"Still," he said, "I think it could be done, and
I've another count against you. You had one or two deals with the boys
some little while ago."
"I'm not afraid of your fixing up against me anything I did then," said
the other man.
"No?" said Stimson. "Now, I guess you're wrong, and it might be a good
deal more serious than whisky-running. One night a man crawled up to
your homestead through the snow, and you took him in."
He saw the sudden fear in his companion's face before he turned it from
the lantern.
"It has happened quite a few times," said the latter. "We don't turn
any stranger out in this country."
"Of course!" said the Sergeant gravely, though he felt a little thrill
of content as he saw the shot, he had been by no means sure of, had
told. "That man, however, had lost his horse in the river, and it was
the one he got from you that took him out of the country. Now, if we
could show you knew what he had done, it might go as far as hanging
somebody."
The man was evidently not a confirmed law breaker, but merely one of
the small farmers who were willing to pick up a few dollars by
assisting the whisky-runners now and then, and he abandoned all
resistance.
"Sergeant," he said, "it was 'most a week before I knew, and if anybody
had told me at the time, I'd have turned him out to freeze before I'd
have let him have a horse of mine."
"That wouldn't go very far if we brought the charge against you," said
Stimson grimly.
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