able tu dhrag yeh're guts up that
ladder--lit alone squeege thru' th' thrap-dhure. Bet Lanky does all th'
chorin'." He glanced around him impatiently, "But this here's all
talk--it don't lead nowheres. Hullo! this is Gully's team, ain't it?"
He indicated a splendid pair of roans standing in a double stall nearby.

"Yes!" said Lee, "he pulled in las' night t' catch th' nine-thirty down
t' Calgary. He ain't back yet."

"Fwas he--" Slavin checked himself abruptly--"fwhat toime did he get in
here?"

"'Bout nine."

"Fwhat toime 'bout fwas ut whin this racket shtarted up betune Windy an'
Larry?"

"Oh, I dunno, Sarjint!--'bout nine, may be--as I say I--"

"Come on!" said the sergeant, abruptly, to his men, "let's go an' eat.
Luk afther thim harses good, Nick," he flung back in a kind tone.

Outside in the dark road they gathered together, bandying mystified
conjecture in low tones. "'Tis no use arguin', bhoys," snapped Slavin at
last, wearily, "we've got tu see Chuck Reed an' Bob Ingalls an' Brophy av
th' hotel. Their wurrd goes--they're straight men. If they had Windy
corralled all night, as Nick sez . . . fwhy! . . . that let's Windy out."

He was silent awhile, then: "That harse av Windy's," he burst out with an
oath, "I thought 't'was a cinch. Somethin' passin' rum 'bout all this.
There's abs'lutely no mistake 'bout th' harse. Somebody in this
god-forsaken burg must ha' used him tu du th' killin' wid. Well, let's
get on."

Suddenly, as they neared the hotel, a veritable bedlam of sound fell upon
their ears, apparently from inside that hostelry--men shouting, a dog
barking, and above all the screeching, crazed voice of a drunken man.

The startled policemen dashed into the front entrance, through the office
and across the passage into the bar beyond, from whence the uproar
proceeded.

"Help! Murder! Pleece!" some apparently high-strung individual was
bawling. A ludicrous, but nevertheless dangerous, sight met their eyes.

A motley crowd, composed mainly of well-dressed passengers from off the
temporarily-stalled West-bound train and a sprinkling of townsfolk, were
backed--hands up--into a corner of the bar by a big, hard-faced man clad
in range attire who was menacing them with a long-barrelled revolver. He
was dark-haired and swarthy, with sinister, glittering eyes. One
red-headed, red-nosed individual had apparently resented parting with the
drink that he had paid for; as in one decidedly-shak