as beneath him. His difficulty was to curb the
sly desire to answer back. Imbrie gave him such priceless openings. But
the part he had imposed on himself required that he seemed to be cowed
by the man's crude attempts at wit. A seeming sullen silence was his
only safe line. It required no little self-control.

Imbrie went on: "The government sets you fellows up as a kind of bogey.
For years they've been teaching the natives that a red-coat is a kind of
sacred monkey that all must bow down to. And you forget you're only a
man like the rest of us. When you meet a man who isn't scared off by all
this hocus-pocus it comes pretty hard on you. You have to sing small,
don't you, Redbreast?"

Silence from Stonor.

"I say you have to sing small, Redbreast."

"Just as you like."

"I've heard ugly tales about the police," Imbrie went on. "It seems
they're not above turning a bit of profit out of their jobs when it's
safe. Is that so, Stonor?"

"I hear you say it."

"You yourself only took me up in the first place because you thought
there was a bit of a bribe in it, or a jug of whisky maybe. You thought
I was a whisky-runner, but you couldn't prove it. I guess you're sorry
now that you ever fooled with me, aren't you, Redbreast?"

Stonor said nothing.

"Answer me when I speak to you. Aren't you sorry now that you interfered
with me?"

This was a hard one. A vein stood out on Stonor's forehead. He thought:
"I wouldn't say it for myself, but for her----!" Aloud he muttered:
"Yes!"

Imbrie roared with laughter. "I'm putting the police in their place!" he
cried. "I'm teaching them manners! I'll have him eating out of my hand
before I'm through with him!"

Clare, seeing the swollen vein, bled for Stonor, yet she gave him a
glance of scorn, and the look she gave Imbrie caused him to rise as if
moved by a spring, and cross to her.

As he passed the breed woman he said in the Indian tongue: "Well, who
was right, old woman?"

He sat down beside Clare.

The woman answered: "You fool! She's playing with you to save her lover.
Any woman would do the same."

"You lie!" said Imbrie, with a fatuous side-glance at Clare. "She's
beginning to like me now."

"Beginning to like you!" cried the woman scornfully. "Fool! Watch me!
I'll show you how much she likes you!"

Springing to her feet, and stooping over, she drew the knife from her
moccasin. She turned on Stonor. "Redbreast!" she cried in English. "I'm
sick of looking at