We mounted and rode to the stables. When we'd unsaddled and put up our horses, Mac led the way toward a row of small, whitewashed cabins set off by themselves, equidistant from barrack and officers' row.
"Sometimes I eat with the sergeants' mess," Mac said. "But generally I camp with 'Bat' Perkins when I drop in here. Bat's an ex-stock-hand like ourselves, and we'll be as welcome as payday. And he'll know if Lyn Rowan has come to Walsh."
I wasn't in shape, financially, to have any choice in the matter of a stopping-place. Forty or fiftydollars of expense money covered the loose cash in my pockets when I left Walsh for Benton; and, while I may have neglected to mention the fact, those two coin-collectors didn't overlook the small change when they held me up for La Pere's roll. There was a sort of sheebang—you couldn't call it a hotel if you had any regard for the truth—on the outskirts of Walsh, for the accommodation of wayfarers without a camp-outfit, but most of the time you couldn't get anything fit to eat there. So I was mighty glad to hear about Bat Perkins.
It transpired, however, that before we reached Bat Perkins' cabin Mac got an unexpected answer to one of the questions he intended to ask. As we turned the corner of a rambling log house, which, from its pretentiousness, I judged must house some Mounted Police dignitary, we came face to face with a tall, keen-featured man in Police uniform, and a girl. Even though Rutter had declared she would be at Walsh, I wasn't prepared to believe it was Lyn Rowan. Sometimes five years will work a wonderful change in a woman; or is it that time and distance work some subtle transition in one's recollection? She didn't give me much time to indulge in guesswork, though. While I wondered, for an instant, if there could by any possibility be another woman on God's footstool with quite the same tilt to her head, the same heavy coils of tawny hair and unfathomable eyes that always met yourown so frankly, she recognized the pair of us; though MacRae in uniform must have puzzled her for an instant.
"Gordon—and Sarge Flood! Where in the world did you come from? And—and——" She stopped rather suddenly, a bit embarrassed. I knew just as well as if she had spoken the words, that she had been on the point of asking him what he was doing in the yellow-striped breeches and scarlet jacket of a Mounted Policeman. Whatever had parted them, she hadn't held it against him. There was an indefinable something in the way she spoke his name and looked at him that told me there was still a soft spot in her heart for the high-headed beggar by my side.
But MacRae—while I was wise to the fact that he was the only friend I had in that country, and the sort of friend that sticks closer than a brother, I experienced a sincere desire to beat him over the noodle with my gun and thereby knock a little of the stiffness out of his neck—simply saluted the officer, tipped his hat to her, and passed on. I didn'tsabethe play, and when I saw the red flashup into her face it made me hot, and there followed a few seconds when I took a very uncharitable view of Mr. Gordon MacRae's distant manner.
The fellow with her, I noticed, seemed to draw himself up very stiff and dignified when she stopped and spoke to us; and the look with which he favored MacRae was a peculiar one. It was simply a vagrant expression, but as it flitted over his face it lacked nothing in the way of surprised disapproval; I might go farther and say it was malignant—the kind of look that makes a man feel like reaching for a weapon. At least, that's the impression it made on me.
"I might fire that question back at you, Miss Rowan," I replied. "We're both a long way from the home range. I was here a day or two ago. How did you manage to keep out of sight—or have you just got in?"
"Yesterday, only," she returned. "We—you remember old Mammy Thomas, don't you?—came over from Benton with the Baker freight outfit. I expect to meet dad here, in a few days."
Her last sentence froze the words that were all ready to slip off the end of my tongue, and made my grouch against MacRae crystallize into a feeling akin to anger. Why couldn't the beggar stand his ground and deliver the ugly tidings himself? That bunch of cottonwoods with the new-made grave close by the dead horses seemed to rise up between us, and I became speechless. I hadn't the nerve to stand there and tell her she'd never see her father again this side of the pearly gates. Not I. That was a job for somebody who could put his arms around her and kiss the tears away from her eyes. Unless I read her wrong, there was only one man who could make it easier for her if he were by, and he was walking away as if it were none of his concern.
Something of this must have shown in my face, for she was beginning to regard me curiously. I gathered my scattered wits and started to make some attempt at conversation, but the man with the shoulder-straps forestalled me.
"Really, we must go, Miss Rowan, or we shallbe late for luncheon," he drawled. The insolent tone of him was like having one's face slapped, and it didn't pass over Lyn's head by any means. I thought to myself that if he had set out to entrench himself in her good graces, he was taking the poorest of all methods to accomplish that desirable end.
