In this unhappiness of his heart it was natural he should turn to his sister Mary, up at Kamloops or the back of it, who was Cultus Muckamuck's klootchman. And after all old Cultus wasn't such a bad sort. Hadn't they got drunk together, as "drunk as boiled owls in a pan of hot water"? Cultus was a mean old hunks, and a bit rougher than his younger brother, but there was none of the high-toned dandy about Cultus. He would sit on a log with a man, and yarn and swap lies, and fetch out a bottle and say, "Take a drink, Pete." Oh, on the whole Cultus was a good sort. If he did whack Mary, perhaps Mary deserved it. The klootchmen wanted hammering at intervals and a good quirting did them good. "Firs' I go down to the Moola," said Pete, "and I go back to Kamloops. I make it hot for George Quin when the Moola starts up. I spoil heem, ah, I spoil heem and Shinger White." The hard frost lasted a month and then a quiet and insidious Chinook came out of the Pacific, a wandering warm West wind, and the ice relented and released the River. It was not very thick and soon departed on the ebb and flood of the tides, swaying in loose floes back and forth. And then the rain began and it looked like a strange soft winter for a little while. "I go now," said Pete. He spoke to old Smith, asking for a day or two to go down to the City. "You ain't thinking of killing Quin or your klootchman, sonny?" said Smith, who knew all about it. "Not me, Mista Smith," said Pete. "She no good, by-by he velly solly he have her." He got an old dug-out and paddled down to the City, and past it in the dark, when the town was nothing but a gleam of lights in the heavy rain. In the dugout Pete had a few things borrowed from Smith's store that Smith did not know he had borrowed. "I fix heem," said Pete savagely, as he touched a bag which, held many pounds weight of ten-inch spikes. "I fix heem and his logs!" He went past the City with the ebb, and taking the South Arm was soon abreast of Lulu Island. There he knew that a big boom of logs for the Mill was anchored to the shore, ready to tow up when the Mill boom was cut out. Besides his spikes he had a heavy sledge-hammer. "Dat fix heem," said Pete. He knew what he was about. "I hope it cut Shinger's beas'ly head off." He knew that Ginger had thrown a spanner at him that last day in the Mill, and, indeed, he believed that it was Ginger, and not old Wong, who had keeled him over and chucked him down the chute.