When on the return journey they arrived upon the plateau skirting the Piegan Reserve the sun's rays were falling in shafts of slanting light upon the rounded hilltops before them and touching with purple the great peaks behind them. The valleys were full of shadows, deep and blue. The broad plains that opened here and there between the rounded hills were still bathed in the mellow light of the westering sun.
“We will keep out a bit from the Reserve,” said Cameron, taking a trail that led off to the left. “These Piegans are none too friendly. I've had to deal with them a few times about my straying steers in a way which they are inclined to resent. This half-breed business is making them all restless and a good deal too impertinent.”
“There's not any real danger, is there?” inquired his wife. “The Police can handle them quite well, can't they?”
“If you were a silly hysterical girl, Mandy, I would say 'no danger' of course. But the signs are ominous. I don't fear anything immediately, but any moment a change may come and then we shall need to act quickly.”
“What then?”
“We shall ride to the Fort, I can tell you, without waiting to take our stuff with us. I take no chances now.”
“Now? Meaning?”
“Meaning my wife, that's all. I never thought to fear an Indian, but, by Jove! since I've got you, Mandy, they make me nervous.”
“But these Piegans are such—”
“The Piegans are Indians, plain Indians, deprived of the privilege of war by our North West Mounted Police regulations and of the excitement of the chase by our ever approaching civilization, and the younger bloods would undoubtedly welcome a 'bit of a divarshun,' as your friend Mike would say. At present the Indians are simply watching and waiting.”
“What for?”
“News. To see which way the cat jumps. Then—Steady, Ginger! What the deuce! Whoa, I say! Hold hard, Mandy.”
“What's the matter with them?”
“There's something in the bushes yonder. Coyote, probably. Listen!”
There came from a thick clump of poplars a low, moaning cry.
“What's that?” cried Mandy. “It sounds like a man.”
“Stay where you are. I'll ride in.”
In a few moments she heard his voice calling.
“Come along! Hurry up!”
A young Indian lad of about seventeen, ghastly under his copper skin and faint from loss of blood, lay with his ankle held in a powerful wolf-trap, a bloody knife at his side. With a cry Mandy was off her horse and beside him, the instincts of the trained nurse rousing her to action.
“Good Heavens! What a mess!” cried Cameron, looking helplessly upon the bloody and mangled leg.
“Get a pail of water and get a fire going, Allan,” she cried. “Quick!”
“Well, first this trap ought to be taken off, I should say.”
“Quite right,” she cried. “Hurry!”
Taking his ax from their camp outfit, he cut down a sapling, and, using it as a lever, soon released the foot.
“How did all this mangling come?” said Mandy, gazing at the limb, the flesh and skin of which were hanging in shreds about the ankle.
“Cutting it off, weren't you?” said Allan.
The Indian nodded.
Mandy lifted the foot up.
“Broken, I should say.”
The Indian uttered not a sound.
“Run,” she continued. “Bring a pail of water and get a fire going.”
Allan was soon back with the pail of water.
“Me—water,” moaned the Indian, pointing to the pail. Allan held it to his lips and he drank long and deep. In a short time the fire was blazing and the tea pail slung over it.
“If I only had my kit here!” said Mandy. “This torn flesh and skin ought to be all cut away.”
“Oh, I say, Mandy, you can't do that. We'll get the Police doctor!” said Allan in a tone of horrified disgust.
But Mandy was feeling the edge of the Indian's knife.
“Sharp enough,” she said to herself. “These ragged edges are just reeking with poison. Can you stand it if I cut these bits off?” she said to the Indian.
“Huh!” he replied with a grunt of contempt. “No hurt.”
“Mandy, you can't do this! It makes me sick to see you,” said her husband.
The Indian glanced with scorn at him, caught the knife out of Mandy's hand, took up a flap of lacerated flesh and cut it clean away.
“Huh! No-t'ing.”
Mandy took the knife from him, and, after boiling it for a few minutes, proceeded to cut away the ragged, mangled flesh and skin. The Indian never winced. He lay with eyes closed, and so pallid was his face and so perfectly motionless his limbs that he might have been dead. With deft hands she cleansed the wounds.
“Now, Allan, you must help me. We must have splints for this ankle.”
“How would birch-bark do?” he suggested.
“No, it's too flimsy.”
“The heavy inner rind is fairly stiff.” He ran to a tree and hacked off a piece.
“Yes, that will do splendidly. Get some about so long.”
Half an hour's work, and the wounded limb lay cleansed, bandaged, packed in soft moss and bound in splints.
