knee, passed his hand over his eyes and his brow,
then staggered against the damp bank.

"Great God, Jim! It's--it's Brenchfield!" he gasped.

Jim stood looking silently at the corpse on the ground, his face
peculiarly unperturbed. He stepped over to Phil and put his arm
comfortingly over his shoulder.

"Well, old man! his sins have found him out at last. He had to come
back to it,--a thief always does. He's got the last hair out of the
dog that bit him.

"Brace up, old fellow! I hate to ask you to handle him, but--well--the
hate part of it is gone now."

Phil recovered himself and quietly assisted Jim in adjusting the rope
round the great, limp body.

They did not shout their discovery to those above, but left the
surprise of it to the arrival.

But they had to wait some time and had to shout several times before
the rope was lowered by the half-stupefied men above.

Jim and Phil loosened the saddlebags from the dead horse. These were
stuffed to overflowing with bills of all denominations; seemingly the
entire theft from the Commercial Bank.

One after the other, each carrying a bag, Phil and Jim were pulled up
on to the roadway.

"The dirty, two-faced son-of-a-gun!" was the only remark made, and it
came from Howden. No other words were necessary, for that phrase
expressed their opinions concretely.

Brenchfield's body was hoisted and swung across Howden's horse in
front of the Chief, and the man-hunters proceeded homeward at a
canter.

"How did you get over from the Landing?" asked Jim of McConnachie.

"Oh,--we got there in good time and didn't meet a darned thing all the
way. We got to Allison's wharf. The old man's launch was there, tied
up for the night. But there was another one alongside of it. We were
just comin' back to have a look about, when him and two more came bang
into us from over the hill. We jumped to our nags, and they turned and
beat it back. God knows where the other two got to. They looked like
breeds to me. We made after him because he had full saddlebags and
looked like the head-boss man.

"But that she-devil of a horse,--it left us a mile behind. We hadn't
the ghost of an idea he was anyways near when we hit your bunch.

"But where in the name of Pete the darn-fool idiot was making for,
gets my goat. Who would make for Kelowna when there's miles of ranges
to roam in?"

"Aw!--get off your foot!" exclaimed the knowing Howden. "He meant to
get that launch at the Landing first