omat. He filled
a water-bucket with whiskey and handed it, with a tin cup, to the
wrinkled old brave nearest him.

"For our friends the Crees," he said. "Tell your chief my young
man didn't understand. He thought he was rescuing a Cree from the
Blackfeet."

"Ugh! Ugh!" The Indians shuffled away with their booty.

There was more talk, but the guttural protests died away before the
temptation of the liquor. The braves drank, flung a few shots in
bravado toward the wagons, and presently took themselves off.

The traders did not renew their quarrel. West's reasons for not
antagonizing the Morse family were still powerful as ever. He subdued
his desire to punish the young man and sullenly gave orders to hitch
up the teams.

It was mid-afternoon when the oxen jogged into Whoop-Up. The post was
a stockade fort, built in a square about two hundred yards long, of
cottonwood logs dovetailed together. The buildings on each side of
the plaza faced inward. Loopholes had been cut in the bastions as a
protection against Indians.

In the big stores was a large supply of blankets, beads, provisions,
rifles, and clothing. The adjacent rooms were half-empty now, but in
the spring they would be packed to the eaves with thousands of buffalo
robes and furs brought in from outlying settlements by hunters. Later
these would be hauled to Fort Benton and from there sent down the
Missouri to St. Louis and other points.

Morse, looking round, missed a familiar feature.

"Where's the liquor?" he asked.

"S-sh!" warned the clerk with whom he was talking. "Haven't you heard?
There's a bunch of police come into the country from Winnipeg. The
lid's on tight." His far eye drooped to the cheek in a wise wink. "If
you've brought in whiskey, you'd better get it out of the fort and
bury it."

"That's up to West. I wouldn't advise any police to monkey with a
cargo of his."

"You don't say." The clerk's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Well, I'll
just make a li'l' bet with you. If the North-West Mounted start to
arrest Bully West or to empty his liquor-kegs, they'll go right
through with the job. They're go-getters, these red-coats are."

"Red-coats? Not soldiers, are they?"

"Well, they are and they ain't. They're drilled an' in companies. But
they can arrest any one they've a mind to, and their officers can try
and sentence folks. They don't play no favorites either. Soon as they
hear of this mix-up between the Crees and the Blackfeet they'l