“That's great, Mandy!” exclaimed her husband. “Even to my untutored eyes that looks like an artistic bit of work. You're a wonder.”
“Huh!” grunted the Indian. “Good!” His piercing black eyes were lifted suddenly to her face with such a look of gratitude as is seen in the eyes of dumb brutes or of men deprived of speech.
“Good!” echoed Allan. “You're just right, my boy. I couldn't have done it, I assure you.”
“Huh!” grunted the Indian in eloquent contempt. “No good,” pointing to the man. “Good,” pointing to the woman. “Me—no—forget.” He lifted himself upon his elbow, and, pointing to the sun like a red eye glaring in upon them through a vista of woods and hills, said, “Look—He see—me no forget.”
There was something truly Hebraic in the exultant solemnity of his tone and gesture.
“By Jove! He won't either, I truly believe,” said Allan. “You've made a friend for life, Mandy. Now, what's next? We can't carry this chap. It's three miles to their camp. We can't leave him here. There are wolves all around and the brutes always attack anything wounded.”
The Indian solved the problem.
“Huh!” he grunted contemptuously. He took up his long hunting-knife. “Wolf—this!” He drove the knife to the hilt into the ground.
“You go—my fadder come. T'ree Indian,” holding up three fingers. “All right! Good!” He sank back upon the ground exhausted.
“Come on then, Mandy, we shall have to hurry.”
“No, you go. I'll wait.”
“I won't have that. It will be dark soon and I can't leave you here alone with—”
“Nonsense! This poor boy is faint with hunger and pain. I'll feed him while you're gone. Get me afresh pail of water and I can do for myself.”
“Well,” replied her husband dubiously, “I'll get you some wood and—”
“Come, now,” replied Mandy impatiently, “who taught you to cut wood? I can get my own wood. The main thing is to get away and get back. This boy needs shelter. How long have you been here?” she inquired of the Indian.
The boy opened his eyes and swung his arm twice from east to west, indicating the whole sweep of the sky.
“Two days?”
He nodded.
“You must be starving. Want to eat?”
“Good!”
“Hurry, then, Allan, with the water. By the time this lad has been fed you will be back.”
It was not long before Allan was back with the water.
“Now, then,” he said to the Indian, “where's your camp?”
The Indian with his knife drew a line upon the ground. “River,” he said. Another line parallel, “Trail.” Then, tracing a branching line from the latter, turning sharply to the right, “Big Hill,” he indicated. “Down—down.” Then, running the line a little farther, “Here camp.”
“I know the spot,” cried Allan. “Well, I'm off. Are you quite sure, Mandy, you don't mind?”
“Run off with you and get back soon. Go—good-by! Oh! Stop, you foolish boy! Aren't you ashamed of yourself before—?”
Cameron laughed in happy derision.
“Ashamed? No, nor before his whole tribe.” He swung himself on his pony and was off down the trail at a gallop.
“You' man?” inquired the Indian lad.
“Yes,” she said, “my man,” pride ringing in her voice.
“Huh! Him Big Chief?”
“Oh, no! Yes.” She corrected herself hastily. “Big Chief. Ranch, you know—Big Horn Ranch.”
“Huh!” He closed his eyes and sank back again upon the ground.
“You're faint with hunger, poor boy,” said Mandy. She hastily cut a large slice of bread, buttered it, laid upon it some bacon and handed it to him.
“Here, take this in the meantime,” she said. “I'll have your tea in a jiffy.”
The boy took the bread, and, faint though he was with hunger, sternly repressing all sign of haste, he ate it with grave deliberation.
In a few minutes more the tea was ready and Mandy brought him a cup.
“Good!” he said, drinking it slowly.
“Another?” she smiled.
“Good!” he replied, drinking the second cup more rapidly.
“Now, we'll have some fish,” cried Mandy cheerily, “and then you'll be fit for your journey home.”
In twenty minutes more she brought him a frying pan in which two large beautiful trout lay, browned in butter. Mandy caught the wolf-like look in his eyes as they fell upon the food. She cut several thick slices of bread, laid them in the pan with the fish and turned her back upon him. The Indian seized the bread, and, noting that he was unobserved, tore it apart like a dog and ate ravenously, the fish likewise, ripping the flesh off the bones and devouring it like some wild beast.
“There, now,” she said, when he had finished, “you've had enough to keep you going. Indeed, you have had all that's good for you. We don't want any fever, so that will do.”
