DICK KENT
ON SPECIAL DUTY
By MILTON RICHARDS
Author of
“Dick Kent with the Mounted Police,” “Dick Kent in the Far North,” “Dick
Kent with the Eskimos,” “Dick Kent, Fur Trader,” “Dick Kent with the
Malemute Mail.”
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Akron, Ohio New York
Copyright MCMXXVIII
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Made in the United States of America_
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I Rand Tackles a Difficult Case 3
II The Price of Folly 12
III Three New Recruits 17
IV Frischette’s Money Box 28
V A Midnight Prowler 38
VI New Complications 49
VII The Mysterious Poke 57
VIII Corporal Rand Takes Charge 66
IX Unexpected News 76
X Conflicting Theories 85
XI Finding a Motive 93
XII “Rat” MacGregor’s Wife 103
XIII On Creel’s Trail 111
XIV A Meeting in the Woods 121
XV A Deserted Road-House 129
XVI Trapped! 134
XVII A Policeman’s Horse 144
XVIII A Red Blob 154
XIX Across Hay River 161
XX A Thrilling Experience 170
XXI The Key to the Mystery 180
XXII Dewberry’s Treasure 188
XXIII Leaves From an Old Diary 197
XXIV Carson’s Son 206
XXV Piecing the Threads 216
XXVI Dick Rejoins His Comrades 225
DICK KENT ON SPECIAL DUTY
CHAPTER I
RAND TACKLES A DIFFICULT CASE
“Rat” MacGregor dropped to the floor and crawled on hands and knees to
the bunk wherein Dewberry, weary after hours of heavy mushing over an
almost unbroken trail, now slept the sleep of the just. Dewberry’s
raucous snores could be heard plainly. He lay face up, mouth partly
open, while one large, hairy arm hung limply over the side of his bed.
MacGregor knew that Dewberry was really asleep. Not only did he know
this, but he was cognizant of another fact, of which he alone was the
sole possessor. He knew that the big Englishman could not easily be
awakened. He was aware that something else besides weariness and
exhaustion compelled Dewberry to slumber thus. And he grinned over the
thought of it.
Before retiring for the night, the prospector had, following the usual
custom, removed none of his clothes. Neither had he troubled to unstrap
the money-belt that he wore, and place it in safe-keeping. The
money-belt was full, almost bursting with yellowbacks and greenbacks of
various denominations. But the thing which interested MacGregor even
more, was the small poke, suspended from a moosehide cord, and tied
securely about the sleeping man’s neck.
In his present predicament, the prospector would have been easy prey for
the figure who crept towards him, had circumstances been a little
different. The difference was this: In the room, the large airy room of
one “Frenchie” Frischette, keeper of road-houses, were a number of other
persons besides MacGregor and the drugged Dewberry.
These persons reclined in various attitudes and conditions of sleep. Not
a few of them, including Corporal Rand, of the Royal North West Mounted
police, possessed—even in slumber—a sense of hearing exceedingly acute.
The creak of a board, a sudden rustling movement—almost any noise at
all—would have aroused them at once. No one realized this any better
than MacGregor. His job had been only half accomplished a few hours
before when, with very little difficulty, he had drugged the man from
Crooked Stick River.
The thief rose slowly to a position on his knees. He was so close to his
victim that the man’s feverish breath fanned his cheek. He could hear
plainly his own heart and the heart of the sleeper, beating in a sort of
wild harmony together. His right hand was within eight inches of the
rugged prospector, yet he seemed unable, powerless to extend it one
infinitesimal part of the distance which separated it from the actual
point of contact.
In the dull, red glow of the fireplace he could see the tell-tale bulge
on Dewberry’s barrel-like chest. It filled him with a sort of agony to
realize that at the crucial moment he lacked the courage and the
strength to accomplish his task. Never before had he been so overcome
with weakness. A few quick movements only were required to bring wealth
into his grasp; yet here he knelt, with a cold dampness suffusing his
face and a tingling paralysis of all his muscles.
The prospector groaned and moved slightly, then raised one knee in a
convulsive movement of pain. MacGregor shrank back trembling, his eyes
darting about apprehensively. In a far corner another form stirred
uneasily and a loud, full-throated cough broke across the stillness like
a trumpet of doom.
Several minutes elapsed before MacGregor had recovered sufficiently from
his fright to attempt another furtive movement forward. This time he
summoned to his aid the last remnant of a wilted spirit. His hands went
out toward Dewberry’s throat. These clammy physical members found the
cord, but his fingers refused to function in his efforts to untie the
knot. For a moment he hesitated, then with a low, almost inhuman growl,
he tore his hunting knife from its sheath and tried to cut the cord. In
his haste, inadvertently the sharp point of the knife pricked the
sleeping man’s chest and, to MacGregor’s great astonishment and horror,
Dewberry started visibly and opened his eyes.
* * * * * * * *
The aroma of freshly fried bacon filled the room. Standing among his
pots and pans, nursing a new-found despair, “Frenchie” Frischette,
road-house keeper and gentleman of parts, could hear the approaching
figure. The pupils of his eyes were like beads of glass as they
encountered the trim, athletic figure of Corporal Rand.
