Part 9 (1/2)
”Here”--Mac handed me his carbine--”you stay with the yellow temptation.
From now on we'll have to keep a close eye on this stuff, and likewise have our guns handy. I'll make those fellows pack up and bring the horses here. Then we'll load this and pull for Walsh.”
His first move was to saddle his black horse and my dun. These he led to the fire, and thereafter stood a little to one side, placidly consuming a cigarette while the other two packed the camp-outfit and saddled their own mounts. Then they trailed across the flat toward me, MacRae blandly bringing up the rear. He wasn't taking any chances.
Half an hour later, with the sacks of gold securely lashed on the _aparejos_ of the pack-horse, we climbed out of Writing-Stone bottom and swung away over the silent tablelands.
With Writing-on-the-Stone scarcely three miles behind, the long-abandoned burrow of a badger betrayed us into the hands of the enemy. (What a power for thwarting the plans of men little things sometimes exercise!) We had contrived that Gregory should lead the pack-horse, which gave MacRae and me both hands to use in case of a hostile demonstration; that there would be such, neither of us doubted from the moment those two laid eyes on the buckskin sacks. The sidelong, covetous glance that pa.s.sed between them bespoke what was in their minds. And from that time on the four of us were like so many open-headed casks of powder sitting by a fire; sooner or later a spark would bring the explosion. We had them at a disadvantage trotting across the level upland, Gregory in the lead and Hicks sandwiched between Mac and myself--until MacRae's horse planted his foreleg to the knee in an old badger-hole hidden under a rank acc.u.mulation of gra.s.s. The black pitched forward so suddenly that Mac had no time to swing clear, and as he went down under the horse Gregory's agile brain grasped the opportunity of the situation, and his gun flashed out of its scabbard.
My hand flew to mine as I jerked the dun up short, but I wasn't fast enough--and Hicks was too close. It was a trilogy of gun-drawing.
Gregory drew his and fired at MacRae with the devilish quickness of a striking rattler; I drew with intent to get Mr. Gregory; and Hicks drew his and slapped me over the head with it, even as my finger curled on the trigger. My gun went off, I know--afterward I had a dim recollection of a faint report--but whether the bullet went whistling into the blue above or buried itself in the broad bosom of the Territory, I can't say.
Things ceased to happen, right then and there, so far as I was concerned. And I haven't satisfied myself yet why Hicks struck instead of shooting; unless he had learned the frontier lesson that a bullet in a vital spot doesn't _always_ incapacitate a man for deadly gun-play, while a hard rap on the head invariably does. It wasn't any scruple of mercy, for Hicks was as cold-blooded a brute as ever glanced down a gun-barrel.
When my powers of sight and speech and hearing returned, MacRae stood over me, nowise harmed. The black horse lay where he had fallen. I sat up and glanced about, thankful that I was still in the flesh, but in a savage mood for all that. This, thought I, is a dismal-looking outcome--two men and a dead horse left high and dry on the sun-flooded prairie. And a rampant ache in my head, seconded by a medium-sized gash in the scalp, didn't make for an access of optimism at that moment.
”Well,” I burst out profanely, ”we lose again, eh?”
”Looks like it,” Mac answered laconically. Then he whirled about and walked to a little point some distance away, where he stood with his back to me, looking toward Lost River.
CHAPTER XIII.
OUTLAWED.
I sat where I was for a while, fingering my sore head and keeping my thoughts to myself, for I had a keen sense of the mood he was in. For the second time, through no fault of his own, he had failed to live up to that tradition of the Force which accepts nothing short of unqualified victory for a Mounted Policeman when he clashes with breakers of the law. And, in addition, he had let slip through his fingers a fortune that belonged to a woman for whom he cared a great deal more than he was willing to admit. I felt pretty small and ashamed myself, to think of the ease with which they had left us afoot on the bald prairie after all our scheming, our precaution against something we were sure would happen; and there was no responsibility on my shoulders--except for that ten thousand of La Pere's, which I was beginning to think I'd looked my last upon. Mac had not only the knowledge of personal failure--bitter enough, itself, to a man of his temperament--to gnaw at him, but the prospect of another grilling from the powers in gold braid. It would have been strange if he hadn't felt blue.
He came back, however, in a few minutes, and squatting beside me abstractedly got out papers and tobacco.
