-side his two mounted
subordinates. "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?"

Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details. At one point in his
narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?"
And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey."

The sergeant listened, but absently. To them it did not seem exactly to
be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an
exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward
mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.

"Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu--th' pair av yez," he
remarked casually.

Remembrance smote the two culprits. They exchanged guilty glances and
swallowed the home-thrust in silence.

Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he.

Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter
following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them
to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering
unholy delight.

Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--"

"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . .
_Isch ga bibble_, anyway!"

"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over
again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!" "'Tis so they name each other--now!
Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av
thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have
given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply.

They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the
cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the
gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.

"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the
frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut
happened?"

Redmond made affirmative response.

"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.

"Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!
Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"

He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of
leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular
patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick,
seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. E