"Sir, I know this isn't your first tour at the War Department," Dowling said. "How did you manage before?"

"God only knows," Custer answered gloomily. "I sat behind a desk, the same as I'm sitting behind a desk now. Then, though, I had an Army to help reform. I had wars to look forward to. I had a purpose that helped me forget I was-stuck here. What have I got now? Only the desk, Lieutenant Colonel. Only the desk." His sigh ruffled his bushy mustache.

Exasperation. Fury. Scorn. Occasional astonished admiration. Horror. Those were the emotions Custer usually roused in Abner Dowling. That he should pity the ancient warrior had never crossed his mind till now. Setting Custer to makework was like harnessing an old, worn-out ex-champion thoroughbred to a brewery wagon. He still wanted to run, even if he couldn't any more.

Quietly, Dowling asked, "Can I get you anything, sir? Anything at all that might make you more comfortable?" Even if Custer told him he wanted an eighteen-year-old blonde-and Custer's asking for something along those lines would not have unduly surprised his adjutant, for he still fancied himself a ladies' man, especially when Libbie wasn't around-Dowling resolved to do his best to get him one.

But the general asked for nothing of the sort. Instead, he said, "Can you get me the president's ear? We still have soldiers in action, enforcing our rule on the Canadian backwaters we didn't overrun during the Great War. Even a command like that would be better than sitting around here waiting to die. And, by God, I still owe the Canucks more than a little. The British bastards who killed my brother Tom rode down out of Canada almost forty years ago. Even so late as this, revenge would be sweet."

Dowling wished he'd kept his mouth shut. He had no great desire to go traipsing up into the great American Siberia, no matter what Custer wanted. But, seeing the desperate hope on the old man's face, he said, "I don't know whether I can get President Roosevelt's ear or not, sir. Even if he hears me, I don't know whether he'll listen to me, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, yes." Custer nodded and looked shrewd. "It might be interesting to find out whether Teddy would enjoy keeping me here under his eye and useless better than he would knowing he's sent me to the ends of the earth. Yes, I do wonder how he'd decide there." Reluctantly, Dowling nodded. Teddy Roosevelt would be making exactly that calculation.

Even more reluctantly, Custer's adjutant telephoned Powel House, the president's Philadelphia residence. He was not immediately put through to Theodore Roosevelt. He hadn't expected to be. He left his name-and Custer's name, too-and how to reach him. If the president decided to call back, he would. If he decided not to… well, in that case, Dowling had made the effort.

Two days later, the telephone rang. When Dowling answered, a familiar gravelly voice on the other end of the line said, "This is Theodore Roosevelt, Lieutenant Colonel. What can I do for you and what, presumably, can I do for General Custer?"

"Yes, Mr. President, that's why I called," Dowling said, and explained.

A long silence followed. "He wants me to send him up there?" Roosevelt sounded as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"Yes, sir," Dowling answered. "He feels useless here at the War Department. He'd rather be doing something than vegetating. And he wants to rule the Canadians with a rod of iron, you might say, because of what happened to his brother during the Second Mexican War." Loyally, Dowling refrained from offering his own opinion of a transfer to Canada.

"If Tom Custer hadn't got killed, we probably would have lost the battle by the Teton River, because our Gatling guns would have been wrongly placed," Roosevelt said. "But that's neither here nor there, now, I admit." The president paused. Dowling could almost hear the wheels going round inside his head. At last, he said, "Well, by jingo, if that's what General Custer wants, that's what he shall have. Let no one ever say I put my personal differences with him in the way of fulfilling the reasonable desires of the most distinguished soldier the United States have known since George Washington."

"Thank you, your Excellency, on General Custer's behalf," Dowling said. "You have no idea how pleased he'll be at going back under the saddle again."

"Our old warhorse." Roosevelt chuckled, a sound Dowling wasn't sure he liked. "Tell him to pack his long Johns-and you pack yours, too, Lieutenant Colonel."

"Yes, sir." Dowling did his best to sound cheerful. His best, he feared, was far from good enough.

"Lies!" Julia McGregor furiously tossed her head. The flames in the fireplace caught the red highlights of her hair and made it seem about to catch fire, too. "The lies the Americans make the teachers tell!"

"What is it now?" her father asked. Arthur McGregor smiled grimly. The harder the Americans tried to indoctrinate his daughters, the more they shot themselves in the foot.

"They call the Tories traitors! They stayed loyal to their own king when everyone around them was rebelling, and for that the Americans call them traitors!" Julia was furious, all right. "I'd sooner be around people who stay loyal even if it costs them than a pack of fools who blow like weather vanes, whichever way the wind happens to catch them."

Maude looked up from her knitting. "She's your daughter," she remarked to her husband.

"That she is," McGregor said with no small pride. "My daughter, my country's daughter-not any American's daughter."

"I should say not," Julia exclaimed indignantly.

Mary shoved aside a piece of scratch paper on which she was practicing multiplication and division. "Pa, do the Yanks lie about nine times eight being seventy-two, too?" she asked, her voice hopeful. "It would work a lot better if it were seventy-one."

"I'm afraid they're telling the truth there, chick," he answered. "Numbers don't change, no matter which side of the border they're on "

"Too bad," his younger daughter said. "I thought the Americans would lie about everything under the sun."

"They lie about everything that happened under the sun," Julia said. "But numbers aren't exactly things that happen under the sun. They're real and true all by themselves, no matter how you look at them."

"How does that make them different than anything else?" Mary asked.

Before Julia could answer, one of the kerosene lamps that helped the fireplace light the front room burned dry. The stink of lamp oil spread through the room. McGregor heaved himself up out of his chair and started over to get some kerosene to refill the lamp.

"Don't waste your time, Arthur," Maude said. "We're as near out as makes no difference."

"That's… too bad," he said; he did his best not to curse in front of his womenfolk. "Have to ride into town tomorrow and buy some more at Gibbon's general store. Can't go around wandering in the dark."

"Why not, Pa?" Mary said with a wicked smile. "The Yanks do it all the time."

"Hush, you," McGregor said, snorting. "Tend to your ciphering, not your wisecracks." Mary dutifully bent her head to the paper. Five minutes later, or ten, or fifteen, she'd come out with something else outrageous. He was as sure of it as of the sun coming up tomorrow morning.

When he drove out in the wagon the next morning, he was only half convinced the sun had come up. A thick layer of dirty gray clouds lay between it and him. In that murky light, the snow covering the ground also looked gray and dirty, though most of it was freshly fallen. Under the wagon's iron tires, the frozen ground was as hard-though by no means as smooth-as if it were macadamized.

As usual, U.S. soldiers meticulously checked the wagon before letting McGregor go on into Rosenfeld. He had nothing to hide, not here: all his bomb-making paraphernalia remained hidden in his barn. After he'd taken his revenge on Major Hanne-brink, who'd ordered his son executed, the urge to make his deadly toys had eased.