IN THE BLUFF
It was very dark amidst the birches where Trooper Shannon sat
motionless in his saddle, gazing down into the denser blackness of the
river hollow. The stream ran deep below the level of the prairie, as
the rivers of that country usually do, and the trees, which there
alone found shelter from the winds, straggled, gnarled and stunted, up
either side of the steep declivity. Close behind the trooper a sinuous
trail seamed by ruts and the print of hoofs stretched away across the
empty prairie. It forked on the outskirts of the bluff, and one arm
dipped steeply to the river where, because the stream ran slow just
there and the bottom was firm, a horseman might cross when the water
was low, and heavy sledges make the passage on the ice in winter time.
The other arm twisted in and out among the birches towards the bridge,
but that detour increased the distance to any one travelling north or
south by two leagues or so.
The ice, however was not very thick as yet, and Shannon, who had heard
it ring hollowly under him, surmised that while it might be possible
to lead a laden horse across, there would be some risk attached to the
operation. For that very reason, and although his opinion had not been
asked, he agreed with Sergeant Stimson that the whisky-runners would
attempt the passage. They were men who took the risks as they came,
and that route would considerably shorten the journey it was
especially desirable for them to make at night, while it would,
Shannon fancied, appear probable to them that if the police had word
of their intentions they would watch the bridge. Between it and the
frozen ford the stream ran faster, and the trooper decided that no
mounted man could cross the thinner ice.
It was very cold as well as dark, for although the snow, which usually
precedes the frost in that country, had not come as yet, it was
evidently not far away, and the trooper shivered in the blasts from
the pole which cut through fur and leather with the keenness of steel.
The temperature had fallen steadily since morning, and now there was a
presage of a blizzard in the moaning wind and murky sky. If it broke
and scattered its blinking whiteness upon the roaring blast there
would be but little hope for any man or beast caught shelterless in
the empty wilderness, for it is beyond the power of anything made of
flesh and blood to withstand that cold.
Already a fine haze of snow swirled between the birch twigs every now
and then, and stung the few patches of the trooper's unprotected skin
as though they had been pricked with red-hot needles. It, however,
seldom lasted more than a minute, and when it whirled away, a
half-moon shone down for a moment between smoky clouds. The uncertain
radiance showed the thrashing birches rising from the hollow, row on
row, struck a faint sparkle from the ice beneath them, and then went
out, leaving the gloom intensified. It was evident to Shannon that his
eyes would not be much use to him that night, for which reason he kept
his ears uncovered at the risk of losing them, but though he had been
born in the bush and all the sounds of the wilderness had for him a
meaning, hearing did not promise to be of much assistance. The dim
trees roared about him with a great thrashing of twigs, and when the
wilder gusts had passed there was an eery moaning, through which came
the murmur of leagues of tormented grasses. The wind was rising
rapidly, and it would, he fancied, drown the beat of approaching hoofs
as well as any cry from his comrades.
Four of them were hidden amidst the birches where the trail wound
steeply upwards through the bluff across the river, two on the nearer
side not far below, and Trooper Shannon's watch would serve two
purposes. He was to let the rustlers pass him it they rode for the
ford, and then help to cut off the retreat of any who escaped the
sergeant, while if they found the ice too thin for loaded beasts or
rode towards the bridge, a flash from his carbine would bring his
comrades across in time to join the others who were watching that
trail. It had, as usual with Stimson's schemes, all been carefully
thought out and the plan was eminently workable, but unfortunately for
the grizzled sergeant a better brain than his had foreseen the
combination.
In the meanwhile the lad felt his limbs grow stiff and almost useless,
and a lethargic numbness blunt the keenness of his faculties as the
heat went out of him. He had more than usual endurance, and utter
cold, thirst, and the hunger that most ably helps the frost, are not
infrequently the portion of the wardens of the prairie; but there is a
limit to what man can bear, and the troopers who watched by the frozen
river that night had almost reached it. Shannon could not feel the
stirrups with his feet. One of his ears was tingling horribly as the
blood that had almost left it resumed its efforts to penetrate the
congealing flesh, while the mittened hands he beat upon his breast
fell solidly on his wrappings without separate motion of the fingers.
