ike a woman, he
slipped his arm around Jake's shoulders, and said, "Say, Jake,
don't let the fellows mind me," Then in a lower tone--"What have
you got to drink?"

Jake went white-looking and began to talk of some cider he'd got in
the cellar; but Barrett interrupted with, "Look here, Jake, just
drop that rot; I know all about _you_." He tipped a half wink at
the rest of us, but laid his fingers across his lips. "Come, old
man," he wheedled like a girl, "you don't know what it is to be
dragged away from college and buried alive in this Indian bush. The
governor's good enough, you know--treats me white and all that--but
you know what he is on whiskey. I tell you I've got a throat as
long and dry as a fence rail--"

No one spoke.

"You'll save my life if you do," he added, crushing a bank note
into Jake's hand.

Jake looked at me. The same thought flashed on us both; if we could
get this church student on our side--Well! Things would be easy
enough and public suspicion never touch us. Jake turned,
resurrected the hidden cups, and went down cellar.

"You're Dan McLeod, aren't you?" suggested Barrett, leaning across
the table and looking sharply at me.

"That's me," I said in turn, and sized him up. I didn't like his
face; it was the undeniable face of a liar--small, uncertain eyes,
set together close like those of a fox, a thin nose, a narrow,
womanish chin that accorded with his girlish actions of coaxing,
and a mouth I didn't quite understand.

Jake had come up with the bottle, but before he could put it on the
table Barrett snatched it like a starving dog would a hunk of meat.

He peered at the label, squinting his foxy eyes, then laughed up at
Jake.

"I hope you don't sell the Indians _this_," he said, tapping the
capsule.

No, Jake never sold a drop of whiskey to Indians,--the law, you
know, was very strict and--

"Oh, I don't care whatever else you sell them," said Barrett, "but
their red throats would never appreciate fine twelve-year-old like
this. Come, boys."

We came.

"So you're Dan McLeod," he continued after the first long pull,
"I've heard about you, too. You've got a deck of cards in your
pocket--haven't you? Let's have a game."

I looked at him, and though, as I said in the beginning, I'm not a
good man, I felt honestly sorry for the old missionary and his wife
at that moment.

"It's no use," said the boy, reading my hesitation. "I've broken
loose. I must have a slice of the old col