He led the way into the circle and stood there, quietly rolling a cigarette while he casually glanced round at the men. They were all of the ordinary type of lumber-jack—grim-featured, keen-eyed, weather-beaten.
All wore thick woollen trousers stuffed into the tops of their knee boots, and their boots were furnished with formidable spikes to enable them to get secure foothold on the floating logs upon which they worked.
In their perilous climbing about the jammed tree trunks many of them had got wet through, and as they sat within the warmth of the fire the steam from their drying clothes mingled with the smoke from their tobacco pipes.
"Say, we was just talkin' 'bout you, Sergeant," said one of them as Silk bent over and took up a flaming twig.
"Indeed?" nodded the officer, puffing thoughtfully at his cigarette.
"Yep," went on the spokesman. "Andy O'Reilly thar' was kinder relievin' hisself of the opinion as you boys of the Mounted P'lice have got a whole lot too much power in your hands."
Sergeant Silk looked across at the man indicated.
"Y'see," said Andy O'Reilly, "you kin do pretty nigh anythin', an' you kin do it without waitin' for orders. Nobody durst hinder you. You kin enter any house you like, an' search it through an' through. You kin apprehend a man without a warrant. You've even got authority to kill. You've got all the power of the Russian secret police."
"Exactly," Silk acknowledged, seating himself on one of the logs and making room beside him for Percy Rapson. "I don't deny we have a very considerable amount of power, one way and another. But I guess, after all, it's for the ultimate good of the community. It's all in the interests of public security. What?"