tions in
Chinook, and told her what to do at Dingan's if she got there first. Then
she was gone.

The officer did not understand what Nance had said, but he realized that,
whatever she intended to do, she had an advantage over him. With an
unnecessary courage he had ridden on alone to make his capture, and, as it
proved, without prudence. He had got his man, but he had not got the
smuggled whiskey and alcohol he had come to seize. There was no time to be
lost. The girl had gone before he realized it. What had she said to the
prisoner? He was foolish enough to ask Lambton, and Lambton replied
coolly: "She said she'd get you some supper, but she guessed it would have
to be cold--What's your name? Are you a colonel, or a captain, or only a
principal private?"

"I am Captain MacFee, Lambton. And you'll now bring me where your outfit
is. March!"

The pistol was still in his hand, and he had a determined look in his eye.
Lambton saw it. He was aware of how much power lay in the threatening face
before him, and how eager that power was to make itself felt, and provide
"Examples"; but he took his chances.

"I'll march all right," he answered; "but I'll march to where you tell me.
You can't have it both ways. You can take me, because you've found me, and
you can take my outfit, too, when you've found it; but I'm not doing your
work, not if I know it."

There was a blaze of anger in the eyes of the officer, and it looked for
an instant as though something of the lawlessness of the border was going
to mark the first step of the Law in the Wilderness, but he bethought
himself in time, and said, quietly, yet in a voice which Lambton knew he
must heed:

"Put on your things--quick."

When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler's pistols,
he said again, "March, Lambton!"

Lambton marched through the moonlit night toward the troop of men who had
come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he went
his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down toward the Barfleur
Coulee. His heart thumped in his breast. This girl, this prairie-flower,
was doing this for him, was risking her life, was breaking the law for
him. If she got through, and handed over the whiskey to those who were
waiting for it, and it got bundled into the boats going North before the
redcoats reached Dingan's Drive, it would be as fine a performance as the
West had ever seen; and he would be six hundred dollars to the g