“Come far, did y’ ask?  More or less, more or less.  A’ve come farther on unholier missions.  We’d call it a nice bit snow-shoe run in the old days.  Two months since A left Saskatchewan!  We’ve taken our time, Bessie an’ me—­” caressing the mare with resounding slaps.  “We’re not so young as we were, Bessie an’ me, when we sarved Satan hot-foot back an’ forth these same trails till by the Grace o’ God we broke halter from Hell for holier trail—­”

“Better loosen up and berth here for to-night,” suggested the Ranger.  “The Ridge trail is steep going, down grade, after dark for a stranger—­”

“Stranger?” The old man trumpeted a laugh that would have done credit to a megaphone.  “Stranger, my kiddie boy?  A’ve known these Rocky Mountain States when, if ye owned these pairts an’ had a homestead in Hell, y’d rent y’r residence here and take up quiet life the other place!  A knew these trails before y’ were born, from Mexico to MacKenzie River, wherever men had a thirst.  A’ve travelled these trails wi’ cook stoves packed full o’ Scotch dew, an’ the Mounted Police hangin’ t’ m’ tail till A scuttled the Boundary.  Good days—­rip roaring days for the makin’ of strong men!  We were none o’ y’r cold blooded reptile calculatin’ kind!  May we fight valiant for God now as we wrestled for the Devil then!  Oh, to be young again an’ not spill life in wassail! to give the blows for right instead of wrong!  Man, what a view y’ have here—­what a view!  Minds me of the days A was bridge building in the Rockies—­”

“Then you’ve been in these mountains before?” asked Brydges; but the old frontiersman refused to take the bait and rambled on in his reverie.

“What a view!  Th’ vera kingdom of earth at y’r feet!  The river wimplin’—­wimplin’—­wimplin’ wi’ a silver laugh over the stones, an’ the light violet as a Scotch lass’s eye!  An’ the green fields of alfalfa—­Have y’ ever noticed how th’ light above the alfalfa turns purple?  An’ y’r Rim Rocks roasted fire red by the heat.  ’Tis the same view A’ve gazed on many a time when A was young.”  He drew a deep sigh of the longing that only the passing frontiersman knows. “’Tis like if the Devil came tempting to-day, ’t would be such a place as this!  Many’s the time He came to us in them old days, lawless days!  ’Tis different to-day.  He’d not bait men savage naked now.  The kingdoms of the earth, he’d offer—­wealth an’ success—­wealth an’ success—­the fetish o’ sons o’ men to-day.  ’Twould not be simple cards for drink y’d play!  Bigger stakes—­bigger stakes, boys!  He’d bait men’s souls wi’ bigger stakes!  If I were young I’d take his bet an’ play for the biggest stakes outside o’ Hell—­”

“Hey?  What is that?” queried Brydges; and he winked at Wayland.  “We’d been talking of a bunco game when you came up.”

“Y’ had, had you?” The old frontiersman measured Brydges through and through.  “Well, judging from y’r brass an’ the up-and-coming kind of it, A’m thinking y’r stakes would be pea-nuts under little shells!  ‘Tis bigger stakes I’d play for if I had m’ life to live over—­”