CHAPTER II. HIS COUNTRY'S NEED
CHAPTER III. A-FISHING WE WILL GO
CHAPTER IV. THE BIG CHIEF
CHAPTER V. THE ANCIENT SACRIFICE
CHAPTER VI. THE ILLUSIVE COPPERHEAD
CHAPTER VII. THE SARCEE CAMP
CHAPTER VIII. THE GIRL ON NO. 1.
CHAPTER IX. THE RIDE UP THE BOW
CHAPTER X. RAVEN TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER XI. SMITH'S WORK
CHAPTER XII. IN THE SUN DANCE CANYON
CHAPTER XIII. IN THE BIG WIGWAM
CHAPTER XIV. “GOOD MAN—GOOD SQUAW”
CHAPTER XV. THE OUTLAW
CHAPTER XVI. WAR
CHAPTER XVII. TO ARMS!
CHAPTER XVIII. AN OUTLAW, BUT A MAN
CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT CHIEF
CHAPTER XX. THE LAST PATROL
CHAPTER XXI. WHY THE DOCTOR STAYED
THE PATROL OF THE SUN DANCE TRAIL
CHAPTER I
THE TRAIL-RUNNER
High up on the hillside in the midst of a rugged group of jack pines the
Union Jack shook out its folds gallantly in the breeze that swept down
the Kicking Horse Pass. That gallant flag marked the headquarters of
Superintendent Strong, of the North West Mounted Police, whose special
duty it was to preserve law and order along the construction line of the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company, now pushed west some scores of miles.
Along the tote-road, which ran parallel to the steel, a man, dark of
skin, slight but wiry, came running, his hard panting, his streaming
face, his open mouth proclaiming his exhaustion. At a little trail that
led to the left he paused, noted its course toward the flaunting flag,
turned into it, then struggled up the rocky hillside till he came to the
wooden shack, with a deep porch running round it, and surrounded by
a rustic fence which enclosed a garden whose neatness illustrated a
characteristic of the British soldier. The runner passed in through the
gate and up the little gravel walk and began to ascend the steps.
“Halt!” A quick sharp voice arrested him. “What do you want here?” From
the side of the shack an orderly appeared, neat, trim and dandified in
appearance, from his polished boots to his wide cowboy hat.
“Beeg Chief,” panted the runner. “Me--see--beeg Chief--queeck.”
The orderly looked him over and hesitated.
“What do you want Big Chief for?”
“Me--want--say somet'ing,” said the little man, fighting to recover his
breath, “somet'ing beeg--sure beeg.” He made a step toward the door.
“Halt there!” said the orderly sharply. “Keep out, you half-breed!”
“See--beeg Chief--queeck,” panted the half-breed, for so he was, with
fierce insistence.
The orderly hesitated. A year ago he would have hustled him off the
porch in short order. But these days were anxious days. Rumors wild
and terrifying were running through the trails of the dark forest.
Everywhere were suspicion and unrest. The Indian tribes throughout the
western territories and in the eastern part of British Columbia, under
cover of an unwonted quiet, were in a state of excitement, and this none
knew better than the North West Mounted Police. With stoical unconcern
the Police patroled their beats, rode in upon the reserves, careless,
cheery, but with eyes vigilant for signs and with ears alert for
sounds of the coming storm. Only the Mounted Police, however, and a
few old-timers who knew the Indians and their half-breed kindred gave
a single moment's thought to the bare possibility of danger. The
vast majority of the Canadian people knew nothing of the tempestuous
gatherings of French half-breed settlers in little hamlets upon the
northern plains along the Saskatchewan. The fiery resolutions reported
now and then in the newspapers reciting the wrongs and proclaiming the
rights of these remote, ignorant, insignificant, half-tamed pioneers
of civilization roused but faint interest in the minds of the people of
Canada. Formal resolutions and petitions of rights had been regularly
sent during the past two years to Ottawa and there as regularly
pigeon-holed above the desks of deputy ministers. The politicians had
a somewhat dim notion that there was some sort of row on among the
“breeds” about Prince Albert and Battleford, but this concerned them
little. The members of the Opposition found in the resolutions and
petitions of rights useful ammunition for attack upon the Government. In
purple periods the leader arraigned the supineness and the indifference
of the Premier and his Government to “the rights and wrongs of our
fellow-citizens who, amid the hardships of a pioneer civilization, were
laying broad and deep the foundations of Empire.” But after the smoke
and noise of the explosion had passed both Opposition and Government
speedily forgot the half-breed and his tempestuous gatherings in the
stores and schoolhouses, at church doors and in open camps, along the
banks of the far away Saskatchewan.
