The deserter nodded silently to each in turn and they as silently nodded back to him. He glanced from the group he had joined to the group he had just left, and a matter of fifty feet separated the two. The burly half-breeds sat motionless and erect in the circle of light cast by their camp-fire, their blankets drawn about their shoulders. The fur trader was deep in earnest conversation with them and the deserter, noting this, his face took on a curious, puzzled expression; then, with a lingering glance in Basil's direction, he turned to Stephen. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “He seems to find plenty to say when I ain't about. Mr. Landray, white's no name for the way you've treated me. I reckon I'd be mighty lonely if I'd to mess steady with them.” He spoke gratefully in a slow, soft voice; he put up his hands and shielded his face from the campfire's light and heat. “A week or so and I'll be doing my best to get friendly with father; but I reckon fatted calf won't form no part of the first meal I set down to with him,” and a shrewd, sly, smile curled his lips. Ten days had elapsed since the complete disruption of the party, when Basil had cast his lot wholly with the half-breeds. His intercourse with his cousins was now limited to the fewest possible words. Not so the late member of the Mounted Rifles. Had he been an ordinary ruffian, they would have regretted the evident preference he had displayed from the very first for their society; but clearly he was not an ordinary ruffian. He appeared a frank, simple soul; and even his morality, which was more than doubtful, seemed entirely a matter of accident, and something for which he could not be held responsible. He came and went freely between the two camps; he treated all with the same gentle affection; he overflowed with a graceful considerate charity of deeds; and he was helpful, not alone in deeds, but words of the most winning friendliness accompanied all his acts. “We can't be far from Green River,” he suggested tentatively. “Something less than forty miles, I should say,” Stephen answered. Raymond pondered this in silence but when he spoke again, he had apparently lost all interest concerning their nearness to the river. “I've heard father say when Brigham Young fetched the saints out here, he'd promised 'em a land leaking with milk and honey; the land about Salt Lake looks as if it'll be a right smart while before it does any leaking. The trouble with this blame country is there's too much of it. I reckon it'll take a thousand years to fill her up.” he speculated idly. “Was your father always a Mormon?” Stephen asked.