Part 7 (1/2)

THE UNEXPECTED

It was fortunate for Antoine the bear that the taps at the window came when they did, for Pepin with his great arms had got it into such an extraordinary position --doubtless the result of many experiments--that it would most a.s.suredly have had its digestion ruined by the sticks which its irate master was administering in small sections.

To facilitate matters, he had drawn its tongue to one side as a veterinary-surgeon does when he is administering medicine to an animal. On hearing the taps the dwarf relinquished his efforts and went to the door. The bear sat up on its haunches, coughing and making wry faces, at the same time looking around for moccasins or boots or something that would enable it to pay its master out with interest, and not be so difficult to swallow when it came to the reckoning.

The dwarf went to the door, and, putting one hand on it, and his head to one side, cried--

”h.e.l.lo, there! _Qui vive?_ Who are you, and what do you want?”

”All right, Pepin, it's me--Katie.”

The door was thrown open, and the half-breed woman entered.

At her heels came a man who was so m.u.f.fled up as to be almost unrecognisable. But Dorothy knew him, and the next moment was in her father's arms. The dwarf hastened to close the door, but before doing so he gazed out apprehensively.

”You are quite sure no one followed you?” he asked Katie, on re-entering the room.

”No one suspected,” she replied shortly. ”Jean Lagrange has gone to look out for the others. I fear it will go hard with the shermoganish unless you can do something, Pepin.”

Dorothy had been talking to her father, but heard the Indian word referring to the Police.

”I wonder if Mr. Pasmore has got through to the Fort, dad!” she said suddenly.

”I was just about to tell you, my dear, what happened,”

he replied. ”I was going quietly along, trying to find some trace of you, when a couple of breeds came up behind and took me prisoner. I thought they were going to shoot me at first, but they concluded to keep me until to-morrow, when they would bring me before their government. So they shut me up in a dug-out on the face of a bank, keeping my capture as quiet as possible for fear of the mob taking the law into its own hands and spoiling their projected entertainment. I hadn't been there long before the door was unbarred and Pasmore came in with Katie here. He told me to go with her, and, when I had found you, to return to where we had left the sleighs, and make back for the ranche by the old trail as quickly as possible. He said he'd come on later, but that we weren't to trouble about him. Katie had made it right, it seems, with my jailers, whom I am inclined to think are old friends of hers.”

”But why couldn't he come on, dad, with you?”

There was something about the affair that she could not understand.

”I suppose he thought it would attract less attention to go separately. I think the others must have got safely into the Fort. It seems that since they have discovered that some of the English are trying to get through their lines they have strengthened the cordon round the Fort, so that now it is impossible to reach it.”

”It's not pleasant, dad, to go back again and leave the others, is it?”

”It can't be helped, dear. I wish Pasmore would hurry up and come. He said, however, we were not to wait for him.

That half-breed doesn't look too friendly, does he?”

”Pepin Quesnelle is, so I fancy it doesn't matter about the other,” replied Dorothy.

The rancher turned to the others, who had evidently just finished a serious argument.

”Pepin,” he observed, ”I'm glad to find you're not one of those who forget their old friends.”

”Did you ever think I would? Eh? What?” asked the manikin cynically, with his head on one side.

”I don't suppose I ever thought about the matter in that way,” said Douglas, ”but if I'd done so, I'm bound to say that I should have had some measure of faith in you, Pepin Quesnelle. You have known me for many years now, and you know I never say what I do not mean.”

”So!... that is so. _Bien!_” remarked Pepin obviously pleased. ”But the question we have had to settle is this.

If we let your daughter go now, how is Bastien here to account for his prisoner in the morning? He knows that one day he will have to stand on the little trap-door in the scaffold floor at Regina, and that he will twirl round and round so--like to that so”--picking up a hobble chain and spinning it round with his hand--”while his eyes will stick out of his head like the eyes of a flat-fish; but at the same time he does not want to be shot by order of Riel or Gabriel Dumont to-morrow for losing a prisoner.”

”Yees, they will shoot--shoot me mooch dead!” observed Bastien feelingly.