“Well!––Lottie and her kind take chances all the time. Somebody generally gets them in the finish,” put in Royce Pederstone. “She wasn’t content with her price, but stole his wad as well. The town would be better quit of the bunch.”
“Guess you’re right,” agreed Brenchfield. “But it does seem a pity we can’t cut down in the number of Chinamen we have in the Okanagan.”
“Yes!” put in Todd, “but you know who brought them 40 here. You fellows with the ranches, looking for cheap help, did it.”
He laughed. “And, by God, you got it with a vengeance; and all that goes with it. They’re likely to rout us out of house and land before they’re through with us. You will have one high-U time getting them out,––believe me.”
“And Pierre Qu’appelle got sent down for ten years.”
“Guess that ends the wholesale thieving that has been going on around Vernock these last five years.”
“Hope so!” exclaimed the Mayor. “But you can’t always sometimes tell.”
“Pierre didn’t have the ghost of a chance; caught with the goods on him,” remarked Todd.
“Seems funny to me that he should play a lone game, though,” said Royce Pederstone.
“Not when you know the bunch he gangs with,” remarked Ben Todd. “They’re generally all in it, and one man takes the risk and the blame. He’ll get his share kept for him till he comes out again.