“_Oui_,” he admitted slowly, “ze beeg prospector ees dead. You saw
heem?”
Corporal Rand nodded.
“How many men have already left?” he inquired.
“Zay haf all left,” Frischette shrugged his shoulders regretfully. “Many
before dawn. Zay go in ever’ direction—both ze good men and ze bad. How
you find heem of ze beeg knife?”
“The man who stabbed and robbed Dewberry will go south,” Corporal Rand
stated with conviction. “It is the law of the land. Men, who have money,
invariably go south—to spend it. Is there anything more simple than
that, Frischette? The rule seldom fails. Adventure goes north and money
goes south. I’m taking the trail south.”
The road-house keeper moistened his dry lips.
“I see heem four men go on the south trail ver’ early roun’ five
o’clock.”
“Together?”
“Zay went each by heemself.”
“No doubt, one of those four men is the murderer.”
“You t’ink so?”
“Yes,” said the policeman stubbornly, “I’m quite sure the murderer would
travel south. At any rate, I’m going in that direction. So long,
Frischette.”
Two days later, Corporal Rand was forced to admit that in this case, at
least, a precedent had been broken. None of the four men was the
murderer. Two were Indians from Lac la Biche; a third, Beckholt, a free
trader, a serene, gray-eyed veteran of the North, was above suspicion.
Father Marchand, who completed the quartette, could not for one moment
be included in any inventory of crime.
Without even taking the time to question one of them, Rand swung about
and retraced his way to the scene of the recent murder.
In the policeman’s absence, Frischette had made an important discovery.
Eagerly and somewhat excitedly, he told the story in a mixture of poor
English and bastard French. Fontaine, a half-breed boy in Frischette’s
service, had seen, on the evening preceding the robbery, a tall,
furtive-eyed man mix two drinks—one for himself and one for the
prospector. In the cup intended for Dewberry, the tall, furtive-eyed man
had poured something out of a small bottle. Shortly thereafter, the big
prospector had stumbled to his pile of blankets and had fallen asleep.
In doubt, Rand questioned the boy closely. At first, he did not believe
Fontaine was telling the truth. Then it became apparent, following a
severe cross-examination, that Fontaine had really seen what he had
described—was wholly innocent of guile. The description of the
furtive-eyed man, his mannerisms, his clothing, the way he walked, had
quickly brought a picture to Rand’s mind. There was no possibility of
any mistake here. It was MacGregor, “Rat” MacGregor, of the Willow Lake
country.
Soberly, the mounted policeman pondered his problem. If “Rat” MacGregor
was the murderer, as the cards seemed to indicate, why, with so much
money in his possession, had he set out on a trail which led farther
into the wilderness? By all the rules of common sense, a person of
MacGregor’s caliber would have lost no time in getting back to the gay
“outside.”[1] It was inevitable. The desire within him would have been
stronger than the will to resist. A powerful influence indeed, that
would pull a man north when wealth was burning his pockets.
Ten days later, Rand found MacGregor in a small cabin below the Finley
River. First he had seen a man and woman together, then two scrambling
forms, a door closed hastily, and presently a gray puff of smoke from a
window near the front of the house. The bullet whistled over his head,
struck harmlessly in the brush behind him. A second cut into a drift to
his right. A third, lilting of death, grazed his shoulder, causing him
to sit down very suddenly.
Thereafter, Rand moved slowly and painfully. This time he advanced
toward the cabin more cautiously. Fifty feet from his objective, he
threw himself down behind a snow-covered log, lit his pipe and dully
pondered what he ought to do next. For several hours MacGregor continued
to blaze away intermittently from the window. After that darkness came
and an interval of silence. The cold had grown more intense, more
bitter. By degrees, a peculiar numbness had settled over the policeman’s
shoulders and along his wounded side.
A moment later, he struggled to his knees, then rose deliberately and
walked ahead in the direction of the cabin. In front of the door he
paused, every sense alert. No sound issued from within; nor could he see
even a faint glimmer of light. Somewhere inside, Rat MacGregor—true to
his name—skulked in the dark—and his wife with him.
The faint outline of a block of wood, lying in the snow at his feet,
drew his attention. Acting upon a sudden angry impulse, he stooped
forward, picked it up, and raised it high above his head. It catapulted
from his powerful arms, striking the window with a resounding crash. A
woman screamed. Her terrified cry rang out through the deep hush that
ensued and, accompanying its last wailing note, MacGregor’s guns
spoke—two fiery flashes, not unlike the red tongue of a serpent—darting
out into the gloom.
Shoulders hunched, Rand struck the door with a furious impact, and the
bolts gave way. As he fell forward into the room, one hand clutched his
gun. Again MacGregor fired; this time wildly, foolishly, for the flash
of his revolver indicated only too well his position, and Rand had him
almost before the sound of the other’s weapon had become smothered in
the deep stillness of the room.