Part 12 (1/2)

Before a great while I wakened; to speak truthfully, the ungentle voice of Piegan Smith brought me out of dreamland with a guilty start. MacRae was still sitting up in bed, and from that part of his speech which filtered into my ears I gathered that he was recounting to Piegan the tale of our adventures during the past week. I thought that odd, for Mac was a close-mouthed beggar as a general thing; but there was no valid reason why he should not proclaim the story from the hill-tops if he chose, so I rolled over and pulled the blankets above my head--to protect my ear-drums if Piegan's astonishment should again find verbal expression.

The cook's battle-cry of ”Grub _pi-i-ile_” wakened me next. A thin line of yellowish-red in the east betokened the birth of another day, a day born in elemental turmoil, for the fierce wind was no whit abated, nor the sullen, driving rain.

”I've enlisted a recruit,” MacRae told me in an undertone, as we ate breakfast. ”It struck me that if we had somebody along that we could trust to ride into that Police camp with his mouth shut and his ears and eyes open, we might find out something that would show us how the land lay; even if he accomplished nothing else, he could learn if those fellows are still with the troop.”

”That was why you were making that talk to Piegan last night, was it?” I said. ”Well, from what little I've seen and heard of him, he'd be a whole team if he's willing to throw in with us and take a chance.” Which was perfectly true. Old Piegan had the reputation, on both sides of the line, of loving to jump into a one-sided fight for the pure joy of evening up the odds. He was a boisterous, rough-spoken mortal, but his heart was big, and set in the right place. And, though I didn't know it then, he had a grouch against Hicks, who had once upon a time run him into Fort Walsh in irons on an unjustified suspicion of whisky-running.

That was really what started Piegan in the smuggling business--a desire to play even, after getting what he called a ”d.a.m.n rough deal.”

”He's willing enough,” Mac a.s.sured me. ”Aside from the fact that most any white man would go out of his way to help a girl like Lyn Rowan, there's the certainty that the Canadian government will be pretty generous to anybody who helps round up that crooked bunch and restore the stolen money. Piegan snorted when I told him we were on the dodge--that they were trying to nail us for holding up the paymaster.

That's the rottenest part of the whole thing. I think--but then we've got to do more than think to get ourselves out of this jackpot.”

He stopped abruptly, and went on with his breakfast. By the time we were done eating, the gray light of a bedraggled morning revealed tiny lakes in every hollow, and each coulee and washout was a miniature torrent of muddy water--with a promise of more to come in the murky cloud-drift that overcast the sky. Horner sent out two men to relieve the night-herders, remarked philosophically ”More rain, more rest,” and retired to the shelter of the cook's canvas. His drivers sought cover in and under the wagons, where they had spent the night. But though mud and swollen streams might hold back the c.u.mbrous freight outfit, it did not follow that heavy going would delay the flitting of the thieves, if they planned such a move; nor would it prevent the Mounted Police from descending on the Baker outfit if they thought we had taken refuge there. So we held council of war with Piegan, after which we saddled up and made ready to tackle the soaked prairies.

While we were packing grub and bedding on Piegan's extra horse, Lyn joined us, wrapped from head to heel in a yellow slicker. And by the way Mac greeted her I knew that they had bridged that gap of five years to their mutual satisfaction; that she was loath to see him set out on a hazardous mission she presently made plain.

”Let it go, Gordon,” she begged. ”There's been too much blood shed over that wretched gold already. Let them have it. I know something dreadful will happen if you follow it up.”

MacRae smiled and shook his head stubbornly. ”I'm too deep in, little woman, to quit now,” he told her patiently. ”If it was only a matter of your money, we could get along without it. But Sarge stands to lose a lot, if we give up at this stage of the game. And besides, I'd always be more or less on the dodge if this thing isn't cleared up. I've got to see it through. You wouldn't have me sneak out of this country like a whipped pup, would you? There's too big an account to settle with those fellows, Lyn; it's up to us, if we're men. I can't draw back now, till it's settled for good and all, one way or the other.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THERE'S BEEN TOO MUCH BLOOD SHED OVER THAT WRETCHED GOLD ALREADY. LET THEM HAVE IT.”

_Page 212._]

”Oh, I know how you feel about it,” she sighed. ”But even if it comes out all right, you're still tied here. You know they won't let you go.”

”Don't you worry about that,” he comforted. ”I'll cross that bridge fast enough when I come to it. You go on to Benton, like a good girl. I feel it in my bones that we're going to have better luck from now on. And if we do, you'll see us ride down the Benton hill one of these fine mornings. Anyway, I'll send you word by Piegan before long.”

