“Yes,” said Winston dryly.  “I wish I was equally sure of yours.”

Courthorne laughed.  “I’m to be rancher Winston until to-morrow night, any way.  Don’t worry about me.  I’ll borrow those books of yours and improve my mind.  Possible starvation is the only thing that threatens me, and it’s unfortunate you’ve left nothing fit to eat behind you.”

Winston swung himself into the saddle, a trifle awkwardly, for Courthorne rode with longer stirrup leathers than he was accustomed to, then he raised one hand, and the other man laughed a little as he watched him sink into the darkness of the shadowy prairie.  When the drumming of hoofs was lost in the moaning of the wind he strode towards the stable, and taking up the lantern surveyed Winston’s horse thoughtfully.

“The thing cuts with both edges, and the farmer only sees one of them,” he said.  “That beast’s about as difficult to mistake as my black is.”

Then he returned to the loghouse, and presently put on Winston’s old fur coat and tattered fur cap.  Had Winston seen his unpleasant smile as he did it, he would probably have wheeled the black horse and returned at a gallop, but the farmer was sweeping across the waste of whitened grass at least a league away by this time.  Now and then a half-moon blinked down between wisps of smoky cloud, but for the most part gray dimness hung over the prairie, and the drumming of hoofs rang stridently through the silence.  Winston knew a good horse, and had bred several of them—­before a blizzard which swept the prairie killed off his finest yearlings as well as their pedigree sire—­and his spirits rose as the splendid beast swung into faster stride beneath him.

For two weeks at least he would be free from anxiety, and the monotony of his life at the lonely homestead had grown horribly irksome.  Winston was young, and now, when for a brief space he had left his cares behind, the old love of adventure which had driven him out from England once more awakened and set his blood stirring.  For the first time in six years of struggle he did not know what lay before him, and he had a curious, half-instinctive feeling that the trait he was traveling would lead him farther than Montana.  It was borne in upon him that he had left the old hopeless life behind, and stirred by some impulse he broke into a little song he had sung in England and long forgotten.  He had a clear voice, and the words, which were filled with the hope of youth, rang bravely through the stillness of the frozen wilderness until the horse blundered, and Winston stopped with a little smile.

“It’s four long years since I felt as I do to-night,” he said.

Then he drew bridle and checked the horse as the lights of the settlement commenced to blink ahead, for the trail was rutted deep and frozen into the likeness of adamant, but when the first frame houses flung tracks of yellow radiance across the whitened grass he dropped his left arm a trifle, and rode in at a canter as he had seen Courthorne do.  Winston did not like Courthorne, but he meant to keep his bargain.