Her gestures, if not her words, he understood, and again as he watched her there gleamed in his eyes that dumb animal look of gratitude.
“Huh!” he grunted, slapping himself on the chest and arms. “Good! Me strong! Me sleep.” He lay back upon the ground and in half a dozen breaths was dead asleep, leaving Mandy to her lonely watch in the gathering gloom of the falling night.
The silence of the woods deepened into a stillness so profound that a dead leaf, fluttering from its twig and rustling to the ground, made her start in quick apprehension.
“What a fool I am!” she muttered angrily. She rose to pile wood upon the fire. At her first movement the Indian was broad awake and half on his knees with his knife gleaming in his hand. As his eyes fell upon the girl at the fire, with a grunt, half of pain and half of contempt, he sank back again upon the ground and was fast asleep before the fire was mended, leaving Mandy once more to her lonely watch.
“I wish he would come,” she muttered, peering into the darkening woods about her. A long and distant howl seemed to reply to her remark.
It was answered by a series of short, sharp yelps nearer at hand.
“Coyote,” she said disdainfully, for she had learned to despise the cowardly prairie wolf.
But again that long distant howl. In spite of herself she shuddered. That was no coyote, but a gray timber wolf.
“I wish Allan would come,” she said again, thinking of wakening the Indian. But her nurse's instincts forbade her breaking his heavy sleep.
“Poor boy, he needs the rest! I'll wait a while longer.”
She took her ax and went bravely at some dead wood lying near, cutting it for the fire. The Indian never made a sound. He lay dead in sleep. She piled the wood on the fire till the flames leaped high, shining ruddily upon the golden and yellow leaves of the surrounding trees.
But again that long-drawn howl, and quite near, pierced the silence like the thrust of a spear. Before she was aware Mandy was on her feet, determined to waken the sleeping Indian, but she had no more than taken a single step toward him when he was awake and listening keenly. A soft padding upon the dead leaves could be heard like the gentle falling of raindrops. The Indian rolled over on his side, swept away some dead leaves and moss, and drew toward him a fine Winchester rifle.
“Huh! Wolf,” he said, with quiet unconcern. “Here,” he continued, pointing to a rock beside him. Mandy took the place indicated. As she seated herself he put up his hand with a sharp hiss. Again the pattering feet could be heard. Suddenly the Indian leaned forward, gazing intently into the gloom beyond the rim of the firelight, then with a swift gliding movement he threw his rifle up and fired. There was a sharp yelp, followed by a gurgling snarl. His shot was answered by a loud shout.
“Huh!” said the lad with quiet satisfaction, holding up one finger, “One wolf. Big Chief come.”
At the shout Mandy had sprung to her feet, answering with a loud glad halloo. Immediately, as if in response to her call, an Indian swung his pony into the firelight, slipped off and stood looking about him. Straight, tall and sinewy, he stood, with something noble in his face and bearing.
“He looks like a gentleman,” was the thought that leaped into Mandy's mind. A swift glance he swept round the circle of the light. Mandy thought she had never seen so piercing an eye.
The Indian lad uttered a low moaning sound. With a single leap the man was at his side, holding him in his arms and kissing him on both cheeks, with eager guttural speech. A few words from the lad and the Indian was on his feet again, his eyes gleaming, but his face immobile as a death mask.
“My boy,” he said, pointing to the lad. “My boy—my papoose.” His voice grew soft and tender.
Before Mandy could reply there was another shout and Allan, followed by four Indians, burst into the light. With a glad cry Mandy rushed into his arms and clung to him.
“Hello! What's up? Everything all right?” cried Allan. “I was a deuce of a time, I know. Took the wrong trail. You weren't frightened, eh? What? What's happened?” His voice grew anxious, then stern. “Anything wrong? Did he—? Did anyone—?”
“No, no, Allan!” cried his wife, still clinging to him. “It was only a wolf and I was a little frightened.”
“A wolf!” echoed her husband aghast.
The Indian lad spoke a few words and pointed to the dark. The Indians glided into the woods and in a few minutes one of them returned, dragging by the leg a big, gray timber wolf. The lad's bullet had gone home.
“And did this brute attack you?” cried Allan in alarm.
“No, no. I heard him howling a long way off, and then—then—he came nearer, and—then—I could hear his feet pattering.” Cameron drew her close to him. “And then he saw him right in the dark. Wasn't it wonderful?”
“In the dark?” said Allan, turning to the lad. “How did you do it?”
“Huh!” grunted the lad in a tone of indifference. “See him eyes.”
