“Oh, yes,” said one of the assembly.  “That’s just what it’s going to be if Damer’s friends stand by him.  Damer isn’t going to come along to prison because Andersen tells him.”

Horton regarded the speaker with a gravity that was tempered by semi-contemptuous pity.  “Then,” he said, “because I’m going to swear you in as special constables, you and the boys will make him.”

There was another lapse into half-audible laughter and one of the men touched Seaforth’s shoulder.  “I’m wondering what Harry would think of this,” said he.  “It would sound kind of curious in the old country.”

Seaforth smiled as he made a little gesture of resignation.  “The point is that he doesn’t know.  Anyway, we haven’t done much to be proud of while we acted sensibly, and now and then foolishness seems to pay as well as wisdom.”

“Well,” said the other, grinning, “I wouldn’t call old Horton a fool altogether.”

Horton interrupted him by calling up six of the biggest men, and very gravely swearing them in, after which he produced a paper.  “This,” he said, “is a warrant for the apprehension of one Roger Damer for horse-stealing, and all you have to do is to go up and get him.  You will meet here at daylight to-morrow, every man with a horse and provisions, but while I’ll do the best I can for you I’m not quite sure the Government will pay for them.”

Once more there was soft laughter, but early next morning six silent men, whose bronze faces bore no trace of merriment now, rode out of the settlement, with rifles slung behind them, and four more followed later leading heavily-laden horses by the bridle.  Time was not of vital importance, and though all of them were at home in the bush they prospected for the easiest road, which led them through valleys few men of their race had ever set foot in before.  Twice a few of the Siwash, who come down the rivers with the spring, awoke when the moon was in the sky, and heard a trampling of horses high up amidst the pines that shut in a lonely valley, and once a solitary prospector, camping close beneath the snow, rose drowsily beside his fire, and wondered whether he was dreaming as he saw a line of mounted men with rifles flit by and vanish beyond a black hill shoulder.  They rode in silence, and save for the muffled ring of iron and faint jingle of steel, he could have taken them for disembodied spirits in place of living men.

Horton, however, had in him a trace of the general, and did what his mind could grasp with a grim thoroughness, while, as the result of it, there was blank astonishment one morning in a mining camp as he and the men who followed him appeared as by magic from amidst the pines surrounding it.  They were also armed, and the miners, who rose from their breakfast, stared at them motionless in silence, that is, all save one, who slipped into a tent and afterwards out through the back of it.  Horton, however, saw him, and his command was to the point—­“Stop him.”