shed him gently into a chair. "Sit down; don't be a fool,
Throng," he said. Then he turned to Halby: "You're a magistrate--make me
a special constable; I'll go, monsieur le capitaine--of no company."

Halby stared. He knew Pierre's bravery, his ingenuity and daring. But
this was the last thing he expected: that the malicious, railing little
half-breed would work with him and the law. Pierre seemed to understand
his thoughts, for he said: "It is not for you. I am sick for adventure,
and then there is mademoiselle--such a finger she has for a ven'son
pudding."

Without a word Halby wrote on a leaf in his notebook, and presently
handed the slip to Pierre. "That's your commission as a special
constable," he said, "and here's the seal on it." He handed over a
pistol.

Pierre raised his eyebrows at it, but Halby continued: "It has the
Government mark. But you'd better bring Throng's rifle too."

Throng sat staring at the two men, his hands nervously shifting on
his knees. "Tell Liddy," he said, "that the last batch of bread was
sour--Duc ain't no good-an' that I ain't had no relish sence she left.
Tell her the cough gits lower down all the time. 'Member when she tended
that felon o' yourn, Pierre?"

Pierre looked at a sear on his finger and nodded. "She cut it too young;
but she had the nerve! When do you start, captain? It's an eighty-mile
ride."

"At once," was the reply. "We can sleep to-night in the Jim-a-long-Jo"
(a hut which the Company had built between two distant posts), "and get
there at dawn day after to-morrow. The snow is light and we can travel
quick. I have a good horse, and you--"

"I have my black Tophet. He'll travel with your roan as on one
snaffle-bar. That roan--you know where he come from?"

"From the Dolright stud, over the Border."

"That's wrong. He come from Greystop's paddock, where my Tophet was
foaled; they are brothers. Yours was stole and sold to the Gover'ment;
mine was bought by good hard money. The law the keeper of stolen
goods, eh? But these two will go cinch to cinch all the way, like two
brothers--like you and me."

He could not help the touch of irony in his last words: he saw the
amusing side of things, and all humour in him had a strain of the
sardonic.

"Brothers-in-law for a day or two," answered Halby drily.

Within two hours they were ready to start. Pierre had charged Duc the
incompetent upon matters for the old man's comfort, and had himself,
with a curious sort o