Already the Indians were preparing a stretcher out of blankets and two saplings. Here Mandy came to their help, directing their efforts so that with the least hurt to the boy he was lifted to his stretcher.
As they were departing the father came close to Mandy, and, holding out his hand, said in fairly good English:
“You—good to my boy. You save him—to-day. All alone maybe he die. You give him food—drink. Sometime—perhaps soon—me pay you.”
“Oh,” cried Mandy, “I want no pay.”
“No money—no!” cried the Indian, with scorn in his voice. “Me save you perhaps—sometime. Save you—save you, man. Me Big Chief.” He drew himself up his full height. “Much Indian follow me.” He shook hands with Mandy again, then with her husband.
“Big Piegan Chief?” inquired her husband.
“Piegan!” said the Indian with hearty contempt. “Me no Piegan—me Big Chief. Me—” He paused abruptly, turned on his heel and, flinging himself on to his pony, disappeared in the shadows.
“He's jolly well pleased with himself, isn't he?” said Cameron.
“He's splendid,” cried Mandy enthusiastically. “Why, he's just like one of Cooper's Indians. He's certainly like none of the rest I've seen about here.”
“That's true enough,” replied her husband. “He's no Piegan. Who is he, I wonder? I don't remember seeing him. He thinks no end of himself, at any rate.”
“And looks as if he had a right to.”
“Right you are! Well, let's away. You must be dog tired and used up.”
“Never a bit,” cried Mandy. “I'm fresh as a daisy. What a wonderful ending to a wonderful day!”
They extinguished the fire carefully and made their way out to the trail.
But the end of this wonderful day had not yet come.
The moon was riding high in the cloudless blue of the heavens, tricked out with faintly shining stars, when they rode into the “corral” that surrounded the ranch stable. A horse stood tethered at the gate.
“Hello, a visitor!” cried Cameron. “A Police horse!” his eyes falling upon the shining accouterments.
“A Policeman!” echoed Mandy, a sudden foreboding at her heart. “What can he want?”
“Me, likely,” replied her husband with a laugh, “though I can't think for which of my crimes it is. It's Inspector Dickson, by his horse. You know him, Mandy, my very best friend.”
“What does he want, Allan?” said Mandy, anxiety in her voice.
“Want? Any one of a thousand things. You run in and see while I put up the ponies.”
“I don't like it,” said Mandy, walking with him toward the stable. “Do you know, I feel there is something—I have felt all day a kind of dread that—”
“Nonsense, Mandy! You're not that style of girl. Run away into the house.”
But still Mandy waited beside him.
“We've had a great day, Allan,” she said again. “Many great days, and this, one of the best. Whatever comes nothing can take those happy days from us.” She put her arms about his neck and drew him toward her. “I don't know why, Allan, I know it's foolish, but I'm afraid,” she whispered, “I'm afraid.”
“Now, Mandy,” said her husband, with his arms round about her, “don't say you're going to get like other girls, hysterical and that sort of thing. You are just over-tired. We've had a big day, but an exhausting day, an exciting day. What with that Piegan and the wolf business and all, you are done right up. So am I and—by Jove! That reminds me, I am dead famished.”
No better word could he have spoken.
“You poor boy,” she cried. “I'll have supper ready by the time you come in. I am silly, but now it's all over. I shall go in and face the Inspector and dare him to arrest you, no matter what you have done.”
“That's more like the thing! That's more like my girl. I shall be with you in a very few minutes. He can't take us both, can he? Run in and smile at him.”
Mandy found the Inspector in the cozy ranch kitchen, calmly smoking his pipe, and deep in the London Graphic. As she touched the latch he sprang to his feet and saluted in his best style.
“Never heard you ride up, Mrs. Cameron, I assure you. You must think me rather cool to sit tight here and ignore your coming.”
“I am very glad to see you, Inspector Dickson, and Allan will be delighted. He is putting up your horse. You will of course stay the night with us.”
“Oh, that's awfully kind, but I really can't, you know. I shall tell Cameron.” He took his hat from the peg.
“We should be delighted if you could stay with us. We see very few people and you have not been very neighborly, now confess.”
“I have not been, and to my sorrow and loss. If any man had told me that I should have been just five weeks to a day within a few hours' ride of my friend Cameron, not to speak of his charming wife, without visiting him, well I should have—well, no matter—to my joy I am here to-night. But I can't stay this trip. We are rather hard worked just now, to tell the truth.”
“Hard worked?” she asked.
