"Still, now we hear you're going back east to the Silverdale settlement it's quite likely you won't want them as much as the rest of us do.

It's supposed to be quite a big farm you have come into." Courthorne was a little troubled, as well as perplexed.

He had certainly not gone to Silverdale and had no notion of doing so, though he had distant relatives there, while, so far as he knew, nobody had left him a farm of any kind.

He had promised the whisky runners a guide on the night of Trooper Shannon's death, and as it was dark when, muffled in Winston's furs, he met the men--who were, as it happened, for the most part new adherents, it seemed probable that they had not recognized him or had any reason to believe it was not Winston himself who was responsible for the trooper's death.

It was not a very unusual thing for one of the smaller farmers to take a part in a smuggling venture now and then.