d Timothy Brown were poling the boat along the rocky shore. From that
shore two rifle-shots rang out. Timothy Brown pitched out of the boat
and went down bubbling red, and that was the last of Timothy Brown. He,
Leclere, pitched into the bottom of the boat with a stinging shoulder. He
lay very quiet, peeping at the shore. After a time two Indians stuck up
their heads and came out to the water's edge, carrying between them a
birch-bark canoe. As they launched it, Leclere let fly. He potted one,
who went over the side after the manner of Timothy Brown. The other
dropped into the bottom of the canoe, and then canoe and poling boat went
down the stream in a drifting battle. After that they hung up on a split
current, and the canoe passed on one side of an island, the poling boat
on the other. That was the last of the canoe, and he came on into
Sunrise. Yes, from the way the Indian in the canoe jumped, he was sure
he had potted him. That was all. This explanation was not deemed
adequate. They gave him ten hours' grace while the _Lizzie_ steamed down
to investigate. Ten hours later she came wheezing back to Sunrise. There
had been nothing to investigate. No evidence had been found to back up
his statements. They told him to make his will, for he possessed a fifty-
thousand dollar Sunrise claim, and they were a law-abiding as well as a
law-giving breed.

Leclere shrugged his shoulders. "Bot one t'ing," he said; "a leetle,
w'at you call, favour--a leetle favour, dat is eet. I gif my feefty
t'ousan' dollair to de church. I gif my husky dog, Batard, to de devil.
De leetle favour? Firs' you hang heem, an' den you hang me. Eet is
good, eh?"

Good it was, they agreed, that Hell's Spawn should break trail for his
master across the last divide, and the court was adjourned down to the
river bank, where a big spruce tree stood by itself. Slackwater Charley
put a hangman's knot in the end of a hauling-line, and the noose was
slipped over Leclere's head and pulled tight around his neck. His hands
were tied behind his back, and he was assisted to the top of a cracker
box. Then the running end of the line was passed over an over-hanging
branch, drawn taut, and made fast. To kick the box out from under would
leave him dancing on the air.

"Now for the dog," said Webster Shaw, sometime mining engineer. "You'll
have to rope him, Slackwater."

Leclere grinned. Slackwater took a chew of tobacco, rove a running
no