A Prairie Episode.

The fierce rays of the sun, which had turned the prairie grass into a lifeless-looking dusty brown, continued to pour pitilessly down on the horde of perspiring workmen, exhausted Indian ponies, and long-eared morose mules.

At intervals, gusts of hot parching winds bent the rank grass, which gave forth a dry, almost rasping sound, very different from its usual musical rustle.

"In ten minutes more it will be noon, and we can get out of this into the shade for an hour," said Joe Swan, a huge muscular laborer, as he pushed the nose of the steel scraper into the earth.

The words were addressed to a pale-faced young man who was driving the pair of mules hitched to the scraper. The only reply was a tired tug on the reins, and the next moment the scraper had torn up half a yard of the tenacious prairie sod and cast it to one side. As he turned the mules around to get them into position again, Joe glanced covertly at the weary face, shook his head in a troubled manner, and muttered, "It ain't the work that's breaking him up like this; it's her, and it's going to end in trouble long before we reach the Rockies."

It was a strange, almost fantastic life these two men, with hundreds of others, were leading away out here on the vast prairie, whose long solitude was now being broken by the babel that attends track-laying, and whose vast bosom, for the first time, was being girded with a band of steel which was to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, and bring home most forcibly to the Mother Country the value of her great Canadian colony.

Stretching away in front of and behind the two men were hundreds of other scrapers, tearing up the sod, while closely following them came gangs of track-layers, who laid the ties and fastened the rails to them as quickly as the sod was removed. It was easy work track-laying on the flat expanse, where grading for hundreds of miles at a stretch was practically unnecessary. Such, indeed, was the rapidity with which the rails were laid that camp had to be moved from two to three miles westward every day, so that the men never knew what it was to sleep twice in the same place.

As Joe was about to scoop up another load, a gunshot echoed and re-echoed across the prairie. "Dinner time; just what we have been waiting for!" shouted Joe, as he let go the handles of the scraper, unhitched the mules, sprang on the back of one of them, and stooping, swung Harry Langdon, his delicate-looking driver, laughingly across the back of the other. The next moment they were dashing towards the camp half a mile away. Other laborers, similarly mounted, were straining every muscle to reach the same place, for they knew that the rule of "first come, first served," would be religiously adhered to.

A fast friendship had sprung up between the huge scraper-handler and his young driver. The very day the little fellow had wandered into camp, two months before, with his hands and face swollen with mosquito bites, and asked for a job, big-hearted Joe took a liking to him. It was owing to Joe's influence with the foremen that he was at last, grudgingly, given work, as his slim, girlish figure told strongly against him among such a crowd of sinewy, hardy men.

Had he been put driving for any other scraper-handler than Joe he would never have succeeded; for before he had been in camp a week the thick tepid surface water, which they all had to drink, coupled with the intense heat, told on him, and for weeks he was so ill that he could scarcely drag his feet along.

Owing to the custom of each scraper being compelled to clear a certain distance every day, it was impossible—on account of the great stretch to be covered by all the scrapers—for the foremen to more than two or three times a day visit the works, and thus it was that Joe, unknown to the foremen, was able to let his little driver lie for hours, when he was at his weakest, in the thick grass, while he wrestled with the stubborn mules and the scraper at the same time.

At last the evening of the torrid day with which this story opens, had arrived. Those who had been fortunate enough to get to the surface holes first, and get a little water, were washing their shirts, while the less fortunate were lounging around the little tents—of which there were hundreds—welcoming the cool breeze which the dark, ominous clouds had brought up. Suddenly there was a blinding flash, followed by a loud report, and then from the warring clouds the longed-for rain began to pour in heavy sheets.

For some time before the storm broke, Joe had been standing in the opening of the tent, gazing with furrowed brow, through the gathering darkness, toward a tent much larger than those of the ordinary laborers, in the shadow of which was dimly outlined the forms of a man and a woman. He at once recognized the woman as Nellie Shuter (the only white woman in camp), daughter of Bill Shuter, a general storekeeper and purveyor of smuggled and doctored whiskey. The man with her he knew was his mate, Harry Langdon.

