The plainsmen crept along the dry ditch with laborious care.  They advanced no single inch without first taking care to move aside any twig the snapping of which might betray them.

From the beginning of the adventure until its climax no word was spoken.  Beresford led, the trader followed at his heels.

The voices of men drifted to them from a camp-fire in the shelter of the wagons.  There were, Tom guessed, about four of them.  Their words came clear through the velvet night.  They talked the casual elemental topics common to their kind.

There was a moonlit open space to be crossed.  The constable took it swiftly with long strides, reached a wagon, and dodged under it.  His companion held to the cover of the ditch.  He was not needed closer.

The officer lay flat on his back, set the point of the auger to the woodwork of the bed, and began to turn.  Circles and half-circles of shavings flaked out and fell upon him.  He worked steadily.  Presently the resistance of the wood ceased.  The bit had eaten its way through.

Beresford withdrew the tool and tried again, this time a few inches from the hole he had made.  The pressure lessened as before, but in a second or two the steel took a fresh hold.  The handle moved slowly and steadily.

A few drops of moisture dripped down, then a small stream.  The constable held his hand under this and tasted the flow.  It was rum.

Swiftly he withdrew the bit, fitted the plug into the hole, and pushed it home.

He crawled from under the wagon, skirted along the far side of it, ran to the next white-topped vehicle, and plumped out upon the campers with a short, sharp word of command.

“Up with your hands!  Quick!”

For a moment the surprised quartette were too amazed to obey.

“What in Halifax—?”

“Shove ’em up!” came the crisp, peremptory order.

Eight hands wavered skyward.

“Is this a hold-up—­or what?” one of the teamsters wanted to know sulkily.

“Call it whatever you like.  You with the fur cap hitch up the mules to the second wagon.  Don’t make a mistake and try for a getaway.  You’ll be a dead smuggler.”

The man hesitated.  Was this red-coat alone?

Tom strolled out of the ditch, a sawed-off shotgun under his arm.  “I judge you bored through your difficulties, constable,” he said cheerfully.

“Through the bed of the wagon and the end of a rum keg.  Stir your stumps, gentlemen of the whiskey-running brigade.  We’re on the way to Fort Edmonton if it suits you.”

If it did not suit them, they made no audible protest of disagreement.  Growls were their only comment when, under direction of Beresford, the Montanan stripped them of their weapons and kept guard on the fur-capped man—­his name appeared to be Lemoine—­while the latter brought the mules to the wagon pointed out by the officer.

“Hook ’em,” ordered Morse curtly.