platform--in the dark. No! I didn't jump a freight, Sergeant. I was
tempted to; but on second thoughts the idea made me feel kind of uneasy.
Perhaps you'll be dubious of this, but, as a fact, I took a
'tie-pass'--walked it all the way to Calgary on the track. I was about
done when I made Shagnappi Point, beating my passage through all that
snow. I bought a new pair of cow-puncher's boots while I was in town.
You remember I was wearing them when I returned. I had the overshoes
wrapped up as a parcel and packed them back to the ranch and burnt
them--and Drinkwater's boots."

"How about that Savage automatic?" said Yorke, "the one you shot those
dogs with yesterday? We've got your Luger, but where's the Savage gun?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Gully wearily, "of course I had two guns. I never
used to pack the Luger around--afterwards, well! . . . for obvious
reasons. You'll probably find the Savage in the cellar at my
place--that's if it isn't buried, like I nearly was."

There was a long silence, broken only by the scratch, scratch, of the
inspector's pen, as he rapidly indited a formal statement for the
prisoner to sign. Once during its composition he halted for a brief
space and, leaning back in his chair, gazed long with a sort of dreary
sternness at the huge, unkempt figure before him.

"Gully," he said slowly, "whatever in God's name put it into your head to
stand off the Police in the way you did? Shooting those two poor chaps
and nearly putting the kibosh on five others! Whatever did you hope to
gain by it? You must have known it was absolutely impossible for you to
make your get-away from us. Why, man! we had you cornered like a wolf in
a trap. It was worse than silly and useless and cruel for you to act in
the way you did!"

"Oh, my God! I don't know!" moaned Gully, rocking despondently with his
head in his hands. "I must have gone clean mad for the time
being. . . ." He gazed gloomily at Slavin and Yorke, muttering half to
himself: "What little things do trip a man up in the end! The best laid
schemes o' mice and men! But for my shooting those cursed dogs yesterday
you'd never, never have suspected me. The whole thing would just have
been filed and forgotten in time--would just have remained one of those
unfathomable mysteries. Directly after I'd thrown down on those curs I
realized what a d----d bad break I'd made--what my momentary loss of
temper was going to cost me. I could tell by the way