reputation
of being connected with the whisky runners; not a very respectable
business, and thought to be dangerous. Whisky runners were inclined
to resent intrusion on their privacy with a touch of that biting
inhospitableness which a moonlighter of Kentucky uses toward an
inquisitive, unsympathetic marshal. On the Cypress Hills Patrol,
however, the erring servants of Bacchus were having a hard time of
it. Vigilance never slept there in the days of which these lines bear
record. Old Brown Windsor had, in words, freely espoused the cause of
the sinful. To the careless spectator it seemed a charitable siding with
the suffering; a proof that the old man's heart was not so cold as his
hands. Sergeant Fones thought differently, and his mission had just
been to warn the store-keeper that there was menacing evidence gathering
against him, and that his friendship with Golden Feather, the Indian
Chief, had better cease at once. Sergeant Fones had a way of putting
things. Old Brown Windsor endeavoured for a moment to be sarcastic. This
was the brief dialogue in the domain of sarcasm:

"I s'pose you just lit round in a friendly sort of way, hopin' that I'd
kenoodle with you later."

"Exactly."

There was an unpleasant click to the word. The old man's hands got
colder. He had nothing more to say.

Before leaving, the Sergeant said something quietly and quickly to Young
Aleck. Pierre observed, but could not hear. Young Aleck was uneasy;
Pierre was perplexed. The Sergeant turned at the door, and said in
French: "What are your chances for a Merry Christmas at Pardon's Drive,
Pretty Pierre?" Pierre answered nothing. He shrugged his shoulders, and
as the door closed, muttered, "Il est le diable." And he meant it. What
should Sergeant Fones know of that intended meeting at Pardon's Drive on
Christmas Day? And if he knew, what then? It was not against the law to
play euchre. Still it perplexed Pierre. Before the Windsors, father and
son, however, he was, as we have seen, playfully cool.

After quitting Old Brown Windsor's store, Sergeant Fones urged his stout
broncho to a quicker pace than usual. The broncho was, like himself,
wasteful of neither action nor affection. The Sergeant had caught him
wild and independent, had brought him in, broken him, and taught him
obedience. They understood each other; perhaps they loved each other.
But about that even Private Gellatly had views in common with the
general sentiment as to the charact