early every kind of job under the sun, but I
punched and rode for range outfits mostly.

"Then I was struck with a fancy to see the South, and I drifted to
Virginia. I'd been there about two years, working as an overseer on a
tobacco plantation, when I got a letter from our family's solicitor
recalling me home. My eldest brother had died, and the estate had passed
on to me. Where, Inspector?--why, it was at Castle Brompton, a quiet
little country town in Worcestershire.

"Well! I'd had a pretty rough training--living the life of a roustabout
for so many years, and I guess I kind of ran amuck when I struck home. I
played ducks and drakes with the estate, and the end of it was . . . I
got heavily involved in debt. There seemed nothing for it but to
up-anchor, and to sea again in my shirt. So, my fancy next took me to
Shanghai, where I obtained a poorly-paid Civil Service job--in the
Customs. I stuck that for about a year, and then I pulled
out--disgusted. The next place I landed up in was, if anything,
worse--the Gold Coast. From there I drifted to the Belgian Congo. I was
there for nearly two years doing--well! perhaps it's best for me not to
enter into details--we'll call it 'rubber.' It's a cruel country
that--one that a man doesn't exactly stay in for his health, anyway; for
a bad dose of fever nearly fixed me. It made me fed up with the climate
and--the life. So I pulled out of it and went down country to the
Transvaal. That's how I came to get mixed up in 'The Raid,' Inspector.
I was in Jo'burg at the time it was framed up, so I threw in my lot with
the rest of you.

"Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to go back to the States and the
range life again. I was properly fed up with Africa. So--back I went
there--to Montana again. I punched for one or two cow-outfits awhile,
and then came a time when a deputation of citizens came and put it up to
me if I'd take on the office of Deputy-Sheriff for ---- County, where I
happened to be working. I suppose the fact of my being a little more
handy with a gun than most had impressed some of them. Things were
running wild there just then, and for awhile I tell you, I was up against
a rather dirty proposition. I and my guns certainly worked overtime for
a stretch, till I got matters more or less ship-shape. I had the backing
of the best people in the community luckily, and eventually I won out.

"Then--when the inevitable reaction set in with the peace