"Just a moment, major," she said. "Are you going to be here any length of time, Sarge?"
"A day or so," I responded shortly. I didn't feel overly cheerful with all that bad news simmering in my brain-pan, and in addition I had conceived a full-grown dislike for the "major" and his I-am-superior-to-you attitude.
"Then come and see me this afternoon if you can. I'm staying with Mrs. Stone. Don't forget, now—I have a thousand things I want to talk about. Good-bye." And she smiled and turned away with the uniformed snob by her side.
MacRae had loitered purposely, and I overtook him in a few rods.
"Well," I blurted out, as near angry as I ever got at MacRae in all the years I'd known him,"you're a high-headed cuss, confound you! Is it a part of your new philosophy of life to turn your back on every one that you ever cared anything for?"
He shrugged his shoulders tolerantly. "What did you expect of me?"
"You might have—oh, well, I suppose you'll go your own gait, regardless," I sputtered. "That's your privilege. But I don't see how you had the nerve to passherup that way. Especially since that Stony Crossing deal."
Mac took a dozen steps before he answered me.
"You don't understand the lay of things, Sarge," he said, rather hesitatingly. "If I have the situation sized up right, Lyn is practically alone here, and things are going to look pretty black to her when she learns what has happened. Hank never had anything much to do with his people. I doubt if Lyn has even a speaking acquaintance with her nearest kin. She has friends in the South—plenty of them who'd be more than glad to do as much for her as you or I. But we're a long way from theCanadian River, now. And so if she has made friends among the official set here, it's up to me to stand back—until thatcacheis found, anyway."
"Then you're not going to try and see her, and tell her about this thing yourself?" I asked.
"I can't," he replied impatiently. "You'll have to do that, Sarge. Hang it, can't you see where I stand? The mere fact that Lessard was taking her about shows that these officers' women have received her with open arms. They form a clique as exclusive as a quarantined smallpox patient, and a 'non-com' like myself is barred out, until I win a pair of shoulder-straps; when my rank would make me socially possible. Meantime, I'm a sergeant, and if Lyn went to picking friends out of the ranks, I'm not sure they wouldn't drop her like a hot potato. Sounds rotten, but that's their style; and you've been through the mill at home enough to know what it is to be knifed socially. It's different with you; you're an American citizen, a countryman of hers. You understand?"
"Yes," I answered tartly. "But I don't understand how you can stomach this sort of existence. What is there in it? Where is the profit or satisfaction in this kind of thing, for you? Will the man in the ranks get credit for taming the Northwest when his work is done? Why the devil don't you quit the job? Cut loose and be a free agent again."
"It is a temptation, the way things have come up in the last day or two," he mused. "I'd like to be foot-loose, so I could work it out without any string attached to me. But there are only two ways I could get out of the Force, and neither is open. I might desert, which would be a dirty way to sneak out of a thing I went into deliberately; or, if they were minded to allow me, I could buy my discharge—and I haven't the price. Besides, I like the game and I don't know that I want to quit it. The life isn't so bad. It's your rabidly independent point of view. A man that can't obey orders is not likely to climb to a position where he can give them. What the dickens would become of the cow-outfits," he challenged, "if every stockhand refused to takeorders from the foreman and owners? Do you stand on your dignity when La Pere tells you to do certain things in a certain way?"
I shrugged my shoulders. There was just enough truth in his words to make them hard to confute, and, anyway, I was not in the mood for that sort of argument. But I was very sure that I would rather be a forty-dollar-a-month cowpuncher than a sergeant in the Mounted Police.
"That fellow with her is the big gun here, is he?" I reverted to Lyn and her affairs.
"Yes," Mac answered shortly, "that was Lessard."
By this time we had come to the last cabin in the row. A whitewashed fence enclosed a diminutive yard, and as we turned in the gate Bat Perkins appeared in the doorway, both hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets and a pipe sagging down one corner of his wide mouth. He was rudely jovial in his greeting, as most of his type were. His wit was labored, but his welcome was none the less genuine.
"I seen yuh ride in, Mac," he grinned, "an' I toldthe old woman t' turn herself loose on the beefsteak an' spuds, for here comes that hungry-lookin' jasper from Pend d' Oreille."
