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Jim laughed. “Well,––I’m going anyway. Say, Phil! I’ve not only got the keys to the O. K. Warehouse, but I have keys that fit Brenchfield’s and the Pioneer Traders’ as well.”
“Better watch you don’t get pinched yourself,” Phil cautioned.
“De’il the fear o’ it, Phil! But I’m going to get one over that bunch if it is only to satisfy my own Scotch inquisitiveness. At the same time, I would like to help out Morrison of the O.K. Company. He’s a good old scout, and this thieving is gradually sucking him white. Palmer and his crowd don’t seem to be able to make anything of it––or don’t want to––yet it has been going on for years.”
“I should like to come,” Phil answered, “only I’ve promised to have another dance with Miss Pederstone, and I couldn’t possibly think of disappointing myself in the matter. Give me a line on where you’ll be, and I’ll come along and join you as soon as that particular dance is over. Won’t you stick around till then, and we can go together?” he suggested.
“No! I have a kind of hunch there is things doing. You hurry along as soon as you can. Keep your eyes open and, if all is quiet, come round to the track door of the middle Warehouse, Brenchfield’s. You should be up there by eleven-thirty. I’ll be there then, sharp at that time, and will let you in if all is jackaloorie.”
“Have you a gun?”
“Sure!” replied Jim, “and one for you. Here!––stick it in your pocket now. It is loaded. Darned handy thing!”
Phil walked part of the way up the back streets with Jim.
It was noisy as usual round Chinatown, with its squeaky fiddle, tom-tom and cocoanut-shell orchestras,160intensified by a fire-cracker display on the part of the more aristocratic Chinese in honour of John Royce Pederstone’s victory. The remainder of the town, apart from the neighbourhood of the dance-hall, was in absolute quietness.
Phil parted from Jim near the railway tracks and slowly retraced his steps toward the town hall, whose blaze of lights stood out in high contrast with the surrounding darkness.
When Phil got back, the band had just concluded a cheery two-step and the dancers were scattering in all directions for seats round the hall and for the buffet.
Eileen Pederstone caught sight of him as soon as he entered, and signalled him over.
“I thought you had gone home, Mr. Ralston,” she remarked, her eyes sparkling with enjoyment and her breath coming fast with the exertion of the dance.
Phil took in her slender, shapely, elfin beauty, and his heart beat a merry riot of pleasure as he sat down by her side.
“I went along the road a bit with Jim,” he answered. “He had some business he wished to see to.”
“Poor Jim,” laughed Eileen, “he takes life so strangely; at times tremendously seriously; at others as if it meant nothing at all. Now he plays the solemn and mysterious, and again he assumes the rôle of the irresponsible harlequin. I don’t think anyone really understands Jim Langford.”
“I don’t think anyone does,” agreed Phil.
“Are you awfully anxious that we should dance this next waltz?” she asked, suddenly changing the subject.
“Why?” asked Phil, a little crestfallen.
“I should like to have a little stroll in the fresh air, if you don’t mind. It is dreadfully warm in here and I have been dancing continuously. Do you mind?”
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“Not at all!” said Phil.
He helped her with her cloak. She put her arm through his and they went out into the open air together.
It was eleven o’clock. The street lights went out suddenly, leaving everything in inky blackness.
It was a night with a shudder in it.
Eileen clung tightly to Phil’s arm as they strolled leisurely along, leaving the lights of the dance-hall and the noise behind them, and going down the main avenue in the direction that led to the Okanagan Lake.
“Do you know, Mr. Ralston,” remarked Eileen suddenly, during a lull in what had been a desultory, flippant, bantering sort of conversation, “I can’t explain how it is and I know it is ridiculous on the face of it; but sometimes I have the feeling that I have met you before.”
Phil felt a tightening in his jaws, and he was grateful for the darkness.
“Do you ever feel that way about people?”
“Oh, yes,––occasionally,––with some people!” Phil stammered. “I feel that way with Jim Langford all the time.”
“But I can’t ever have met you before you came to Vernock?”
“No,––oh no! I am quite sure of that,” said Phil.
“Haven’t you ever been here before?”
“No,––never!” Phil had to say it.