The moment the rain began to fall, Nellie ran into the large tent—her father's store—and left Harry, who, regardless of the storm, stood for fully a minute looking after her. As he was about to turn, a figure, muffled in a gaudy colored blanket, emerged from behind an adjacent tent and touched him, in a supplicating manner, on the shoulder. He turned hastily, and seeing who it was, pushed the intruding hand away. As he did so the blanket fell away from the head and shoulders of the figure, and there stood revealed a young Indian girl belonging to the Cree tribe, several of whom—both Indians and squaws—had for weeks been following the encampment.

Instead of leaving him, she raised her hands in an imploring manner, and her lips moved. Her pleading evidently had no effect upon Harry, as he turned and left her abruptly. With an angry gesture she turned and vanished in the direction of the Indian encampment.

After Harry had returned, Joe sat for quite a long time with a troubled look on his face, silently pulling at his pipe. Harry seemed too much engrossed in thought to be aware of his companion's unwonted silence.

"I seed you again, to-night, with Bill Shuter's daughter," began Joe at last, breaking a silence that had begun to grow painful to him.

The reference to the girl caused a flush to steal over Harry's face, and he said, as he sat down by the big fellow's side, "You are very good, old fellow, to take the interest you do in me. I should have been in a queer way now had it not been for you; yet, old chap, I cannot bring myself to believe that Nellie Shuter and her father are as bad as you have hinted several times." As he concluded he walked to the opening of the tent and looked out: it was still raining heavily. "I guess, Joe," he went on awkwardly, without turning, "that I shall take a run over to Shuter's store for a little while."

"I'd like to say a few words to you before you go."

Harry turned good-humoredly, and sat down on the bench again.

Covering his companion's knee with his great hand, Joe said gravely, as he looked down into his face: "I've not had much edication, as you know, Harry; but I've larned a mighty lot that schools don't teach, and one thing that I've got a mighty good hold of is sizin' up people, and if ever I met a bad egg Bill Shuter's one. You must know something about him yourself by this time, for he got you to gamble, and he's well-nigh won all you've made since you came to camp. If he'd won it fairly it'd been bad enough—seein' you were a greenhorn—but in my heart I believe he cheats you. I've tried to catch him at it, but he's too mighty sharp."

Joe's sombre countenance and equally sombre words were more than Harry could stand, and leaning his head against the giant's shoulder, he laughed incredulously.

"I happen to know," Joe went on doggedly, when his companion's laughter had died away, "that you don't gamble because you love it; but to please his daughter Nellie, who"—his remarks were interrupted by Harry springing to his feet and nervously pacing the tent.

But Joe had warmed up to his subject, and was not to be stopped; "As I said," he went on, "you gamble only to please his daughter, who is in league with her father. I've heard that she's told others, that are as sweet on her as you, that the best way to keep the old wolf quiet, and allow her to be courted, is to gamble with him. I tell you, Harry, that she's foolin' you, and that in truth she's as bad as he is, and—"

The interruption this time was effective enough: "It's cowardly of you, Joe Swan, to speak of her like that." Harry's eyes were gleaming with anger. "You are presuming on the kindnesses you have done me," he went on, halting in front of him, "and if her father and a few of his friends had been here, you would not have dared to speak in that manner. You know I love Nellie Shuter, and nothing you can say will make me break with her."

With this he almost ran out of the tent, leaving Joe dragging at his heavy blonde moustache and gazing at the patches in the canvas tent.

The minutes sped on, and still he continued to think. Finally he took the pipe out of his mouth, put it absently into his pocket and said to himself, as though he had solved a difficult problem, "The lad was right; I had no business to speak to him in that way, but what I said about them both I believe to be the truth, gospel truth, and sooner or later there's going to be trouble for him in Shuter's dive; and I'm going to be with him when it comes, although he did give me that hard rub about bein' afraid of Shuter and his friends."

He slowly picked up his hat, and was about to step out into the darkness when the Indian girl, whom he had seen accost Harry, noiselessly entered the tent, and drawing the wet blanket from her head, said passionately, in quaint broken English, as she pointed in the direction of Shuter's store, "He go dare again—Harry—for see de white girl, Nellie; I see him go, and she no love him."

As Joe looked at her he saw she was far more prepossessing than the other squaws; while against her character he had not heard a word. He had seen her for the first time about three months ago, when she came to camp with some old squaws, to sell prairie chickens and ducks, which the braves had shot, and Indian-like had sent them to sell.