“Yes. Patrol work rather heavy. But I must stop Cameron in his hospitable design,” he added, as he passed out of the door.
It was a full half hour before the men returned, to find supper spread and Mandy waiting. It was a large and cheerful apartment that did both for kitchen and living room. The sides were made of logs hewn smooth, plastered and whitewashed. The oak joists and planking above were stained brown. At one end of the kitchen two doors led to as many rooms, at the other a large stone fireplace, with a great slab for mantelpiece. On this slab stood bits of china bric-a-brac, and what not, relics abandoned by the gallant and chivalrous Fraser for the bride and her house furnishing. The prints, too, upon the wall, hunting scenes of the old land, sea-scenes, moorland and wild cattle, with many useful and ornamental bits of furniture, had all been handed over with true Highland generosity by the outgoing owner.
In the fireplace, for the night had a touch of frost in it, a log fire blazed and sparked, lending to the whole scene an altogether delightful air of comfort.
“I say, this does look jolly!” cried the Inspector as he entered. “Cameron, you lucky dog, do you really imagine you know how jolly well off you are, coddled thus in the lap of comfort and surrounded with all the enervating luxuries of an effete and forgotten civilization? Come now, own up, you are beginning to take this thing as a matter of course.”
But Cameron stood with his back to the light, busying himself with his fishing tackle and fish, and ignoring the Inspector's cheerful chatter. And thus he remained without a word while the Inspector talked on in a voluble flow of small talk quite unusual with him.
Throughout the supper Cameron remained silent, rallying spasmodically with gay banter to the Inspector's chatter, or answering at random, but always falling silent again, and altogether was so unlike himself that Mandy fell to wondering, then became watchful, then anxious. At length the Inspector himself fell silent, as if perceiving the uselessness of further pretense.
“What is it, Allan?” said Mandy quietly, when silence had fallen upon them all. “You might as well let me know.”
“Tell her, for God's sake,” said her husband to the Inspector.
“What is it?” inquired Mandy.
The Inspector handed her a letter.
“From Superintendent Strong to my Chief,” he said.
She took it and as she read her face went now white with fear, now red with indignation. At length she flung the letter down.
“What a man he is to be sure!” she cried scornfully. “And what nonsense is this he writes. With all his men and officers he must come for my husband! What is HE doing? And all the others? It's just his own stupid stubbornness. He always did object to our marriage.”
The Inspector was silent. Cameron was silent too. His boyish face, for he was but a lad, seemed to have grown old in those few minutes. The Inspector wore an ashamed look, as if detected in a crime.
“And because he is not clever enough to catch this man they must come for my husband to do it for them. He is not a Policeman. He has nothing to do with the Force.”
And still the Inspector sat silent, as if convicted of both crime and folly.
At length Cameron spoke.
“It is quite impossible, Inspector. I can't do it. You quite see how impossible it is.”
“Most certainly you can't,” eagerly agreed the Inspector. “I knew from the first it was a piece of—sheer absurdity—in fact brutal inhumanity. I told the Commissioner so.”
“It isn't as if I was really needed, you know. The Superintendent's idea is, as you say, quite absurd.”
The Inspector gravely nodded.
“You don't think for a moment,” continued Cameron, “there is any need—any real need I mean—for me to—” Cameron's voice died away.
The Inspector hesitated and cleared his throat. “Well—of course, we are desperately short-handed, you know. Every man is overworked. Every reserve has to be closely patroled. Every trail ought to be watched. Runners are coming in every day. We ought to have a thousand men instead of five hundred, this very minute. Of course one can never tell. The chances are this will all blow over.”
“Certainly,” said Cameron. “We've heard these rumors for the past year.”
“Of course,” agreed the Inspector cheerfully.
“But if it does not,” asked Mandy, suddenly facing the Inspector, “what then?”
“If it does not?”
“If it does not?” she insisted.
The Inspector appeared to turn the matter over in his mind.
“Well,” he said slowly and thoughtfully, “if it does not there will be a deuce of an ugly time.”
“What do you mean?”
The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. But Mandy waited, her eyes fixed on his face demanding answer.
“Well, there are some hundreds of settlers and their families scattered over this country, and we can hardly protect them all. But,” he added cheerfully, as if dismissing the subject, “we have a trick of worrying through.”
Mandy shuddered. One phrase in the Superintendent's letter to the Commissioner which she had just read kept hammering upon her brain, “Cameron is the man and the only man for the job.”
