I feel sure that this dedication will give you as much pleasure as it does me. It will at least be evidence that I do not forget good days in your company here and there in the world. I take pleasure in linking your names; for you, who have never met, meet thus in the porch of a little house that I have built. You, my dear Douglas, will find herein scenes, times, and things familiar to you; and you, my dear Frank, reflections of hours when we camped by an idle shore, or drew about the fire of winter nights, and told tales worth more than this, for they were of the future, and it is of the past. Always sincerely yours, GILBERT PARKER. THE TRESPASSER CHAPTER I. ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM Why Gaston Belward left the wholesome North to journey afar, Jacques Brillon asked often in the brawling streets of New York, and oftener in the fog of London as they made ready to ride to Ridley Court. There was a railway station two miles from the Court, but Belward had had enough of railways. He had brought his own horse Saracen, and Jacques’s broncho also, at foolish expense, across the sea, and at a hotel near Euston Station master and man mounted and set forth, having seen their worldly goods bestowed by staring porters, to go on by rail. In murky London they attracted little notice; but when their hired guide left them at the outskirts, and they got away upon the highway towards the Court, cottagers stood gaping. For, outside the town there was no fog, and the fresh autumn air drew the people abroad. “What is it makes ‘em stare, Jacques?” asked Belward, with a humorous sidelong glance. Jacques looked seriously at the bright pommel of his master’s saddle and the shining stirrups and spurs, dug a heel into the tender skin of his broncho, and replied: “Too much silver all at once.” He tossed his curling black hair, showing up the gold rings in his ears, and flicked the red-and-gold tassels of his boots. “You think that’s it, eh?” rejoined Belward, as he tossed a shilling to a beggar. “Maybe, too, your great Saracen to this tot of a broncho, and the grand homme to little Jacques Brillon.” Jacques was tired and testy. The other laid his whip softly on the half-breed’s shoulder. “See, my peacock: none of that. You’re a spanking good servant, but you’re in a country where it’s knuckle down man to master; and what they do here you’ve got to do, or quit--go back to your pea-soup and caribou. That’s as true as God’s in heaven, little Brillon. We’re not on the buffalo trail now. You understand?” Jacques nodded. “Hadn’t you better say it?” The warning voice drew up the half-breed’s face swiftly, and he replied: “I am to do what you please.” “Exactly. You’ve been with me six years--ever since I turned Bear Eye’s moccasins to the sun; and for that you swore you’d never leave me. Did it on a string of holy beads, didn’t you, Frenchman?” “I do it again.”