Her acquaintance with Harry had not been of long duration. The first time she met him he was lying in the deep rich grass, for it was the time the fever was upon him. Joe was away in the distance taking care of both the mules and the scraper. So unexpectedly had she come across him, that her moccasined foot touched his hand before he was aware of her presence.

In his gentlemanly way he had risen and told her he was sorry he had been in her way, and then had sunk weakly back again. The suffering on his pinched boyish face went straight to her heart, which awoke to longings never known before.

Every day after this little adventure, on one pretext or another, she managed to encounter him. At first, he nodded and smiled and had a kindly word for her, but suddenly he ignored her altogether, for word of her infatuation had reached Nellie Shuter's ears, and she had acted as though she were displeased.

For a time the girl stayed away, and Harry thought she would not return; but one night, when he was walking alone on the prairie, she ran suddenly up to him, and pointing to the swiftly-flowing Red River, told him in the figurative language of her people, that because of him her heart was as troubled as the river was in the spring-time—when the melting snow vexed it so that it burst its barriers and flowed over the prairie. She went on in her childish, earnest way to tell him that she could not help loving him, and that if he would take her to be his wife she should work for him as long as she lived.

As he did not reply, a gleam of hope crept into her heart, and baring her dark arm, she showed him how strong it was, how it never grew weary, and how, if he would throw in his lot with her people, he should never have to work, as the squaws always worked for the braves. It was no uncommon thing for French-Canadians to marry squaws, neither was it uncommon for squaws to offer themselves in marriage, and thus she did not know how strangely unnatural her proposition sounded to him. It never, in his inexperience, occurred to him to make any allowance for her on account of her life and environments, and he judged her as he would have judged a white girl.

As she looked up into his blue eyes and saw the look of dismay and contempt there, her intuitions told her her words had sounded unseemly to him, and that he abhorred her for them; and in her keen distress and anger she turned and fled.

Had he loved no other woman, it might have been the stoicism of her race would have saved her from further humiliation, but when she saw him walking with Nellie Shuter, saw the love-light in his eyes when he looked at her, and noted how flippantly, in return, Nellie treated him, her love swept away all feelings of pride, and she seized every opportunity of speaking to him. Naturally such a course only added to his distaste for her.

Joe had guessed that she had contracted a liking for Harry, but never until her visit to their tent had he imagined her falling so helplessly in love with him. And as he stood and looked into her dark, passionate face, this new complication of Harry's affairs made him feel more ill at ease than ever. "Well, and if he has gone to Shuter's tent to see Nellie, what business is that of yours?" he asked sharply. He would have liked to answer her kindly, and would have done so, had he not feared fanning into a keener flame her hopeless passion.

The bronzed cheeks of the Indian girl flamed into a still deeper hue as she heard his words. But conquering her passion, she told him again how dearly she loved Harry, while she was sure the white girl did not; and she had come to ask him to tell Harry this.

Joe, who could not trust himself to reply, pointed—with a sorry attempt at dignity—to the opening in the tent.

For a few moments she stood and looked at him with clenched hands and compressed lips, and then, without another word, turned and left, as he had silently ordered.

As Joe trudged through the darkness and rain in the direction of Shuter's store, he repeated several times, "It was pretty small to treat her like that; I never felt such a mean cuss before; but what in the world was I to do?"

As he finally entered Shuter's tent, which bore the dignified title of store, a scene that would have appeared strangely fantastic to dwellers in cities, presented itself. Congregated together were about fifty sunburnt laborers, arrayed in coarse woollen shirts. To their despondent-looking trousers the blue tenacious prairie mud clung like glue. Several nationalities were represented in the motley assembly, for it was the time of the great North-West boom, and men had been drawn from far and near.

In one corner of the tent was a quaint table or counter, constructed of three old boards and two trestles, upon which were deposited a lot of rolled Canadian smoking and chewing tobacco, clay pipes, and several long-necked bottles. Pinned to the tent, behind the counter, was a card, on which was scrawled, in characters which scorned all laws of proportion, "Mild Drinks." It was owing to the abhorred fashion of the North-West Mounted Police, of confiscating drinks that were not mild, that Shuter was led to display this prevaricating sign.

Behind the counter stood Nellie Shuter, a dashing, good-looking young woman of about twenty-three, while seated at a number of rude tables were laborers throwing dice and playing poker. Leaning nonchalantly on the counter were two or three young men, who were making themselves agreeable to the fair attendant behind it.

