"How do, Maple Leaf?" he cried in greeting, drawing rein in front of her as she stood up. "Alone, eh? We came upon your trail 'way back there on the plains. Been west somewhere near Butterfly Creek, I reckon?"
"Yes," she responded. "Been along to take things to father and Rip."
He glanced at her pony nibbling at the fresh grass, then at the preparations she had made for her bivouac.
"Say, aren't you a bit afraid to be camping out all alone so far from home?" he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Why should I be?" she returned. "There's no danger. What could happen?"
"You might lose your pony, for one thing," he smiled. "For another thing, there are Indians knocking about—hostile Indians, who have broken bounds. That is why we are here." He nodded in the direction of his companions of the Mounted Police. "We are out on their trail, to drive them back into their Reservation. There might be danger from them,even for you, who are yourself an Indian; though there's not much to be afraid of while our fellows are at hand to look after you."
"I shall be all right," she assured him.
"Have you everything you want?" he inquired. "I'll bring you some cooked meat presently, and an extra blanket. It'll be cold after sundown. And in the morning you may as well fall in with our outfit, see? We shall be going along the Rattlesnake trail, after we've rounded up the Indians."
"I should only hinder you," she replied. "I'm not needing any sort of help. I shall not take any. I am going to quit."
Sergeant Silk had already moved to go away, and amid the roar of the neighbouring waterfall he did not hear her last words.
When he returned to his comrades the teamsters had brought their wagons down the hill, the mounted men had formed up and were unsaddling. The wagons made a second line in their rear, and a rope was stretched from wheel to wheel, to which each trooper tied his horse before the teams were unharnessed.
Three of the men had chosen a spot by some bushes where an iron bar was set on a pair of uprights five feet apart, and before the sound of the axes had ceased in the bush three full kettles were swinging over a roaring fire.
A bell tent was pitched for the officer in command; the horses were watered, groomed, and fed, then at a merry call from the bugle there was a dash to the wagons for platesand cups, while knives were whipped from belt or bootleg ready for a general assault on fried bacon, hard biscuit, and scalding tea.
After the meal, when the men were beginning to cut up their plug tobacco and load their pipes, Sergeant Silk gathered some food into a blanket and filled a flagon with hot tea. His chums watched him, curious concerning his preparations.
"You going out on scout duty then, Sergeant?" one of them inquired.
"This grub isn't for myself," he explained, nodding in the direction of Maple Leaf's camp beyond a projecting corner of the ravine. "I'm taking it to a girl bivouacking alone farther up the cañon."
"Alone?" one of them exclaimed in surprise. "Must be an Indian. No white girl would camp out all alone in a place like this."
"That's so," nodded Silk. "She's just an Indian—the chore girl from Rattlesnake Ranch, daughter of The Moose That Walks. Guess you know her, most of you. She oncesaved me from being scalped and roasted. I owe her some special attention."
"Say, Sergeant," suggested a trooper from the far side of the fire, "mightn't you have brought her into camp? We'd have fixed up a nice, homelike, comfortable room for her in one of the wagons. And I'd have mounted guard outside to keep away the mosquitoes. No mosquito'll go near any one else while I'm around."
Sergeant Silk had saddled his broncho and was about to mount when he turned sharply at the sound of hoofs.
"Here's Denis Murphy coming in," he announced. "I'll wait and hear if he's seen anything of those Redskins. Something has kept him."
Murphy was descending from the heights by the tracks made by the wagon wheels. As he approached along the level ground the commanding officer strode out from his tent, smoking a cigar. Murphy came to a halt in front of him and saluted.
"I've struck the trail of those Indians, sir," he reported. "Threemiles beyond the far end of the cañon, west by south. I calculate there's between thirty and forty of them—bucks, on the warpath."
"How do you make out that they are bucks?" questioned the commandant. "You didn't see them?"
"I didn't see them, sir," Murphy answered, "but I found no marks of any teepee poles, and I reckon they're the lot we're looking for."
"No doubt," nodded the officer, puffing at his cigar. He turned to Silk. "You had better persuade that girl to come into camp, Sergeant," he said. "And then I shall want you to go out scouting, and discover where the Redskins have located themselves for the night. Take Stikeman along with you and send him back with the girl."
