The god of chance took the matter out of his hands.
From the entangling folds of the skin tepee two swarthy, flannel-shirted white men wriggled like badgers escaping from a hole, and stood up gazing about in bewilderment. One of them had drawn a gun, and in the hand of the other was a vicious knife.
Sergeant Jerry drew a pair of handcuffs from a pocket, and pushed his bay forward to cut off the retreat of the Frenchmen, commanding: "You are under arrest—hands up!"
As he spoke, with an ugly oath the man with the gun fired. The report was echoed by the crack of Carney's gun and the Frenchman's hand dropped to his side, his pistol clattering to earth.
Sergeant Jerry threw the handcuffs to the man with the knife, saying, sharply: "Shackle yourself by the right wrist to the left wrist of your companion."
The man hesitated, sweeping with his vicious eyes the band of cowed Indians.
One look at the gun in Carney's hands and muttering: "Sacre! dem damn Injuns is coward dogs!" he picked up the chained rings and snapped them on his mate's wrists and his own.
Carney turned to Standing Bear, who stood petrified by the rapidity of events.
"Chief," he said, "with these white outcasts the way is different, they are evil; the Indians are children of the White Mother."
The wily old Chief quickly repudiated the two Frenchmen; he could see that the policeman and Bulldog were not to be bluffed.
"If the two moneas have broken the law, take them," he said magnanimously; "but tell the Redcoat that Standing Bear and his tribe will go from here up into the hills for the hunt, for to return to the reserve would bring hunger to the Stonies when the white rain lies on the ground. Ask the Redcoat to say that this is good, that we may go quickly, and the evil be at an end."
Carney conveyed this to Jerry. It was perhaps the better way, he advised, for the breaking up of the hunt, during which they laid in a stock of meat for the winter, and skins and furs, would be distinct hardship.
"You can take the prisoners in, Sergeant," Carney said, "and I'll stay with Standing Bear till they're up in the mountains away from the lumberjacks."
"They must destroy any whisky they have," Jerry declared.
This the Chief agreed to do.
In half an hour the tepees were all down, packed on the poled travois, blankets and bundles were strapped to the backs of the dogs, and in a struggling line the Stonies were heading for the hills.
Toward the east the two Frenchmen, linked together, plodded sullenly over the trail, and behind them rode Sergeant Jerry and his half-breed scout.