And it isn't a stalking-horse for the men who want to do evil without being found out." He stood up, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'll send in your name if you like. And for many reasons I'll be glad to do it. But remember this, Slicker. Our uniform isn't a shield against temptation, and it can be a cloak for sin. The man himself has got to mean as much as the uniform, or the thing's a mockery—a damned mockery." He stopped with a swift stab of conscience. In how far was he upholding these tenets which he taught—which he had always taught and always practised until now? "We have all got our own rows to hoe, Slicker," he went on. "And it isn't easy to hoe them well. But I believe you'll do your best."
"I'll try." Slicker's young face was grave and flushed, and his blue eyes were anxious. "I—I couldn't say much to Dick; he's such a sneering beast. But I do recognise that it—it means a good deal in many ways to wear the uniform. And I do want to make good, Tempest."
"That's right, old chap. Heaven send you do. Now I must turn you out, for I'm busy. Come round to-night and give me particulars. I think it is more than likely that we'll be proud of you later on, you know."
"Thank you, Tempest." Slicker flushed with pleasure. "You are a good sort." And he went out in a glow of friendship and pity for the man who was "having such a rotten time with that little devil Andree." He passed Grange's bar with his chin up, and he went for a long walk in the forest, concocting a letter in which he would explain it all to Jennifer. But the exact connection of the "sneering beast" with this matter which was so exciting him seemed to escape him, although it did not escape Jennifer when she read the letter.
Through the fall and the early winter life went forward as it ever did in Grey Wolf. A few new clerks came and went in the Stores. A prospector drowned himself from a canoe in the Lake, and the young ice broke beneath two sledfulls of freight and necessitated court-cases before any- one would pay the damage. Hotchkiss was publicly convicted and sent to the cells for a month, on account of a specially-prolonged torture of Mrs. Hotchkiss, and Dick varied the monotony of that month for him by all the