"Yes, sir," returned Silk.
He mounted, taking his carbine with him, and Trooper Stikeman followed, carrying the blanket of provisions.
They went down the ravine at an easy trot with their faces to the west, where the sun was setting in a glory of red and gold. When they camewithin sound of the waterfall, the sergeant looked about for Maple Leaf's pony and the smoke from her camp fire, but he saw neither.
"Seems to me the girl has vamoosed," he said uneasily. "I see no sign of her."
He led the way to the trees and halted over the blackened ashes of the fire. In their midst was a large, round stone, with a smaller stone beside it. "Yes," he ruminated, "she's quitted and left that sign to let us know that she has made westward, out of the cañon. Say, Stikeman, you'd best turn back to camp and tell the major I've gone on the girl's trail."
He started off at once at a hand gallop, knowing that Maple Leaf could get out of the ravine only by one way, for the sides were too steep for any pony to climb.
But when he came out upon the open plain he slowed down, riding to and fro, searching until he came upon the trail indicated by a faint line to be seen through the tall grasses. He followed the track quickly andunerringly, always looking for it forty or fifty yards ahead.
Once he drew rein and listened. From behind him came the notes of a bugle sounding First Post. As they ceased he heard the regular quick pad of hoofs in advance of him, borne to him by the evening breeze. The sound died away as the breeze fell, but it had told him the direction in which the girl had gone, and that she was not far away from him.
He urged his broncho forward, hardly needing to watch the trail, and at length, just for a moment, he caught sight of Maple Leaf as she crossed the crest of an old sand-drift and went over into the hollow beyond.
He expected to see her reappear on the next slope, but as he reached the top of the drift he discovered her still in the hollow, seated quietly on her horse in the midst of a colony of prairie dogs, amusing herself watching the lively little animals as they scampered about, barked, and peeped out at her from their burrows.
She seemed to be aware that he had been following her, for she turnedwithout surprise and raised her hand in salute to the brim of her wide hat.
"How!" she called to him in Indian greeting.
Sergeant Silk rode up to her, carefully guiding his horse among the dog holes.
"You've given me a needless journey," he said to her reprovingly. "Why did you strike camp? You were safe and comfortable back there in Emerald Cañon. Here you can be neither comfortable nor safe."
She looked at him with a frown of annoyance.
"There's no occasion for you to worry about me," she objected. "I'm all right left alone. I'm no tenderfoot. You needn't have come after me. Don't just know why you did."
"I've come to take you back to our outfit," he explained. "The major sent me. You're to come back right now." He paused a moment, looking about him curiously, almost as if he were conscious of some impending danger. "Come," he urged, "we must get into camp before dark. I've gotto go out on a big scout."
She glanced at him inquiringly.
"You going to be out on duty all night, then?" she questioned.
"Why, cert'nly," he answered, "or until I have located those Indians."
"I'll come," she decided promptly. "My pony is some tired; but he'll put on a hustle. Say, what are you looking like that for?"
His eyes were roving searchingly to and fro across the prairie. He was gripping his reins tightly with one hand, while with the other he was fingering the stock of his carbine poised in front of him.
"Listen!" he said, sitting very still in his saddle.
Then suddenly he swung over, leapt from his horse, and threw the reins over the mare's head, so that she would stand. Swiftly he went round to Maple Leaf's side.
"Here, jump down!" he commanded. "Quick!"
The girl looked at him amazed, but obediently slipped to the ground.
Sergeant Silk caught at her broncho's bridle, drew the bit down to within a span of the animal's hoofs, and secured both fetlocks together with the double loop. In the same way he shackled the feet of his own mare. Leaving the two horses hobbled, he strode a dozen quick paces away, with his carbine across the crook of his left arm. Maple Leaf followed him. He looked round at her.
"Sit down!" he commanded. "Lie low!"
Again she obeyed him unquestioningly, sharing his alarm. She had heard what he had heard and knew its meaning.
