"He did not tell!" Eva slipped from her lover's protection and reined her horse toward Burroughs. "Lieutenant Danvers tried to shield you. She--she----" Eva looked at Pine Coulee, nursing her bruised forehead (for Burroughs had kicked to hurt) and changed her words. "The lieutenant never--he never intimated--such--a--horrid--thing. Of course you will understand that I no longer care for your acquaintance!" The reaction came and she begged: "Oh, Lieutenant Danvers, take me to father!" "Oh, you don't, eh?" sneered the trader. "There are many years ahead of us both, and the time may come when you will want my help! And you," turning to Danvers, "I'll get even with you! If I can't win Eva Thornhill, you never shall, mark my words! I'll----" "You dare to threaten--us? Get out of our way!" With a touch Danvers quickly started both his horse and Miss Thornhill's. After a brief interval he slowed the pace. "And now, darling, you must let me care for you always," urged Philip, after he had restored Eva to some semblance of calm. "Let me speak to your father to-night!" He talked on, encouraged by the girl's silent yielding and the long kiss he laid on her willing lips. She was told of his prospects, both in the army and in England, where his father and sister lived. He told her of his lovely American mother, who had died so young. He had enlisted, he said, for sheer love of a military life. "Father wanted to buy a commission for me, but I knew I could get one--without money!" was the modest close. The afternoon together ended by Philip's putting his mother's engagement ring on Eva's hand for their plighted troth. She looked at it a moment. "I cannot wear this now," she said. "If we are engaged, I want it to be kept secret until next spring. Don't you see, dear," she rubbed her face caressingly on Philip's impatient hand, "that it will be better so? Father will be furious when he knows that I've given Mr. Burroughs his conge, and you'll come into your fortune when you are twenty-one next June. Father'll never consent until then. He'll make me miserable all winter!" [Illustration] Chapter IV The Return to Fort Benton That autumn visit of Eva Thornhill glowed in Danvers' heart like the riotous colors in the gray landscape that precedes the frost of winter; for winter was coming, her visit was over, and Eva and her father were to leave for Fort Benton on the morrow. Danvers inwardly chafed under the secrecy imposed upon their engagement, and yet it would have been hard for him to have spoken of his love for Eva, even to the sympathetic Latimer. But he longed to see more of her, to drink his fill of her beauty and fix her image in his memory that he might not famish in his loneliness during the dreary winter months when they should be separated.