CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I [Across Medicine Line]
II [Rescue Unwelcome]
III [In the Wrong Party]
IV [Riding Boot Rivals]
V [Too Much Luck]
VI [Sealed Lips]
VII [Last Warning]
VIII [Threat of Doubt]
IX [Bust 'em, Broncho]
X [Home of Flame]
XI [Did He Dare?]
XII [By Single Strand]
XIII [In Punishment Gulch]
XIV [His Biggest Debt]
XV [Trapping for Proof]
XVI [Clean as a Hound's Tooth]
XVII [Calling a Bluff]
XVIII [Rustled to a Finish]
XIX [Surprises for Flame]
XX [Poor Branded Man]
XXI [The Nest of the Crow]
XXII [Threat of Spikes]
XXIII [Coming a Cropper]
XXIV [Out of the Nest]
XXV [Grip of the Law]
THE LONG ARM OF THE MOUNTED
CHAPTER I.
ACROSS MEDICINE LINE.
An inanimate monument of whitewashed stones glistened in the moonlight as though each boulder was of pure platinum.
Not much to enthuse about, especially were you the one who had helped in its erection in the years of your youth; yet sight of it gripped John Childress, sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, much in the same way as Miss Liberty, down in New York harbor, takes hold of the immigrant entering the alleged promised land. For the moment he forgot that he had ever had a part in long-ago boundary-line marking. A touch of spur, a lunge of willing horse and he was on—he was across "Medicine Line," thus giving, as did the non-com in his thoughts, the Indian name to that more-or-less mythical smear which separates all King George's American acres from all of Uncle Sam's.
Childress was riding a draw in the hills which gave from the States into the Fire Weed Country of Canada's marvelous West. He wore the scarlet-blue-gold uniform that knows no stain. The horse he rode, a gray stallion whose coat glistened like silver in the moonlight, might have looked white under sun-glare, but in any light he was somebody's horse.
At the heels of the gray tailed a brindle hound. Poison was his name—just that all may know his disgrace and have it over with. Childress had bought the horse down in Missoula, when his service mount had gone painfully lame from the hard riding of a scouting trip on the star-spangled side of that mythical boundary line. Poison, the pup, who had grown to believe that the big gray and he were kennel-mates, had followed along, in that faithfulness of beast to beast which passeth human understanding. The sergeant possessed no bill-of-sale for or to the dog. Repeatedly, in his severest regimental manner, he had ordered the queer-looking canine home. But always a snort from the silver beast had countermanded orders. At that, after closer inspection of Poison, the sergeant decided none would make pursuit for recovery.