I was duly made acquainted with Bat, and later with his wife, who, if she did have a trace of Indian blood in her, could certainly qualify as the patron saint of hungry men. Good cooks were a scarce article on the frontier then. Bat, I learned, was attached to the Force in a civilian capacity.
We ate, smoked a cigarette apiece, and then it was time for us to "repawt." So we betook ourselves to the seat of the mighty, to unload our troubles on the men who directed the destinies of the turbulent Northwest and see what they could do toward alleviating them.
This time the orderly passed us in without delay, and once more we faced the man of rank, who, after taking our measure with a deliberate stare, ordered MacRae to state his business.
As Mac related the unvarnished tale of the banked fire in the canyon, the hold-up, and the double murder, a slight sound caused me to turnmy head, and I saw in a doorway that led to another room the erect figure of Major Lessard listening intently, a black frown on his eagle face. When MacRae had finished his story and the incapable blockhead behind the desk sat there regarding the two of us as though he considered that we had been the victims of a rank hallucination, Lessard slammed the door shut behind him and strode into the room.
"I'll take charge of this, Captain Dobson," he brusquely informed the red-faced numskull.
Taking his stand at the end of the desk, he made MacRae reiterate in detail the grim happenings of that night. That over, he quizzed me for a few minutes. Then he turned loose on MacRae with a battery of questions. Could he give a description of the men? Would he be able to identify them? Why did he not exercise more precaution when investigating anything so suspicious as a concealed fire? Why this, why that? Why didn't he send a trooper to report at once instead of wasting time in going to Stony Crossing? And a dozen more.
With every word his thin-lipped mouth drew intoharder lines, and the cold, domineering tone, weighted heavy with sneering emphasis, grated on me till I wanted to reach over and slap his handsome, smooth-shaven face. But MacRae stood at "attention" and took his medicine dumbly. He had to. He was in the presence, and answering the catechism, of a superior officer, and his superior officer by virtue of a commission from the Canadian government could insult his manhood and lash him unmercifully with a viperish tongue, and if he dared to resent it by word or deed there was the guardhouse and the shame of irons—for discipline must be maintained at any cost! I thanked the star of destiny then and there that no Mounted Police officer had a string attached to me, by which he could force me to speak or be silent at his will. It was a dirty piece of business on Lessard's part. Even Dobson eyed him wonderingly.
"Why, damn it!" Lessard finally burst out, "you've handled this like a green one, fresh from over the water. You are held up; this man is robbed of ten thousand dollars; another man ismurdered under your very nose—and then you waste thirty-six hours blundering around the country to satisfy your infernal curiosity. It's incredible, in a man of your frontier experience, under any hypothesis except that you stood in with the outlaws and held back to assure their escape!"
At first MacRae had looked puzzled, at a loss. Then under the lash of Lessard's bitter tongue the dull red stole up into his weather-browned cheeks, glowed there an instant and receded, leaving his face white under the tan. His left hand was at its old, familiar trick—fingers shut tight over the thumb till the cords stood tense between the knuckles and wrist—a never-failing sign that internally he was close to the boiling-point, no matter how calm he appeared on the surface. And when Lessard flung out that last unthinkable accusation, the explosion came.
"You lie, you——!" MacRae spoke in a cold impersonal tone, and only the flat strained note betrayed his feeling; but the term applied to Lessard was one to make a man's ears burn; it was therange-riders' gauntlet thrown squarely in an enemy's face. "You lie when you say that, and you know you lie. I don't know your object, but I call your bluff—you—you blasted insect!"
Lessard, if he had been blind till then, saw what was patent to me—that he had gone a bit too far, that the man he had baited so savagely was primed to kill him if he made a crooked move. MacRae leaned forward, his gray eyes twin coals, the thumb of his right hand hooked suggestively in the cartridge-belt, close by the protruding handle of his six-shooter. They were a well-matched pair; iron-nerved, both of them, the sort of men to face sudden death open-eyed and unafraid.
A full minute they glared at each other across the desk corner. Then Lessard, without moving a muscle or altering his steady gaze, spoke to Dobson.
"Call the orderly," he said quietly.
Dobson, mouth agape, struck a little bell on the desk and the orderly stepped in from the outer room.
"Orderly, disarm Sergeant MacRae."
