the barracks, and into the little cell with its grinning grating on the whitewashed wall. Then Tempest shut out the approving crowd, who had followed; settled his tunic-collar where the top hook was burst off, and looked at Ducane.
"You'd best sit down and get your breath," he said. "I want to hear some reasons why you shouldn't be in right alongside Robison."
The heavy red flooded Ducane's skin.
"You forget who you're speaking to," he said.
"I'm likely to forget it when a gentleman brawls with half-breeds in a public bar," said Tempest. "Is there a shack or a tepee up or down river won't have that news inside a week? We are teaching them to respect the white man in Grey Wolf."
His level words bit like serpents' little tongues. Ducane came to his feet unsteadily, taking hold of his blustering courage.
"You rather exceed your duty," he said. "I was preventing Robison from assaulting a breed. Good-night."
Tempest let him go. He had more work to do, and before morning the half-dozen cells were full with the frank and ordinary cases of a pay-night. For in one night, or two, these cheerful men of the child-heart had to "blow in the wad" of a year's work ere they faced to the trail again. Such was custom; and Tempest, knowing, tempered the wind to the shorn lamb in so far as he honestly could.
There were mild fines and reproofs in the little court-room next Tempest's bedroom in the morning; and then, hour by hour, Grey Wolf slacked her sinews again, lying inert until the next cataclysm of life should burst on her. The fringe of it came three evenings later, when Tempest rode home, on the bob-tailed cayuse known to all his world as Gopher, and found the little steamer from Lower Landing backing noisily into the stub-end of wharf. All the population were out to make remarks, and Tempest added his in amaze.
"But how the deuce did you cross the rapids, Mackay?" he said. "They coudn't track the scows further, for she's