“You’ve never seen me in Vancouver for instance,––or in Victoria?”
“No,––I can’t remember ever having seen you till I came up here. Of course, I was only a short time in Vancouver before coming to Vernock,” he hedged.
“Then your home isn’t in the West?”
“No,––it is away back in a town in Ontario.”
“Mr. Brenchfield is an Ontario man,” put in Eileen innocently.
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“Is he?” returned Phil, on guard.
“But it is the funniest thing, Mr. Ralston,” she reverted, “sometimes it is your voice; while in the hall to-night it seemed to be your eyes that reminded me of someone I had known before. A trick of the mind, I daresay!”
“Just a trick of the mind!” agreed Phil, “unless maybe you believe in the transmigration of souls.”
Eileen shivered suddenly.
“Guess we’d better get back,” said Phil, “for the air is chilly.”
They turned and sauntered toward the town.
“Are you waiting until the end of the dance, Mr. Ralston?”
“No! I promised to meet Jim round about eleven-thirty.”
“Jim!” she repeated. “You and Jim seem to be thick as sweethearts.”
“Thicker!” responded Phil, “because we never fall out.”
“Do sweethearts fall out so often?”
“I fancy so, from what I hear.”
“Then you think two men can be greater friends than a man and a woman can?”
“Greater friends,––truer friends,––more sincere friends and faithful,––yes!”
Eileen’s hold on Phil’s arm loosened.
“What makes you think so?” she asked.
“Well,––with men it is purely and simply a wholehearted attraction of congenial tastes and manly virtues or evil propensities, as the case may be. There is no question of sex coming between. When that enters into the reckoning, everything else goes by the board. Not that I infer that man and woman cannot be true friends and163fast friends, but everything has to take second place to that question of sex.”
Eileen did not answer.
“Don’t you agree?” asked Phil with a smile.
“No,––I do not, but I don’t feel that I can argue the point.”
They were silent once more. Then again Eileen broke into the quiet.
“Oh, dear!––I almost forgot. I wonder, Mr. Ralston, if you would care to come to our place the week after next. Daddy, you know, has bought Baron DeDillier’s house on the hill, and we are going to have a house-warming and a big social time for all daddy’s friends. Would you care to come if I send you an invitation? Jim will be there. He seldom gets left out of anything, pleasant or otherwise.”
Phil was not so very sure of himself, and he would have preferred rather to have been omitted, but he could not, in good grace, decline such an invitation.
“Why, certainly!” he replied. “It will give me the greatest of pleasure.”
“Good! We shall have a nice dance together to make up for the one we missed to-night,––and a talk. Maybe that night I shall be in better frame of mind for meeting your arguments on the relations of sex and friendship.”
Phil laughed in his own peculiar way.
Eileen Pederstone stopped up with a start and looked at him with half frightened eyes, as if endeavouring to recall a bad dream yet half afraid lest it should return to her.
Phil knew that an echo had touched her memory from that laugh.
He was about to speak of something else, to take away her thoughts, when a shadow crept up to Phil’s side and a hand pulled at his coat sleeve.
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He turned quickly and caught at the hand. He pulled its owner round sharply.
It was Smiler––the never-fading grimace on his face, through which penetrated an expression of fear.
“What is it? What is the matter?” asked Phil quickly.
Smiler moved his hands excitedly, trying desperately to make himself understood thereby.
He kept tugging at Phil’s coat, as a dog might do, and endeavoured to get him to go along with him.
Phil tried him with several questions.
“Is it Jim Langford?” he asked at last.
Smiler nodded excitedly and pulled at Phil’s coat more desperately than ever.
“Jim Langford has sent Smiler for me, Miss Pederstone. I know you will excuse me. Let me hurry you back to the hall.”
“It can’t be anything serious?” she queried anxiously, “no accident or anything like that?”
“Oh, no!––but Jim’s a queer fish and I guess it will be best to get to him as quickly as possible. No saying what trouble he gets into in the course of five minutes.”
Phil saw her safely back to the hall, wished her “Good night,” and darted after Smiler who was waiting for him in the shadows.