She watched him go forward and saw him stand upright with his hand raised above his head, palm outward, as a peace sign. Then she followed the direction in which he was looking and gave a little start as she saw a figure on horseback—an Indian wearing the large feathered war-bonnet of a chief—outlined against a grassy slope hardly more than half-a-mile away.
Silk slowly lowered his hand and strode back to where Maple Leaf was sitting.
"He doesn't answer my sign," he said, drawing down the lever of his carbine. "He's a Sioux. There's a crowd of his braves behind the rise there. It's the lot we're looking for, and they know it. They won't want me to go back. They'll rush us. We've got to fight for it. Keep cool!"
"It's all my fault," Maple Leaf regretted. "What can I do? I've no gun!"
"You can do nothing but lie low," Silk told her. "We can't escape through this dog town, all full of holes. See! They're coming!"
From all around, silent as shadows, warriors on horseback appeared, each with a rifle across his naked arm. The sunlight shone upon their greasy bodies and painted faces, and the white eagle feathers of their head-dresses. They collected in a group. Some of them seemed to be speaking, to be planning how they should kill or capture the red-coated scout who had found their trail. Then one by one in turn they movedaway, forming in single file, and making a wide circle round the centre occupied by Sergeant Silk and his girl companion.
Silk glanced back at the two hobbled horses. No, it was too late to think of escape.
At first the Indians rode at a quick walking pace, far apart from each other; but before the wide ring was complete they had increased their speed to a wild, racing gallop. Each warrior threw himself along the off side of his steed, and as they wheeled round and round, keeping always the same distance away, they yelled their shrill war cry, firing no shot as yet.
Sergeant Silk's eyes were steadily watching them. He was lying at full length, supported on an elbow. His face had taken on a look of grim determination.
"They're not risking to come closer—not yet," he said calmly. "The dog holes are as bad for them as for us. We're safe for a bit. You see, Indians are never good marksmen with firearms. They never clean their rifles,never get hold of decent ammunition; and it isn't just easy, anyhow, to take aim from a galloping horse. You've no need to be afraid," he added reassuringly.
"I'm not anyways afraid while you're here, Sergeant," Maple Leaf responded. "Why don't they get doing something? Why don't they shoot?"
Suddenly, as if he had heard her and understood, one of the warriors flung himself forward under his pony's neck and fired into the ring. The bullet kicked up a spurt of dust many yards away, but it was the signal for the beginning of the fight.
Yelling shrilly, the savages opened fire, never pausing to take aim. Their shots, indeed, were more dangerous to themselves than to their intended victims. One of their own horses stumbled and rolled over on its rider, struck by a stray bullet.
"They're having a nice picnic, so far," said Silk, talking for the mere sake of encouraging his companion. "If they keep this up long enough, the racket'll be heard in Emerald Cañon. Wind's from the right quarter.But they're only bluffing now—playing with us. Soon, they'll rush us. It's their way. There!"
The Indian chief had suddenly wheeled within the galloping circle, throwing his pony back with a jerk on its haunches. The warriors came up to him one by one, halting all together in a compact company, with their ponies' heads towards the two figures crouching in the hollow of the dog town.
Sergeant Silk had turned to confront them, raising himself to command a fuller view of them. He understood their manœuvre. Instead of closing in around him from all sides in broken order, they were going to make a combined frontal charge.
"Fools!" he muttered contemptuously. "They never learn how to fight. They're going to rush us in a bunch!"
Keeping his eyes fixed upon the lingering Indians, he moved backward a foot or two nearer to Maple Leaf, and slowly drew from his holster a heavy revolver, which he placed on the grass between them.
"Listen!" he said in a sharp whisper, glancing for an instant into her dark, fearless eyes. "They're going to rush us in a bunch. We've only a few minutes. Maybe I can break them. I don't know. I shall try. It's a bare chance. But in this pistol"—he touched the weapon—"I shall always save two shots—for the last. One for you. One for me. Understand?"
Maple Leaf nodded.
"Yes," she answered. "You will shoot me first; then yourself. It is best. I understand."
"And if they kill me first," he added impressively, yet quite calmly. "If they kill me first, you must seize that pistol and shoot yourself. Else, they will slow torture you to death. Shoot yourself—in the head—just here."
