For one thing they were impressed with the selfishness of retiring while still Constable Williams sat with never a flicker of sleep in his eyes. They owed him a lot for his attentions of the past few days, and there were few opportunities of squaring the account. In the rude chair he had salved from the village wreckage the big fellow was content to sit to any hour of the night, merely smoking and listening, face beaming, pleased as a child when he found something to say. For two years he had been locked there in the wilds, with never a woman but Tressa Torrance to whom he could speak without a blush. And, looking into the clear eyes of Mrs. Mahon, he blushed a little now at memories of her predecessors in that infamous end-of-steel village--blond-haired, flashing eyed, bejewelled, strident voiced hussies who had worn out their welcome in society less base.

 

For the sixth time Mahon consulted his watch and shook his head self-reprovingly.

 

"Half-past eleven! Dissipation. And to-morrow we must dive deeper into the records of those two speeders. I don't know that I'm quite fair, Williams, but I imagine Torrance hasn't been taking us completely into his confidence, though he seems thoroughly stirred over this. They have me guessing--the most unlikely things, even to some silly club wager. But there isn't a club within three hundred miles. I'm off to-morrow to Mile 135. Torrance says the ticker is set up there. I want to talk to Saskatoon."

 

Constable Williams shrugged his shoulders. "Those speeders were up to something they're not telling Saskatoon or any one else that we're apt to get any information from."

 

"That's what I'm going to find out. They couldn't go far without being seen, and they'd have to stick to the railway. There's still a gang clearing up at Mile 63, I think."

 

"That was where I spent the night, wasn't it?" asked his wife. "There's an engineer there with his whole family and two women besides. It's a long way to be from neighbours."

 

"One never speaks of neighbours out here, Mrs. Mahon," smiled Constable Williams. "It makes one homesick. It's so long since we had neighbours that we've gone a bit rusty on the amenities of society. There's so little we can do for the first woman--"

 

"Williams, you're fishing." Mahon shook his head affectionately at his subordinate. "If you'd heard my wife this morning--"

 

"If you don't mind, dear," interrupted Helen, "I prefer to give my own thanks."

 

"But you just said this morning you couldn't--"

 

"Don't try, please," said Williams, with a grin. He drew a sigh. "I suppose now I ought to forego a selfish pleasure and let you go to bed. If I could only look sleepy! But I feel as if bed were an interruption, a nasty, bad-dispositioned, irritating kill-joy. And you'll be heavy with the chloroform of this rare air. Ah, me! Just when life begins--"

 

"It won't go down, Williams," teased Mahon. "The air up here has nothing on Medicine Hat. Not even its wildest booster would claim for the Hat the poison of a manufacturing town. Meteorologically it must be as far from civilisation as Mile 127. The worst up here is trying to compete with the sun in the matter of sleep. In the summer one would get about three hours; in the winter there wouldn't be time to prepare meals. Winter must be eerie. Even now I scent it--"

 

He shifted suddenly in his chair. Then with a dash he and Williams were crowding through the open door with drawn revolver............