165CHAPTER XIIIThe Big Steal
On Phil went through the back lanes of the town and up the hill toward the railway tracks, almost trotting in his endeavour to keep pace with the tireless Smiler.
They went past the three Warehouses,––Brenchfield’s, The Pioneer Traders’ and that of The O.K. Supply Company,––till Smiler came to a stand-still in front of an old, unused barn which stood in the yard in front of the central Warehouse belonging to Graham Brenchfield. Phil pushed his way inside and looked about him inquiringly.
Smiler pointed to a coal-oil lamp which hung––a dark shadow––from a nail on the wall.
Phil closed the barn door tightly, struck a match and set the lantern alight.
The barn floor was littered with damp, stale-smelling straw. Smiler kicked some of it away and knelt down. He commenced to work his fingers into the flooring boards. He gave an inarticulate chuckle when he came to a certain part, gave a tug, and immediately half of the floor swung up on well-oiled hinges, disclosing a cellar or vault almost big enough to let down a dray-load of merchandise at a time.
Phil whistled.
Smiler seized the lamp and started down by a wooden ladder, but Phil grabbed him by the coat collar, pulled him sheer out, planting him down on the floor by his side.
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“After me, my dear Alphonso?” he commanded, going down the ladder with the lamp in one hand and his revolver in the other, holding on to the side of the ladder at the same time with a few of his fingers, as best he could.
He had hardly reached the bottom when Smiler was tumbling beside him. The boy ran over to a corner of the cellar. Phil followed.
A huddled bundle lay on the damp ground. Phil dropped beside it and turned it over, setting down his lantern.
It was the unconscious form of Jim Langford, trussed with knotted ropes until it looked more like a bale of cast-off clothing than a human being. Jim’s face was white and all bloody-streaked at the forehead and mouth.
Phil took out his knife and slashed at the ropes. He chafed the arms and legs. He tossed his hat to Smiler and said one word:
“Water!”
Smiler ran off up the ladder and was back in less than a minute.
Phil seized the hat and splashed some of the cold water on the upturned face, wiping the blood from Jim’s mouth with his handkerchief.
After a bit, Jim sighed and opened his eyes. Phil held his hat to the oozy lips and Jim drank greedily. Soon he was all alert. He sprang to his feet, staring around him wildly.
“Damn them, the Siwashes! Damn them,––they got me! And they’ve got awa’.”
Then he sagged at the knees and collapsed.
He did not lose consciousness again.
“Take your time!––take your time!” cautioned Phil.
Slowly Jim’s strength returned and his brain cleared. He wanted to be up and away at once, but Phil, with167his usual caution, insisted on hearing everything that had happened before he would move a foot, knowing that if anything had still to be done Jim would be none the worse for half an hour’s rest.
“Stay where you are and tell me all about it,” he insisted.
“Stay! Hang it, man,––I canna stay. Come on! I’ll show ye. It will be better than sitting here and talking. But bide a bit! We’ll get them yet or my name’s no’ Jim Langford.
“Smiler,” he cried, “come here laddie!”
The boy came forward.
“Go up to Mrs. Clunie’s. Shut the barn door up there after ye. Don’t make a noise. Saddle our two horses and bring them doon to the corner. Our rifles as well;-they’re in the locker behind the stable door! Quick! Awa’ wi’ ye!”
Smiler nodded his head rapidly and was up the ladder and off like a shot.
“Come along here!” Jim continued to Phil.
Phil sucked his breath at what he saw, or rather did not see.
It was not a cellar after all,––but a tunnel.
“Weel ye may gasp!” ejaculated Jim, holding up the lantern and peering ahead. “Come on!
“Have you your revolver?”
“Yes!”
“Keep a grip of it then. I hardly think there’ll be a body here now. But it’s as well to keep your wits about ye.”
Jim went on first and Phil followed.
Phil’s foot struck metal. He looked down.
Two rails ran along the bottom of the tunnel.
“Nothing obsolete about this bunch!” whispered Jim jocularly.
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They followed along in caution till they came to a truck on the rails capable of holding twenty sacks of flour or feed at a time.
On either side of them were walls of sacked flour and other grain.