There were a few men, however, that could not forget. An Indian agent
here and there with a sense of responsibility beyond the pickings of his
post, a Hudson Bay factor whose long experience in handling the affairs
of half-breeds and Indians instructed him to read as from a printed page
what to others were meaningless and incoherent happenings, and above all
the officers of the Mounted Police, whose duty it was to preserve the
“pax Britannica” over some three hundred thousand square miles of Her
Majesty's dominions in this far northwest reach of Empire, these carried
night and day an uneasiness in their minds which found vent from time
to time in reports and telegraphic messages to members of Government and
other officials at headquarters, who slept on, however, undisturbed. But
the word was passed along the line of Police posts over the plains and
far out into British Columbia to watch for signs and to be on guard. The
Police paid little heed to the high-sounding resolutions of a few angry
excitable half-breeds, who, daring though they were and thoroughly able
to give a good account of themselves in any trouble that might arise,
were quite insignificant in number; but there was another peril, so
serious, so terrible, that the oldest officer on the force spoke of it
with face growing grave and with lowered voice--the peril of an Indian
uprising.
All this and more made the trim orderly hesitate. A runner with news was
not to be kicked unceremoniously off the porch in these days, but to be
considered.
“You want to see the Superintendent, eh?”
“Oui, for sure--queeck--run ten mile,” replied the half-breed with angry
impatience.
“All right,” said the orderly, “what's your name?”
“Name? Me, Pinault--Pierre Pinault. Ah, sacr-r-e! Beeg Chief know
me--Pinault.” The little man drew himself up.
“All right! Wait!” replied the orderly, and passed into the shack. He
had hardly disappeared when he was back again, obviously shaken out of
his correct military form.
“Go in!” he said sharply. “Get a move on! What are you waiting for?”
The half-breed threw him a sidelong glance of contempt and passed
quickly into the “Beeg Chief's” presence.
Superintendent Strong was a man prompt in decision and prompt in action,
a man of courage, too, unquestioned, and with that bulldog spirit that
sees things through to a finish. To these qualities it was that he owed
his present command, for it was no insignificant business to keep the
peace and to make the law run along the line of the Canadian Pacific
Railway through the Kicking Horse Pass during construction days.
The half-breed had been but a few minutes with the Chief when the
orderly was again startled out of his military decorum by the
bursting open of the Superintendent's door and the sharp rattle of the
Superintendent's orders.
“Send Sergeant Ferry to me at once and have my horse and his brought
round immediately!” The orderly sprang to attention and saluted.
“Yes, sir!” he replied, and swiftly departed.
A few minutes' conference with Sergeant Ferry, a few brief commands to
the orderly, and the Superintendent and Sergeant were on their way down
the steep hillside toward the tote-road that led eastward through the
pass. A half-hour's ride brought them to a trail that led off to the
south, into which the Superintendent, followed by the Sergeant,
turned his horse. Not a word was spoken by either man. It was not the
Superintendent's custom to share his plans with his subordinate officers
until it became necessary. “What you keep behind your teeth,” was a
favorite maxim with the Superintendent, “will harm neither yourself nor
any other man.” They were on the old Kootenay Trail, for a hundred years
and more the ancient pathway of barter and of war for the Indian tribes
that hunted the western plains and the foothill country and brought
their pelts to the coast by way of the Columbia River. Along the lower
levels the old trail ran, avoiding, with the sure instinct of a skilled
engineer, nature's obstacles, and taking full advantage of every sloping
hillside and every open stretch of woods. Now and then, however, the
trail must needs burrow through a deep thicket of spruce and jack pine
and scramble up a rocky ridge, where the horses, trained as they were in
mountain climbing, had all they could do to keep their feet.
Ten miles and more they followed the tortuous trail, skirting mountain
peaks and burrowing through underbrush, scrambling up rocky ridges and
sliding down their farther sides, till they came to a park-like country
where from the grassy sward the big Douglas firs, trimmed clear of lower
growth and standing spaced apart, lifted on red and glistening trunks
their lofty crowns of tufted evergreen far above the lesser trees.
