"After all," commented Scarlett, "peace is spelled without a difference, both sides of the boundary; and, lip to lip, our views will be identical on the way of spelling love."
"And how may that be?" inquired Evelyn, gathering up her furs and moving away. "In love-letters?" As Scarlett caught up with her she quickened her pace, remarking, "I must go now. Really, Sergeant, you ought some day to give us a lecture on these theories of yours, for I have always wondered how an Irishman makes love."
"Like a lover, sure," promptly retorted Scarlett, catching her in his arms and stooping his head to hers.
To her surprise, Evelyn found herself more than half consenting to his kiss even while trying to rebuke it. Before, however, she had found breath to protest, Scarlett released her hurriedly in silence, for at the moment Nick, with his custodian, and followed by his faithful henchmen, came from the tent, escorting Sarah and the orphans in an aura of national and personal good will, while a messenger came to inform the Sergeant that the United States representative, to whom the prisoner's person was to be delivered, had arrived.
Evelyn, for her part, overcome with an embarrassment mingled with another feeling that was wholly new to her, ran in the opposite direction down the trail, and over a patch of frozen snow to a secluded spot sheltered by a thicket of scrub firs, where, even as she broke from her lover's embrace, she had seen her former traveling acquaintance and present correspondent, Horatio Travers, awaiting her.
Scarlett went up immediately to the Customs building, there to transact the formalities incident to the extradition of Bully Nick. These concluded, and the official courtesies having been duly proffered and accepted, he at last felt free to continue his interrupted wooing. Coming out into the open, he was going to seek Evelyn in a merry group where the orphans were being taught the art of keeping erect on snow-shoes, when he was accosted by Maclane.
"Oh, Sergeant! I am called upon to marry a couple under circumstances of a peculiar nature, involving exceptional haste. There is no Gold Commissioner, I find, nor Justice of the Peace, in the district, nor within a day's journey, from whom to obtain a license; but I have consented to accept a copy of the Dominion Marriage Act, or rather a specified clause thereof, signed by yourself as Mounted Policeman in charge. Will that arrangement satisfy you, judicially speaking?"