caught our nags and saddled them. MacRae was going back to his post that
night, and I also was in haste to be traveling--that ten thousand
dollars of another man's money was a responsibility I wanted to be rid
of without the least possible delay. Pend d' Oreille was twenty-five or
thirty miles south of us--a long afternoon's ride, but MacRae and I were
glad of each other's company, and it was worth while straining a point
to have even one night's shelter at a Police camp in that semi-hostile
country. There were no road-agents to speak of, for sums of money large
enough to tempt gentry of that ilk seldom passed over those isolated
trails; but here and there stray parties of Stonies and Blackfeet, young
bucks in war-paint and breech-clout, hot on the trail of their first
medicine, skulked warily among the coulée-scarred ridges, keeping in
touch with the drifting buffalo-herds and alert for a chance to ambush a
straggling white man and lift his hair. They weren't particularly
dangerous, except to a lone man, still there was always the chance of
running slap into them, in which case they usually made a more or less
vigorous attempt to wipe you out. A red coat, however, was a passport to
safety; even so early in the game the copper-colored brother had learned
that the Mounted Police were a hard combination--an enemy who never
turned back when he took the war-trail.

When we were mounted Mac leaned over and muttered an admonitory word for
Piegan's ear alone. "Better lay low, Smith," he said, "and let the
boot-leggers go it on their own hook for a while. We are watching for
you. It's only a matter of time till somebody takes you in, because your
whisky is making lots of nasty work for us these days, and we've got
orders from the big chief to nail you if there's a show. I'm passing up
this little affair to-day. That doesn't count. But the next time you
cross the river with a four-horse load of it I'll be on you like a wolf.
If I don't, some other fellow will. _Sabe?_ Think it over."