roach. He had tried to
persuade Jessie that this was not her fight, but a question from her
had silenced him.

"If that Bully West finds me here, after he's killed you, d' you think
I can get him to let me go because it wasn't my fight?"

She had asked it with flashing eyes, in which for an instant he had
seen the savagery of fear leap out. Beresford was troubled. The girl
was right enough. If West went the length of murder, he would be an
outlaw. Sleeping Dawn would not be safe with him after she had ridden
out to warn his enemy that he was coming. The fellow was a primeval
brute. His reputation had run over the whole border country of
Rupert's Land.

Now he appealed to Morse. "If they get me, will you try to save Miss
McRae? This fellow West is a devil, I hear."

The officer caught a gleam of hot red eyes. "I'll 'tend to that. We'll
mix first, him 'n' me. Question now is, do I get a gun?"

"What for?"

"Didn't you hear him make his brags about what he was gonna do to me?
If there's shootin' I'm in on it, ain't I?"

"No. You're a prisoner. I can't arm you unless your life is in
danger."

West pulled up his horse about sixty yards from the rocks. He shouted
a profane order. The purport of it was that Beresford had better come
out with his hands up if he didn't want to be dragged out by a rope
around his neck. The man's speech crackled with oaths and obscenity.

The constable stepped into the open a few yards. "What do you want?"
he asked.

"You." The whiskey-runner screamed it in a sudden gust of passion.
"Think you can make a fool of Bully West? Think you can bust up our
cargo an' get away with it? I'll show you where you head in at."

"Don't make any mistake, West," advised the officer, his voice cold as
the splash of ice-water. "Three of us are here, all with rifles, all
dead shots. If you attack us, some of you are going to get killed."

"Tha's a lie. You're alone--except for Tom Morse, an' he ain't fool
enough to fight to go to jail. I've got you where I want you." West
swung from the saddle and came straddling forward. In the uncertain
light he looked more like some misbegotten ogre than a human being.

"That's far enough," warned Beresford, not a trace of excitement in
manner or speech. His hands hung by his sides. He gave no sign of
knowing that he had a revolver strapped to his hip ready for action.

The liquor smuggler stopped to pour out abuse. He was working himself
up to a passion that wou