CHAPTER XVII

"BUT THAT CAN'T BE"

"Come in," said the Commissioner.

Dick halted yet another moment before he followed his knock into the office. These three days in the Regina Headquarters of the Royal North-West Mounted Police had brought him back to the trim alertness required of every man who wears the buffalo-badge, and his mind was fully as alert as his body. But it was much less brushed and buttoned into shape, and his eyes were anxious as he crossed over the threshold, saluted, and stood up, rigid and expressionless, before the Commissioner.

The Commissioner was sitting sideways at his table with his keen face more grave than was usual. Many things and many men passed under his hands, and his work was often weighty on him. But he loved it, and he took a pride in his men, although he seldom told them so. He had known Dick in the days when Dick was rough-rider here, and he had seen him many times since when he sent the man out on his lone patrols and welcomed him when he came back to report. He turned to him now with the steady eyes that had learnt how to judge men while the man himself was learning how to trust them, neither forgetting nor ignoring conditions of upbringing or birth.

"You are looking better than when you came in," he said. "Are you feeling as fit as you look?"

"Quite, thank you, sir."

"Ready for another lone patrol?"

A change flickered over the composed face before him. It was gone instantly; even before Dick said his respectful "Yes, sir." But the Commissioner had seen it, and again he wished, as he had so often wished before, that it was not incumbent on him to treat these fiery pieces of flesh and blood and spirit so like machines.

"You have had seven months of severe work," he said.