of the slaughtered animals which
he had discovered, and that the thieves had not been able to carry
off, his teeth met on a still well-formed rifle bullet of number 22
calibre. This type of rifle we knew was scarcely ever used on our
coast, and the policeman at once made a round to take every one. He
returned with three, which was really the whole stock.

A piece of meat was now placed at a reasonable distance, also some
bags of snow, flour, etc., and a number of bullets fired into them.
These bullets were then all privately marked, and shuffled up. Our own
deductions were made, and a man from twenty miles away summoned,
arrested, and brought up. He brought witnesses and friends, apparently
to impress the court--one especially, who most vehemently protested
that he knew the owner of the rifle, and that he was never out of his
house at the time that the deer would have been killed. In court was a
man, for twenty-seven years agent in Labrador for the Hudson Bay
Company--a crack shot and a most expert hunter. He was called up,
given the big pile of bullets, and told to try and sort them, by the
groove marks, into those fired by the three different rifles. We then
handed him the control bullet, and he put it instantly on one of the
piles. It was the pile that had been fired from the rifle of the
accused. This man, in testifying, in order to clear himself, had let
out the fact that his rifle had not been kept in his house, but in the
house of the vociferous witness--whom we now arrested, convicted, and
condemned to jail for six months or two hundred dollars fine--the
latter alternative being given only because we knew that he had not
the necessary sum. Protesting as loudly as he had previously
witnessed, he went to jail; but the rest let out threats that they
were coming back with others to set him free. We had only a frame
wooden jail, and a rheumatic jailer of over seventy years, hired to
hobble around by day and see that the prisoners were fed and kept
orderly. We announced, therefore, that our Hudson Bay friend, with his
rifle loaded, would be night jailer.

A few days passed by. The prisoner did not like improving the public
thoroughfare for our benefit, while those "who were just as bad as he"
went free. Our old jailer took good care that he should hear what good
times they were having and laughing at him for being caught. Indeed,
he liked it so little that he gave the whole plot away--at least what
he called the wh