"This lady has had
a hard day. Will you excuse her, for the present? We have a story to
tell that you may find hard to credit."

The colonel (I'd heard of him before; I knew when MacRae spoke his name
that he was Commander-in-Chief of the Northwest Mounted Police, the
biggest gun of all) favored us with another appraising stare.

"These men, I take it, are prisoners?" he said, pointing to Hicks and
Bevans.

"You bet your sweet life them's prisoners," Piegan broke in with
cheerful assurance. "Them gentlemen is candidates for a rope necktie
apiece--nice perfessional assassins t' have in the Police!"

Allen turned to the orderly. "A detail of four from the guardhouse on
the double-quick," he commanded.

Captain Stone stood by gnawing his mustache while Allen listened
unmoved as MacRae pointed out the horse on which was packed the bulk of
the loot, and gave him a brief outline of the abduction and the
subsequent fight at the mouth of Sage Creek. The orderly returned with
the detail, and Allen courteously sent him to escort Lyn to the
hospitality of Bat Perkins' wife, as MacRae asked. After which the guard
marshaled Piegan, MacRae, and me, along with Hicks and Bevans, into the
room where MacRae and Lessard had clashed that memorable day. Then they
carried in the two bodies and laid them on the floor, and last of all
the pack that held Hank Rowan's gold and the government currency.

While this was being done an orderly flitted from house to house on
officers' row; the calm, pleasant-voiced, shrewd old Commissioner
gathered his captains about him for a semi-official hearing. The dusk
faded into night. Here and there about the post lights began to twinkle.
We stood about in the ante-room, silent under the vigilant eye of the
guard. After an uncertain period of waiting, the orderly called "Gordon
MacRae," and the inquisition began.

One at a time they put us on the rack--probing each man's story down to
the smallest detail. It was long after midnight when the questioning was
at an end. The finale came when a trooper searched the bodies of Lessard
and Gregory, and relieved Hicks and Bevans of the plunder that was still
concealed about their persons. They counted the money solemnly, on the
same desk by which Lessard stood when MacRae flung that hot challenge in
his teeth, and lost his stripes as the penalty. Outside, the wind arose
and whoo-_ee_-ed around the corner of the log building; inside, there
was a strained quiet,