Lessard uttered the command evenly, without ajarring note, his tone almost a duplicate of MacRae's. He was a good judge of men, that eagle-faced major; he knew that the slightest move with hostile intent would mean a smoking gun. MacRae would have shot him dead in his tracks if he'd tried to reach a weapon. But a man who is really game—which no one who knew him could deny MacRae—won't,can'tshoot down another unless that other showsfight; and a knowledge of that gun-fighters' trait saved Major Lessard's hide from being thoroughly punctured that day.
The orderly, a rather shaky orderly if the truth be told (I think he must have listened through the keyhole!) stepped up to Mac.
"Give me your side-arms, sergeant," he said, nervously.
MacRae looked from one to the other, and for a breath I was as nervous as the trooper. It was touch and go, just then, and if he'd gone the wrong way it's altogether likely that I'd have felt called upon to back his play, and there would have been a horrible mix-up in that two by four room. But hedidn't. Just smiled, a sardonic sort of grimace, and unbuckled his belt and handed it over without a word. He'd begun to cool.
"Reduced to the ranks—thirty days in irons—solitary confinement!" Lessard snapped the words out with a wolfish satisfaction.
"Keep a close mouth, Sarge," MacRae spoke in Spanish with his eyes bent on the floor, "and don't quit the country till I get out." Then he turned at the orderly's command and marched out of the room.
When I again turned to Lessard he still stood at the end of the desk, industriously paring his fingernails. An amused smile wrinkled the corners of his mouth.
Whereas Lessard had acted the martinet with MacRae, he took another tack and became the very essence of affability toward me. (I'd have enjoyed punching his proud head, for all that; it was a dirty way to serve a man who had done his level best.)
"Rather unfortunate happening for you, Flood," he began. "I think, however, that we shall eventually get your money back."
"I hope so," I replied coolly. "But I must say that it begins to look like a big undertaking."
"Well, yes; it is," he observed. "Still, we have a pretty thorough system of keeping track of things like that. This is a big country, but you can count on the fingers of one hand the places where a man can spend money. Of course, you probably realize the difficulty of laying hands on men who know they are wanted, and act accordingly. We can'tarrest on a description, because you wouldn't know the men if you saw them. Our only chance is to be on the lookout for free spenders. It's a certainty that they will be captured if they spend that money at any trading-post within our jurisdiction. I'll find out if the quartermaster knows the numbers and denomination of the bills. On the other hand, if they go south, cross the line, you know, we won't get much of a show at them. But we'll have to take chances on that."
"I've done all I can do in that direction," I said. "I've sent word to La Pere."
"You had better stay hereabout for a while," he decided. "You can put up at one of the troop-messes for a few days. I'll send a despatch to Whoop Up and MacLeod, and we'll see what turns up. Also I think I shall send a detail to bring in those bodies. The identification must be made complete. No doubt it will be a trial for Miss Rowan, but I think she would feel better to have her father buried here. By the way, you knew the Rowans in the States, I believe."
"Was trail-boss three seasons for Hank Rowan and his partner," I returned briefly. I didn't much like his offhand way of asking; not that it wasn't a perfectly legitimate query. But I couldn't get rid of the notion that he would hand me out the same dose he had given MacRae if only he had the power.
"Ah," he remarked. "Then perhaps you would like to go out and help bring in those bodies. It will save taking the Pend d' Oreille riders from their regular patrol, and we are having considerable trouble with whisky-runners these days."
I agreed to go, and that terminated the conversation. I didn't mind going; in fact some sort of action appealed to me just then. I had no idea of going back to Benton right away, and sitting around Fort Walsh waiting for something to turn up was not my taste. It never struck me till I was outside the office that Lessard had passed up the gold episode altogether; he hadn't said whether he would send any one to prognosticate around Writing-Stone or not. I wondered if he took any stock in Rutter's story, or thought it merely one of the queer turnsa man's brain will sometimes take when he is dying. It had sounded off-color to me, at first; but I knew old Hans pretty well, and he always seemed to me a hard-headed, matter of fact sort of man, not at all the flighty kind of pilgrim that gets mixed in his mental processes when things go wrong. Besides, if there wasn't some powerful incentive, why that double killing, to say nothing of the incredible devilishness that accompanied it.
