not drinkin'," Jack snarled.
"Yes, you are. I've got a toast that's got to be unanimous."
Seth, with a wink at Wolf, tipped the bottle and half filled the latter's glass, saying, "Be a sport, Jack."
As he turned to hand the bottle to Carney he arched his eyebrows at Jeanette, and the girl slipped quietly away.
Bulldog raised his glass of whisky, and said: "Gents, we're going to drink to the squarest little woman it has ever been my good fortune to run across. Here's to Miss Jeanette Holt, the truest pal that Seth Long ever had —Miss Jeanette Cayuse and Seth tossed off their liquor, but the Wolf did not touch his glass.
"You drink to that toast dam quick, Jack Wolf!" and Carney's voice was deadly.
The room had grown still. One, two, three, a wooden clock on the shelf behind the bar ticked off the seconds in the heavy quiet; and in a far corner the piping of a stray cricket sounded like the drool of a pfirrari.
There was a click of a latch, a muffled scrape as the outer door pushed open. This seemed to break the holding spell of fear that was over the Wolf. "I'll see you in hell, Bulldog Carney, before I drink with you or a girl that – "
The whisky that was in Carney's glass shot fair into the speaker's open mouth. As his hand jumped to his gun the wrist was seized with a loosening twist, and the heel of Bulldog's open right hand caught him under the chin with a force that fair lifted him from his feet to drop on the back of his head.
A man wearing a brass-buttoned khaki jacket with blue trousers down which ran wide yellow stripes, darted from where he had stood at the door, put his hand on Bulldog's shoulder, and said:
"You're under arrest in the Queen's name, Bulldog Carney!"
Carney reached down and picked up the Wolf's gun that lay where it had fallen from his twisted hand, and passed it to Seth without comment. Then he looked the man in the khaki coat up and down and coolly asked. "Are you anybody in particular, stranger?"
"I'm Sergeant Black of the Mounted Police."
"You amuse me, Sergeant; you're unusual, even for a member of that joke bank, the Mounted."
"Fine!" the Sergeant sneered, subdued anger in his voice; "I'll entertain you for several days over in the pen."
"On what grounds?"
"You'll find out."
"Yes, and now, declare yourself!"
"We don't allow, rough house, gun play, and knocking people down, in Bucking Horse," the Sergeant retorted; "assault means the pen when I'm here."
"Then take that thing," and Bulldog jerked a thumb toward Jack Wolf, who stood at a far corner of the bar whispering with Cayuse.
"I'll take you, Bulldog Carney."
"Not if that's all you've got as reason," and Carney, either hand clasping his slim waist, the palms resting on his hips, eyed the Sergeant, a faint smile lifting his tawny mustache.
"You're wanted, Bulldog Carney, and you know it. I've been waiting a chance to rope you; now I've got you, and you're coming along. There's a thousand on you over in Calgary; and you've been running coke over the line."
"Oh! that's it, eh? Well, Sergeant, in plain English you're a tenderfoot to not know that the Alberta thing doesn't hold in British Columbia. You'll find that out when you wire headquarters for instructions, which you will, of course. I think it's easier for me, my dear Sergeant, to let you get this tangle straightened out by going with you than to kick you into the street; then they would have something on me – something because I'd mussed up the uniform."
"Carney ain't had no supper, Sergeant," Seth declared; "and I'll go bail – "
"I'm not takin' bail; and you can send his supper over to the lock-up."
The Sergeant had drawn from his pocket a pair of handcuffs.
Carney grinned.
"Put them back in your pocket, Sergeant," he advised. "I said I'd go with you; but if you try to clamp those things on, the trouble is all your own." Black looked into the gray eyes and hesitated; then even his duty-befogged mind realized that he would take too big a chance by insisting. He held out his hand toward Carney's gun, and the latter turned it over to him. Then the two, the Sergeant's hand slipped through Carney's arm, passed out.
Just around the corner was the police barracks, a square log shack divided by a partition. One room was used as an office, and contained a bunk; the other room had been built as a cell, and a heavy wooden door that carried a bar and strong lock gave entrance. There was one small window safeguarded by iron bars firmly embedded in the logs. Into this bull-pen, as it was called, Black ushered Carney by the light of a candle. There was a wooden bunk in one end, the sole furniture.
"Neat, but not over decorated," Carney commented as he surveyed the bare interior. "No wonder, with such surroundings, my dear Sergeant, you fellows are angular."
"I've heard, Bulldog, that you fancied yourself a superior sort."
"Not at all, Sergeant; you have my entire sympathy."
The Sergeant sniffed. "If they give you three years at Stony Mountain perhaps you'll drop some of that side."
Carney sat down on the side of the bed, took a cigarette case from his pocket and asked, "Do you allow smoking here? It won't fume up your curtains, will it?"
"It's against the regulations, but you smoke if you want to."
Carney's supper was brought in and when he had eaten it Sergeant Black went into the cell, saying: "You're a pretty slippery customer, Bulldog – I ought to put the bangles on you for the night." Rather irrelevantly, and with a quizzical smile, Carney asked, "Have you read 'Les Miserables,' Sergeant?"
"I ain't read a paper in a month – I've been too busy."
"It isn't a paper, it's a story."
"I ain't got no time for readin' magazines either."
"This is a story that was written long ago by a Frenchman," Carney persisted.
"Then I don't want to read it. The trickiest damn bunch that ever come into these mountains are them Johnnie Crapeaus from Quebec – they're more damn trouble to the police than so many Injuns." The soft quizzical voice of Carney interrupted Black gently. "You put me in mind of a character in that story, Sergeant; he was the best drawn, if I might discriminate over a great story."
This allusion touched Black's vanity, and drew him to ask, "What did he do – how am I like him?" He eyed Carney suspiciously.
"The character I liked in 'Les Miserables' was a policeman, like yourself, and his mind was only capable of containing the one idea – duty. It was a fetish with him; he was a fanatic."
"You're damn funny, Bulldog, ain't you? What I ought to do is slip the bangles on you and leave you in the dark."
"If you could. I give you full permission to try, Sergeant; if you can clamp them on me there won't be any hard feelings, and the first time I meet you on the trail I won't set you afoot."
Carney had risen to his feet, ostensibly to throw his cigarette through the bars of the open window.
Black
