Part 7 (1/2)
The persistent beggars chased me a good ten miles before they drew up, concluding, I suppose, that I was too well mounted for them to overhaul.
But it might have been a lot worse; I still had my scalp intact; the chase and its natural excitement had brought a comfortable warmth to my chilled body; and I had made good time in the direction I wished to go.
On the whole, I felt that the red brother had done me rather a good turn. But I kept on high ground, thereafter, where I could see a mile or two, for I was very much alive to the fact that if another of those surprise-parties jumped me now that my horse was tired they would have a good deal of fun at my expense; and an Indian's idea of fun doesn't coincide with mine--not by a long shot!
I made some pointed remarks to my horse about Mr. Goodell and his companions, as I rode along. If Pend d' Oreille hadn't been the nearest place, I'd have turned back to Walsh and made that bunch of exhumers come back after me, if it were absolutely necessary that I should pilot them to the graves. Personally, I thought those two old plainsmen wouldn't thank Major Lessard or any one else for disturbing their last, long sleep; the wide, unpeopled prairies had always been their choice in life, and I felt that they would rather be laid away in some quiet coulee, than in any conventional ”city of the dead” with prim headstones and iron fences to shut them in. A Western man likes lots of room; dead or alive, it irks him to be crowded.
I fully expected to find the four waiting for me at Pend d' Oreille, and I was prepared to hear a good deal of chaffing about getting lost. What of my waiting on the ridge that afternoon, and bearing more or less away from the proper direction at night, I did not reach the post till noon; and I was a bit puzzled to find only the men who were on duty there. I was digesting this along with the remains of the troopers' dinner, when Goodell and his satellites popped over the hill that looked down on Pend d' Oreille, and, a few minutes later, came riding nonchalantly up to the mess-house.
”Well, you beat us in,” Goodell greeted airily. ”Did you find a short cut?”
”Sure thing,” I responded, with what irony I could command.
”Where the deuce _did_ you go, anyway, after you stopped in that creek-bottom?” he asked, eying me with much curiosity. ”We nearly played our horses out galloping around looking for you--after we'd gone a mile or so, and you didn't catch up.”
”Then you must have kept d.a.m.ned close to the coulee-bottoms,” I retorted ungraciously, ”for I burnt the earth getting up on a pinnacle where you could see me, before you had time to go very far.”
”Oh, well, it's easy to lose track of a lone man in a country as big as this,” he returned suavely. ”We all got here, so what's the odds? I guess we'll stick here till morning. We can't make the round trip this afternoon, and I'm not camping on the hills when it's avoidable.”
It struck me that he was uncommonly philosophical about it, so I merely grunted and went on with my dinner.
That evening, when we went to the stable to fix up our horses for the night, I got a clearer insight into his reason for laying over that afternoon. They had been doing some tall riding, and their livestock was simply unfit to go farther. The four saddle-horses looked as if they had been dragged through a small-sized knothole; their gauntness, and the dispirited droop of their heads, spelled complete fatigue to any man who knew the symptoms of hard riding. By comparison, my sweat-grimed dun was fresh as a morning breeze.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GENTLEMAN WHO RODE IN THE LEAD.
It took us all of the next day to make the trip to Stony Crossing and back by way of the place where Rutter was buried. Goodell had no fancy, he said, for a night camp on the prairie when it could be avoided. He planned to make an early start from Pend d' Oreille, and thus reach Walsh by riding late the next night. So, well toward evening, we swung back to the river post. Goodell and his fellows were nowise troubled by the presence of dead men; they might have been packing so much merchandise, from their demeanor. But I was a long way from feeling cheerful. The ghastly burdens, borne none too willingly by the extra horses, put a damper on me, and I'm a pretty sanguine individual as a rule.
When we had unloaded the bodies from the uneasy horses, and laid them carefully in a lean-to at the stable-end, we led our mounts inside.
Goodell paused in the doorway and emitted a whistle of surprise at sight of a horse in one of the stalls. I looked over his shoulder and recognized at a glance the rangy black MacRae had ridden.
”They must have given Mac's horse to another trooper,” I hazarded.
”Not that you could notice,” Goodell replied, going on in. ”They don't switch mounts in the Force. If they have now, it's the first time to my knowledge. When a man's in clink, his nag gets nothing but mild exercise till his rightful rider gets out. And MacRae got thirty days. Well, we'll soon find out who rode him in.”
I pulled the saddle off my horse, slapped it down on the dirt floor, and went stalking up to the long cabin. The first man my eyes lighted upon as I stepped inside was MacRae, humped disconsolately on the edge of a bunk. I was mighty glad to see him, but I hadn't time to more than say ”h.e.l.lo” before Goodell and the others came in. Mac drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to Goodell.
He glanced quickly through it, then swept the rest of us with a quizzical smile. ”By Jove! you must have a pull with the old man, Mac,”
he said to MacRae. ”I suppose you know what's in this epistle?”
”Partly.” Mac answered as though it were no particular concern of his.
”I'm to turn Hicks and Gregory over to you,” he read the note again to be sure of his words, ”see that you get a week's supply of grub here, and then leave you to your own devices. What's the excitement, now?
Piegans on the war-path? Bull-train missing, or whisky-runners getting too fresh, or what? My word, the major has certainly established a precedent; you're the first man I've known that got thirty days in clink and didn't have to serve it to the last, least minute. How the deuce did you manage it? Put me on, like a good fellow--I might want to get a sentence suspended some day. Any of us are liable to get it, y'know.”
Goodell's tone was full of gentle raillery.
”The high and mighty sent me out to lead a forlorn hope,” Mac dryly responded. ”Does that look like a suspended sentence?” He turned his arm so that we could see the ripped st.i.tching where his sergeant's stripes had been cut away.