Once out of the official atmosphere, I hesitated over my next move. Lessard's high-handed squelching of MacRae had thrown everything out of focus. We'd planned to report at headquarters, see Lyn, if she were at Walsh, and then with Pend d' Oreille as a base of operations go on a still hunt for whatever the Writing-Stone might conceal. That scheme was knocked galley-west and crooked, for even when MacRae's term expired he'd get a long period of duty at the Fort; he'd lost his rank, and as a private his coming and going would be according to barrack-rule instead of the freedom allowed a sergeant in charge of an outpost like Pend d'Oreille—I knew that much of the Mounted Police style of doing business. And so far as my tackling single-handed a search for Hank Rowan'scache—well, I decided to see Lyn before I took that contract.
I hated that, too. It always went against my grain to be a bearer of ill tidings. I hate to make a woman cry, especially one I like. Some one had to tell her, though, and, much as I disliked the mission, I felt that I ought not to hang back and let some stranger blurt it out. So I nailed the first trooper I saw, and had him show me the domicile of Mrs. Stone—who, I learned, was the wife of Lessard's favorite captain—and thither I rambled, wishing mightily for a good stiff jolt out of the keg that Piegan Smith and Mac had clashed over. But if there was any bottled nerve-restorer around Fort Walsh it was tucked away in the officers' cellars, and not for the benefit of the common herd; so I had to fall back on a cigarette.
Lyn was sitting out in front when I reached the place. Another female person, whom I put downas Madam Stone, arose and disappeared through an open door at my approach. Lyn motioned me to a camp-stool close by. I sat down, and immediately my tongue became petrified. My think-machinery was running at a dizzy speed, but words—if silence is truly golden, I was the richest man in Fort Walsh that afternoon, for a few minutes, at least. And when my vocal organs did at last consent to fulfil their natural office, they refused to deliver anything but empty commonplaces, the kind one's tongue carries in stock for occasional moments of barren speech. These oral inanities only served to make Lyn give me the benefit of a look of amused wonder.
"Dear me," she laughed at last. "I wonder what weighty matter is crushing you to the earth. If you've got anything on your conscience, Sarge, for goodness' sake confess. I'll give you absolution, if you like, and then perhaps you'll be a little more cheerful."
"No, there's nothing particular weighing me down," I lied flatly. "Anyway, I don't aim to unload my personal troubles on you. I came over hereto acquire a little information. How came you away up here by your lonesome, and what brought your father and old Hans——"
Her purple-shaded eyes widened, each one a question-mark.
"Who told you that Hans was up North? I know I didn't mention him," she cut in quickly. "Have you seen them?"
It's a wonder my face didn't betray the fact that I was holding something back. I know I must have looked guilty for a second. That was a question I would gladly have passed up, but her eyes demanded an answer.
"Well," I protested, "it occurred to me that if you expected to meet your father here in a day or two, Rutter would naturally be with him, seeing that they've paddled in the same canoe since a good many years before you were born, my lady. What jarred you all loose from Texas? And what the mischief did you do to MacRae that he quit the South next spring after I did, and straightway went to soldiering in this country?"
She shied away from that query, just as I expected. "We had oceans of trouble after you left there, Sarge," she told me, turning her head from me so that her gaze wandered over the barrack-square. "It really doesn't make pleasant telling, but you'll understand better than some one that didn't know the country. You remember Dick Feltz, and that old trouble about the Conway brand that dad bought a long time back?"
I nodded; I remembered Mr. Feltz very well indeed, for the well-merited killing of one of his hired assassins was the main cause of my hasty departure from Texas.
"Well, it came to a head, one day, in Fort Worth. They shot each other up terribly, and a week or so later Feltz died. His people in the East got it into their heads that it was a case of murder. They stirred up the county authorities till every one was taking sides. Of course, dad was cleared; but that seemed to be the beginning of a steady run of bad luck. The trial cost an awful lot of money, and made enemies, too. Feltz had plenty of friends ofhis own calibre—you know that to your sorrow, don't you, Sarge?—and they started trouble on the range. It was simply terrible for a while. Dad can supply the details when he comes." ("when he comes"—I tell you, that jarred me.) "Finally things got to such a pass that dad had to quit. And what with a deal in some Mexican cattle that didn't turn out well, and some other business troubles that I never quite understood, we were just about finished when we closed out."
She let her eyes meet mine for an instant, and they were smiling, making light of it all. Most women, I thought, would have had a good cry, or at least pulled a long face, over a hard-luck story like that. But she was really more of a woman than I had thought her, and I thanked the Lord she was game when I remembered what I had to tell her before I was through.