“The Lord only knows how far this underground warehouse extends,” remarked Jim, “and how many thousands of dollars worth of stuff is cached away in it, ready to haul away as the chance comes along.”
They passed on until they must have been under Brenchfield’s warehouse, when the tunnel dead-ended, branching off to the right and to the left.
Jim stopped.
“That’s about all,” he said. “Brenchfield’s warehouse is above us. The Pioneer Traders’ is at the end that way. The O.K. Supply Company’s is at the other end.
“See! There is a trap door in each, like this up here, that drops inward and acts as a chute for sliding down the stuff right onto the track. Simplest thing on earth, and it has been going on for years with devil a body the wiser.”
“Well!––of all the elaborate thieving schemes!” exclaimed Phil, dumbfounded.
“Elaborate nothing! Why, man, thousands and thousands of dollars worth of feed and flour have been stolen from these three places in the last five years––as much as ten thousand dollars at a crack.
“I’m thinking they’ve got off with that much right this very night. It is just a great big organised, dirty steal,––that’s all. Little wonder some folks get rich quick in this Valley, without any apparent outward reason for their luck either in themselves or in what they seem to be engaged in.”
“How did you find all this out?” inquired Phil, his face white with excitement.
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“Oh,––easy enough in a way! I was in Brenchfield’s warehouse, hiding. I told you I had the key to it. By good or bad luck––I don’t know which––I was hiding on top of the darned trap door without being aware of it. I heard a noise, and thought it was in the warehouse where I was. Suddenly the flour sacks on every side of me began to slide. I had just to slide with them; there was nothing else for it; and before I could wink I was down here and in among the gang,––Rob Roy McGregor, Summers, Skookum, and half a dozen others; the whole of that Redmans gang; half-breeds and dirty whites.
“I shot a hole in one of them, then my gun got struck out of my hand. I knocked down two with my fists and made a dash for it. I got to the ladder at the old barn there and ran up, but I forgot about a man who happened to be at the top. He dropped the trap-door crash on my head, and that’s the last I can mind.”
“Good Lord!” cried Phil.
“And the murdering hounds, not content with that, trussed you up and left you here like a rat in a sewer.”
“Ay!––to come back later, maybe, when they had more time, finish me off and bury me in the bowels o’ the earth.”
Jim pulled himself together.
“Phil,” he cried, “come on! We’re wasting time here. I’m going to get that bunch before I sleep.”
Once outside, they reclosed the barn-door, leaving everything exactly as they had found it. Up the road a little, the faithful Smiler was standing with the two rifles, two cartridge belts, and the two horses from Mrs. Clunie’s saddled and bridled to perfection.
“Smiler!––go home to bed,” said Jim.
Smiler nodded, grinned and ran off.
“Phil, do you know where Jack McLean, the manager of The Pioneer Traders, lives?”
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“Yes!”
“Then tear up there and put him wise. Get hold of Blair, their grocery man, as well. He’s a grand scrapper. Get them to bring their rifles.
“Don’t tell a soul but these two what the game is.”
“What else?”
“I’m going to rustle up Morrison of the O.K. Supply, then down to the Town Hall for two or three who are game for a free-for-all. Make hell-bent-for-leather down to Allison’s Wharf at Okanagan Landing. We can leave our horses there, cross the lake to the other side below Redmans, and be on the main road there that leads from Vernock to Redmans a full hour ahead of them; and collar the bunch––men, wagons, feed and every damned thing, as they come sliddering along thinking they’re safe.”
“Jee-rusalem!” cried Phil, as the plan dawned on him.
“But are you sure they are taking the road that way and that Redmans will be where they are making for?”
“You bet I’m sure! And the long way round the hills and the head of the lake is the only way they can make Redmans with heavy wagons. Any bairn knows that they’ll reckon to get there just before dawn. The whole bunch are breeds and klootchmen from there, and they’re not likely to cache their steal any place but where they can get at it handy. Now, off you go!”
Phil sprang into his saddle.
“Say!” whispered Jim, straining upwards, “I’m going to bring the Mayor along.”
“Oh, hang the Mayor!” cried Phil hotly. “If we are going to be helping him in any way, I guess you can count me out.”
