their purchases being made with lien notes which the holders discovered were as useless as the paper they were written on. There was a reason, too, to believe the gang were responsible for far more serious crimes. Not only was their leader the burly, swash- buckling rascal, William Oscar Koenig, an ex-gaol-bird, but his confederates—August Tierman and Gus Borden—had also seen the inside walls of a penitentiary.

Horse Tuieves’ Hipeour

Guiding his roan through the willows he slipped from the heavy stock-saddle, tethered his horse to a tree and, with casual uncon- cern, prepared to tackle the three des- peradoes.- Loosening his heavy .45 he edged around the barn, sprinted for the back door and, with the tattoo of drumming hoofs ringing in his ears, sent it reeling open and leapt within in time to see a burly, bow- legged ruffian in a ten-gallon hat making for the front door with a saddle over his arm.

“Hands up!” Nick’s revolver leapt from its holster as the man fired from his hip, sending the Sergeant’s Stetson spinning through the air. Next moment Nicholson had closed in. When they rose from the dust clouds in an atmosphere of sulphurous language and angry curses, William Oscar Koenig’s wrists were manacled behind him— but the other birds had flown.

A few minutes later the stocky horse thief was riding north beside the Sergeant, his hands manacled before him, and his feet tied beneath the belly of his horse. One glance at the scowling eyes and heavy-

muscled body decided Nicholson to take no chances. But that ride over the August prairies was not conducted in silence. Smoul- dering with rage at the desertion of his companions, Koenig continued to rail against them. Designedly the Sergeant fed the fires of his wrath till it dominated the captive. “I’m not going to let them rats

These members of the Royal North West

Mounted Police took part in the search. Seated

at right is Sergt. J. D. Nicholson, who has

just retired from the Force after joining up again

after war broke out. At left (standing) is Sergt. Moose Munroe.

off scot free,” he growled as the ba bd loomed ahead. “Ill get even with th. double-crossing rat Gus Borden yet.”

Exactly two weeks after Koenig had heat lodged behind the bars at Fort Saskatchewan Nicholson received a visit from Jack Cun- ningham of the Immigration office. “Just dropped in,” he told the Sergeant, “about a Fritz Hotz who’s disappeared. He was working on bridge construction at Clover Bar, and left last March to take a job in British Columbia. Nobody’s heard from him since, and his wife's just written from| Germany saying she’s anxious about him,”

“Perhaps,” suggested Nicholson, “he may have found it convenient to disappear.”

“On the contrary,” retorted Cunningham, “Fritz Hotz is O.K. Just before he dis appeared he was about to bring his family out from Germany, and mentioned he'd saved quite a bit of money for that purpose.”

The Sergeant fingered his moustache,

“Whereabouts in British Columbia was he going?”

“That we don’t know,” the tmmigeate officer admitted. “All we know is he used to live at the mines and, later, at the con struction camp with a friend named King. King quit a month before Hotz. And it was King who told Hotz’s friends he’d gone to British Columbia. Queer thing is— Hotz quit without bidding a solitary soul good-bye, and King has disappeared. Wasty you'd look into the matter, Nick.”

Alighting before the ugly, tar-paper’ covered buildings of the Clover Bar Con struction camp a couple of hours later the

78 East Second Ave.

Page Forty-two

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