He pushed back his hat and pressed the white part of his forehead with a finger that was as steady as if he had been merely telling of a moment of past peril instead of acting in one that was terribly immediate.
Maple Leaf's hand was hardly less steady than his own as she moved theshining weapon to a position more exactly between them.
"Good-bye, then, Sergeant—Sergeant Silk," she murmured. "It will be good—I shall be proud—to die in company with a brave man."
"Good-bye!" he responded lightly, turning from her and seating himself on a dog mound with his carbine across his knees.
The band of Indians still held off at a distance of fully a thousand yards. Silk could see them slowly and very deliberately forming behind their chief, only waiting for the signal to dash off in their headlong race.
Then suddenly there was a wild barbaric shriek as they broke away with a confused turmoil of whoops and yells and the quick patter of horses' hoofs that made the ground throb and sent up a swirl of dust.
On and on they came in their swooping charge, their shrill cries rending the air, their feathers fluttering, their trappings flying,their weapons held aloft as their ponies plunged forward at full racing stretch.
It seemed as if nothing could stop or divert their onward rush. It was like a resistless hurricane sweeping down straight for the dog town where the quiet man in the red coat was waiting with the girl crouched beside him.
Sergeant Silk cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and went down on one knee. He did not yet raise his gun, although many of the warriors had opened a random fire and little spurts of dust and grass were beginning to show where the bullets were falling. He waited very calmly, knowing the habits of the Indians—knowing that although they fight hard and fiercely for their lives when cornered they shrink from riding full tilt into the fire of a well-aimed rifle.
In the long, forward race there were many moments of suspense—moments in which each galloping savage had time to reflect that when that waiting rifle should be raised to spit forth its deadly succession of bullets, he himself might be one of the first to fall.
As they dashed on, one of the foremost of their ponies stumbled and went down with its leg in a dog hole. Then two others fell kicking, while more coming behind stumbled over them in confusion. The Redskins yelled more wildly than ever, firing over their ponies' ears, always too high.
When they were within fifty yards of him, Silk cocked his rifle. Instantly, at sight of the levelled weapon, every Indian flung himself over the side of his pony, showing no more than an arm and a leg. Instantly, also, the band divided itself into two sections to right and left and sped onward in separate lines, firing wildly as they rushed past like a raging whirlwind.
As the last of them flashed by, firing backward at him, Silk turned to take up a new position, knowing that they would double and renew their attack. But as he moved, the hollow dog mound on which he knelt gave way beneath his weight; he lost his balance and rolled over.
Maple Leaf saw him fall, and, believing that a bullet had struck him, she caughtup the revolver, pressed the cold ring of its muzzle against her forehead, and closed her eyes. She heard the Indians galloping back, bullets were dropping around her. She was sure now that the end had come.
"One—two—three!" she counted and pressed the trigger.
But Sergeant Silk had already leapt to his feet.
"Stop!" he cried, flinging out his hand. He was in time to thrust the girl's elbow aside, but the trigger had been pressed, the weapon had been fired, and Maple Leaf fell backward.
He glanced at her hurriedly and saw a splash of red across her face. Then he raised his rifle and with steady, deliberate aim, fired four shots in succession.
As the warriors passed abreast of him, now at a greater distance, four of their horses ran riderless. Again they had swerved, curving off into a circle and riding round and round as before. He watched them and saw their circle suddenly break. Their yells of defiance were turned intoshouts of alarm, and as they scattered there came to him the shrill notes of a bugle.
"Thank Heaven!" he exclaimed as half-a-dozen of his comrades of the Mounted Police galloped into sight over the rising ground. "The boys have followed on our trail! We shall be all right now."
He turned to Maple Leaf. She was on her knees, supported by her outstretched hands, staring at him while the crimson trickle from her face and hair and chin dripped upon the sand.
"I thought they'd got you," she said feebly. "I'd have done it sure if you hadn't stopped me."
He looked at the ugly score that the bullet had made across her temple.
"It's just a flesh wound," he told her. "We can soon patch it up when we get back into camp."
"It will leave a mark," she said, overcoming her faintness.
