“It’s my opinion,” said MacGregor, “that you’ll be shot at sunrise.”
“That won’t be so bad,” said Johnny, joining in the joke.
“Not half-bad,” MacGregor agreed. “I mind an Eskimo we shot up there in the far north. He’d killed a white man. The revenue cutter came along an’ the judge tried him.
“When the judge’s decision had been arrived at, they told this Eskimo to stand up.
“Well, sir, he stood there stiff an’ straight as any soldier. He was sure he had been condemned to die and that he was to be shot. They’re a sturdy lot, those Eskimos.
“Well,” MacGregor paused to laugh. “They set a thing up an’ aimed it at the Eskimo. Something clicked. The Eskimo blinked. But nothin’ else happened.
“The white men folded things up and left. But the Eskimo still stood there, not knowin’, I suppose, whether he was dead or alive.
“Know what happened?” he concluded. “He’d been found innocent and they had taken his picture.
“For all I know,” he added, “he’s livin’ still an’ so’ll you be, me boy, forty years from today.
“What can they do?” he demanded. “They don’t dare harm us.”