“But, Phil, laddie;––McLean of the Pioneer Company is coming, and Morrison of the O.K. Company is coming.
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“We can hardly leave Brenchfield out.” Jim’s voice was somewhat sarcastic in its tone.
“Oh, I suppose not!” said Phil sourly, and unconvinced.
Jim laughed.
“Man, but you’re thick in the skull. Eh, but it’s a lark!” he remarked, giving Phil’s mare a whack on the flank and sending her galloping off without further words of elucidation.
Phil found Jack McLean in his front parlour––late as it was––reading a book to his last pipe before turning in. In as few words as possible, he told him of what had happened and of the plan for the capture of the thieves. McLean required no persuading. In five minutes he was on his horse, ready for any escapade and swearing as volubly as only a hardened official of the Pioneer Traders can who has been systematically robbed without being able to lay the thieves by the heels.
In ten minutes more, McLean, big Blair and Phil were heading west, galloping hard for the Landing at the head of the Okanagan Lake.
The night was dark as pitch; there wasn’t a star in the sky nor was there a breath of moving air anywhere.
They reached Allison’s Wharf in quick time, roused the complaining lake-freighter and got him busy on his large gasoline launch. Not long after that a clatter of hoofs on the hard roadway, a sudden stoppage, and the sound of deep voices, betrayed the arrival of the others: Langford, Morrison, Thompson the Government Agent, and the one police official whom Phil felt was absolutely above suspicion,––Howden, who was Chief Palmer’s deputy––and Brenchfield, surly as a bear;––all powerful men and capable of giving a good account of themselves in a tight place.
They were eight, all told, with Allison in addition looking172after his own affairs, and they set out across the lake for the quiet little landing below the Redmans settlement, leaving their horses at Allison’s place.
“Howden,––why didn’t you bring the Chief?” asked Phil.
“Wish to hell we had! Might have saved me the trouble of coming. He’s up on the ranges somewhere. There’s a lot of cattle missing up there lately and he’s keen on catching some of the rustlers red-handed.”
“Or red-headed,” grinned Jim. “This trip might prove the way to catch them too.”
“Do you think the same bunch is operating both jobs?” asked Howden.
“Sure!” replied Jim.
“Oh, give us a rest!” broke in Brenchfield. “A smart lot you wise-Alicks know about it. To hear you talk, one would think you had been raised on a detective farm.”
Jim laughed good-naturedly.
“All right, old man! Don’t get sore. You’ve been a grouch ever since we asked you to come along. One would think you didn’t have any interests tied up in this affair.”
“Then I guess that one has another think coming,” answered the Mayor.
“Well,––you’re devilish enthusiastic over it; that’s all I’ve got to say,” interjected Morrison, who was simply bubbling over with excitement and expectancy,––not so much from the thought of recovering his stolen property as from a hope that, if the thieves were captured, he would at last have a chance to reap the benefits of his labours, unmolested.
“Who wants to be enthusiastic on a wild-goose chase like this?” commented Brenchfield. “I’ve been on the run these last three weeks, dancing all this evening, and now the delightful prospect of lying in a ditch till morning,173and nothing at all at the end of it but the possibility of a rheumatic fever. You juvenile bath-tub pirates and Sherlock Holmeses give me a pain.”
“And I’ll bet you a new hat we’ll land the whole rotten bunch of them before we’re through,” challenged Morrison.
“Forget it!” grouched Brenchfield, “I’ve lost as much as any man here, but I haven’t made a song and dance about it like some people I know. I am just as anxious as any of you to see the thieves in jail.”
Evidently it was not a night for pleasant conversations, and tempers seemed to be more or less on edge, so little more was said until the launch ran quietly alongside the old, unused wharf a quarter of a mile east of the new one at Redmans.
The men got out, one after another, leaving Allison to make his way back to his own side, alone; as they did not require him further.
Jim led the way through the bush and up the trail toward the main highway.
They had not gone more than two hundred yards, when a muttered oath, a noise of stumbling, and a crash, brought them to a stand-still. It was Brenchfield who had stumbled into a hole or over a log. Ready hands helped him up, but he immediately dropped back on the ground with a groan, in evident pain from his ankle.