"Why, cert'nly," he smiled, returning the pistol to its holster. "Butyour hair will 'most hide it—if you want it to be hidden."
"But I don't," she faltered weakly, closing her eyes. "I shall be proud of it—as long as I live."
There was just the slightest sound of a foot-tread down by the creek. None but an attentively alert ear could have detected it amid the soughing of the wintry wind and the murmur of the stream over its stony bed.
Young Dan Medlicott raised himself on his elbow and listened, directing his searching gaze across the moonlit grass towards the deep shadows of the bluff of birch and poplar that lay between him and his home on Rattlesnake Ranch.
His rifle was behind him, propped against a post of the stout corral gate. His hand went round to it cautiously, but only to touch it and assure himself that it was still there, ready for use in case it should presently be needed.
There were Indians about—Indians and rebel half-breeds, who coveted the horses inthe corral which he was watching, and who during the past month had made more than one attempt to break through the palisade and stampede the animals across the valley into their own encampment.
Dan was only seventeen years old, but he was no tenderfoot. In spite of his youth, he had already had many a brush with the Redskins of Western Canada, and he knew their subtle ways and how to deal with them.
He had been lying in wait for three weary hours, and nothing had happened until now. The night was very cold, there was a sharp frost, and a cutting wind from the mountains in the north moaned dismally in the trees. He lay with his blanket over his knees and his coat collar turned up about his ears. He listened for a long time, but the sound which had alarmed him for a moment was not repeated.
"Some scavenger dog prowlin' around, I reckon," he decided, and leant back, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes.
He did not allow himself to fall asleep. To do so would have been neglecting hisduty as a scout; but he might at least keep himself bodily comfortable, and he knew that even if he should sink into slumber no enemy would approach the gate of the stockade without arousing him.
He was still in the same position half-an-hour afterwards, betraying by no sign that he was aware that he was not alone.
A shadow moved across his closed eyes, he heard a very cautious footstep quite near to him, but he did not stir.
He remained silent and motionless for many minutes, until he became conscious of a warm breath in his face and of a hand stealing behind him towards his rifle. But before the fingers closed upon the weapon, Dan had swiftly seized the intruding arm.
"No, you don't!" he objected, with a laugh, and he looked up into the moonlit face of a man in the familiar uniform of the North-West Mounted Police, who was sitting on the end of a pine log only a few inches away from him. "Guess you figured I was asleep, did you, Sergeant?" he said, rubbing his eyes.
"Looked some like it," returned the sergeant. "You showed no sign of being awake, and you never challenged me as you ought to have done. Say, it might have been an Indian sneaking up."
"I sure knew that it wasn't," affirmed Dan. "An Injun doesn't wear top boots and clinkin' spurs, nor a Stetson hat, nor a scarlet tunic. And he wouldn't have made a bee-line across that patch of moonlit grass, as you did just now. I knew it was you all the time. If I hadn't known it, you might have had a bullet in you. A nice thing it would have been if I'd had to go to the fort and report that I'd shot Sergeant Silk in mistake for a Redskin. I should have been some sorry."
"Dare say," reflected Silk, speaking hardly above a whisper. "Folks generally are some sorry after they've taken a human life. I never knew but one man who was real glad."
"Glad?" echoed Dan.
"Yes. Lean Bear was glad when he killed Tough Kelly."
"H'm! Indian, eh?" said Dan. "But Indians are usually glad when they'verubbed out a Paleface. Lean Bear?" He repeated the name. "Why, wasn't that the chap you spared last week in the skirmish back of the fort? I saw what happened. I was ridin' behind you. I saw him tumble from his horse. You had the upper hand of him, and just as you were goin' to pull the trigger he yelled out to you, and you lowered your weapon, lettin' him escape, as if he'd been an old pal of yours 'stead of a deadly enemy."
Sergeant Silk leant forward with an elbow on his knee.
"Yes, that was the chap," he acknowledged. "But any other trooper would have done the same, and let him live."
"Why?" questioned Dan. "Wasn't he the same as all other Injuns—a rotten, ungrateful brute?"
Sergeant Silk did not answer at once. He slowly took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them beside him on the pine log before buttoning up his overcoat. He was silent for a long time—silent and thoughtful.Dan Medlicott knew that this mood meant a story.
