areas of stolid mountain sides that still held gigantic pine and cedar.
It had ripped from the bowels of a mountain pebbles of gold, and the town of Bucking Horse was the home of men who had come at the call of the yellow god.
When Bulldog Carney struck Bucking Horse it was a sick town, decrepid, suffering from premature old age, for most of the mines had petered out.
One hotel, the Gold Nugget, still clung to its perch on a hillside, looking like a bird cage hung from a balcony.
Carney had known its proprietor, Seth Long, in the Cour d'Alene: Seth and Jeanette Holt; in the way of disapproval Seth, for he was a skidder; Jeanette with a manly regard, for she was as much on the level as a gyroscope.
Carney was not after gold that is battled from obdurate rocks with drill and shovel. He was a gallant knight of the road – a free lance of adventure; considering that a man had better lie in bed and dream than win money by dreary unexciting toil. His lithe six foot of sinewy anatomy, the calm, keen, gray eye, the splendid cool insulated nerve and sweet courage, the curious streaks of chivalry, all these would have perished tied to routine. Like "Bucking Horse" his name, "Bulldog" Carney, was an inspiration.
He had ridden his famous buckskin, Pat, up from the Montana border, mentally surveying his desire, a route for running into the free and United States opium without the little formality of paying Uncle Sam the exorbitant and unnatural duty. That was why he first came to Bucking Horse.
The second day after his arrival Seth Long bought for a few hundred dollars the Little Widow mine that was almost like a back yard to the hotel. People laughed, for it was a worked-out proposition; when he put a gang of men to work, pushing on the long drift, they laughed again. When Seth threw up his hands declaring that the Little Widow was no good, those who had laughed told him that they had known it all the time.
But what they didn't know was that the long drift in the mine now ran on until it was directly under the Gold Nugget hotel.
It was Carney who had worked that out, and Seth and his hotel were established as a clearing station for the opium that was shipped in by train from Vancouver in tins labelled "Peaches," "Salmon," or any old thing. It was stored in the mine and taken from there by pack-train down to the border, and switched across at Bailey's Ferry, the U. S. customs officers at that point being nice lovable chaps; or sometimes it crossed the Kootenay in a small boat at night.
Bulldog supervised that end of the business, bringing the heavy payments in gold back to Bucking Horse on a laden mule behind his buckskin; then the gold was expressed by train to the head office of this delightful trading company in Vancouver.
This endeavor ran along smoothly, for the whole mining West was one gigantic union, standing "agin the government" – any old government, U. S. or Canadian.
Carney's enterprise was practically legitimatized by public opinion; besides there was the compelling matter of Bulldog's proficiency in looking after himself. People had grown into the habit of leaving him alone.
The Mounted Police more or less supervised the region, and sometimes one of them would be in Bucking Horse for a few days, and sometimes the town would be its own custodian.
One autumn evening Carney rode up the Bucking Horse valley at his horse's heels a mule that carried twenty thousand dollars in gold slung from either side of a pack saddle.
Carney went straight to the little railway station, and expressed the gold to Vancouver, getting the agent's assurance that it would go out on the night train which went through at one o'clock. Then he rode back to the Gold Nugget and put his horse and mule in the stable.
As he pushed open the front door of the hotel he figuratively stepped into a family row, a row so self-centered that the parties interested were unaware of his entrance.
A small bar occupied one corner of the dim-lighted room, and behind this Seth Long leaned back against the bottle rack, with arms folded across his big chest, puffing at a thick cigar. Facing him, with elbows on the bar, a man was talking volubly, anger speeding up his vocalization.
Beside the man stood Jeanette Holt, fire flashing from her black eyes, and her nostrils dilated with passion. She interrupted the voluble one:
"Yes, Seth, I did slap this cheap affair, Jack Wolf, fair across the ugly mouth, and I'll do it again!"
Seth tongued the cigar to one corner of his ample lips, and drawled: "That's a woman's privilege, Jack, if a feller's give her just cause for action You ain't got no kick comin', I reckon, 'cause this little woman ain't one to fly off the handle for nothin'."
"Nothin', Seth? I guess when I tell you what got her dander up you'll figger you've got another think comin'. You're like a good many men I see – you're bein' stung. That smooth proposition, Bulldog Carney, is stingin' you right here in your own nest."
Biff!
That was the lady's hand, flat open, impinged on the speaker's cheek.
The Wolf sprang back with an oath, put his hand to his cheek, and turned to Seth with a volley of denunciation starting from his lips. At a look that swept over the proprietor's face he turned, stared, and stifling an oath dropped a hand subconsciously to the butt of his gun.
Bulldog Carney had stepped quickly across the room, and was now at his side, saying:
"So you're here, Jack the Wolf, eh? I thought I had rid civilization of your ugly presence when I turned you over to the police at Hobbema for murdering your mate."
"That was a trumped-up charge," the Wolf stammered.
"Ah! I see – acquitted! I can guess it in once. Nobody saw you put that little round hole in the back of Alberta Bill's head – not even Bill; and he was dead and couldn't talk."
Carney's gray eyes travelled up and down the Wolf's form in a cold, searching manner; then he added, with the same aggravating drawl: "You put your hands up on the bar, same as you were set when I came in, or something will happen. I've got a proposition."
The Wolf hesitated; but Bulldog's right hand rested carelessly on his belt. Slowly the Wolf lifted his arm till his fingers touched the wooden rail, saying, surlily:
"I ain't got no truck with you; I don't want no proposition from a man that plays into the hands of the damn police."
"You can cut out the rough stuff, Wolf, while there's a lady present."
Carney deliberately turned his shoulder to the scowling man, and said, "How d'you do, Miss Holt?" touching his hat. Then he added, "Seth, locate a bottle on the bar and deal glasses all round."
As Long deftly twirled little heavy-bottomed glasses along the plank as though he were dealing cards, Carney turned, surveyed the room, and addressing a man who sat in a heavy wooden chair beside a square box-stove, said: "Join up, stranger – we're going to liquidate."
The man addressed came forward, and lined up the other side of Jack Wolf.
"Cayuse Braun, Mr. Carney," Seth lisped past his fat cigar as he shoved a black bottle toward Bulldog.
"The gents first," the latter intimated.
The bottle was slid down to Cayuse, who filled his glass and passed it back to Wolf. The latter carried it irritably past him without filling his glass.
"Help yourself, Wolf." It was a command, not an invitation, in Carney's voice.
"I'm