Joe quietly edged his way through the tent till he came to a table near the counter, at which were seated his mate, Harry Langdon, and Bill Shuter. Shuter was a tall, spare man, with a somewhat receding chin and small, very light-colored blue eyes, which had a habit of looking past one while their owner was speaking. A glance at Harry's face was sufficient to show that he had been drinking heavily. Although Shuter had drunk sparingly, there was a strange irritable expression about his face.

Seating himself some little distance from the two men, Joe covertly watched the play. He soon perceived that Harry was paying little or no attention to the game—although it was poker—his attention being almost entirely fixed on Nellie, who was flirting outrageously with her admirers. Every time her flippant laugh reached him a pained look crossed his sensitive face, but she pretended to be as unconscious of it as she appeared to be of his reproachful glances.

Despite his loose play, however, Harry drew a number of hands that a child could have won with. Finally he laid down his cards and said, "I guess I won't play any more to-night, Shuter."

"Bring us a drink, Nellie," was Shuter's response.

As Harry raised to his lips the glass of reddish-looking fluid which Nellie brought, Shuter said insolently, "It's not the custom of men in this country to run away when they are winning." His daughter heard the words—as he had intended—and looking Harry full in the face, shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. No plan of attack could have been more subtle. Harry's face flushed violently, and sitting down hastily, he said: "You know it would take me weeks to win back the money I have lost with you; but it's all right; deal the cards."

As Joe sat and watched this by-play, he was so enraged that he could scarcely keep from springing to his feet and laying his huge hands on Shuter.

The biting insult appeared to somewhat sober Harry, and he watched his play more carefully. As his run of luck still continued, Shuter's ill-humor increased, till it was quite marked. After the fifth or sixth deal the crucial game arrived. Both players began to bet heavily on their hands. Harry met his opponent's bets without a tremor of excitement, and twice Shuter hesitated as though he would throw up the game—seeing he could not bluff Harry into doing so, and, consequently, forfeiting what was already on the table. Suddenly Shuter said, with an air of quiet confidence, "The stakes are pretty high now; what do you say to having only one raise more and then showing our hands? We evidently can't bluff each other, and the best hand will then have to win."

This subtle effort to discourage his opponent, and make him afraid of the next raise, failed, as Harry merely nodded and said, "Make your raise."

There was silence for a few seconds, and then Shuter said, "I will raise you thirty dollars better." Before this advance the stakes had run up to about forty dollars, so the raise, among such men, was a most unusual one. If Harry lost, it meant the forfeiture of his entire month's salary. Joe was now so intensely interested that he was leaning eagerly forward; he was suspicious of Shuter, and was watching him as a cat watches a mouse.

The heavy raise caused a slightly startled look to shoot into Harry's face; but he was now in it to the death and answered, "All right, I'll take you up; there's my cards" (four aces); "show me yours."

Joe saw a dangerous look leap into Shuter's eyes as Harry leaned forward, expectantly, to see what cards Shuter held.

Stretching out his hand, as if with the intention of also exposing his cards, Shuter deftly managed to knock off the table the remainder of the pack. As he did so he uttered an exclamation, as though his action had been accidental, and stooping began to gather up the cards; but while doing so dexterously dropped two of his own cards and replaced them with two others, thus giving himself a royal flush—a hand impossible to beat.

Quickly as the trick had been done it was detected by both Harry and Joe, and the next instant Harry was on his feet, his face convulsed with anger and his slight frame quivering with excitement.

Shuter also sprang to his feet, and as his thin lips parted into a forced, uncomprehending smile, Harry struck him with his fist, full in the face. Before Harry could draw back Shuter had seized him by the throat, and was fumbling in his pocket for an old sailor's knife which he was always known to carry; but before he could draw it he was swung violently off his feet and brought down with a thud on the table. He was little better than a child in Joe's grasp. The next instant the place was in an uproar, and a dozen men sprang on Joe; but it was only after a long struggle that they succeeded in drawing his terrified victim from his grasp.

As Shuter at last staggered to his feet, his daughter ran to his side. The sight of the girl made Harry forget his resentment, and he walked toward her with the intention of apologizing; but the moment her eyes fell upon him she burst forth furiously, "Get out of this, you little fool; I am sick of making a fool of you. There's not a man in the tent but knows how I have been laughing at your attempts at love-making." Pointing her finger derisively at him she continued ironically, "What do you think, men, of that thing making love to me?"

