The oxen plodded out of the stockade and swung to the left.  A guide rode beside West and Morse.  He was Harvey Gosse, a whiskey-runner known to both of them.  The man was a long, loose-limbed fellow with a shrewd eye and the full, drooping lower lip of irresolution.  It had been a year since either of the Fort Benton men had been in the country.  Gosse told them of the change that was taking place in it.

“Business ain’t what it was, an’ that ain’t but half of it,” the lank rider complained regretfully.  “It ain’t ever gonna be any more.  These here red-coats are plumb ruinin’ trade.  Squint at a buck cross-eyed, whisper rum to him, an’ one o’ these guys jumps a-straddle o’ yore neck right away.”

“How many of these—­what is it you call ’em, Mounted Police?—­well, how many of ’em are there in the country?” asked West.

“Not so many.  I reckon a hundred or so, far as I’ve heard tell.”

West snorted scornfully.  “And you’re lettin’ this handful of tenderfeet buffalo you!  Hell’s hinges!  Ain’t none of you got any guts?”

Gosse dragged slowly a brown hand across an unshaven chin.  “I reckon you wouldn’t call ’em tenderfeet if you met up with ’em, Bully.  There’s something about these guys—­I dunno what it is exactly—­but there’s sure something that tells a fellow not to prod ’em overly much.”

“Quick on the shoot?” the big trader wanted to know.

“No, it ain’t that.  They don’t hardly ever draw a gun.  They jest walk in kinda quiet an’ easy, an’ tell you it’ll be thisaway.  And tha’s the way it is every crack outa the box.”

“Hmp!” West exuded boastful incredulity.  “I reckon they haven’t bumped into any one man-size yet.”

The lank whiskey-runner guided the train, by winding draws, into the hills back of the post.  Above a small gulch, at the head of it, the teams were stopped and unloaded.  The barrels were rolled downhill into the underbrush where they lay cached out of sight.  From here they would be distributed as needed.

“You boys’ll take turn an’ turn about watching till I’ve sold the cargo,” West announced.  “Arrange that among yoreselves.  Tom, I’ll let you fix up how you’ll spell each other.  Only thing is, one of you has to be here all the time, y’ understand.”

Morse took the first watch and was followed by Stearns, who in turn gave place to Barney.  The days grew to a week.  Sometimes West appeared with a buyer in a cart or leading a pack-horse.  Then the cached fire-water would be diminished by a keg or two.

It was a lazy, sleepy life.  There was no need for a close guard.  Nobody knew where the whiskey was except themselves and a few tight-mouthed traders.  Morse discovered in himself an inordinate capacity for sleep.  He would throw himself down on the warm, sundried grass and fall into a doze almost instantly.  When the rays of the sun grew too hot, it was easy to roll over into the shade of the draw.  He could lie for hours on his back after he wakened and watch cloud-skeins elongate and float away, thinking of nothing or letting thoughts happen in sheer idle content.