Mackenzie, where the men who had heard of the arrest of MacNair
waited in a frenzy of impatience for the signal that would send them
flying over the snow to Snare Lake. Day and night the man travelled;
from the Mackenzie southward the length of Slave and up the Athabasca.
And in his wake men, whose eyes fairly bulged with the greed of gold,
jammed their outfits into packs and headed into the North.

At Athabasca Landing he sent a crew into the timber, and hastened on to
Edmonton where he purchased a railway ticket for a point that had
nothing whatever to do with his destination. That same night he
boarded an east-bound train, and in an early hour of the morning, when
the engine paused for water beside a tank that was the most conspicuous
building of a little flat town in the heart of a peaceful farming
community, he stepped unnoticed from the day coach and proceeded at
once to the low, wooden hotel, where he was cautiously admitted through
a rear door by the landlord himself, who was, incidentally, Lapierre's
shrewdest and most effective whiskey runner.

It was this Tostoff: Russian by birth, and crook by nature, whose
business it was to disguise the contraband whiskey into
innocent-looking freight pieces. And, it was Tostoff who selected the
men and stood responsible for the contraband's safe conduct over the
first stage of its journey to the North.

Tostoff objected strenuously to the running of a consignment in winter,
but Lapierre persisted, covering the ground step by step while the
other listened with a scowl.

"It's this way, Tostoff: For years MacNair has been our chief
stumbling-block. God knows we have trouble enough running the stuff
past the Dominion police and the Mounted. But the danger from the
authorities is small in comparison with the danger from MacNair."
Tostoff growled an assent. "And now," continued Lapierre, "for the
first time we have him where we want him."

The Russian looked sceptical. "We got MacNair where we want him if
he's dead," he grunted. "Who killed him?"

Lapierre made a gesture of impatience. "He is not dead. He's locked
up in the Fort Saskatchewan jail."

For the first time Tostoff showed real interest. "What's against him?"
he asked eagerly.

"Murder, for one thing," answered Lapierre. "That will hold him
without bail until the spring assizes. He will probably get out of
that, though. But they are holding him also on four or five liquor
charges."

"Liquor