d of carefully led horses had died away, Toe
String Joe was dressing, and soon was making his way through a secret
opening in the stockade where he had sawed off a log near the ground and
hung it with wooden pins to each adjoining post in such a manner that it
would easily swing.

As he lay on his cot of woven willows, he had watched, with narrowed
eyelids, his comrades leave the troop room. Now he must report to his
chief. The fort was soon behind him. Arriving at Burroughs' store, he
passed to the rear and tapped on the small pane of glass doing duty as a
window. He tapped again, again; then turned, cursing, to find Burroughs
at his elbow.

"What's up?" Burroughs interrupted Joe's blasphemy.

"A party went out from the fort."

"M-m-m! Who was at the fort before you turned in?"

"Nobody."

"Who was ordered out?"

Joe told him. "Danvers was one," he concluded.

"Always that black-haired Englishman! I hate him!"

"What yeh goin' to do? Ain't them goods comin' this week? Somebody's
blabbed. Me-Casto's been watchin' yeh mighty clost, lately. Perhaps it
was him."

"Perhaps," concurred the trader, looking at the disloyal trooper
thoughtfully. "We kin only hope fer the best. Wild Cat Bill is bringin'
it in, an' Scar Faced Charlie is drivin'. 'F they git a chance to
_cache_ the stuff they will. Maybe," he concluded hopefully, "the
detachment won't run across 'em, an' they'll fool the Police, with their
little pill boxes stuck on three hairs."

Meantime the mounted detail, with Me-Casto as scout, galloped past the
lodge fires of the outlying Indians and pressed their way through a
falling sleet with not a sound but the muffled thud of the horses' hoofs
and the moan of the wind.

The stars dimmed; the east lightened. In the early morning the troopers
came to a small trading-post, where they saw a group of men awaiting
their arrival.

"I thought it was you, Danvers, the minute I piped yeh off!" Wild Cat
Bill stepped forward as he spoke, and shook hands with the young
trooper as cordially as if they were old friends. Bill breathed as
though he had been running, but went on immediately:

"We've come up here to see what the chances were fer wolfin' this
winter. Here's Charlie, yeh see. What yeh out fer? Horse thieves?"

Philip did not answer, as the officer in charge, singularly lacking in
perspicacity, took it upon himself.

"We are looking for smugglers," he frowned. "You haven't seen any loaded
outfits heade