All eyes were turned on her unhappy little lover, whose face was now pitifully white and drawn. The jeers which she expected, to her surprise did not come, for the little fellow's appreciation of his trying position was so painfully apparent in his drooping figure and pallid face, that there was not a man among them who did not feel more like gathering him in their strong arms than jeering at him. Never before had they realized what a weakly, effeminate little soul he was.

"It's all right, boys, you can let go." It was Joe who broke the silence. They had almost forgotten they were still holding him lest he should lay hands again on Shuter. Without a word they released him, for they knew by the tone of his voice, and from the pitiful look he gave his little driver, that he had forgotten all about his enemy. As Joe strode toward Harry, and the yellow glare from the coal lamps, fastened to posts behind the counter, fell athwart his powerful, weather-beaten face and massive figure, they realized as they had never done before the striking physical difference between the scraper-handler and his driver, and wondered vaguely how two such dissimilar characters could attract each other so powerfully.

"Don't mind her, Harry, don't mind her; she's not worthy of you. Let's go." As arm and arm they strode out of the tent the men quietly parted.

"I'll have a reckoning with that cub of yours some other time, Joe Swan," shouted Shuter, with an attempt of bravado, as they were disappearing. He had mistaken the humor of the men; one of them told him to shut his cursed mouth.

Before the two silent figures had taken a dozen steps in the thick darkness toward their own tent, the storm broke out afresh. The turbulent clouds, unobstructed for hundreds of miles by either hills or trees, were now hovering over the very sod, and at short intervals vivid, sinuous gleams broke from them, and, serpent-like, went writhing and glistening through the matted grass, while the roar of the thunder made the apprehensive earth tremble perceptibly.

Joe had seen two such dread storms before, and so paid but little attention to them. Thinking his companion might be afraid of the appalling sight, he said, as he glanced down at his drawn face, "It's only on the prairies one sees storms like these; and I've seen men as didn't fear a revolver get mighty scared at a sight like this. First time I saw it I felt queer enough."

"No, Joe, you misunderstand; if my face is white it's not because I'm afraid of the lightning. I have been hurt to-night, Joe, worse than it could ever hurt me."

Utterly forgetful of the warring elements, Joe halted abruptly, and throwing his great arm around the slender shoulders of his companion, said fiercely, "For God's sake, Harry, don't talk like that; it makes me feel like going back and choking the life out of both of them." While he was speaking, a flash of lightning, more vivid than its fellows, shot across the prairie and revealed the two troubled figures to some of the laborers who were in the act of leaving Shuter's store, and their hearts—unluckily for Shuter—hardened against him for the part he that night had played.

The deep thrill in Joe's voice went to Harry's heart like a balm, and he said gratefully, "You're an awful decent fellow, Joe, and it's too bad of me bringing my troubles into your life in this way."

Joe's only reply, as they again hurried along, was to hug the little arm more closely. When they finally reached their tent Joe uttered an exclamation, for one of the flashes revealed that it was at least two feet deep in water. Groping his way into the tent, Joe lit a candle, and holding it high above his head, looked around. "This is hard luck," he said to his companion, who was standing in the opening; "we've pitched the tent in a little hollow, and the water's drained into it. There'll be no sleeping here for us to-night; we shall have to move the tent and stretchers to higher ground."

Half an hour later the tent was pitched several acres away. Had the lightning not died away, they would have seen that they were near two other tents of exactly the same size as their own.

It was about five o'clock when Joe awoke, and looking out of the tent saw the sun was already casting a warm glow in the east. Seeing Harry showed no signs of waking, he slipped quietly from his stretcher, dressed, and stealing past his mate, left the tent. Signs of life were already visible in camp. In another hour the entire camping outfit would be loaded on the waiting flat-cars and taken to the end of the track—which again stretched over two miles westward—and a new camping-ground found, after which breakfast would be served and the phenomenal track-laying be again continued.

"It's a great country," Joe muttered, as his gaze swept across the broad expanse, "and if it hadn't been for the trouble my little mate's had, I should have been happy out here."

Turning, he saw for the first time the two small tents, and at once recognized them as the ones Shuter and his daughter slept in. While he was thinking how queer it was that above all other spots they should have chosen this to pitch their tent, Shuter came out of one of the tents, and in a loud voice called to his daughter, in the other, to get up. Not wanting to speak to him, Joe hurried back into his own tent and began to wash.