They turned the talk to other things, but the subject would not be dismissed. Like the ghost at the feast it kept ever returning. The Inspector retailed the most recent rumors, and together he and his host weighed their worth. The Inspector disclosed the Commissioner's plans as far as he knew them. These, too, were discussed with approval or condemnation. The consequences of an Indian uprising were hinted at, but quickly dropped. The probabilities of such an uprising were touched upon and pronounced somewhat slight.
But somehow to the woman listening as in a maze this pronouncement and all the reassuring talk rang hollow. She sat staring at the Inspector with eyes that saw him not. What she did see was a picture out of an old book of Indian war days which she had read when a child, a smoking cabin, with mangled forms of women and children lying in the blackened embers. By degrees, slow, painful, but relentlessly progressive, certain impressions, at first vague and passionately resisted, were wrought into convictions in her soul. First, the Inspector, in spite of his light talk, was undeniably anxious, and in this anxiety her husband shared. Then, the Force was clearly inadequate to the duty required of it. At this her indignation burned. Why should it be that a Government should ask of brave men what they must know to be impossible? Hard upon this conviction came the words of the Superintendent, “Cameron is the man and the only man for the job.” Finally, the Inspector was apologizing for her husband. It roused a hot resentment in her to hear him. That thing she could not and would not bear. Never should it be said that her husband had needed a friend to apologize for him.
As these convictions grew in clearness she found herself brought suddenly and sharply to face the issue. With a swift contraction of the heart she realized that she must send her husband on this perilous duty. Ah! Could she do it? It was as if a cold hand were steadily squeezing drop by drop the life-blood from her heart. In contrast, and as if with one flash of light, the long happy days of the last six months passed before her mind. How could she give him up? Her breathing came in short gasps, her lips became dry, her eyes fixed and staring. She was fighting for what was dearer to her than life. Suddenly she flung her hands to her face and groaned aloud.
“What is it, Mandy?” cried her husband, starting from his place.
His words seemed to recall her. The agonizing agitation passed from her and a great quiet fell upon her soul. The struggle was done. She had made the ancient sacrifice demanded of women since ever the first man went forth to war. It remained only to complete with fitting ritual this ancient sacrifice. She rose from her seat and faced her husband.
“Allan,” she said, and her voice was of indescribable sweetness, “you must go.”
Her husband took her in his arms without a word, then brokenly he said:
“My girl! My own brave girl! I knew you must send me.”
“Yes,” she replied, gazing into his face with a wan smile, “I knew it too, because I knew you would expect me to.”
The Inspector had risen from his chair at her first cry and was standing with bent head, as if in the presence of a scene too sacred to witness. Then he came to her, and, with old time and courtly grace of the fine gentleman he was, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“Dear lady,” he said, “for such as you brave men would gladly give their lives.”
“Give their lives!” cried Mandy. “I would much rather they would save them. But,” she added, her voice taking a practical tone, “sit down and let us talk. Now what's the work and what's the plan?”
The men glanced at each other in silent admiration of this woman who, without moan or murmur, could surrender her heart's dearest treasure for her country's good. This was a spirit of their own type.
They sat down before the fire and discussed the business before them. But as they discussed ever and again Mandy would find her mind wandering back over the past happy days. Ever and again a word would recall her, but only for a brief moment and soon she was far away again.
A phrase of the Inspector, however, arrested and held her.
“He's really a fine looking Indian, in short a kind of aristocrat among the Indians,” he was saying.
“An aristocrat?” she exclaimed, remembering her own word about the Indian Chief they had met that very evening. “Why, that is like our Chief, Allan.”
“By Jove! You're right!” exclaimed her husband. “What's your man like, again? Describe him, Inspector.”
The Inspector described him in detail.
“The very man we saw to-night!” cried Mandy, and gave her description of the “Big Chief.”
When she had finished the Inspector sat looking into the fire.
“Among the Piegans, too,” he mused. “That fits in. There was a big powwow the other day in the Sun Dance Canyon. The Piegans' is the nearest reserve, and a lot of them were there. The Superintendent says he is somewhere along the Sun Dance.”
“Inspector,” said Allan, with sudden determination, “we will drop in on the Piegans to-morrow morning by sun-up.”
Mandy started. This pace was more rapid than she had expected, but, having made the sacrifice, there was with her no word of recall.
The Inspector pondered the suggestion.
“Well,” he said, “it would do no harm to reconnoiter at any rate. But we can't afford to make any false move, and we can't afford to fail.”