"Dad and Hans Rutter, as you know, weren't the sort of men to sit around and mourn over anything like that," she laughed. "I don't know where they got the idea of going to Peace River. But dadsettled me and Mammy Thomas in a little cottage in Austin, and they started. I wanted to go along, but dad wouldn't hear of it. They've been gone a little over two years. I'd get word from them about every three months, and early this spring dad wrote that they had made a good stake and were coming home. He said I could come as far as Benton to meet them, and we would take the boat from there down to St. Louis. So I looked up the lay of the country, and sent him word I would come as far as Walsh. He had said they would come out by way of this place. And then I rounded up Mammy Thomas and struck out. I've rather enjoyed the trip, too. They should be here any day, now."
My conscience importuned me to tell her bluntly that they would only come into Walsh feet first. But I dodged the unpleasant opening. There was another matter I wanted to touch upon first.
"Look here, Lyn," I said—rather dubiously, it must be confessed, for I didn't know how she would take it, "I'm going to tell you something on my own responsibility, and you mustn't get the idea that I'mtrying to mix into your personal affairs without a warrant. But I have a hunch that you're laboring under a mistaken impression, right now; that is, if you care anything about an old friend like MacRae."
"I can't really say that I do, though," she assured me quickly, but she colored in a way that convinced me that her feeling toward MacRae was of the sort she would never admit to any one but himself.
"Well," I continued, "I imagined you would think it queer that he should pass you up as he did a while ago. But here at Fort Walsh we're among a class of people that are a heap different from Texas cow-punchers. These redcoats move along social lines that don't look like much to a cowman; but once in the Force you must abide by them. It was consideration for you that forbade MacRae to stop. Any woman in the company of an officer is taboo to an enlisted man, according——"
"I know all that," she interrupted impatiently. "Probably they'd cut me, and all that sort of thing. I understand their point of view, exactly, but I'mnot here to play the social game, and I shall talk to whom it pleases me. Do you or Gordon MacRae honestly believe I care a snap for their petty conventions?"
"No, I know you better than that," I responded. "All the same, this is a pretty rough country for a woman, and if you've made friends among the people on top, they may come in handy. For that matter," I concluded, "you won't get a chance to have the cold shoulder turned to you for associating with MacRae; not for some time, anyway."
"What do you mean?" she demanded, in that answer-me-at-once way I knew of old.
"MacRae has gotten into a bad hole," I told her plainly. "Major Lessard, who happens to be the big chief in this neck of the woods, seems to have developed a sudden grouch against him. There was a hold-up night before last—in fact, I was the victim. I was separated from a big bunch of money that belongs to the outfit I'm working for. Mac was with me at the time. He had to come in here and report it, for it happened in his district, and themajor raked him over the coals in a way that was hard to stand. You know MacRae, Lyn; it's mighty poor business for any man to tread on his toes, much less go walking rough-shod all over him. Lessard went the length of accusing him of being in with these hold-up men, because he did a little investigating on his own account before coming in to report. Mac took that pretty hard, and came mighty near making the major eat his words with gunpowder sauce on the side. So, for having the nerve to declare himself, he has lost his sergeant's stripes and has likewise gone to the guardhouse to meditate over the foolishness of taking issue with his superiors. If you don't see him for the next thirty days, you'll have the consolation of knowing that he isn't avoiding you purposely."
It was a rather flippant way to talk, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. The last three days hadn't been exactly favorable to a normal state of mind, or well-considered speech.
But—who was the wise mortal that said: "No man knoweth the mind of a maid"?—she sat therequite unmoved, her hands resting quietly in her lap. "We all seem to be more or less under a cloud, Sarge," she said slowly. "Maybe when dad comes he can furnish a silver lining for it. I sometimes—what makes you look that way? You look as if you were thinking it my fault that Gordon is in trouble."
"You're wrong there," I protested, truthfully enough.
"But you have that air," she declared. "And I'm not to blame. If he hadn't been so—so—I'm sure he'd get out of the Mounted Police fast enough if he didn't like it. I can't imagine him doing anything against his will. I never knew him"—with a faint smile—"to stay anywhere or do anything that didn't suit him." She took to staring out across the grounds again, and one hand drew up slowly till it was doubled into a tight-shut little fist.
"Well, he's in that very fix right now. And he's likely to continue so, unless some one buys his release from the service and makes him a present of it. You might play the good angel," I suggested, halfin earnest. "It only costs about five hundred dollars"—Mac had told me that—"and I'm sure he'd be properly grateful."
