a fine toothcomb. His sole reward was four
discharged .32 Dominion cartridge shells
similar to the one found in the car.

At noon the force was augmented by an-
other squad under Assistant Superintendent
J. D. Nicholson of the Alberta Provincial
Police who had helped to weave a noose
round the necks of the Cossack murderers of
Bailey and Usher in the same region. Re
shuffled after a meeting of the heads of the
three forces, the posses were concentrated in
a probing circle around the rugged terrain
where the car had been abandoned.

Having ransacked every fly-infested shack
and cabin on the outskirts of Blairmore,
Constable Bradner of the B.C. Provincial
Police, and Constables Tutin and Clark of
the R.C.M.P., decided to flush the sides
of a pine-clad mountain that reared its jag-
ged peak in stark silhouette above them. It
was four in the afternoon, and the wester-
ing sun was already dropping behind the
peaks.

AN “EMPEROR” Is CAPTURED

Dripping perspiration they crashed
through thickets, clambered up rocky escarp-
ments and shouldered through the matted
tangle of spruce. Pausing to wipe the sweat
from his eyes Clark heard a shout. Bradner
was pointing to a thick-set figure that had
broken from a clump of matted spruce and,
like a huge gorilla, was clumsily scaling the
slope towards the summit. Loosening their
revolvers they leapt forward, gaining swiftly
on the man, who appeared to be panting
and puffing under his heavy weight of flesh
in a vain attempt to outdistance them.

“Careful!” warned Bradner as the bulky
figure hauled itself over the summit and
stood momentarily silhouetted against the
sky ere disappearing beyond the crest. “Bet-
ter spread out and keep under cover. If he
gets a drop on us we're sunk.”

Knowing that swift death faced them if
the fugitive turned at bay and loosed a with-
ering barrage of lead upon them from the
summit’s protecting breastwork they con-
tinued fearlessly to scale the exposed es-
carpment. Guns held loosely in their hands
and eyes glued to the rocky rim above they
threw themselves across the crest at last.
Not a soul was anywhere in sight.

As they wormed forward from rock to
rock Clark lifted a warning hand. Fifty

yards ahead the glittering muzzle of a rifle -

menaced them from a clump of spruce.
“Hands up!” commanded Bradner.

A moment’s silence then from the brush
arose a haggard, distressed and panting fig-
ure—the dethroned emperor of Crows’ Nest
Pass!”

“All right, gentlemen,” came his weak
reply, “Ill surrender—I won't do you any
harm.”

Surrounded and disarmed he turned
weary eyes on Bradner. “My son, Steve,”
he demanded. “Tell me—is he dead?”

“Dead!” growled Bradner. “Hell no—he
only got his hand scratched.”

“Why,” panted Pic, his black eyes light-
ing with relieved surprise, “they phoned me
from Michel that he was shot. I figured
Lawson killed him. How’s Lawson?” He
eyed them anxiously.

“Dead!” answered Bradner courtly.

Three hours later, with wrists and ankles
manacled and guarded by three armed offic

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Crows’ Nest Mountain overlooking the notorious Crows’ Nest Pass.

ers, Emperor Pic was whisked through the
Pass towards the town of Lethbridge.

As word of Pic’s arrest spread, a storm of
disbelief and angry protest swept the Pass.
The police were crazy. Why, apart from
police work, Lawson and Pic were on the
best of terms. To the foreign element Pic,
it seemed, was an uncrowned king who
could do no wrong. A kindly benefactor
who not only relieved the monotony of their
existence by furnishing boundless quantities
of whiskey, as cheap as it was powerful, but
a philantrophist as well who gave freely to
sick and needy, and each Christmas gave a
handout to all and sundry. Only the winter
before, when times were bad, the bootleg
emperor had imported a boxcar load of flour
at his own expense and distributed it with
lavish hand. Of course Pic had his troubles
with the police—but it was just a sort of
friendly rivalry, and nothing gave Pic a
greater kick than to razz the officers them-
selves on how he'd slipped it over. No!

Emperor Pic wasn’t guilty of the Lawson

—Photo courtesy Canadian Pacific Railway.

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WINTER EDITION Page Seven