cold, when they reached the wooden building, but
Winston's step was lighter, and his spirits more buoyant than they had
been for some months, when, handing the sleigh over to an orderly, he
walked into the guard-room, where bronzed men in uniform glanced at him
curiously. Then he was shown into a bare log-walled hall, where a
young man in blue uniform, with a weather-darkened face was writing at
a table.

"I've been partly expecting a visit," he said. "I'm glad to see you,
Mr. Courthorne."

Winston laughed with a very good intimation of the outlaw's
recklessness, and wondered the while because it cost him no effort.
He, who had, throughout the last two adverse seasons, seldom smiled at
all, and then but grimly, experienced the same delight in an adventure
that he had done when he came out to Canada.

"I don't know that I can return the compliment just yet," he said. "I
have one or two things to ask you."

The young soldier smiled good-humoredly, as he flung a cigar case on
the table. "Oh, sit down and shake those furs off," he said. "I'm not
a worrying policeman, and we're white men, any way. If you'd been
twelve months in this forsaken place, you'd know what I'm feeling.
Take a smoke, and start in with your questions when you feel like it."

Winston lighted a cigar, flung himself down in a hide chair, and
stretched out his feet towards the stove. "In the first place, I want
to know why your boys are shadowing me. You see, you couldn't arrest
me unless our folks in the Dominion had got their papers through."

The officer nodded. "No. We couldn't lay hands on you, and we only
had orders to see where you went to when you left this place, so the
folks there could corral you if they got the papers. That's about the
size of it at present, but, as I've sent a trooper over to Regent, I'll
know more to-morrow."

Winston laughed. "It may appear a little astonishing, but I haven't
the faintest notion why the police in Canada should worry about me. Is
there any reason you shouldn't tell me?"

The officer looked at him thoughtfully. "Bluff? I'm quite smart at it
myself," he said.

"No," and Winston shook his head. "It's a straight question. I want
to know."

"Well," said the other, "it couldn't do much harm if I told you. You
were running whisky a little while ago, and, though the folks didn't
seem to suspect it, you had a farmer or a rancher for a partner--it
appears he has mixed up things for you."