He took the youngest man, and went trailing him up in the uncertain light till both of them were utterly gone. After something of a wait they appeared, leading Barreau’s horse and mine and two others. In the interim I had had time to count noses. There was a man apiece for the four of us, and one off behind the cabin holding the raiders’ saddlestock. We stood there like so many pieces of uncouth statuary, no one seeming to have any inclination for talk, until the saddled horses came up. Then both the Sanders found their tongues in behalf of me. “Look a-here, sergeant,” said the one, “yuh ain’t got any business over here, and yuh know it. Even if yuh did, this kid don’t belong in the crowd. You’re after us and yuh got us, but you’ve no call to meddle with him.” “That’s right,” his brother put in. “I don’t know him from Adam. He just drifted in and camped overnight at the ranch.” “I say y’know, that’s a bit strong,” the sergeant returned. “‘Birds of a feather,’ y’know. I shan’t take any chances. You’re too hard a lot, Sanders; you and your friend Slowfoot George.” Thus he left no room for argument; and in a few minutes the four of us were in the saddle and on the move, a Mounted Policeman jogging at the elbow of each man. At the end of half an hour’s progress, as we crossed a fairly level stretch of plain, we came to a little cairn of rocks; and when we had passed it the sergeant pulled up his horse and faced about. The moon was up, and the earth and the cairn and even our features stood out clear in the silvery glow. “John Sanders, Walter Sanders, George Brown alias Slowfoot George, and one John Doe, in the Queen’s name I arrest you,” he addressed us perfunctorily. A trooper snickered, and Barreau laughed out loud. “Routine—routine and red tape, even in this rotten deal,” I heard Slowfoot murmur, when his laugh hushed. And on the other side of me Walt Sanders raised in his stirrups and cried hotly: “You dirty dogs! Some day I’ll make yuh damned sorry yuh didn’t keep your own side of the line to-night.” Of this the sergeant took no notice. He shook his horse into a trot, and prisoners and guard elbow to elbow, we moved on. CHAPTER VII—THE SEAT OF THE SCORNFUL “Destiny lurks in obscure places and emerges therefrom to seize upon us unawares.” Barreau launched this epigrammatic sentence in the profound quiet of a cell in the MacLeod guardhouse. For that is the pass we came to: a six by eight housing of stout planks for the pair of us, food of indifferent quality in none too generous rations, and the keen eye of an armed guard in the background. For two days we had brooded in this cage, like any common felons.