As they approached the open country the Superintendent proceeded with
greater caution, pausing now and then to listen.
“There ought to be a big powwow going on somewhere near,” he said to his
Sergeant, “but I can hear nothing. Can you?”
The Sergeant leaned over his horse's ears.
“No, sir, not a sound.”
“And yet it can't be far away,” growled the Superintendent.
The trail led through the big firs and dipped into a little grassy
valley set round with thickets on every side. Into this open glade they
rode. The Superintendent was plainly disturbed and irritated; irritated
because surprised and puzzled. Where he had expected to find a big
Indian powwow he found only a quiet sunny glade in the midst of a silent
forest. Sergeant Ferry waited behind him in respectful silence, too wise
to offer any observation upon the situation. Hence in the Superintendent
grew a deeper irritation.
“Well, I'll be--!” He paused abruptly. The Superintendent rarely used
profanity. He reserved this form of emphasis for supreme moments. He was
possessed of a dramatic temperament and appreciated at its full value
the effect of a climax. The climax had not yet arrived, hence his
self-control.
“Exactly so,” said the Sergeant, determined to be agreeable.
“What's that?”
“They don't seem to be here, sir,” replied the Sergeant, staring up into
the trees.
“Where?” cried the Superintendent, following the direction of the
Sergeant's eyes. “Do you suppose they're a lot of confounded monkeys?”
“Exactly--that is--no, sir, not at all, sir. But--”
“They were to have been here,” said the Superintendent angrily. “My
information was most positive and trustworthy.”
“Exactly so, sir,” replied the Sergeant. “But they haven't been here at
all!” The Superintendent impatiently glared at the Sergeant, as if he
were somehow responsible for this inexplicable failure upon the part of
the Indians.
“Exactly--that is--no, sir. No sign. Not a sign.” The Sergeant was most
emphatic.
“Well, then, where in--where--?” The Superintendent felt himself rapidly
approaching an emotional climax and took himself back with a jerk.
“Well,” he continued, with obvious self-control, “let's look about a
bit.”
With keen and practised eyes they searched the glade, and the forest
round about it, and the trails leading to it.
“Not a sign,” said the Superintendent emphatically, “and for the first
time in my experience Pinault is wrong--the very first time. He was dead
sure.”
“Pinault--generally right, sir,” observed the Sergeant.
“Always.”
“Exactly so. But this time--”
“He's been fooled,” declared the Superintendent. “A big sun dance was
planned for this identical spot. They were all to be here, every tribe
represented, the Stonies even had been drawn into it, some of the young
bloods I suppose. And, more than that, the Sioux from across the line.”
“The Sioux, eh?” said the Sergeant. “I didn't know the Sioux were in
this.”
“Ah, perhaps not, but I have information that the Sioux--in fact--” here
the Superintendent dropped his voice and unconsciously glanced about
him, “the Sioux are very much in this, and old Copperhead himself is the
moving spirit of the whole business.”
“Copperhead!” exclaimed the Sergeant in an equally subdued tone.
“Yes, sir, that old devil is taking a hand in the game. My information
was that he was to have been here to-day, and, by the Lord Harry! if
he had been we would have put him where the dogs wouldn't bite him. The
thing is growing serious.”
“Serious!” exclaimed the Sergeant in unwonted excitement. “You
just bet--that is exactly so, sir. Why the Sioux must be good for a
thousand.”
“A thousand!” exclaimed the Superintendent. “I've the most positive
information that the Sioux could place in the war path two thousand
fighting-men inside of a month. And old Copperhead is at the bottom
of it all. We want that old snake, and we want him badly.” And the
Superintendent swung on to his horse and set off on the return trip.
“Well, sir, we generally get what we want in that way,” volunteered the
Sergeant, following his chief.
“We do--in the long run. But in this same old Copperhead we have the
acutest Indian brain in all the western country. Sitting Bull was a
fighter, Copperhead is a schemer.”
They rode in silence, the Sergeant busy with a dozen schemes whereby
he might lay old Copperhead by the heels; the Superintendent planning
likewise. But in the Superintendent's plans the Sergeant had no place.
The capture of the great Sioux schemer must be entrusted to a cooler
head than that of the impulsive, daring, loyal-hearted Sergeant.