"Then don't you stay araound hyar," said Simpson. "Barrin' sellin' a few head o' measly steers there ain't nothin' doin'. When the railroad is through, the bottom will fall out of B.C. fo' sewer. You go up to the Landing: things is fair hummin' up to the Landing, an' Mason hez gone up there to start up a kin' o' locomotive sawmill at what they calls the Narrows. You hike off to the Landing and tackle Mason; say I named him to you, Pete, and if he ain't full-handed you'll be all hunkey." He stood himself another drink, and grew more melancholy. "A few measly steers in a Gawd-forsaken land like B.C.! Don't you hanker arter revenge agin Ned for mishandling Mary. Revenge is sweet to the mouth, Pete, but it's heavy work on the stummick, ondigestible and apt to turn sour. If it hadn't been that I hankered arter revenge (and got it) I'd ha' bin now in Mizzouri, Gawd's kentry, whar I come from. A few head o' weedy miserbul steers! You leave Ned alone and I'll be surprised if he don't leave you and Mary alone. To half cut off a gal's head and her not to squeal! I calls it noble. Ned will be sorry he done it, I reckon. You go up to the Landing, boy." And Pete did go up to the Landing. And Ned, the poor wretch, was very sorry "he done it." XVI Ned Quin hadn't been down in the coast country for years. Indeed, the last time he had been in New Westminster he had gone there by coach. Now it was a new world for him, a world of strange hurry and excitement. B.C. was in a hurry: the people of the East were in a hurry: the very river in the roaring Fraser Cañon seemed to run faster. And he, of all the world, was the one thing that seemed to go slow, he and his train. He was sober now, and in terror of what he had done. "By God, they'll hang me," he said. They hanged men for murder in British Columbia, hanged them quickly, promptly, gave them a short quick trial, and short shrift. "I wish I was over the Line," said Ned, as he huddled in a corner seat and nursed his chin almost on his knees. Across the Line they didn't hang men quick, unless they stole horses and were exceedingly bad citizens who wouldn't take a clean cut threat as a warning. "I wish I was over the Line." And the 49th Parallel wasn't far away. Yet to get to it wasn't easy. He had galloped from what he believed a house of death with no money in his pocket. He had borrowed from the skipper of the sternwheeler, which took him from Kamloops to the Ferry, enough to pay his fare down to Port Moody. He must go to George's to get more. "They'll catch me," said Ned Quin, "they'll catch me: they'll hang me by the neck. That's what they say--'by the neck till you are dead'--I've heard Begbie say it, damn him!" Yes, that was what Judge Begbie said to men who cut their klootchmen to pieces with a shovel. "I--I was drunk," said old Ned. "Poor Mary."