I prefer to give my own thanks

"One never speaks of neighbours out here, Mrs. Mahon," smiled Constable Williams. "It makes one homesick. It's so long since we had neighbours that we've gone a bit rusty on the amenities of society. There's so little we can do for the first woman--"   "Williams, you're fishing." Mahon shook his head affectionately at his subordinate. "If you'd heard my wife this morning--"   "If you don't mind, dear," interrupted Helen, "I prefer to give my own thanks."   "But you just said this morning you couldn't--"   "Don't try, please," said Williams, with a grin. He drew a sigh. "I suppose now I ought to forego a selfish pleasure and let you go to bed. If I could only look sleepy! But I feel as if bed were an interruption, a nasty, bad-dispositioned, irritating kill-joy. And you'll be heavy with the chloroform of this rare air. Ah, me! Just when life begins--"   "It won't go down, Williams," teased Mahon. "The air up here has nothing on Medicine Hat. Not even its wildest booster would claim for the Hat the poison of a manufacturing town. Meteorologically it must be as far from civilisation as Mile 127. The worst up here is trying to compete with the sun in the matter of sleep. In the summer one would get about three hours; in the winter there wouldn't be time to prepare meals. Winter must be eerie. Even now I scent it--"   He shifted suddenly in his chair. Then with a dash he and Williams were crowding through the open door with drawn revolvers.   Through the night came the thunder of racing hoofs.   Mahon knew that speed. Many a time he had ridden thus, the wind whistling past his ears and the horse's mane flicking his stinging face. He knew, too, that a master-hand directed the horse he heard.