bove the
job. Peter Maverick was his name."

Mahon started violently. His heart had made a bound that almost
suffocated him. Before his eyes swept a picture of a court of
so-called justice, with a big half breed giving evidence for the Police
in a rustling case. The Judge, ignorantly persisting in his demand for
a name for a child of nature who had all his life been content with
"Blue Pete," had swallowed an invention of the moment, though every
rancher in the room laughed at the ludicrously unfit term they knew so
well. "Peter Maverick," the halfbreed had replied without a smile.

The Sergeant closed his eyes with a weary shake of the head. The
picture had faded before another--the halfbreed wounded to death by a
bullet he had drawn to his own chest to save the Police friend for whom
it was intended.

"Know him?" enquired the Constable curiously.

Mahon passed a hand across his moist brow. "I knew a cowboy once--best
friend I ever had--best a man could have. He gave that name once
because he had no other to give. . . . He, too, was part Indian.
Peter's a common Indian name. . . . He's dead now. He gave his life
for me."

"That was Blue Pete, wasn't it?" asked Williams. "We got some of the
story up here. He was working with us down there at Medicine Hat,
wasn't he?"

The Sergeant moved toward the shack. "That drop makes me dizzy."

Within the shack Tressa laid a sympathetic hand on his.

"You'd better tell us about it, hadn't you? You're thinking a lot."

He smiled sadly into her tender eyes. "There's not much to tell," he
began, "at least, not in quantity. Blue Pete was the whitest man that
ever lived, the whitest of any colour. Yet he died a rustler--giving
his life gladly for one who had done nothing more for him than call him
friend. He was no rustler at heart. For years he had stolen horses
and cattle in the Badlands of Montana, because, as he said, every one
rustled there, more or less; he was brought up to it. Perhaps he did a
bit more than the others, but that was because he knew more tricks. I
came on him just north of the border. He'd come across before the
rifles of two cowboys who hated him so badly they'd quite forgotten
that he could have picked them off with ease any time he wished.
Though he was the best shot in the Badlands, he never used his rifle
till he had to; and for days he'd been running before them."

He looked about the room, feeling the silence. To him it wa