ou can't ever tell till you
try."

His friend began to catch the drift of the officer's purpose. He was
looking for a liquor shipment, _and he had bought an auger to bore
through difficulties_.

Tom's eyes glowed. "Come over to the storeroom an' take a look at my
stock. Want you to see I'm gonna have these moccasins made from good
material."

They kept step across the corral, gay, light-hearted sons of the
frontier, both hard as nails, packed muscles rippling like those of
forest panthers. Their years added would not total more than twoscore
and five, but life had taken hold of them young and trained them to
its purposes, had shot them through and through with hardihood and
endurance and the cool prevision that forestalls disaster.

"I'm in on this," the Montanan said.

"Meaning?"

"That I buy chips, take a hand, sit in, deal cards."

The level gaze of the police officer studied him speculatively. "Now
why this change of heart?"

"You get me wrong. I'm with you to a finish in puttin' West and Whaley
out of business. They're a hell-raisin' outfit, an' this country'll be
well rid of 'em. Only thing is I wanta play my cards above the table.
I couldn't spy on these men. Leastways, it didn't look quite square to
me. But this is a bronc of another color. Lead me to that trouble you
was promisin' a while ago."

Beresford led him to it, by way of a rain-washed gully, up which they
trod their devious path slowly and without noise. From the gully they
snaked through the dry grass to a small ditch that had been built to
drain the camping-ground during spring freshets. This wound into the
midst of the wagon train encampment.

The plainsmen crept along the dry ditch with laborious care. They
advanced no single inch without first taking care to move aside any
twig the snapping of which might betray them.

From the beginning of the adventure until its climax no word was
spoken. Beresford led, the trader followed at his heels.

The voices of men drifted to them from a camp-fire in the shelter of
the wagons. There were, Tom guessed, about four of them. Their words
came clear through the velvet night. They talked the casual elemental
topics common to their kind.

There was a moonlit open space to be crossed. The constable took it
swiftly with long strides, reached a wagon, and dodged under it. His
companion held to the cover of the ditch. He was not needed closer.

The officer lay flat on his back, set the point of the