Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police | Page 8

"You must be tired, Mrs. Becker," he said. "Now that you are near a
fire, I would suggest that you throw off your heavy coat. You will be
more comfortable, and I will bring you a blanket to sit on."
He dived into his tent and a moment later reappeared with a blanket,
which he spread close against the butt of a big spruce within half a
dozen feet of the fire. When he turned toward her, the colonel's wife
had thrown off her coat and turban and stood before him, a slim and
girlish figure, bewitchingly pretty as she smiled her gratitude and
nestled down into the place he had prepared for her. For a moment he
bent over her, tucking the thick fur about her feet and knees, and in that
moment he breathed from the heavy coils of her shining hair the
flower-like sweetness which had already stirred him to the depths of his
soul.
Colonel Becker was smiling down upon them when he straightened up,
and at the humorous twinkle in his eyes, as he gazed from one to the
other, Steele felt that the guilt of his own thoughts was blazing in his
face. He was glad that the Indians came up with the sledges just at this
moment, and as he went back to help them with the dogs and packs he
swore softly at himself for the heat that was in his blood and the strange
madness that was firing his brain. And inwardly he cursed himself still
more when he returned to the fire. From out the deep gloom he saw the
colonel sitting with his back against the spruce and Mrs. Becker
nestling against him, her head resting upon his shoulder, talking and
laughing up into his face. Even as he hesitated for an instant, scarce
daring to break upon the scene, he saw her pull the gray-bearded face
down to hers and kiss it, and in the ineffable contentment and
happiness shining in the two faces in the firelight Philip Steele knew
that he was looking upon that which had broken for ever the haunting
image of another woman in his heart. In its place would remain this
picture of love--love as he had dreamed of it, as he had hoped for it,

and which he had found at last--but not for himself--in the heart of a
wilderness.
He saw now something childishly sweet and pure in the face that
smiled welcome to him as he came noisily through the snow-crust; and
something, too, in the colonel's face, which reached out and gripped at
his very heartstrings, and filled him with a warm glow that was new
and strange to him, and which was almost the happiness of these two. It
swept from him the sense of loneliness which had oppressed him a
short time before, and when at last, after they had talked for a long time
beside the fire, the colonel's wife lifted her pretty head drowsily and
asked if she might go to bed, he laughed in sheer joy at the pouting
tenderness with which she rubbed her pink cheek against the grizzled
face above her, and at the gentle light in the colonel's eyes as he half
carried her into the tent.
For a long time after he had rolled himself in his own blanket Philip lay
awake, wondering at the strangeness of this thing that had happened to
him. It was Her hair that he had seen shining this night under the old
spruce, lustrous and soft, and coiled in its simple glory, as he had seen
it last on the night when Chesbro had broken in on them at the ball. It
was very easy for him to imagine that it had been Her face, with soul
and heart and love added to its beauty. More than ever he knew what
had been missing for him now, and blessed Chesbro for his blundering,
and fell asleep to dream of the new face, and to awaken hours later to
the unpleasant realization that his visions were but dream-fabric after
all, and that the woman was the wife of Colonel Becker.
Chapter III.
A Skull And A Flirtation
It was late afternoon when they came into Lac Bain, and as soon as
Philip had turned over the colonel and his wife to Breed, he hurried to
his own cabin. At the door he encountered Buck Nome. The two men
had not met since a month before at Nelson House, and there was but
little cordiality in Sng to say howdy to 'em," explained Nome, pausing

for a moment. "Deuce of a good joke on you, Steele! How do you like
the job of bringing in an old colonel's frozen wife, or a frozen colonel's
old wife, eh?"
Every