“Hell mend it!” he growled. “I’ve turned my ankle in a blasted gopher hole or something.”
He writhed about in agony.
“Guess I’m out this trip,” he moaned.
“Toots!” put in Jim. “You’ll be all right in a minute. Let us give your foot a bit of a rub!”
“Strike a light and let me see what’s what,” suggested the Mayor.
Someone started in to do so.
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“Not on your life!” cried Jim. “Haven’t you got more savvy than that? Do you want the whole of that gang up there in on our top?”
A dog barked in the distance and the bark was taken up ominously by other dogs around the settlement.
“Lower your voices and don’t make any racket, for God’s sake!” pleaded Jim. “Come on, make a try, Brenchfield!”
“What else do you think I’m doing?” growled the Mayor between his teeth. He did make a strong effort then, but was unable to bear his foot on the ground.
“Darn it! It’s no good!” he exclaimed, sitting down disgustedly on a log.
“Well, boys,” returned Jim, in a hopeless tone, “I guess we’ve got to leave him. One of us will have to stay with the Mayor. That will leave six for the job ahead of us. Guess we can manage! Will you stay with him, Blair?”
“Sure thing!” came the ready reply, “but I hate to miss the fun.”
The Mayor’s face could not be seen, but his voice broke in rather too quickly:
“Good heavens!––my own ranch is just up there over the hill. I can creep there on my hands and knees inside of half an hour;––and I won’t have to do that.
“No, siree! Nobody’s going to stay with me. I’m all right. I’ll get along nicely by myself. Every man-jack of you is needed for the job. Go on! Beat it! Don’t worry about me.”
“We’re not worrying about you, Graham,” retorted Jim, not sufficiently suggestive to set the Mayor at discomfort. “But you know the rule of the trail, same as we do. When a man gets hurt on a hunting trip, another of the bunch stays with him. Joe Blair is willing to stay behind.”
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“He won’t stay with me, I tell you;––this thing isn’t going to be held up or spoiled for me,” exclaimed the Mayor. “I’ll crawl with you on my fours, first.”
He started to carry out his threat.
Three times he fell and groaned in pain, until Jim became convinced that Brenchfield’s foot was really badly sprained.
“Won’t you leave me here? I’ll be all right in a while,” cried out Brenchfield, “then I can make my own place in my own time.”
“Oh, let’s leave him, Jim. We may need every man we’ve got,” said Morrison, “and if any of us take him to his place, it might arouse suspicion.”
“Yes!––what’s the good of losing two men when one is all we need let go?” added McLean.
“All right, all right!” said Jim. “Here’s the flask, Mayor. Come on, boys! Time’s passing and we’ve a goodish bit to go yet.”
176CHAPTER XIVThe Round-Up
The remainder of the journey was made in silence, and without further mishap. The thick of the crude trail was left behind and they got on to the well-beaten highway, trudging along at a fast gait until they came to the Snake Loop with its two roads––one leading for a mile or so along the lower shore line; the other running round Big Horn Hills.
Jim stopped at the forks.
“Say!––I’m thinking three of us had better go by one way and four of us by the other;––just in case of accidents.
“McLean, Phil and I can go the low way. You four go by the high road. We can wait for each other at the junction further on.”
The crowd split up and parted.
Jim, Phil and McLean had only got along about half a mile, when they stopped up at the sound of the fast beating of horse hoofs on the highway behind them.
They listened intently.
“Coming from Redmans,” whispered McLean.
“Run on ahead and get in among the bushes at the bend there,” shouted Jim. “I’ll keep to the road, and whoever he may be I’ll stop him as he comes up. If he tries to beat me to it,––shoot! See your ropes are O.K., Mack, for you might have to use them quick.”
The two hurried ahead and disappeared. Jim kept177jogging along in the middle of the road, slowly and innocently.
The clatter of the oncomer grew louder and louder, and beat faster.
A horseman came tearing along at breakneck speed. When he was some twenty paces off, Jim swung round, levelled his rifle and shouted.
“Stop! Throw up your hands! Quick!”
The horse drew back on its haunches and sprang up in fear, but the rider had it in check and held his seat. He steadied his beast and put his hands up slowly.
