Part 35 (1/2)

hands?”

”You said he had your gun,” said Big Jack.

”He give it back,” said Bela. ”He is bad man; but no steal. My big gun, my little gun--see?” She exhibited them.

Jack knew that Sam owned no gun; still he was suspicious. ”If you had your gun why didn't you plug him when he left you?” he demanded.

Bela paused for an instant. This was a poser, because in her heart she knew, supposing her story to be true, that she would have shot Sam.

She had to think quickly. ”I not want no blood,” she murmured. ”I 'fraid Pere Lacombe.”

It was well done. Big Jack nodded. ”You leave your guns, too,” he stipulated.

”Sure!” she said, willingly putting them in the dugout. ”Leave one man to watch the boats and the guns. Two men and a woman enough to catch a cook, I guess.”

They laughed.

Bela was playing for high stakes, and her faculties were sharpened to a sword-edge. Every look suggested the wronged woman thirsting for justice. She ostentatiously searched in her baggage, and drawing out a piece of moose-hide, cut it into thongs for bonds. Cleverer men than Big Jack and his pals might have been taken in.

”Boys, she's right!” cried Jack. ”We don't want no blood on our hands to start off with, if we can see him punished proper. Shand, you stay here. Lead off, girl!”

Shand shrugged with a sour look, and came down the bank. It was always tacitly understood between him and Jack that young Joe was not to be trusted alone, so he submitted.

The other three started. Bela, making believe to be baffled for a moment, finally led the way up-stream. She went first at the rolling gait the Indians affect. The men were hard put to it to keep up with her over the uneven ground, for the gra.s.sy plain, which looked like a billiard-table, was full of b.u.mps.

She kept her eyes on the ground. It was a simple matter for her to follow Sam's tracks in the gra.s.s, but the men, though they could see the faint depressions when she pointed them out, could never have found them unaided.

The tracks led them parallel to the general direction of the river, cutting across from point to point of the willows on the outside of each bend. On the horizon ahead was the pine-clad ridge that bounded the lower end of the lake. Jack-Knife Mountain rose over it. The sea of gra.s.s was dazzling in the sunlight.

Half an hour's swift walking gave them no glimpse ahead of their quarry.

”Waste too much time talking,” said Bela.

”Well, you did the most of it,” retorted Joe.

It was evident from the direction of the tracks that Sam was taking care to keep under cover of each point of the willows until he gained the next one. Each point afforded his pursuers a new survey ahead. Not until they had walked another half-hour at that gruelling pace were they in time to see a black spot just about to disappear ahead.

”Down!” cried Bela, and they dropped full length in the gra.s.s until it had gone.

Bela, springing up, led the way at a run across the intervening gra.s.s.

She had to hold herself back for the men. Joe was too heavy to be a runner, and Jack was beginning to feel the handicap of his years.

Nearing the willows, she held up her hand for caution. They ran lightly in the gra.s.s. Neither man could see or hear anything; nevertheless Bela indicated by signs that the one they sought was just around the bushes. At the last moment she held back and let them go first.

Sam, having decided that the danger of immediate pursuit was over, was sitting on the ground eating his lunch when, without warning, Jack and Joe fell on him, bowling him over on his back. He struggled desperately, but was helpless under their combined weight. Joe, with a snarl, lifted his clenched hand over Sam's face. Big Jack held it.

”Not while he's down,” he muttered.

Bela, following close, drew Sam's hands together and bound his wrists with her strips of hide.