"That's quite right, just as far as it goes," he said. "Give me a chance of a square kick at the Scott Act, and I'll kick--like a mule. In the meanwhile, there it is, and you have to figure if breaking it is worth while. When you begin making exceptions, it's quite hard to stop. Now, I don't want to go round with a pistol strapped on to me, and, while we stand by the law, it isn't necessary. So long as I know that the crops I raise are mine and nobody can take them from me, I can do without my whisky. That's why I'm with Charley Leland in this thing, and you have to remember it's quite a big one." "It is," said a third speaker. "Here we are, a few scattered farmers with stables and granaries that will burn, and horses that can be run across the frontier. Behind us stand Sergeant Grier and his four troopers, while, if we back up Leland, we have a tolerably extensive organisation against us, and the men who belong to it aren't going to stick at anything. If we are willing to live and let live, what do we stand to lose? A horse borrowed now and then, an odd steer killed, perhaps, an unbranded beast or two missing. Well, I guess it might work out cheaper than the other thing." There was silence for a moment or two, and then a young man looked up languidly. He had come out four or five years before from Montreal. "There is hard sense in all we have heard, but I think Leland's point of view is nearest the Academic one," he said. "Every honest man has a duty to the State, and it is certainly going to cost him more than he gains if he won't discharge it. There are probably more honest men than rogues everywhere, and yet one usually sees the rogues uppermost, for this reason: the honest man won't worry so long as they don't rob him, and his neighbour can't make a fight alone. Nobody is anxious to face the first blow for the benefit of the rest, and so the rogue gets bolder, until he becomes intolerable. Then the honest man stirs himself, and the rogues go down, though it causes ever so much more trouble than it would have done if the thing had been undertaken earlier. I'll give you an example. Begbie hung a man in British Columbia, the first one who wanted it, and there was order at once. Coleman and his vigilantes, who were scarcely quick enough, had to hang them by the dozen in California. Now we come to the question: How bad have things got to be before you think it worth while to do anything?" It was evident that he had made an impression. He had shown them the dangers of toleration; and they were men who, while they did little rashly, believed in the greatness of their country. They looked at Leland, who turned to them with a little grim smile. "They have gone quite far enough for me," he said. "I'm going to move now. The one thing I want to ask is, who is going to stand in with me?" The man who had last spoken glanced at the rest. "I think you can count upon the four of us."