“I thanked him, but I stuck to the contract in spite of what everybody said. I bought some pack-horses an’ O’Connell lent me five o’ his. My greatest trouble was to find packers I could trust to keep their mouths shut about the pass. You see, I wanted to keep that a secret. It took me nearly two weeks to get my crew together an’ load up the stuff.
“In order to deceive everybody,” Murky resumed after a short pause, “we started out in broad daylight over the regular trail leading to the Yellowhead. They all jeered at us when we left Wandley’s. Two days out, we left the trail, circled back, an’ then one dark night slipped down into the ravine an’ entered the pass.”
At this point, Sergeant Richardson interrupted the narrator.
“To whom was the shipment consigned?” he asked.
“To a free trader named Bentley,” Nichols promptly replied. “He was jus’ opening up a new tradin’ post in the Goose Lake country.”
“Well,” Murky continued, “we made a quick trip. I was able to pay my packers almost double what they generally got. Comin’ back, we took plenty o’ time so as to make it appear that we had gone by the Yellowhead route. But even at that, we was weeks ahead o’ the schedule. O’Connell nearly fell out o’ his skin. He didn’t know what to say an’ neither did Wandley. O’Connell offered me other contracts an’ fer two years I made some easy money. Then one day he comes to me, an’ by the look on his face, I could see somethin’ was up.
“‘Look here, Murky,’ he says, ‘there’s somethin’ wrong about all this. I’ve been watchin’ yuh. Yuh ain’t been takin’ none o’ the stuff through the Yellowhead. What yuh been doin’ with it?’
“‘I don’t know as that’s any o’ your business,’ I comes back. ‘As long as the shipments reaches their destination, yuh ain’t got no kick.’
“‘Yuh’ve found a shorter route,’ accused O’Connell.
“‘Well, what if I have?’