How Kootenay Emerged from its Wild State. 249 



best policy, and silent I kept, though I suppose my eyes may have 

 conveyed to him some inkling of my determination to refuse his 

 demand. Hours instead of seconds seemed to go by ; at last I felt 

 the train slackening up. " You won't leave the train ? " he hissed 

 as we drew up to let a freight train pass. " Then, by God, you're 

 a goner." That moment the conductor's heavy foot kicked the 

 swinging door of our end of the carriage open, and with lightning 

 rapidity the cursed six-shooter disappeared under Sprowle's coat, 

 and the two men, who knew each other, entered into conversation,, 

 leaving me time to collect my senses. There was, however, no- 

 need for me to take any immediate steps, for when the train went 

 on, it did so without Sprowle, and indeed it was the last time I set 

 eyes on him. His next act of violence terminated his career on 

 the gallows in Victoria jail. This was the event to which I have 

 already alluded, namely, the assassination of young Hammil while 

 at work on the Blue Bell. Firing at him from ambush, Sprowle's 

 bullet broke the poor young fellow's back, condemning him to 

 terrible suffering that ended in death a few hours later. So cleverly 

 had Sprowle planned the whole affair that he got a six hours' start 

 before the constable who, after Judge Kelly's departure from the 

 lake, represented law and order in the lake district, could get 

 together a party of Indians with whom to pursue the fugitive. It 

 was by the merest chance that he was captured. Constable 

 Anderson judged very correctly in supposing that Sprowle would 

 make for Idaho, where he could not be followed by British 

 officials, and where he could not be taken at all until long-winded 

 formalities had been gone through. Anderson therefore made as 

 good time as he could with his two canoes to the lower end of the 

 ' lake, and up the winding Kootenay river, violent storms delaying 

 progress very materially. Dividing his force in two parties, each 

 took up a post close to the international boundary line on either 

 side of the river. The boundary consists in this densely wooded 

 country of a line rooft. in width cut through the forest by the 

 Boundary Commission some quarter of a century before Sprowle's 

 crime. Dense underbrush had since overgrown the cleared 