“Fail!” said Cameron quietly. “We won't fail. We'll get him.” And the lines in his face reminded his wife of how he looked that night three years before when he cowed the great bully Perkins into submission at her father's door.
Long they sat and planned. As the Inspector said, there must be no failure; hence the plan must provide for every possible contingency. By far the keenest of the three in mental activity was Mandy. By a curious psychological process the Indian Chief, who an hour before had awakened in her admiration and a certain romantic interest, had in a single moment become an object of loathing, almost of hatred. That he should be in this land planning for her people, for innocent and defenseless women and children, the horrors of massacre filled her with a fierce anger. But a deeper analysis would doubtless have revealed a personal element in her anger and loathing. The Indian had become the enemy for whose capture and for whose destruction her husband was now enlisted. Deep down in her quiet, strong, self-controlled nature there burned a passion in which mingled the primitive animal instincts of the female, mate for mate, and mother for offspring. Already her mind had leaped forward to the moment when this cunning, powerful plotter would be at death-grips with her husband and she not there to help. With intensity of purpose and relentlessness of determination she focused the powers of her forceful and practical mind upon the problem engaging their thought.
With mind whetted to its keenest she listened to the men as they made and unmade their plans. In ordinary circumstances the procedure of arrest would have been extremely simple. The Inspector and Cameron would have ridden into the Piegan camp, and, demanding their man, would have quietly and without even a show of violence carried him off. It would have been like things they had each of them done single-handed within the past year.
“When once we make a start, you see, Mrs. Cameron, we never turn back. We could not afford to,” said the Inspector. There was no suspicion of boasting in the Inspector's voice. He was simply enunciating the traditional code of the Police. “And if we should hesitate with this man or fail to land him every Indian in these territories would have it within a week and our prestige would receive a shock. We dare not exhibit any sign of nerves. On the other hand we dare not make any movement in force. In short, anything unusual must be avoided.”
“I quite see,” replied Mandy with keen appreciation of the delicacy of the situation.
“So that I fancy the simpler the plan the better. Cameron will ride into the Piegan camp inquiring about his cattle, as, fortunately for the present situation, he has cause enough to in quite an ordinary way. I drop in on my regular patrol looking up a cattle-thief in quite the ordinary way. Seeing this strange chief, I arrest him on suspicion. Cameron backs me up. The thing is done. Luckily Trotting Wolf, who is the Head Chief now of the Piegans, has a fairly thorough respect for the Police, and unless things have gone much farther in his band than I think he will not resist. He is, after all, rather harmless.”
“I don't like your plan at all, Inspector,” said Mandy promptly. “The moment you suggest arrest that moment the younger men will be up. They are just back from a big brave-making powwow, you say. They are all worked up, and keen for a chance to prove that they are braves in more than in name. You give them the very opportunity you wish to avoid. Now hear my plan,” she continued, her voice eager, keen, hard, in the intensity of her purpose. “I ride into camp to-morrow morning to see the sick boy. I promised I would and I really want to. I find him in a fever, for a fever he certainly will have. I dress his wounded ankle and discover he must have some medicine. I get old Copperhead to ride back with me for it. You wait here and arrest him without trouble.”
The two men looked at each other, then at her, with a gentle admiring pity. The plan was simplicity itself and undoubtedly eliminated the elements of danger which the Inspector's possessed. It had, however, one fatal defect.
“Fine, Mandy!” said her husband, reaching across the table and patting her hand that lay clenched upon the cloth. “But it won't do.”
“And why not, pray?” she demanded.
“We do not use our women as decoys in this country, nor do we expose them to dangers we men dare not face.”
“Allan,” cried his wife with angry impatience, “you miss the whole point. For a woman to ride into the Piegan camp, especially on this errand of mercy, involves her in no danger. And what possible danger would there be in having the old villain ride back with me for medicine? And as to the decoy business,” here she shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, “do you think I care a bit for that? Isn't he planning to kill women and children in this country? And—and—won't he do his best to kill you?” she panted. “Isn't it right for me to prevent him? Prevent him! To me he is like a snake. I would—would—gladly kill him—myself.” As she spoke these words her eyes were indeed, in Sergeant Ferry's words, “like little blue flames.”
But the men remained utterly unmoved. To their manhood the plan was repugnant, and in spite of Mandy's arguments and entreaties was rejected.
“It is the better plan, Mrs. Cameron,” said the Inspector kindly, “but we cannot, you must see we cannot, adopt it.”
