Part 17 (1/2)
”They don't, Miss Grant; you can set your mind at rest on that. You don't seem curious whether they count with me.”
”You're not going,” Grant told him. ”We must have two men who can be relied on, and I can put my hand on another who's younger and a little more wiry than I am.” He turned to George. ”What you have to do is to lie close in the sloo gra.s.s until the fellows come for the liquor, when you'll follow them to the reservation, without their seeing you. Then you'll ride up and make sure you would know them again. They should get there soon after daylight, as they won't strike the bluff until it's dark, but there's thick brush in the ravine the trail follows for the last few miles. It won't matter if they light out, because Flett will pick up their trail. I'll send for him right off, but he could hardly get through before morning.”
The party broke up shortly afterward, and George rode home, wondering why he had allowed himself to become involved in what might prove to be a troublesome matter. His ideas on the subject were not very clear, but he felt that Flora Grant had expected him to take a part. Then he had been impressed in Hardie's favor; the man was in earnest, ready to court popular hostility, but he was nevertheless genial and free from dogmatic narrow-mindedness. Behind all this, there was in George a detestation of vicious idleness and indulgence, and a respect for right and order. Since he had been warned that the badly-kept hotel sheltered a gang of loafers plotting mischief and willing to prey upon men who toiled strenuously, he was ready for an attempt to turn them out. He agreed with Grant: the gang must be put down.
CHAPTER X
THE LIQUOR-RUNNERS
Dusk was closing in when George and the hired man whom Grant had sent with him reached the bluff and tethered their horses where they would be hidden among the trees. This done, George stood still for a few moments, looking about. A dark, cloud-barred sky hung over the prairie, which was fast fading into dimness; the wood looked desolate and forbidding in the dying light. He did not think any one could have seen him and his companion enter it. Then he and the man floundered through the undergrowth until they reached the sloo, where they hid themselves among the gra.s.s at some distance from the case, which had not been removed.
There was no moon, and a fresh breeze swept through the wood, waking eerie sounds and sharp rustlings among the trees. Once or twice George started, imagining that somebody was creeping through the bushes behind him, but he was glad of the confused sounds, because they would cover his movements when the time for action came. His companion, a teamster born on the prairie, lay beside him amid the tall harsh gra.s.s that swayed to and fro with a curious dry clas.h.i.+ng. He broke into a soft laugh when George suddenly raised his head.
”Only a cottontail hustling through the brush. Whoever's coming will strike the bluff on the other side,” he said. ”Night's kind of wild; pity it won't rain. Crops on light soil are getting badly cut.”
George glanced up at the patch of sky above the dark ma.s.s of trees.
Black and threatening clouds drove across it; but during the past few weeks he had watched them roll up from the west a little after noon almost every day. For a while, they shadowed the prairie, promising the deluge he eagerly longed for; and then, toward evening, they cleared away, and pitiless suns.h.i.+ne once more scorched the plain.
Grain grown upon the stiff black loam withstood the drought, but the light soil of the Marston farm was lifted by the wind, and the sharp sand in it abraded the tender stalks. It might cut them through if the dry weather and strong breeze continued; and then the crop which was to cover his first expenses would yield him nothing.
”Yes,” he returned moodily. ”It looks as if it couldn't rain. We ought to go in more for stock-raising; it's safer.”
”Costs quite a pile to start with, and the ranchers farther west certainly have their troubles. We had a good many calves missing, and now and then prime steers driven off, when I was range-riding.”
”I haven't heard of any cattle-stealing about here.”
”No,” said the teamster. ”Still, I guess we may come to it; there are more toughs about the settlement than there used to be. Indians have been pretty good, but I've known them make lots of trouble in other districts by killing beasts for meat and picking up stray horses. But that was where they had mean whites willing to trade with them.”
George considered this. It had struck him that the morality of the country had not improved since he had last visited it; though this was not surprising in view of the swarm of immigrants that were pouring in.
Grant had pithily said that once upon a time the boys had come there to work; but it now looked as if a certain proportion had arrived on the prairie because n.o.body could tolerate them at home. Flett and the Methodist preacher seemed convinced that there were a number of these undesirables hanging about Sage b.u.t.te, ready for mischief.
”Well,” he said, ”I suppose the first thing to be done is to stop this liquor-running.”
They had no further conversation for another hour. The poplars rustled behind them and the gra.s.s rippled and clashed, but now and then the breeze died away for a few moments, and there was a curious and almost disconcerting stillness. At last, in one of these intervals, the Canadian, partly rising, lifted his hand.
”Listen!” he said. ”Guess I hear a team.”
A low rhythmic drumming that suggested the beat of hoofs rose from the waste, but it was lost as the branches rattled and the long gra.s.s swayed noisily before a rush of breeze. George thought the sound had come from somewhere half a mile away.
”If they're Indians, would they bring a wagon?” he asked.
”It's quite likely. Some of the bucks keep smart teams; they do a little rough farming on the reservation. It would look as if they were going for sloo hay, if anybody saw them.”
George waited in silence, wis.h.i.+ng he could hear the thud of hoofs again. It was slightly daunting to lie still and wonder where the men were. It is never very dark in summer on the western prairie, and George could see across the sloo, but there was no movement that the wind would not account for among the black trees that shut it in.
Several minutes pa.s.sed, and George looked around again with strained attention.
Suddenly a dim figure emerged from the gloom. Another followed it, but they made no sound that could be heard through the rustle of the leaves, and George felt his heart beat and his nerves tingle as he watched them flit, half seen, through the gra.s.s. Then one of the shadowy objects stooped, lifting something, and they went back as noiselessly as they had come. In a few more moments they had vanished, and the branches about them clashed in a rush of wind. It died away, and there was no sound or sign of human presence in all the silent wood. George, glad that the strain was over, was about to rise, but his companion laid a hand on his arm.