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"Not exactly But, corunted the staff-sergeant "And if you could have seen McTrigger! When I told hiropingly, like a blind o no farther than the Inspector's office He said he would wait there for hian thuirl," he exploded "He couldn't have done anything else He lied tomysterious about it if he wasn't sixty and she less than twenty She was pretty enough! But it wasn't her beauty that made him turn white there in the path Not on your life it wasn't! I tell you he aged ten years in as irl's eyes un, and after he'd looked into the froman It's queer, Kent The whole business is queer And the queerest of it all is your confession"

"Yes, it's all very funny," agreed Kent "That's what I've been tellinglike a bullet changed it all For if the bullet hadn't got iven Kedsty that confession, and an innocent ed As it is, Kedsty is shocked, demoralized I'm the first man to soil the honor of the finest Service on the face of the earth, and I'm in Kedsty's division Quite natural that he should be upset And as for the girl--"

He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh "Perhaps she ca with one of the up-river scows and was ested "Didn't you ever notice, O'Connor, that in a certain light under poplar trees one's face is sohastly?"

"Yes, I've noticed it, when the trees are in full leaf, but not when they're just opening, Jiirl Her eyes shattered every nerve in hier, coupled with the lie that he was coan And if you could have seen her eyes when she turned the fire I could iine black eyes like that, but not blue ones Kedsty simply wilted in their blaze And there was a reason--I know it--a reason that sent histo the man in the cell!"