he corral back of the store."

"Did it come in without a rider?" Beresford asked.

The question was unnecessary. The horse would have gone to Fort
Macleod and not have come to Whoop-Up unless a rider had guided it
here. But sometimes one found out things from unwilling witnesses if
one asked questions.

"Didn't notice. I was in the store myself."

"Thought perhaps you hadn't noticed," the officer said. "None of you
other gentlemen noticed either, did you?"

The "other gentlemen" held a dogged, sulky silence. A girl cantered
through the gate of the stockade and up to the store. At sight of
Morse her eyes passed swiftly to Beresford. His answered smilingly
what she had asked. It was all over in a flash, but it told the man
from Montana who the informer was that had betrayed to the police the
place of the whiskey cache.

To the best of her limited chance, Jessie McRae was paying an
installment on the debt she owed Bully West and Tom Morse.

CHAPTER VIII

AT SWEET WATER CREEK

Before a fire of buffalo chips Constable Beresford and his prisoner
smoked the pipe of peace. Morse sat on his heels, legs crossed, after
the manner of the camper. The officer lounged at full length, an elbow
dug into the sand as a support for his head. The Montanan was
on parole, so that for the moment at least their relations were
forgotten.

"After the buffalo--what?" asked the American. "The end of the
Indian--is that what it means? And desolation on the plains. Nobody
left but the Hudson's Bay Company trappers, d'you reckon?"

The Canadian answered in one word. "Cattle."

"Some, maybe," Morse assented. "But, holy Moses, think of the millions
it would take to stock this country."

"Bet you the country's stocked inside of five years of the time the
buffalo are cleared out. Look at what the big Texas drives are doing
in Colorado and Wyoming and Montana. Get over the idea that this land
up here is a desert. That's a fool notion our school geographies are
responsible for. Great American Desert? Great American fiddlesticks!
It's a man's country, if you like; but I've yet to see the beat of
it."

Morse had ceased to pay attention. His head was tilted, and he was
listening.

"Some one ridin' this way," he said presently. "Hear the hoofs click
on the shale. Who is it? I wonder. An' what do they want? When folks'
intentions hasn't been declared it's a good notion to hold a hand you
can raise on."

Without haste and without de