"Fire away," he urged, "I'm listenin'. I hope it's goin' to be a yarn about yourself, and none of your second-hand snacks about some fellow who isn't half so good and brave."
Silk shrugged his shoulders.
"It's just about Lean Bear himself," he resumed. "Lean Bear and—and a young trooper who had charge of the post at Rosetta's Crossing. Corporal Pretty John was what he was commonly called, though he wasn't pretty and John wasn't his name.
"Lean Bear was well known on the Rosetta Patrol. He was just an idle, good-for-nothing loafer of the plains, picking up a poor living by trapping on the creeks, doing odd jobs, sponging on people who had more of this world's goods than himself, and drinking, drinking whenever he could get hold of a drop of firewater to flush down his scraggy throat.
"The missionaries could do nothing with him; they gave him up. TheHudson's Bay Company wouldn't trade with him. His own people, the Cree Indians, wouldn't admit him into their wigwams; they said his tongue was forked, it was crooked.
"The Mounted Police always kept a close watch on him, suspecting him of theft, though they never could bring anything home to him. He was too cunning to be caught. And yet it was said that he'd once led an honest, respectable life, as far as a Redskin can contrive to be honest and respectable.
"Sometimes Lean Bear used to disappear for months together. Nobody knew where he went to, and I don't think many at Rosetta's Crossing cared a whole lot. They just forgot him until he turned up again at the station like a half-starved pariah dog that had wandered back to a human habitation, cringing and fawning and begging for something to eat; ragged, dirty, almost unrecognisable except for the string of crimson glass beads that he always wore about his neck.
"One time in the depth of winter he returned, riding a broken-winded nag that looked even more of a hungry scarecrow than himself. Hedemanded food and shelter with all the swagger of a millionaire putting up at a first-class hotel. Most of the fellows in the store refused to help him, until Pretty John gave him a biscuit, when others spared him something, too, and he ate as if his teeth hadn't had any exercise for weeks.
"All the time while he was in the store, sitting as close as he could get to the stove, he was looking about him as if he'd a mind to steal something and make a bolt for the door. One of the men recommended the corporal to keep an eye on the skunk, and the corporal did so, without seeming to be watching.
"And as Pretty John watched from the corner of his eye he thought he guessed what it was that Lean Bear was so anxious about. He wasn't meaning to steal anything. He was just waiting for some one that he seemed to expect; and after a bit, in strode Tough Kelly.
"Guess you've heard of Tough Kelly, haven't you, Dan? One of the biggest rascals that ever dodged the Police. As a matter of fact,Corporal Pretty John was only waiting for just one bit of evidence before arresting him.
"Well, at sight of Tough strolling in to join the gamblers at the poker table, there was a sudden change in the face of Lean Bear. His eyes glistened with a queer, savage hatred. But he didn't speak. He just drew back from the stove and glided into a far corner, out of the light, hiding himself behind a pile of dry goods, pulling his blanket over his head and pretending to be sound asleep, the same as you did just now."
Sergeant Silk paused to load his pipe, but he did not light it.
"There was some high play that evening," he went on presently, "and most of the money that was lost went into Tough Kelly's pocket. Cheated? Well, yes, I suppose so. Anyway he vamoosed pretty quick when there was no more gambling going forward, and he hadn't gone many minutes when Lean Bear slipped out, as he said, to give his mustang a feed and find a bed in the stables.
"That same night Corporal Pretty John completed his chain of evidence against Tough Kelly, and on the following morning he rode off to Tough's lone cabin among the hills, to arrest him. But when he got there and went inside, it was to find Tough Kelly lying stone dead.
"Clearly it was an Indian who had killed him, for his scalp had been taken. But there was nothing to show who that Indian was—nothingexcepting a little broken bead of crimson glass, which the trooper found on the mud floor.
"That bead was the only clue. But Pretty John didn't need to ask himself many questions. He remembered the look of savage enmity that had flashed from the eyes of Lean Bear, and although he didn't know anything of a motive, he just kind of guessed that the thing had been done by Lean Bear himself.
