the birches, he moved his mittened hand from the bridle, and patted the restive horse.  Just then the bluff was filled with sound as a blast that drove a haze of snow before it roared down.  It was followed by a sudden stillness that was almost bewildering, and when a blink of moonlight came streaming down, Trooper Shannon grabbed at his carbine, for a man stood close beside him in the trail.  The lad, who had neither seen nor heard him come, looked down on the glinting barrel of a Marlin rifle and saw a set white face behind it.

“Hands up!” said a hoarse voice.  “Throw that thing down.”

Trooper Shannon recognized it, and all the fierce hate he was capable of flamed up.  It shook him with a gust of passion, and it was not fear that caused his stiffened fingers to slip upon the carbine.  It fell with a rattle, and while he sat still, almost breathless and livid in face, the man laughed a little.

“That’s better, get down,” he said.

Trooper Shannon flung himself from the saddle, and alighted heavily as a flung-off sack would have done, for his limbs refused to bend.  Still it was not from lack of courage that he obeyed, and during one moment he had clutched the bridle with the purpose of riding over his enemy.  He had, however, been taught to think for himself swiftly and shrewdly from his boyhood up, and realized instinctively that if he escaped scathless the ringing of the rifle would warn the rustlers who he surmised were close behind.  He was also a police trooper broken to the iron bond of discipline, and if a bullet from the Marlin was to end his career, he determined it should if possible also terminate his enemy’s liberty.  The gust of rage had gone and left him with the cold vindictive cunning the Celt who has a grievous injury to remember is also capable of, and there was contempt but no fear in his voice as he turned to Courthorne quietly.

“Sure it’s your turn now,” he said.  “The last time I put my mark on the divil’s face of ye.”

Courthorne laughed wickedly.  “It was a bad day’s work for you.  I haven’t forgotten yet,” he said.  “I’m only sorry you’re not a trifle older, but it will teach Sergeant Stimson the folly of sending a lad to deal with me.  Well, walk straight into the bush, and remember that the muzzle of the rifle is scarcely three feet behind you!”

Trooper Shannon did so with black rage in his heart, and his empty hands at his sides.  He was a police trooper, and a bushman born, and knew that the rustlers’ laden horses would find some difficulty in remounting the steep trail and could not escape to left or right, once they were entangled amidst the trees.  Then it would be time to give the alarm, and go down with a bullet in his body, or by some contrivance evade the deadly rifle and come to grips with his enemy.  He also knew Lance Courthorne, and remembering how the lash had seamed his face, expected no pity.  One of them is was tolerably certain would have set out on the long trail before the morning, but they breed grim men in the bush of Ontario, and no other kind ride very long with the wardens of the prairie.