Jim went forward. As he drew closer he recognised the rider––Red McGregor.
“Get down!” ordered Jim, smiling grimly to himself.
McGregor seemed to recognise Langford at the same time and, thinking Jim was alone, took a chance.
His off hand lowered and he pulled a gun quickly, but a shot and a flash from the side of the road were quicker still. His arm dropped limply and he yelled in pain and surprise.
“Get down!” ordered Jim again.
“You be damned!” cried McGregor, swinging his horse round and setting spurs.
The horse sprang in response. Jim thought he was going to make it, when a lariat flew out like a long snake, poised for a second over Red’s head and, in a second more, stretched him on the roadway, half-choked.
McLean held the rope taut, while Jim and Phil ran in and secured their prisoner.
“What’n the hell’s the matter with you bunch,” gasped Red. “Can’t a man go to Vernock when he damned-well wants to?”
“Not always, Red!” answered Jim. “It isn’t always healthy to want to go to Vernock.”
“By God!––let me go and I’ll take you on one at a178time––two at a time if you like. You, Langford,––I’ll fix you for this anyway.”
“We’re going to fix you first, Rob Roy McGregor O!”
“I pretty near done you in last time, Langford. I’ll make good and sure next time,––you bet!”
“Oh, shut up!” exclaimed Jim, “you’re wearing your windpipe out talking.”
They half pulled McGregor and half dragged him to a nearby tree, to which they tied him securely, divesting him of his knife and other articles that they considered he might feel constrained to use.
He cursed them roundly, until Jim tied Red’s cravat round his mouth.
“Come on, boys! That’s good enough! We don’t want to take him along. If we don’t hurry up, that bunch may beat us to it yet.”
They reached the junction of the two roads without further adventure. Five minutes later, along came Morrison, Thompson, Deputy Chief Howden and Blair, with one more––an unrecognised––in their company.
“What did you catch?” asked Jim.
“Just little Stitchy Summers!” replied Howden. “We found him out for a constitutional, hoofing it for Vernock. Says he does it every morning early for the good of his health. So we brought him along.”
“We found a somnambulist, too,” said Jim, “Rob Roy McGregor. We tied him up at the roadside, in case he might wake up and hurt himself.”
“Foxy trick that all the same––one each way to make sure of one getting through!”
“Say!––you don’t suppose they’re wise?” asked Morrison.
“Sure they are!”
“But who could give the show away?”
“I’m thinking that sprained ankle of Brenchfield’s was179a darnedlameexcuse,” Jim answered. And that was all they could get out of him on the subject.
It was sufficient, however, to set all of them a-wondering. But no shadow of suspicion had ever before crossed their minds, and they soon dismissed the suggestion as one more distorted ridiculous romance from the fertile brain of Jim Langford.
The whimpering Stitchy––like most of his kind; never a hero when alone––was secured in the same way as Red had been, then the men hunters continued to the top of the hill, where, as soon as dawn came up, a good view would be had of the single road as it wound, snake-like, for half a mile on the incline.
“It is five o’clock,” remarked Jim. “With no mishaps, they should be here any time now.”
The seven men distributed themselves in the ditches and bushes––three on one side and four on the other, at intervals of ten yards, covering a distance of seventy yards in all.
As they lay there in the ditches by the roadside, the early morning air bit sharp and chilly, having a touch of frost in it––the harbinger of colder weather to come––but still retaining a dampness that searched into the marrow.
A grey light was just beginning to spear the darkness on the top of Blue Nose Mountain away to the east. A heavy blanket of cold fog completely enveloped the low-lying lands. Suddenly, the dark leaden sky seemed to break up into ten thousand sections of gloomy puff-clouds, all sailing hap-hazard inside a dome of the lightest, brightest blue. The sun, cold to look at but shining with the light of a blazing ball, rode up over the hills, sending great shafts of searchlight down the sides of the hills and filling the ghostly valley below, with its tightly-packed firs and skeleton-like pine trees, with a180warm, yellow mist, suggestive of luminous smoke rising from some fairy cauldron of molten gold; transforming the dead, chilly night into a crisp, living, moving, late-autumn morning.
