Again Lapierre laughed--harshly. "Just that, Miss Elliston! They
are--crooked. They may be influenced!"

"I cannot believe that!"

"You will--later."

"You mean that MacNair has----"

The man interrupted with a wave of his hand. "What I have told you of
MacNair is the truth. I shall prove this to your own satisfaction, at
the proper time. Until then, I ask you to believe me. Admitting, then,
that I have spoken the truth, do you suppose for an instant that these
facts are not known to the Mounted? If not, then the officers are
inefficient fools. If they are known, why don't the Mounted remedy
matters? Because MacNair is rich! Because he buys them, body and soul!
Because he owns them, like he owns the Indians! That's why!

"Just stop and consider what is ahead of a dollar-a-day policeman. When
his five-year term of enlistment has expired, he has his choice of
enlisting for another term, or making his living some other way. At the
end of the five years he has learned to hate the service with a hatred
that is soul-searing. It is the hardest, strictest, most exacting, and
most ill-paid service in the world; and the five years of the man's
enlistment have practically rendered him unfit for earning a living.

"He has lived in the wild country. He knows the wild country. And
civilization, with its rapid advance, has left him five years behind the
times. Our ex-man of the Mounted is fit for only the commonest labour.
And, because there are almost no employers in the North, he cannot turn