By some mischance the tin bowl upset and fell noisily to the ground. Expecting to see Harry start up, Joe looked across at him as he stooped to pick up the wayward bowl, but the quiet form did not move. "Sleeping mighty sound," Joe soliloquized, as he vigorously began to scour his face with a coarse, unsanitary-looking towel. Suddenly the towel fell from his hands, and a startled, curious look shot into his face; it had come to him that the scanty clothing which covered his little driver neither rose nor fell.

For a few moments he stood gazing at the dimly outlined figure in the yet uncertain light, a feeling of growing terror stealing over him. He tried to convince himself that his eyes were deceiving him, yet his laboring heart would not be comforted. Twice he opened his mouth to call Harry's name, but his parched throat refused to utter any sound. He could endure the growing horror no longer, and with set, terrified gaze began to move toward the stretcher. When at last his laggard steps reached it he had not the courage to shake the slim figure, but in a voice, which sounded strangely unnatural, called his mate's name. The quiet of the tent was broken by no response. With pitiful hesitancy he finally stretched out his hand till it rested on the wan face; then he uttered a great cry—it was as cold as the face of the dead!

In his terror and excitement he was about to snatch him up in his arms, when a sight, which made him start back with an exclamation of horror met his eyes: in the side of the tent against which the body rested was a sinister cut, stained with blood. Pushing the canvas back, the whole treacherous story stood out as clear as daylight; while sleeping, his companion had been stabbed through the folds of the tent.

"There's only one man under God's heaven, who'd do a deed like this, and that's Bill Shuter." There was something weirdly ominous in the tones in which he uttered the words; in his dogged manner as he strode out of the tent, cut several of the ropes that fastened it to the ground, pieced them together, tried them to see if the knots were firm—especially those which formed the noose at the end of the line—and then winding the rope around his huge arm, strode into Bill Shuter's tent.

Scarcely had he entered it when a man's cry of terror rang out on the quiet morning air, and roused the few who already had not risen. Before the echo had died away, Nellie Shuter ran out of her tent toward her father's; but before she could reach it Joe Swan emerged from it, his massive hands grasping the rope, which was now wound tightly around her father's throat. In vain Shuter struggled to utter another cry, and to thrust away the avenging hand which grasped the rope.

With a terrified scream Nellie sprang upon Joe and endeavored to stop his march toward the derrick in the near distance, the ponderous arm of which stretched enticingly out some nine feet above the ground. Without swerving an inch to the right or the left, Joe hurried on toward it, while with his disengaged hand, and without apparently using any force, he kept Nellie aside.

Before he had got half-way to it, however, shouts fell upon his ears, and glancing hastily backward, he saw over a hundred laborers running toward him. For a brief space he stopped, measured with his eyes the distance he was from the arm of the derrick and his pursuers, then stooped, threw Shuter across his shoulder, and started off on a brisk run. Nellie made another desperate effort to stop him, but this time he pushed her to the earth and sped on.

Despite his great weight, and the burden which encumbered him, he was the first to reach the derrick—although the crowd had been close behind him when he began to run. He had deftly thrown the end of the rope over the arm of the derrick, and was about to hoist Shuter into mid-air, when the crowd was upon him. The rope was wrenched from his hands, and the noose unloosened from the man's throat. "For heaven's sake, what does all this mean?" asked a foreman, turning toward Joe.

Before he could reply Shuter gasped, "He's mad, he's mad; he ran into my tent, and without a word wound that rope about my neck and then tried to hang me." As he looked at his implacable enemy he edged towards the foreman.

"He pretends," began Joe, in a compressed voice, "that he don't know why I was going to hang him; he's a liar; yes, a million times worse than a liar—he's a murderer! I thought I'd save you the trouble of helping me to string him up, for when you hear what he's done you'll riddle him full of holes and string him up as well!"

The crowd had now gathered about the speaker, and were gazing at him with growing excitement. "There's a lot of you," Joe went on, "who saw him last night, in that gambling whiskey dive of his, try to draw his knife on Harry Langdon, and heard him shout after me that he'd have a reckoning some other time with that cub of mine; and, boys, he's kept his word, for Harry lies in his tent there, dead, stabbed to the heart, in the dead of night, through the folds of the tent, by that cuss there that you were so afraid I'd string up."

