at will the Police say?"

He reached out to tickle Whiskers' neck with a twig and laughed
lightly. "I don' know wot they'll say, an' I don' care, but I know wot
they'll do. They'll take hold o' my hands an'--an'--Gor-swizzle! I
shud oughta know the Sergeant. . . . No more I ain't skeered o' th'
Inspector."

"But we're still stealing horses, Pete."

"Yuh still want me to pay Torrance, the ole sinner, fer horses he knew
was stole when he bought 'em?" He frowned. "If yuh say so when I got
the money myself, I'll give him the ten bucks a head he paid me fer 'em
las' year . . . but I'm sure goin' to git them horses back fust the way
they come, an' I'm not goin' to take any o' your money. Anyway he
wudn't sell fer ten bucks."

"The Police never forgive," she sighed.

The half breed leaned thoughtfully against a tree, chewing the twig.

"I kind o' feel, Mira," he said presently, "th' Inspector's got
feelin's some bigger'n that furrin sign he faces every day over his
desk, 'maintins he drut,'[1] ur suthin' like that. He's a bully
P'liceman, but he's a bully sight better friend, I'm gamblin'. Have
any trouble this trip?"

She threw aside her melancholy. "The two corrals this side of the Red
Deer are falling to pieces. Whiskers and Juno and I managed to keep
them in at nights, but we couldn't do it again, I'm afraid. I used the
old ford near the H-Lazy-Z; the water was too high to risk the other.
Of course I crossed at night. Met a farmer just over the railway, but
it was too dark to mean anything. Bert is having an easy time with the
bunch in the Hills, but we moved them further east. He's saw the
Police poking about the Hills a lot, specially Sergeant Mahon. . . .
I'll be glad when it's over, Pete. Things has gone too easy for a long
time. Something always turns up to spoil things."

"Didn't the raft 'most get away on us in the rapids? Ain't that 'nough
to happen?"

"I wasn't scared a bit," she said. "I knew you'd get us through."

"Swizzled if I did," he laughed. "I was skeered stiff."

"Well, you fooled me," patting his cheek with loving incredulity.

"An' all the time my knees fair tremblin'--wuss'n when Dutchy had the
drop on me an' me without a gun. Juno, ole woman, yuh done us fine
that time. . . . Only two more to git, Mira, an' then we're free. I
don' say them two ain't goin' to take some gittin'; they're in the
boss's own stable, an' he has ears like a gopher. He 'n' the young
miss