As the mists completely melted away, Jim signalled to Phil and Phil repeated to McLean. The sign was passed along the other side as well.
Away down the roadway, at the turn between the low-lying hills, a heavy team appeared, struggling in front of a great wagon, piled high with produce of some kind. Another came into view, and still another, until eight of them, following closely on one another, crept along in what seemed to be a caterpillar movement.
As they came unsuspectingly onward, the drivers urging their horses––cheerful in the knowledge that the worst of their journey was successfully over––the silent watchers crept closer to cover, fearful that the brightening day would betray their whereabouts. But nothing untoward happened, except that a closer view of the oncomers gave out the fact that every wagon was loaded high with alfalfa, while what were looked for were wagon-loads of flour and feed.
McLean wormed his way past Phil and along to Jim.
“Dommit,––we’re fooled!” he whispered angrily.
“Deevil the fool! Get back, Mack,––get back!”
“But it’s alfalfa they’ve got. You canna risk holding them up when maybe the bunch we’re after are comin’ along hauf a mile ahin’.”
Jim bit his lip. This was something he had not reckoned on.
All at once his knowledge of Scottish History came to his aid.
“Something tells me they’re the crowd we’re after,” he answered in a low voice. “And we’ve got them––every mother’s son o’ them. Lord sake, Mack! I’m181surprised at ye. You a Scot and you canna remember the takin’ o’ Linlithgow Castle! What was under the hay-carts then, laddie?––what? but good, trusty highlanders. And what’s under the alfalfa now but good feed and flour that’ll show in your next Profit and Loss Account in red figures if you don’t recover it. It’s a fine trick, but it is too thin.
“Go back! Signal the others to hold them up at all costs.”
And McLean went back, bewildered but as nearly convinced as a Scot can be who has not the logical proof right under his nose.
Slowly the teams came straggling up the incline, coming nearer and nearer the men in ambush, until the latter could see clearly that every driver was a half-breed and that every man of them had a rifle across his knees. When they were well within the line, the preconcerted signal––Howden’s rifle––rang out.
Taking chances, the deputy chief sprang out into the centre of the road and shouted, covering the leader. Three men on one side and three on the other sprang up and covered six of the drivers.
Some of the half-breeds immediately threw up their hands, taken completely by surprise. But a shot, fired by one of the uncovered drivers, sang out and big McLean dropped with a bullet through his thigh.
Howden sprang on to the first wagon, knocked the driver over, kicked his rifle aside and climbed right on top of the load, bringing down the man who shot McLean as neatly as could be with his revolver.
That ended what little fight there was in the gang. The half-breeds had no chance, with their horses getting excited and their heavy loads beginning to back on them down-hill.
In a short time, they were all unarmed and secured.182McLean and the wounded half-breed were made comfortable on top of some alfalfa, the other seven drivers were set in front of their wagons, under guard, and the entire outfit was soon making its return trip to Vernock.
“Cheer up, Mack!” shouted Jim, by way of heartening.
“Tell me,” groaned McLean, “what is under the alfalfa?”
“Just what I told you already, Mack,––good honest flour and feed in one hundred pound sacks, which will help to swell the credit side of your next balance sheet.”
“The Lord be thankit!” he groaned. “But I wish one of them had been loaded up with King George’s Special.”
Jim shot out his tongue.
“Me too!” he answered pawkily.
They had not got very far on their journey, when a lone horseman came dashing toward them over the hill from the direction of Vernock.
It was Chief Palmer. His horse was in a lather and the Chief looked as if he had ridden hard and had been out all night to boot. He wore a crestfallen expression when he drew up alongside.
“Hullo!” he cried, with an assumption of gaiety. “Holding up the quiet farmer on the public highway? Captured the gang, eh?”
Immensely proud of himself and his achievement, Howden jumped down, intending to give his chief a full account of the capture, but Palmer seemed in no mood to listen, and told him he had better keep his story for later on, and look after his prisoners.
“You don’t seem particularly gay over it, Chief!” commented Jim.
“Why should I?” he replied. “I’ve ridden for two hours, hoping to be in time for the scrap, and you fellows beat me to it.”
The journey townward continued.