“Why, no!  Am I?  What for?  Which of the statues, laws, and ordinances of Queen Vic have I been bustin’ without knowin’ of them?”

“For aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner.”

“Did I do all that?  And when did I do it?”

“While you were doing that war-dance on what was left of my manhandled geography.”

“Can you arrest a fellow for slippin’?”

“Depends on how badly he slips.  I’m going to take a chance on arresting you, anyhow.”

“Gonna take away my six-shooter and handcuff me?”

“I’ll take your revolver.  If necessary, I’ll put on the cuffs.”

Morse looked at him, not without admiration.  The man in the scarlet jacket wasted nothing.  There was about him no superfluity of build, of gesture, of voice.  Beneath the close-fitting uniform the muscles rippled and played when he moved.  His shoulders and arms were those of a college oarsman.  Lean-flanked and clean-limbed, he was in the hey-day of a splendid youth.  It showed in the steady eyes set wide in the tanned face, in the carriage of the close-cropped, curly head, in the spring of the step.  The Montanan recognized in him a kinship of dynamic force.

“Just what would I be doing?” the whiskey-runner asked, smiling.

Beresford met his smile.  “I fancy I’ll find that out pretty soon.  Your revolver, please.”  He held out his hand, palm up.

“Let’s get this straight.  We’re man to man.  What’ll you do if I find I’ve got no time to go to Fort Macleod with you?”

“Take you with me.”

“Dead or alive?”

“No, alive.”

“And if I won’t go?” asked Morse.

“Oh, you’ll go.”  The officer’s bearing radiated a quiet, imperturbable confidence.  His hand was still extended, “If you please.”

“No hurry.  Do you know what you’re up against?  When I draw this gun I can put a bullet through your head and ride away?”

“Yes.”

“Unless, of course, you plug me first.”

“Can’t do that.  Against the regulations.”

“Much obliged for that information.  You’ve got only a dead man’s chance then—­if I show fight.”

“Better not.  Game hardly worth the candle.  My pals would run you down,” the constable advised coolly.

“You still intend to arrest me?”

“Oh, yes.”

As Morse looked at him, patient as an animal of prey, steady, fearless, an undramatic Anglo-Saxon who meant to go through with the day’s work, he began to understand the power that was to make the North-West Mounted Police such a force in the land.  The only way he could prevent this man from arresting him was to kill the constable; and if he killed him, other jaunty red-coated youths would come to kill or be killed.  It came to him that he was up against a new order which would wipe Bully West and his kind from the land.

He handed his revolver to Beresford.  “I’ll ride with you.”