”I suppose that bunch will quit the country now,” he remarked at length.
”They've got their hands on a heap of money in the last ten days; all they'll have a chance to grab for some time. And they've come out into the open. So there's not much doubt of their next move--they'll be on the wing.”
”Well, we have a cinch on identifying them now,” I commented. ”We've got that much out of the deal. If the Mounted Police are half as good man-hunters as they are said to be, they ought to round up that bunch in short order. Did the black hurt you when he fell?”
”Bruised my leg some,” he returned indifferently. Then, scowling at the remembrance: ”If he hadn't caught me right under him I'd have got action on those two. But the jar threw my six-shooter where I couldn't reach it, and the carbine was jammed in the stirrup-leather on the wrong side. I reckon Gregory thought he got me first shot. He would have, too, only Crow threw up his head and stopped the bullet instead of me. They had ducked into that coulee by the time I got clear. Hicks grabbed your horse and took him along. I'm somewhat puzzled to know why they didn't stand pat and make a clean job of us both. Blast them, anyway!”
”Same here, and more of it,” I fervently exclaimed.
”Come on, let's get out of here,” Mac abruptly proposed. ”We'll have to make Pend d' Oreille and send word to Walsh. It'll take the whole force to catch them now.”
My gun lay where it had fallen when Hicks whacked me over the head. I picked it up, replaced the empty cartridge, and shoved it back into the scabbard. MacRae hoisted the carbine to his shoulder, and we started.
We poked along slowly at first, for I was still a bit dizzy from that blow. Before long we came to a spring seeping from the hillside, and when I had bathed my head in the cool water I began to feel more like myself. Thereafter, we tramped silently across high, dry benches, slid and scrambled to the bottoms of an endless succession of coulees, and wearily climbed the steep banks that lay beyond. The cool morning wind died away; the sun reeled up on its appointed circle, glaring brazenly into every nook and cranny in the land. Underfoot, the dry sod grew warm, then hot, till the soles of our boots became instruments of torture to feet that were sadly galled by fruitless tramping around the Stone. When a man has grown up in the habit of mounting a horse to travel any distance over three hundred yards, a walk of twenty undulating miles over a network of bald ridges and yawning coulees makes him think that a sulphur-and-brimstone hereafter can't possibly hold much discomfort that he hasn't sampled. A cowpuncher in high-heeled riding-boots is handicapped for pedestrianism by both training and inclination--and that scarred and wrinkled portion of the Northwest is a mighty poor strolling-ground for any man.
But we kept on, for the simple reason that there was nothing else we could do. MacRae wasted no breath in words. If the heat and the unG.o.dly steepness of the hills and the luke-warm water that trickled along the creek channels ruffled his temper, he made no noise about it, only pressed doggedly toward Pend d' Oreille. I daresay he thought I was attending to that part of it, registering a complaint for both of us.
And if I didn't rise to the occasion it was the fault of my limited vocabulary. I kept a stiff backbone for a while, but presently a futile rage against circ.u.mstances bubbled up and boiled over. I climbed each succeeding canyon wall oozing perspiration and profanity, and when the top was reached took fresh breath and d.a.m.ned the Northwest by sections in a large, fluent manner of speech. In time, however, the foolishness of this came home to me, and I subsided into spasmodic growling, saving my wind for the miles yet to cover.
Well past noon we reached the summit of a hog-backed ridge that overlooked the tortuous windings of Lost River, a waterless channel between banks that were void of vegetation. The crest of the divide was studded with great outcroppings of sand-stone, and in the shadow of one giant rock we laid down to rest before we descended into that barren valley where the heat-waves s.h.i.+mmered like crepon silk. The cool bit of earth was good to stretch upon; for nearly an hour we laid there, beyond reach of the glowing sun; it was worth almost the treasure we had lost to ease our aching feet. Then reluctantly we started again.
As we stepped from behind the rock three riders came into sight on the opposite slope of Lost River. A moment's scrutiny a.s.sured us that they were Mounted Policemen. From habit our eyes swept the surrounding country, and in a moment we observed other groups of mounted men, an equal distance apart and traveling in the same general direction--like a round-up sweeping over a cattle-range.
”They're out for somebody. I shouldn't be surprised if they have smelled out our friends,” said MacRae. ”And seeing this bunch is heading right toward us, we might as well take it easy here till they come up.”