“You mean you will not,” cried Mandy indignantly, “just because you are stupid stubborn men!” And she proceeded to argue the matter all over again with convincing logic, but with the same result. There are propositions which do not lend themselves to the arbitrament of logic with men. When the safety of their women is at stake they refuse to discuss chances. In such a case they may be stupid, but they are quite immovable.
Blocked by this immovable stupidity, Mandy yielded her ground, but only to attempt a flank movement.
“Let me go with you on your reconnoitering expedition,” she pleaded. “Rather, let US go, Allan, you and I together, to see the boy. I am really sorry for that boy. He can't help his father, can he?”
“Quite true,” said the Inspector gravely.
“Let us go and find out all we can and next day make your attempt. Besides, Allan,” she cried under a sudden inspiration of memory, “you can't possibly go. You forget your sister arrives at Calgary this week. You must meet her.”
“By Jove! Is that so? I had forgotten,” said Cameron, turning to study the calendar on the wall, a gorgeous work of art produced out of the surplus revenues of a Life Insurance Company. “Let's see,” he calculated. “This week? Three days will take us in. We are still all right. We have five. That gives us two days clear for this job. I feel like making this try, Mandy,” he continued earnestly. “We have this chap practically within our grasp. He will be off guard. The Piegans are not yet worked up to the point of resistance. Ten days from now our man may be we can't tell where.”
Mandy remained silent. The ritual of her sacrifice was not yet complete.
“I think you are right, Allan,” at length she said slowly with a twisted smile. “I'm afraid you are right. It's hard not to be in it, though. But,” she added, as if moved by a sudden thought, “I may be in it yet.”
“You will certainly be with us in spirit, Mandy,” he replied, patting the firm brown hand that lay upon the table.
“Yes, truly, and in our hearts,” added the Inspector with a bow.
But Mandy made no reply. Already she was turning over in her mind a half-formed plan which she had no intention of sharing with these men, who, after the manner of their kind, would doubtless block it.
Early morning found Cameron and the Inspector on the trail toward the Piegan Reserve, riding easily, for they knew not what lay before them nor what demand they might have to make upon their horses that day. The Inspector rode a strongly built, stocky horse of no great speed but good for an all-day run. Cameron's horse was a broncho, an unlovely brute, awkward and ginger-colored—his name was Ginger—sad-eyed and wicked-looking, but short-coupled and with flat, rangy legs that promised speed. For his sad-eyed, awkward broncho Cameron professed a deep affection and defended him stoutly against the Inspector's jibes.
“You can't kill him,” he declared. “He'll go till he drops, and then twelve miles more. He isn't beautiful to look at and his manners are nothing to boast of, but he will hang upon the fence the handsome skin of that cob of yours.”
When still five or six miles from camp they separated.
“The old boy may, of course, be gone,” said the Inspector as he was parting from his friend. “By Superintendent Strong's report he seems to be continually on the move.”
“I rather think his son will hold him for a day or two,” replied Cameron. “Now you give me a full half hour. I shall look in upon the boy, you know. But don't be longer. I don't as a rule linger among these Piegan gentry, you know, and a lengthened stay would certainly arouse suspicion.”
Cameron's way lay along the high plateau, from which a descent could be made by a trail leading straight south into the Piegan camp. The Inspector's course carried him in a long detour to the left, by which he should enter from the eastern end the valley in which lay the Indian camp. Cameron's trail at the first took him through thick timber, then, as it approached the level floor of the valley, through country that became more open. The trees were larger and with less undergrowth between them. In the valley itself a few stubble fields with fences sadly in need of repair gave evidence of the partial success of the attempts of the farm instructor to initiate the Piegans into the science and art of agriculture. A few scattering log houses, which the Indians had been induced by the Government to build for themselves, could be seen here and there among the trees. But during the long summer days, and indeed until driven from the open by the blizzards of winter, not one of these children of the free air and open sky could be persuaded to enter the dismal shelter afforded by the log houses. They much preferred the flimsy teepee or tent. And small wonder. Their methods of sanitation did not comport with a permanent dwelling. When the teepee grew foul, which their habits made inevitable, a simple and satisfactory remedy was discovered in a shift to another camp-ground. Not so with the log houses, whose foul corners, littered with the accumulated filth of a winter's occupation, became fertile breeding places for the germs of disease and death. Irregularly strewn upon the grassy plain in the valley bottom some two dozen teepees marked the Piegan summer headquarters. Above the camp rose the smoke of their camp-fires, for it was still early and their morning meal was yet in preparation.