The big man laid his arm across the shaking shoulders and drew her to him.

 

"I guess it was Adrian before your old dad."

 

"No--I don't think so." She continued naively: "Adrian's so quick; I don't think he'd be caught like that. It was you I thought of--too."

 

He smiled a little wistfully. "That's right, little girl, be honest. We all had it--once. When your mother was alive there was no one counted but 'Jim.' God, if I could hear her say it now! . . . 'Jim.'" He lingered over the word, repeating it in reverent whisper. "It was 'Jim' kept me straight them days. . . . Just the little word 'Jim.' I've always thought if I could die with that in my ears, perhaps there might--might open up a bit of a chance for the big rough fellow who hasn't had much chance to get away from things that make men rougher. . . . 'Jim.' Now I'll have to kick out without it."

 

The girl in his arms was frightened of him when he talked that way; and it was happening more frequently in these days of worry. She had scarcely known her mother, except through the lips of her daddy, but the woman who touched only the fringes of her memory was to her, as to him, a being not quite of this earth.

 

"'Jim,'" she whispered, scarce knowing she said it.

 

His arms closed convulsively, and she could feel his beating heart.

 

"Say it to me--sometimes--won't you, little girl?" he whispered.

 

But she was suddenly conscious of treading sacred ground.

 

"I don't think I can, daddy. It's mother's, mother's own. You're my daddy, and there's nothing as good as that to me."

 

He smiled lovingly down on her, tossing aside his depression.

 

"And a daddy couldn't have anything better--no, not if he searched this whole wide Canada through from terminal to terminal. I'm just about the luckiest dog this side Heaven.

 

 

'Just one girl,

There is just one girl;

There may be others, I know,

But they're not my pearl.

Sun or rain,

She is just the same;

I'll be happy forever with

Just one girl.'"

The song was coarse and toneless, but he knew no other way of voicing it, and she noted nothing of its crudeness.

 

"Daddy, you're a base deceiver."

 

She was wagging an accusing finger before his eyes, and he blinked in exaggerated concern.

 

"O' course," he admitted, "I don't say I've had much chance with more than one. This job of mine is death to gallivanting. I wouldn't know how to look at a woman now--not in a way that would mean she was more to me than one of the same sex as the best little girl in the world."

 

But the silently accusing finger continued to wag.

 

"Honest, I don't know what you mean."

 

"What about the cow-girl last year that you bought the horses from?"

 

He chuckled deep in his throat.

 

"Shucks! I know a pretty girl when I see one, that's all. I knew how to appreciate that skin of hers, and her riding, and the way she lifted her feet when she walked, and how she wore her clothes--though they weren't much, were they? And I bet they don't half prize her where she comes from. A chap like me who's known the two best women in the world can spot a real pippin any time; and he sort of owes it to the world to pass the message along. Shucks, girl! You didn't think--say, you didn't think I was sidling up to her, or anything like that? All I did was to touch her arm. I wanted to see if they were all alike, like yours. And look what she gave me!"

 

He made a grimace and drew a finger along a dim line cutting down his cheek.

 

"She couldn't have been the nice girl I thought," he reflected, "or she wouldn't have got o............