Part 19 (2/2)

”Some scavenger dog prowlin' around, I reckon,” he decided, and leant back, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes.

He did not allow himself to fall asleep. To do so would have been neglecting his duty as a scout; but he might at least keep himself bodily comfortable, and he knew that even if he should sink into slumber no enemy would approach the gate of the stockade without arousing him.

He was still in the same position half-an-hour afterwards, betraying by no sign that he was aware that he was not alone.

A shadow moved across his closed eyes, he heard a very cautious footstep quite near to him, but he did not stir.

He remained silent and motionless for many minutes, until he became conscious of a warm breath in his face and of a hand stealing behind him towards his rifle. But before the fingers closed upon the weapon, Dan had swiftly seized the intruding arm.

”No, you don't!” he objected, with a laugh, and he looked up into the moonlit face of a man in the familiar uniform of the North-West Mounted Police, who was sitting on the end of a pine log only a few inches away from him. ”Guess you figured I was asleep, did you, Sergeant?” he said, rubbing his eyes.

”Looked some like it,” returned the sergeant. ”You showed no sign of being awake, and you never challenged me as you ought to have done. Say, it might have been an Indian sneaking up.”

”I sure knew that it wasn't,” affirmed Dan. ”An Injun doesn't wear top boots and clinkin' spurs, nor a Stetson hat, nor a scarlet tunic. And he wouldn't have made a bee-line across that patch of moonlit gra.s.s, as you did just now. I knew it was you all the time. If I hadn't known it, you might have had a bullet in you. A nice thing it would have been if I'd had to go to the fort and report that I'd shot Sergeant Silk in mistake for a Redskin. I should have been some sorry.”

”Dare say,” reflected Silk, speaking hardly above a whisper. ”Folks generally are some sorry after they've taken a human life. I never knew but one man who was real glad.”

”Glad?” echoed Dan.

”Yes. Lean Bear was glad when he killed Tough Kelly.”

”H'm! Indian, eh?” said Dan. ”But Indians are usually glad when they've rubbed out a Paleface. Lean Bear?” He repeated the name. ”Why, wasn't that the chap you spared last week in the skirmish back of the fort? I saw what happened. I was ridin' behind you. I saw him tumble from his horse. You had the upper hand of him, and just as you were goin' to pull the trigger he yelled out to you, and you lowered your weapon, lettin'

him escape, as if he'd been an old pal of yours 'stead of a deadly enemy.”

Sergeant Silk leant forward with an elbow on his knee.

”Yes, that was the chap,” he acknowledged. ”But any other trooper would have done the same, and let him live.”

”Why?” questioned Dan. ”Wasn't he the same as all other Injuns--a rotten, ungrateful brute?”

Sergeant Silk did not answer at once. He slowly took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them beside him on the pine log before b.u.t.toning up his overcoat. He was silent for a long time--silent and thoughtful.

Dan Medlicott knew that this mood meant a story.

”Fire away,” he urged, ”I'm listenin'. I hope it's goin' to be a yarn about yourself, and none of your second-hand snacks about some fellow who isn't half so good and brave.”

Silk shrugged his shoulders.

”It's just about Lean Bear himself,” he resumed. ”Lean Bear and--and a young trooper who had charge of the post at Rosetta's Crossing. Corporal Pretty John was what he was commonly called, though he wasn't pretty and John wasn't his name.

”Lean Bear was well known on the Rosetta Patrol. He was just an idle, good-for-nothing loafer of the plains, picking up a poor living by trapping on the creeks, doing odd jobs, sponging on people who had more of this world's goods than himself, and drinking, drinking whenever he could get hold of a drop of firewater to flush down his scraggy throat.

”The missionaries could do nothing with him; they gave him up. The Hudson's Bay Company wouldn't trade with him. His own people, the Cree Indians, wouldn't admit him into their wigwams; they said his tongue was forked, it was crooked.

”The Mounted Police always kept a close watch on him, suspecting him of theft, though they never could bring anything home to him. He was too cunning to be caught. And yet it was said that he'd once led an honest, respectable life, as far as a Redskin can contrive to be honest and respectable.

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