The red flag waved in her cheeks again. "I don't particularly like the idea," she said, rather crossly, still keeping her face turned away from me, "and I'm very sure he wouldn't care to have me. But dad thinks a lot of him; he might do something of the kind when he gets here. Dear, I wish they'd hurry along."
She had me at the end of my rope at last, and I felt like breaking away right there; any one not utterly calloused would, I think, have felt the same squeamishness with that sort of a tale crowding close. If she had been expecting bad news of any kind it wouldn't have been so hard to go on; but I couldn't beat about the bush any longer, so I made the plunge with what grace I could.
"Lyn, I've got something to tell you about your father and old Hans, and I'm afraid it's going to hurt," I prefaced gently, and went on before she could interrupt. "The fellows who held MacRaeand me up had someway got wind of the gold they were packing out. They tried to get it. So far as I know, they haven't succeeded yet. Rutter tried to tell us where it wascached. There was a fight over it, you see, and he was shot. Mac and I came across him—but not soon enough." I stopped and got out cigarette material in an absent sort of way. My lips, I remember, were almighty dry just then.
"And dad?" Lyn was looking at me intently, and her voice was steady; that squeezed kind of steadiness that is almost worse than tears.
"He wasn't with Rutter." I drew a long breath and hurried on, slurring over the worst of it. "They had got separated. Hans was about done when we found him—he died in a few minutes—but he told us where to go. Then we went to look for your father. We found him; too late to do any good. We buried him—both of them—and came on here."
I felt like a beast, as if I had struck her with my fist, but at any rate, it was all told; all that she need ever know. I sat still and watched her, wondering nervously what she would do.
It was a strain to sit there silent, for Lyn neither did or said anything at first. Perhaps she cried afterward, when she got by herself, but not then; just looked at me, through me, almost, her face white and drawn into pained lines, and those purple-blue eyes perfectly black. I got up at last, and put one hand on her shoulder.
"It's hell, little girl, I know." I said this hardly realizing that I swore. "We can't bring the old man back to life, but we can surely run down the cold-blooded devils that killed him. I have a crow to pick with them myself; but that doesn't matter; I'd be in the game anyway. We'll get them somehow, when Mac gets out and can play his hand again. It was finding your father and giving him decent burial that kept us out so long. I don't understand, yet, why Lessard should pitch into MacRae so hard for doing that much. You know Mac, Lyn, and you know me—we'll do what we can."
She didn't move for a minute, and the shocked, stricken look in her eyes grew more intense. Then she dropped her head in the palms of her hands witha little sobbing cry. "Sarge, I—I wish you'd go, now," she whispered. "I want to—to be all by myself, for a while. I'll be all right by and by."
I stood irresolute for a second. It may have been my fancy, but I seemed to hear her whisper, "Oh, Gordon, Gordon!" Then I hesitated no longer, but turned away and left her alone with her grief; it was not for me to comfort her. And when I had walked a hundred yards or more, I looked back. She was still sitting as I had left her, head bowed on her hands, and the afternoon sun playing hide-and-seek in the heavy coils of her tawny-gold hair.
For the next hour or two I poked aimlessly around the post buildings, chafing at the forced inaction and wondering what I would better do after I'd gone with the squad of redcoats to those graves and helped bring the bodies in. Even if I had a pack-horse and a grub-stake, it would be on a par with chasing a rainbow for me to start on a lone hunt for Hank Rowan'scache. I didn't know the Writing-Stone country, and a man had no business wandering up and down those somber ridges alone, away from the big freight-trails, unless he was anxious to be among the "reported missing"—which he sure would be if a bunch of non-treaty Indians ever got within gunshot of him. I damned Major Lessard earnestly for what I considered his injustice to MacRae, and wondered if he would send his troopers out to look forthat hypothetical gold-dust. I didn't see how he could avoid making a bluff at doing so, even if he secretly classed Rutter's story as a fairy-tale, and I promised myself to find out what he was going to do before I started in the morning.
While I was sitting with my back against the shaded wall of troop G's barrack, turning this over in my mind, a Policeman with the insignia of a sergeant on his sleeve came sauntering leisurely by. He took me in with an appraising glance, and stopped.
"How d'ye do," he greeted, with a friendly nod. "You're the man that came in with MacRae, aren't you?"
I laconically admitted that I was.