"So, leaving his subordinate in charge of the post at Rosetta's Crossing, he fixed up his outfit for a long journey and started off on the criminal's trail, or as much of a trail as he could find, which was precious little. Still, as you know, Dan, it's a point of honour among the Mounted Police that, once you go off on the track of a criminal, you've got to capture him. You mustn't slink back to barracks without your man.
"Pretty John was on that trail, not for days only, but for weeks. It led him far away into the snowy wilds of the Rocky Mountains, wherethere wasn't a whole lot of food for man or beast. There was so little that it came to a matter of either giving up the hopeless chase or else giving up his life, and the better prospect seemed to be that of saving his own skin.
"Accordingly, he turned back. But he'd got within a couple of hundred miles of home when suddenly and unexpectedly he came upon the fugitive's back trail. He followed it up, and with such good purpose that at last he located his man in a trapper's dug-out on the Green River.
"Lean Bear didn't show any alarm or surprise when the hungry, snow-blind, travel-weary representative of the white man's law confronted him, but just greeted him with the Indian's usual 'How!' and invited him into shelter.
"'The Red Coat has been on a long and lonesome trail,' he said. 'Lean Bear welcomes him as a friend. We will eat together. We will smoke the pipe of peace. It is well.'
"He had food in plenty, but Corporal Pretty John wouldn't touch it before he hadmade the Indian clearly understand that he was arrested for the grave crime of taking the life of a white man, whereupon Lean Bear permitted himself to smile with satisfaction.
"'Lean Bear has no need to be told,' he declared. 'It is true that he has taken the scalp of his enemy. It is great medicine, and he is glad. His heart is light, it is not heavy with sorrow for the death of such a bad man. He has done what he has tried to do during four winters. He has done it, and he is happy. He will take his punishment. He is ready to die when his white friends will that he should no longer live.'
"So earnestly did he insist on his willingness to pay the full penalty for his crime that the Corporal began to suspect some cunning trick, some subtle Redskin treachery.
"You will agree that it wasn't a comfortable situation for a trooper to be in. You see, it would have been so easy in that lonesome, desolate place for the Indian to overpower a man weakened by privation. Lean Bear was already a murderer, and one crime more wouldn't have disturbed hisconscience. He would never have been found out.
"You may be sure that Pretty John kept his revolver handy in case of necessity. But if Lean Bear intended violent mischief he was certainly very slow in bringing it off. He made no attempt to rebel against his arrest, and was only silent and thoughtful. He wore no handcuffs. They were not needed. He just rode beside the Corporal, never lagging, never trying to escape, although he might easily have done so as they crossed the open, wind-swept stretches of snowy prairie, or at night when his captor was asleep.
"On the second day that they were together, misfortune overtook them. They lost their way in a wild and merciless blizzard. There wasn't a rock or a bank anywhere for miles around to afford them shelter; all about them was nothing but unbroken, trackless prairie, under its covering of frozen snow that the wind caught up and flung into their faces, cutting them like knives. The sky above was shut out by thefiercely swirling clouds of icy particles that fought with fiendish anger.
"'Bad medicine!' declared the Indian in a momentary lull, and as the storm grew worse, the closer he kept to the side of his morose and silent warder.
"It was as much as Pretty John could do to keep his saddle, the bridle reins hung loose from his numbed fingers. He could only sway to and fro under the cover of his blanket, now bracing himself to sit up straight, now falling sleepily forward over the neck of his jaded broncho; and it vexed him all the more to know that while he was getting gradually weaker and weaker, his prisoner was riding upright and unconcerned, never wavering, but only keeping closer to his side, knee to knee.
"The blizzard grew worse. There was no bearing up against its overwhelming anger. Death was in that biting, lashing wind, and in the swirling blasts of blinding snow, tearing and shrieking from every direction at once.
"Even the horses tottered and staggered, and often stood rigidlystubborn with their forelegs stretched out to support them and keep them from falling; and at last Corporal Pretty John's muddled brain told him that Lean Bear had slipped to the ground and was walking beside him with a hand gripping him tightly.
