ee hours more, and don't interfere with
me between this and then,--and I'll take you on."

"It's a go!" exclaimed Phil, holding out his hand.

Jim gripped it, and Phil knew that Jim would keep his word, for he was
the kind of man whose word, drunk or sober, was as good as the deed
accomplished.

"Mind you, Phil,--I don't say I'll never drink again."

"I'm not asking you to promise that," answered Phil.

"Right! At nine o'clock to-night I'm through with the long-term
Highland Fling for keeps."

Phil assented to the proposal and left Jim to complete his potato
distribution.

But Jim could not have remained very long with the job, for, by the
time Phil had taken a leisurely stroll round to the forge to have a
few words with Sol Hanson, and had partaken of a bit of supper with
Betty and the big, genial Swede, Jim had succeeded in putting up his
delivery-outfit, had dressed himself out in his cowboy trappings;
chaps, Stetson, khaki shirt, red tie, belts, spurs and all complete,
and was creating a furore among the law-abiding citizens down town.

Phil came upon the scene--or rather, the scene came upon Phil--like a
flash of lightning out of the heavens.

He was making down town, intent on spending half an hour with his pipe
and the evening paper in a secluded corner of the Kenora Hotel, when
he heard a shout and witnessed a scurrying of people into the middle
of the road. Phil himself had hardly time to get out of the way of a
mad horseman who was urging his horse and yelling like an Indian on
the war-path; tearing along the sidewalk in a headlong gallop,
striking at every overhanging signboard with the handle of his quirt
and sending these swinging and creaking precariously--oblivious of
everybody and everything but the crazy intent in speed and noise that
seemed to possess him so fully.

"How long has he been at this?" Phil asked of an old, toothless
bystander.

"Oh,--'bout half an hour, maybe more, maybe not quite so much," came
the reply.

"Nobody been hurt?" he inquired further.

"Guess nit! That Langford faller's all right. On the loose again, and
just a-lettin' off steam. A good holler and a good tear on a cayuse
ain't goin' to hurt nobody nohow, 'cept them what ain't got no call to
go and be interferin'."

With difficulty Phil extricated himself from the man's superfluity of
negatives and continued on his way.

He passed through the saloon of the Kenora, which was already
overflowing with the usua