Angry exclamations followed this fierce tirade, and a rush was made for Shuter.

"It's a lie! I swear it's a lie! I never stabbed the lad!"

But his words were cut short by the rope, which was again being wound around his throat. As they dragged him towards the derrick Nellie once more threw herself across her father's body and begged piteously for mercy. The sight of the girl's intense grief somewhat cooled the unreasoning rage which had been kindled in their hearts by Joe's rude eloquence, and they hesitated as though they hardly knew what to do.

"Let's see the body before we string him up, anyway," cried a voice.

The fairness of the proposition appealed to the men—more especially as they had begun to realize that they had acted impulsively. There was a general move toward the tent where the body lay.

In the rush none of them noticed the rapid approach of the Indian girl, who so prodigally, and unasked, had given her heart to the murdered boy. As they entered the tent she was close behind Joe, whose huge body hid Shuter and his daughter, who were in front of him, from her view.

As Joe stepped forward to remove the coat he had thrown across the dead face, a low cry, full of the keenest apprehension and fear, sounded behind him. Turning, his eyes fell upon the Indian girl, who was crouching close at his feet, her palsied hands raised as though to guard off some deadly apparition or danger, while her eyes, full of the most intense fear and horror, were fixed on Nellie Shuter.

Joe's temper had been sorely tried, and laying his hand heavily on her shoulder, he said fiercely, "What's the meaning of this?"

Instead of trying to escape from his grasp, she caught him hysterically by the arm, and pointing at Nellie, said wildly, in her queer broken English, "See, see, de Great Spirit send her back to me! She's dead."

As Nellie stood and continued to gaze in amazement at her, the insane terror of the Indian girl rose to an ungovernable height, and burying her face in the grass, she screamed to Joe to send her away. The deep superstition in her nature—bred by her people—had been stronger than the love of revenge or the fear of punishment. Joe was the first to read the meaning of her superstitious horror, knowing as he did her hatred of Nellie and her love for Harry. And suddenly pointing at the grovelling figure, he said in a shocked voice: "Boys, I see it all now; she's the murderer. She meant to stab Nellie, her rival, and would have done it if we hadn't in the darkness last night pitched our tent next to Nellie's. The tents are alike, and she mistook ours for hers."

The mention of Harry's name brought a gleam of reason to the distracted girl's face, and springing to her feet—apparently now forgetful of Nellie's presence—she begged Joe to take her from the tent to Harry. Not for a moment did she appear to realize the dreadful mistake she had made.

"He's there!" said Joe, pitilessly, pointing to the stretcher. Thinking in her half-crazed manner that he was sleeping through it all, she ran to the stretcher, and tore away the sheet that covered the face she loved. It was not till she had caught the dear head to her bosom and pressed her face to his, that the truth broke upon her clouded mind. They had been drawing near her; but as she let his head fall back, they all—except Joe—drew away from her; the heart-broken, insane look on her face was more than they could bear. As she stood, wildly pressing her hands to her forehead, Joe pointed at the gash in the tent and then at the blood-stained clothing at Harry's side. Then with fascinated gaze they watched the rapid changes which sped across her face, for reason had not yet altogether flown, and they saw that she was recalling the fearful mistake she had made. Suddenly her hands slid to her side, and in doing so encountered the handle of the knife which lay concealed beneath her blanket. That was the connecting link which brought home to her the whole truth of the tragedy, and with a cry that haunted many of them for years afterwards, she drew the knife, gave one glance at the stained blade that had robbed her of him for whom she would willingly have died, stabbed again and again the fatal gash in the canvas, and then throwing away the knife, caught up the lifeless body in her arms and began madly to chant a wild, weird song which her people sang when they had triumphed over their enemies.

She was so violently insane when she reached Winnipeg that they decided a trial was unnecessary, so she was placed at once in an asylum.

After they had buried his little mate on the great silent prairie, Joe tried to forget and to do his work as usual; but the odor of the newly-severed sod, the cracking of the drivers' whips, the shouting to the stubborn mules, the stampede over the prairie at noon, the hateful sight of Shuter and his daughter—in fact, everything around him—made the longing for the company of his little driver so keen that he could not bear it, and a week after his death he drew his wages and slipped away, none knew whither.