"And through the hissing and screeching of the ice-laden wind he fancied that he could hear some one calling to him from afar. The voice was like the voice of a weird, unearthly spirit mocking him, jeering at him from away back of the wind.
"'Pretty John! Pretty John!' it wailed faintly. 'Keep awake, you! Keep awake! You sleep, then die! That is it! You die! Keep awake! Keep awake!How!'
"Vaguely and in a dazed, dreamy sort of way, Pretty John then realised that it wasn't the voice of any phantom spirit, but of Lean Bear, the captured criminal, yelling into his ear, and that the Indian was roughly shaking him and pummelling him, while he dragged him forcibly from his saddle.
"Pretty John fell in a helpless heap of fur coat and stiffly frozenblanket, utterly exhausted. He couldn't move; he couldn't think. He didn't want to move or to think. All that he wanted was just to lie there and sleep and forget—forget everything.
"'Leave me alone!' he pleaded. 'Why don't you escape? You've got your chance. Let me sleep—sleep!'
"But Lean Bear wouldn't leave him alone. He struck him and shook him, then flung his arms about him, and wrestled to hoist him first to his knees and then to his feet. Then, with his arms clasped around the senseless trooper's waist, he pushed him along, forced him to move.
"'Walk!' he shouted. 'You hear? Yes, now you walk. Walk! Walk—so! Yes, yes. Ah, you white man!' And again he began to strike and thump with one hand, while with the other he supported the corporal's tottering body."
Sergeant Silk paused and pulled once or twice at his unlighted pipe.
"That was the only way to keep him awake," interposed Dan Medlicott."He'd have been dead, sure, if he'd fallen asleep."
Sergeant Silk nodded.
"Why, cert'nly," he agreed. "That Indian knew what to do. But it seemed to Pretty John that all the torture he was enduring—the stinging lash of the icy snow, the choking up of his mouth and nostrils, the numbness of his limbs, and the blows that were showered upon him—were all the malicious work of the criminal savage he had tracked and was taking to prison. He hadn't the sense to realise that Lean Bear was only battling with him to keep him awake—alive.
"How long that battle in the blizzard lasted only the Indian could tell. Corporal Pretty John didn't know. He knew nothing—nothing until he was aware that a thousand needle stabs were stinging his body, and that the slow tingling blood was struggling to circulate in his numbed and frozen limbs.
"There was a burning sensation across his tongue and throat. He opened his snow-blinded eyes. All around him was dark. But snow-blind men can see in the darkness,and he discovered that he was lying on his back in a room where a fire was flickering.
"There was a crowd of men around him—white men. One of them knelt at his side, supporting his head in the crook of an arm that had a red sleeve bearing a sergeant's triple chevron. He was forcing the neck of a flask between the Corporal's teeth.
"'Yes, yes, Lean Bear,' he was saying. 'We know that you're a heathen murderer. You shall be brought to justice, never fear—white man's justice. You shall get your deserts. But there's a little account on the credit side, too, and—say, don't stand there shivering like that! Make yourself comfortable by the fire. Eat, smoke, drink. Do what you jolly well please, you plucky son of a noble savage. And when I've done what I'm doing, blame me if I don't shake you by the hand.'
"'Wough!' grunted Lean Bear, shuffling towards the stove, where he stood for a while warming himself. Then he turned and saw Corporal Pretty John's heavy, bleared eyes fixed upon him. 'How!' he said in greetingas if they hadn't seen each other for months. 'Yes, it is so. Now you sleep—sleep long, sleep well. In the blizzard to sleep is to die. Here, to sleep is to live. It is good. Yes. And Lean Bear is not sorry.'"
Dan Medlicott watched Sergeant Silk striking a match and shielding it with his hand as he held it to his pipe and puffed the ragged smoke into the wintry air.
"Say, Sergeant," he said, "you were sure right when you said that any other trooper would have let Lean Bear escape last week. Any one would, knowing what he'd done for you that time."
Sergeant Silk's pipe glowed very bright.
"For me?" he smiled, looking up.
"Why, yes," returned Dan, standing in front of him. "There never was any Corporal Pretty John in the Force. You just gave yourself that fancy name to put me off the scent, and the yarn has been about yourself all the time."