"The k. o. has detailed me to bring in the bodies of the two men who were killed," he informed me. "He said that you were going along, and so I thought I'd hunt you up and tell you that we'll start about seven in the morning."
"I'll be ready," I assured him.
"Come on over to the bull-pen," he invited cordially. "Sorry we haven't a canteen in connection, but it's more comfortable over there. Good place to lop about, y' know; a decent place to sit, and a few books and cards and that sort of thing. Come along."
I rather liked the man's style, and as he seemed to be really anxious to make things pleasant for me, I shuffled off the pessimistic mood I was drifting into, and fell in with his proposal. The "bull-pen" proved to be a combination reading and lounging-room for the troopers not on duty. My self-appointed host, whose name was Goodell, waved me to a chair, and took one opposite. With his feet cocked up on a window-sill, and a cigarette going, he leaned back in his chair, and our conversation slackened so that I had a chance to observe my surroundings. It was a big place, probably fifty feet by a hundred, and quite a number of redcoats were sprinkled about, some reading, some writing letters, and two or three groups playing cards. None of them paid any attention to me, beyond an occasional disinterested glance, until my roving eyes reacheda point directly behind me. Then I became aware that one of a bunch of four poker-players a few feet distant was regarding me with an expression that puzzled me. I had turned my head rather quickly and caught him staring straight at me. It was an odd look, sort of amused, and speculative; at least, that was the way I read it. Twice in the next ten minutes I glanced around quickly and caught him sizing me up, as it were; and then I hitched my chair sidewise, and deliberately began studying the gentleman to see if I could discover the source of his interest in me.
I failed in that, but I stopped his confounded quizzical stare. He wasn't the style of man that I'd care to stir up trouble with, judging from his size and the shape of his head. He was about my height, but half as broad again across the shoulders, and his thick, heavy-boned wrists showed hairy as an ape's when he stretched his arms to deal the cards. Aside from his physical proportions, there was nothing about the man to set him apart from his fellows. Half a dozen men in that room had the same shadeof hair and mustache, and the same ordinary blue eyes. I turned back to the window again, thinking that I was getting nervous as an old maid, to let a curious look from a stranger stir me like that.
In a few minutes the trooper opposite my friend of the poker-game drew out, and one of the players called loudly on Goodell to take his place. Goodell lighted another cigarette and nonchalantly seated himself in the vacant chair. Then I observed for the first time that the game was for blood rather than pastime, for Goodell paid for his little pile of white beans in good, gold coin of the realm. Next to playing a little "draw" myself, I like to watch the game, and so I moved over where I could see the bets made and the hands exhibited. And there I stuck till "stables" sounded, watching the affable sergeant outgeneral his opponents, and noting with some amusement the sulky look that grew more intensified on the heavy face of Hicks (as they called the man who had favored me with that peculiar stare) when Goodell finessed him out of two or three generous-sized pots.
On my way to attend to my horse, Bat Perkins overtook me.
"Say, old-timer, is it right about Mac losing his stripes and getting thirty days in the cooler?" he asked in lowered tone.
"It sure is," I answered emphatically.
"What in thunder for?" he inquired resentfully. And because I was aching to express my candid opinion of Major Lessard and all his works to some one who would understand my point of view, I told Bat all about it—omitting any mention of the gold-dust. Only four men, Dobson the fathead, Lessard, MacRae and myself, knew what little was known of that, and I felt that I had no license to spread the knowledge further.
"Oh, they sure do hand it to a man if he makes the least break," Bat sympathized. "Mac's one uh the best men they've got in the Force, an' they know it, too. Darned if that don't sound queer t' me; what else could he do? But Lessard's a overbearin' son-of-a-gun all round, and he's always breakin' out in a new place. Say, you might as well comeover an' stay with me while you're round here. I don't reckon you'll enjoy herdin' with these rough-necks."
Bat's offer was not one to be overlooked by a man in my circumstances, so after supper found me sitting in his kitchen making gloomy forecasts of the future, between cigarettes. Shortly before the moon-faced clock nailed on the wall struck the hour of nine with a great internal whirring, some one tapped lightly on the door. Bat himself answered the knock. His body shut off sight of whoever stood outside. I could just catch the murmur of a subdued voice. After a few seconds of listening Bat nodded vigorously, and closed the door. He came back to his chair grinning pleasantly, and handed me a little package. I tore it open and found, wrapped tightly about three twenty-dollar gold pieces, an unsigned note from MacRae. It ran: