insolence of office have little space in which to work. One of the
commonest slips of virtue in the Canadian West was selling whisky
contrary to the law of prohibition which prevailed. Whisky runners were
land smugglers. Old Brown Windsor had, somehow, got the reputation of
being connected with the whisky runners; not a very respectable business,
and thought to be dangerous. Whisky runners were inclined to resent
intrusion on their privacy with a touch of that biting inhospitableness
which a moonlighter of Kentucky uses toward an inquisitive, unsympathetic
marshal. On the Cypress Hills Patrol, however, the erring servants of
Bacchus were having a hard time of it. Vigilance never slept there in
the days of which these lines bear record. Old Brown Windsor had,
in words, freely espoused the cause of the sinful. To the careless
spectator it seemed a charitable siding with the suffering; a proof that
the old man's heart was not so cold as his hands. Sergeant Fones thought
differently, and his mission had just been to warn the store-keeper that
there was menacing evidence gathering against him, and that his
friendship with Golden Feather, the Indian Chief, had better cease at
once. Sergeant Fones had a way of putting things. Old Brown Windsor
endeavoured for a moment to be sarcastic. This was the brief dialogue in
the domain of sarcasm:

"I s'pose you just lit round in a friendly sort of way, hopin' that I'd
kenoodle with you later."

"Exactly."

There was an unpleasant click to the word. The old man's hands got
colder. He had nothing more to say.

Before leaving, the Sergeant said something quietly and quickly to Young