Piegan was already mounted, watching us whimsically from under the dripping brim of his hat. I shook hands with Lyn, and swung into my saddle. And when Mac had kissed her, we crowded through a gap in the circle of wagons, waved a last good-by, and rode away in the steadily falling rain.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY.

From then until near noon we worked our pa.s.sage if ever men did. On the high benches it was not so bad for the springy, porous turf soaked up the excessive moisture and held its firmness tolerably well. But every bank of any steepness meant a helter-skelter slide to its foot, with either a bog-hole or swimming water when we got there, and getting up the opposite hill was like climbing a greased pole--except that there was no purse at the top to reward our perseverance. Between the succeeding tablelands lay gumbo flats where the saturated clay hung to the feet of our horses like so much glue, or opened under hoof-pressure and swallowed them to the knees. So that our going was slow and wearisome.

About mid-day the storm gradually changed from unceasing downpour to squally outbursts, followed by banks of impenetrable fog that would shut down on us solidly for a few minutes, then vanish like the good intentions of yesterday; the wind switched a few points and settled to a steady gale which lashed the spent clouds into hurrying s.h.i.+ps of the air, scudding full-sail before the droning breeze. Before long little patches of blue began to peep warily through narrow s.p.a.ces above. The wind-blown rain-makers lost their leaden hue and became a soft pearl-gray, all fleecy white around the edges. Then bars of warm suns.h.i.+ne poured through the widening rifts and the whole rain-washed land lay around us like a great checker-board whereon black cloud-shadows chased each other madly over prairies yellow with the hot August sun and gray-green in the hollows where the gra.s.s took on a new lease of life.

That night we camped west of Lost River, lying prudently in a brush-grown coulee, for we were within sight of the Police camp--by grace of the field-gla.s.ses. At sundown the ground had dried to such a degree that a horse could lift foot without raising with it an abnormal portion of the Northwest. The wind veered still farther to the south, blowing strong and warm, sucking greedily the surplus moisture from the saturated earth. So we resolved ourselves into a committee of ways and means and decided that since the footing promised to be normal in the morning the troop would likely scatter out, might even move camp, and therefore it behooved us to get in touch with them at once; accordingly Piegan rode away to spend the night in the Police tents, with a tale of horses strayed from Baker's outfit to account for his wandering. From our nook in the ridge he could easily make it by riding a little after dark.

”Goodell and Gregory and Hicks you know,” said MacRae. ”Bevans is a second edition of Hicks, only not so tall by two or three inches--a square-shouldered, good-looking brute, with light hair and steel-gray eyes and a short brown mustache. He has an ugly scar--a knife-cut--across the back of one hand; you can't mistake him if you get sight of him. Stick around the camp in the morning if you can manage it, till they start, and notice which way all those fellows go. The sooner we get our hands on one or more of them the better we'll be able to get at the bottom of this; I reckon we could find a way to make him talk. Of course, if anything out of the ordinary comes up you'll have to use your own judgment; you know just as much as we do, now. And we'll wait here for you unless they jump us up. In that case we'll try and round up somewhere between here and Ten Mile.”

”Right yuh are, old-timer,” Piegan responded. ”I'll do the best I can.

Yuh want t' keep your eye glued t' that peep-gla.s.s in the mornin', and not overlook no motions. Yuh kain't tell what might come up. So-long!”

And away he went.

When he was gone from sight we built a tiny fire in the scrub--for it was twilight, at which time keen eyes are needed to detect either smoke or fire, except at close range--and cooked our supper. That done, we smothered what few embers remained and laid us down to sleep. That wasn't much of a success, however. We had got into action again, with more of a chance to bring about certain desired results, and inevitably we laid awake reckoning up the chances for and against a happy conclusion to our little expedition.

”It's a wonder,” I said, as the thought occurred to me, ”that Lyn quit Walsh so soon. Why didn't she stay a while longer and see if these famous preservers of the peace wouldn't manage to gather in the men who killed her father? Why, hang it! she didn't even wait to see if you found that stuff at the Stone--and Lessard must have told her that somebody had gone to look for it.”

Mac snapped out an oath in the dark. ”Lessard simply lost his head,” he growled. ”d.a.m.n him! He told her that he had sent us to look for it, and that we had taken advantage of the opportunity to rob the paymaster. Oh, he painted us good and black, I tell you. Then he had the nerve to ask her to marry him. And he was so infernally insistent about it, that she was forced to pull up and get away from the post in self-defense. That's why she left so suddenly.”