leather
boots, tight riding-breeches, scarlet jacket, and jaunty forage cap.
It needed no second glance to tell Tom Morse that the police had run
down the place where they had hidden their cargo.

From out of the little canon a man appeared. He was carrying a keg of
whiskey. The man was Barney. West had no doubt sent word to him that
he would shortly bring a buyer with him to the rendezvous.

The man in the scarlet jacket rose and stepped out into the open. He
was a few feet from Barney. In his belt there was a revolver, but he
did not draw it.

Barney stopped and stared at him, his mouth open, eyes bulging. "Where
in Heligoland you come from?" he asked.

"From Sarnia, Ontario," the red-coat answered. "Glad to meet you,
friend. I've been looking for you several days."

"For me!" said Barney blankly.

"For you--and for that keg of forty-rod you're carrying. No, don't
drop it. We can talk more comfortably while both your hands are busy."
The constable stepped forward and picked from the ground a rifle.
"I've been lying in the brush two hours waiting for you to get
separated from this. Didn't want you making any mistakes in your
excitement."

"Mistakes!" repeated Barney.

"Yes. You're under arrest, you know, for whiskey-smuggling."

"You're one of these here border police." Barney used the rising
inflection in making his statement.

"Constable Winthrop Beresford, North-West Mounted, at your service,"
replied the officer jauntily. He was a trim, well-set-up youth, quick
of step and crisp of speech.

"What you gonna do with me?"

"Take you to Fort Macleod."

It was perhaps because his eyes were set at not quite the right angles
and because they were so small and wolfish that Barney usually aroused
distrust. He suggested now, with an ingratiating whine in his voice,
that he would like to see a man at Whoop-Up first.

"Jes' a li'l' matter of business," he added by way of explanation.

The constable guessed at his business. The man wanted to let his boss
know what had taken place and to give him a chance to rescue him if he
would. Beresford's duty was to find out who was back of this liquor
running. It would be worth while knowing what man Barney wanted to
talk with. He could afford to take a chance on the rescue.

"Righto," he agreed. "You may put that barrel down now."

Barney laid it down, end up. With one sharp drive of the rifle butt
the officer broke in the top of the keg, He kicked the barrel over