us ride 'em--ur they think they do."

He handed her aboard the raft and took his place at the stern.

"Lie down, Whiskers; yer legs is too teetery fer this craft. Yuh might
take a day off 'n' larn that fool jinny o' Mira's to lie down when
she's told to. No, Mira, I'll git it across myself. It's down stream,
an' I wantuh show yuh she ain't so bad a boat fer a cow-puncher to make
with wooden trees outen a wooden head. I got all my ole muscles
back . . . workin' fer Torrance, dang hard work, too, to say nothin' o'
them dirty Poles and other cats. . . . I gotta turn up to the minute
every mornin' ur they wanta know why. That nigger, Koppy! Some day
I'll jes' natcherl bust up an' take him to Heaven with me. I'm sure
losin' my spunk."

[1] "Maintiens le droit," the motto of the Mounted Police.

CHAPTER VI

THE HIDDEN MARKSMAN

Adrian Conrad withdrew his feet from the table and consulted his watch.
Benny, his cook, a large fair-haired Norwegian, pushed through from the
kitchen with an armful of dishes and gravely arranged them on the
oilcloth-covered table in preparation for tomorrow's breakfast. Then,
with a cough--his nightly farewell--he disappeared.

Conrad, still examining his watch, heard him depart by the back door,
drawing it carefully behind him, and tramp in his heavy dragging way
round the shack to the path leading down to the camp. Alone, the
foreman rose and pulled out a drawer, frowning critically into it.

The task of selecting his evening tie was interrupted by a subdued
grunt from the doorway. The ruddy face of Benny, the silent, was
poking through, alive with excitement.

At the same instant Conrad became aware of the source of the
Norwegian's agitation. From the camp below broke the distant clamour
of altercation, the full-mouthed curses of excited foreigners building
up a structure of more strenuous argument. In four strides the foreman
was at the door.

Conrad's shack was strategically situated. Half-way up the sloping
path between camp and trestle, it overlooked the former unobtrusively.
From his door he had his men under his eye, with all the advantages of
a not too distant isolation.

The scene of the commotion was apparent enough, a small excited group
of men, probably the participators in one of the games of chance always
in progress in the evenings in the open space between the camp and the
water. Far more industriously the bohunk gambled his pay away in the
ev