came the whining
of dogs in harness, and the grind and churn of sled-runners. Somebody
near the door peeped out.

"It's Sam an' his pardner an' a dog-team hell-bent down the trail for
Stewart River," the man reported.

Nobody spoke for a long half-minute, but men glanced significantly at
one another, and a general restlessness pervaded the packed room. Out
of the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Breck, Lucy, and her
husband whispering together.

"Come on, you," Shunk Wilson said gruffly to Smoke. "Cut this
questionin' short. We know what you're tryin' to prove--that the other
bank wa'n't searched. The witness admits it. We admit it. It wa'n't
necessary. No tracks led to that bank. The snow wa'n't broke."

"There was a man on the other bank just the same," Smoke insisted.

"That's too thin for skatin', young man. There ain't many of us on the
McQuestion, an' we got every man accounted for."

"Who was the man you hiked out of camp two weeks ago?" Smoke asked.

"Alonzo Miramar. He was a Mexican. What's that grub-thief got to do with
it?"

"Nothing, except that you haven't accounted for HIM, Mr. Judge."

"He went down the river, not up."

"How do you know where he went?"

"Saw him start."

"And that's all you know of what became of him?"

"No, it ain't, young man. I know, we all know, he had four days' grub
an' no gun to shoot meat with. If he didn't make the settlement on the
Yukon he'd croaked long before this."

"I suppose you've got all the guns in this part of the country accounted
for, too," Smoke observed pointedly.

Shunk Wilson was angry. "You'd think I was the prisoner the way you
slam questions into me. Now then, come on with the next witness. Where's
French Louis?"

While French Louis was shoving forward, Lucy opened the door.

"Where you goin'?" Shunk Wilson shouted.

"I reckon I don't have to stay," she answered defiantly. "I ain't got no
vote, an' besides, my cabin's so jammed up I can't breathe."

In a few minutes her husband followed. The closing of the door was the
first warning the judge received of it.

"Who was that?" he interrupted Pierre's narrative to ask.

"Bill Peabody," somebody spoke up. "Said he wanted to ask his wife
something and was coming right back."

Instead of Bill, it was Lucy who re-entered, took off her furs, and
resumed her place by the stove.

"I reckon we don't need to hear the rest of the witnesses," was Shunk
Wilson's decision, when Pierre