Immediately after breakfast on that day Old Man Gordon visited an abandoned working at the outskirts of the town to look over a small boiler which had been offered to him at a bargain. A half-hour later from the direction of this abandoned dump, the Indian who had accompanied Dalzene from Rampart, staggered up the street, waving his bottle of liquor and howling defiance in the faces of all white men. With admirable promptitude, the hand of the law fell heavily upon his shoulder, and he was jailed. It happened that Dalzene was one of a small group of the curious who followed the officer to the jail with his prisoner, and there when questioned, the Indian stated that he had bought the hooch from an old man--a white man, and that the man was down by the old dump. Two officers, starting immediately for the abandoned dump, were accosted by Dalzene, who confidentially slipped them the word that he had happened to be passing the aforementioned dump, an hour since, and had seen a man who wore a beard, pass the Indian a bottle of liquor, in exchange for some money. It seemed like a damned shame to pinch the Injun, and he for one, would be glad to see any man convicted that would sell hooch to an Injun. This tallied so accurately with the rather vague story of the drunken man that the officers doubled their pace, and a few moments later Old Man Gordon, fighting in righteous rage, roaring loudly his protest, was dragged to jail and locked up in a cell, after having been duly identified by the Indian. In the meantime Dalzene had disappeared from the vicinity and, directly across the street from the hotel, came face to face with the man he had noticed very often recently in company with Lou Gordon. He knew nothing of this man, except that it was he who was backing the Gordon dogs so heavily that he had forced the odds down from ten-to-one to six-to-one. Instantly Dalzene’s fingers closed about his remaining roll of bills, and abruptly he accosted the stranger. “I got five hundred that says John Johnson’s dogs wins the race!” he challenged, truculently. “The hell you have!” replied MacShane, “Well you won’t have, after tomorrow. Step over here to the Malamute, an’ we’ll put up the dust.” The matter was soon settled, and, while MacShane strolled over and watched a game of solo, Dalzene refreshed himself at the bar. “That’ll fix ’em,” he muttered, “Old Man Gordon hain’t on the Koyukuk, now. They’ll put his bail so high he won’t never be able to raise it here where they don’t know him, an’ I know enough about dogs to know that with their reg’lar driver out of the way, they hain’t goin’ to do no good in the race. The gal, she allus exercised ’em fer him, but it was the old man that druv the race that beat me out--an’ it’s him that’s entered to drive this one.” And well satisfied with himself, Dalzene quitted the saloon, a short time before MacShane left the place and crossed over to the hotel. CHAPTER XXII POISON