There'll be
months of just snow away up there," and he nodded towards the
north.
"Oh, but father says it won't be lonely at all up there," asserted
the child. "He says I'll grow _terribly_ big in a few years; that
people always grow in the North, and maybe I'll soon be able to
wear buffalo buttons and have stripes on my sleeve like you;" and
the childish fingers traced the outline of the sergeant's chevrons.
"I hope, dear, that you shall do all that, soon," said Mrs. Lysle;
"but first you must _win_ those stripes, my boy, and if you win them
as the sergeant did, mother shall be very proud of you."
At which, the said sergeant hastily set the boy down, and, with
confusion written all over his strong young face, made some excuse
to disappear, for no man in the world is as shy or modest about his
deeds of valor as is a North-West "Mounted."
"Won't you tell me, mother, how Sergeant Black got those stripes on
his sleeve?" begged the boy.
"Perhaps to-night, son, when you are in bed--just before mother
says good-night--we'll see. But look! there is the city, fading,
fading." Then after a short silence: "There, Graham, it has gone."
"But isn't that it 'way over there, mother?" persisted the boy.
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