Part 39 (1/2)

Stimson saluted and shook his bridle, and rather less than an hour later faintly discerned a rattle of wheels that rose from a long way off across the prairie. Then he used the spur, and by and by it became evident that the drumming of their horses' feet had carried far, for, though the rattle grew a little louder, there was no doubt that whoever drove the wagon had no desire to be overtaken. Still, two horses cannot haul a vehicle over a rutted trail as fast as one can carry a man, and when the wardens of the prairie raced towards the black wall of birches that rose higher in front of them, the sound of wheels seemed very near. It, however, ceased suddenly, and was followed by a drumming that could only have been made by a galloping horse.

”One beast!” said the Sergeant. ”Well, they'd have two men, any way, in that wagon. Get down and picket. We'll find the other fellow somewhere in the bluff.”

They came upon him within five minutes endeavoring to cut loose the remaining horse from the entangled harness in such desperate haste that he did not hear them until Stimson grasped his shoulder.

”Hold out your hands,” he said. ”You have your carbine ready, trooper?”

The man made no resistance, and Stimson laughed when the handcuffs were on.

”Now,” he said, ”where's your partner?”

”I don't know that I mind telling you,” said the prisoner. ”It was a low down trick he played on me. We got down to take out the horses when we saw we couldn't get away from you, and I'd a blanket girthed round the best of them, when he said he'd hold him while I tried what I could do with the other. Well, I let him, and the first thing I knew he was off at a gallop, leaving me with the other kicking devil two men couldn't handle. You'll find him rustling south over the Montana trail.”

”Mount and ride!” said Stimson, and when his companion galloped off, turned once more to his prisoner.

”You'll have a lantern somewhere, and I'd like a look at you,” he said.

”If you're the man I expect, I'm glad I found you.”

”It's in the wagon,” said the other dejectedly.

Stimson got a light, and when he had released and picketed the plunging horse, held it so that he could see his prisoner. Then he nodded with evident contentment.

”You may as well sit down. We've got to have a talk,” he said.

”Well,” said the other, ”I'd help you to catch Harmon if I could, but I can prove he hired me to drive him over to Kemp's in the wagon, and you'd find it difficult to show I knew what there was in the packages he took along.”

Stimson smiled dryly. ”Still,” he said, ”I think it could be done, and I've another count against you. You had one or two deals with the boys some little while ago.”

”I'm not afraid of your fixing up against me anything I did then,” said the other man.

”No?” said Stimson. ”Now, I guess you're wrong, and it might be a good deal more serious than whisky-running. One night a man crawled up to your homestead through the snow, and you took him in.”

He saw the sudden fear in his companion's face before he turned it from the lantern.

”It has happened quite a few times,” said the latter. ”We don't turn any stranger out in this country.”

”Of course!” said the Sergeant gravely, though he felt a little thrill of content as he saw the shot, he had been by no means sure of, had told. ”That man, however, had lost his horse in the river, and it was the one he got from you that took him out of the country. Now, if we could show you knew what he had done, it might go as far as hanging somebody.”

The man was evidently not a confirmed law breaker, but merely one of the small farmers who were willing to pick up a few dollars by a.s.sisting the whisky-runners now and then, and he abandoned all resistance.

”Sergeant,” he said, ”it was 'most a week before I knew, and if anybody had told me at the time, I'd have turned him out to freeze before I'd have let him have a horse of mine.”

”That wouldn't go very far if we brought the charge against you,” said Stimson grimly. ”If you'd sent us word when you did know, we'd have had him.”

”Well,” said the man, ”he was across the frontier by that time, and I don't know that most folks would have done it, if they'd had the warning the boys sent me.”

Stimson appeared to consider for almost a minute, and then gravely rapped his companion's arm.

”It seems to me that the sooner you and I have an understanding, the better it will be for you,” he said.

They were some time arriving at it, and the Sergeant's superiors might not have been pleased with all he promised during the discussion.