Part 18 (1/2)
THE PIPE OF PEACE.
Twenty minutes after the sunset gun awoke the echoes along Battle Creek we slipped quietly into Fort Walsh and drew rein before the official quarters of the officer of the day; a stiffened, saddle-weary group, grimy with the sooty ash of burned prairies. From the near-by barracks troopers craned through windows, and gathered in doorways. For a moment I thought the office was deserted, but before we had time to dismount, the captain ranking next to Lessard appeared from within, and behind him came a medium-sized man, gray-haired and pleasant of countenance, at sight of whom MacRae straightened in his saddle with a stifled exclamation and repeated the military salute.
The captain stared in frank astonishment as MacRae got stiffly out of his saddle and helped Lyn to the ground. Then he snapped out some sharp question, but the gray-haired one silenced him with a gesture.
”Softly, softly, Stone,” he said. ”Let the man explain voluntarily.”
”Beg to report, sir,” MacRae began evenly, ”that we have captured the men who robbed Flood, murdered those two miners, and held up the paymaster. Also that we have recovered all the stolen money.”
”What sort of c.o.c.k-and-bull story is this?” Stone broke in angrily.
”Preposterous! Orderly, call----”
”Easy, easy now, Captain Stone,” the older man cut in sharply. ”A man doesn't make a statement like that without some proof. By the way,” he asked abruptly, ”how did you manage to elude Major Lessard and get in here?”
MacRae pointed to one of the horses. ”We didn't elude him. You'll find what's left of the black-hearted devil under that canvas,” he answered coolly. ”Lessard was at the bottom of the crookedness. We've packed him and Paul Gregory fifty miles for you to see.”
”Ha!” the old fellow seemed not so surprised as I had expected. He glanced over the lot of us and let another long-drawn ”ha” escape.
”May I ask a favor, Colonel Allen?” MacRae continued. ”This lady has had a hard day. Will you excuse her, for the present? We have a story to tell that you may find hard to credit.”
The colonel (I'd heard of him before; I knew when MacRae spoke his name that he was Commander-in-Chief of the Northwest Mounted Police, the biggest gun of all) favored us with another appraising stare.
”These men, I take it, are prisoners?” he said, pointing to Hicks and Bevans.
”You bet your sweet life them's prisoners,” Piegan broke in with cheerful a.s.surance. ”Them gentlemen is candidates for a rope necktie apiece--nice perfessional a.s.sa.s.sins t' have in the Police!”
Allen turned to the orderly. ”A detail of four from the guardhouse on the double-quick,” he commanded.
Captain Stone stood by gnawing his mustache while Allen listened unmoved as MacRae pointed out the horse on which was packed the bulk of the loot, and gave him a brief outline of the abduction and the subsequent fight at the mouth of Sage Creek. The orderly returned with the detail, and Allen courteously sent him to escort Lyn to the hospitality of Bat Perkins' wife, as MacRae asked. After which the guard marshaled Piegan, MacRae, and me, along with Hicks and Bevans, into the room where MacRae and Lessard had clashed that memorable day. Then they carried in the two bodies and laid them on the floor, and last of all the pack that held Hank Rowan's gold and the government currency.