands trembled a little.  “Sure,” he said.  “Larry’s place was just a mile beyont our clearing, an’ there was never a bonnier thing than Ailly Blake came out from the old country—­but is it need there is for talking when ye’ve seen her?  There was once I watched her smile at ye with the black eyes that would have melted the heart out of any man.  Waking and sleeping they’re with me still.”

Three generations of the Shannons had hewn the lonely clearing further into the bush of Ontario and married the daughters of the soil, but the Celtic strain, it was evident, had not run out yet.  Payne, however, came of English stock, and expressed himself differently.

“It was a—­shame,” he said.  “Of course he flung her over.  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.  It came home across the ugly face of him, and then I flung it down and grabbed the carbine as he swung the black around with one hand fumbling in his jacket.  It came out empty, an’ we sat there a moment, the two of us, Courthorne white as death, his eyes like burning coals, and the fingers of me trembling on the carbine.  Sorrow on the man that he hadn’t a pistol or I’d have sent the black soul of him to the divil it came from.”

The lad panted, and Payne, who had guessed at his hopeless devotion to the girl who had listened to Courthorne, made a gesture of disapproval that was tempered by sympathy.  It was for her sake, he fancied, Shannon had left the Ontario clearing and followed Larry Blake to the West.

“I’m glad he hadn’t, Pat,” said Payne.  “What was the end of it?”