Once or twice the horse stamped fretfully, but a touch of hand and
heel quieted him, for though the frozen flesh may shrink, unwavering
obedience is demanded equally from man and beast enrolled in the
service of the North-West police.
"Stiddy now," said the lad, partly to discover if he still retained
the power of speech. "Sure ye know the order that was given me, and if
it's a funeral that comes of it the Government will bury ye."
He sighed as he beat his hands upon his breast again, and when a
flicker of moonlight smote a passing track of brightness athwart the
tossing birches his young face was very grim. Like many another
trooper of the North-West police, Shannon had his story, and he
remembered the one trace of romance that had brightened his hard, bare
life that night as he waited for the man who had dissipated it.
When Larry Blake moved West from Ontario, Shannon, drawn by his
sister's dark eyes, followed him, and took up a Government grant of
prairie sod. His dollars were few, but he had a stout heart and two
working oxen, and nothing seemed impossible while Ailly Blake smiled
on him, and she smiled tolerably frequently, for Shannon was a
well-favoured lad. He had worked harder than most grown men could do,
won one good harvest, and had a few dollars in the bank when
Courthorne rode up to Blake's homestead on his big black horse. After
that, all Shannon's hopes and ambitions came down with a crash; and
the day he found Blake grey in face with shame and rage he offered
Sergeant Stimson his services. Now he was filled with an unholy
content that he had done so, for he came of a race that does not
forget an injury, and had sufficient cause for a jealous pride in the
virtue of its women. He and Larry might have forgiven a pistol shot,
but they could not forget the shame.
Suddenly he stiffened to attention, for though a man of the cities
would probably have heard nothing but the wailing of the wind, he
caught a faint rhythmic drumming which might have been made by a
galloping horse. It ceased, and he surmised, probably correctly, that
it was Trooper Payne returning. It was, however, his business to watch
the forking of the trail, and when he could only hear the thrashing of
the birches, he moved his mittened hand from the bridle, and patted
the restive horse. Just then the bluff was filled with sound as a
blast that drove a haze of snow before it roared down. It was followed
by a sudden stillness that was almost bewildering, and when a blink of
moonlight came streaming down, Trooper Shannon grabbed at his carbine,
for a man stood close beside him in the trail. The lad, who had
neither seen nor heard him come, looked down on the glinting barrel of
a Marlin rifle and saw a set white face behind it.
"Hands up!" said a hoarse voice. "Throw that thing down,"
Trooper Shannon recognized it, and all the fierce hate he was capable
of flamed up. It shook him with a gust of passion, and it was not fear
that caused his stiffened fingers to slip upon the carbine. It fell
with a rattle, and while he sat still, almost breathless and livid in
face, the man laughed a little.
"That's better; get down," he said.
Trooper Shannon swung himself from the saddle, and alighted heavily as
a flung-off sack would have done, for his limbs refused to bend. Still
it was not from lack of courage that he obeyed, and during one moment
he had clutched the bridle with the purpose of riding over his enemy.
He had, however, been taught to think for himself swiftly and shrewdly
from his boyhood up, and realized instinctively that if he escaped
scathless the ringing of the rifle would warn the rustlers who, he
surmised, were close behind. He was also a police trooper broken to
the iron bond of discipline, and if a bullet from the Marlin was to
end his career, he determined it should, if possible, also terminate
his enemy's liberty. The gust of rage had gone, and left him with the
cold vindictive cunning the Celt who has a grievous injury to remember
is also capable of, and there was contempt in his voice as he turned
to Courthorne quietly.
"Sure it's your turn now," he said. "The last time I put my mark on
the divil's face of ye."
Courthorne laughed wickedly. "It was a bad day's work for you; I
haven't forgotten yet," he said. "I'm only sorry you're not a trifle
older, but it will teach Sergeant Stimson the folly of sending a lad
to deal with me. Well, walk straight into the bush, and remember that
the muzzle of the rifle is scarcely three feet behind you!"
Trooper Shannon did so with black rage in his heart, and his empty
hands at his sides. He was a police trooper and a bushman born, and
knew that the rustlers' laden horses would find some difficulty in
remounting the steep trail and could not escape to left or right once
they were entangled amidst the trees. Then it would be time to give
the alarm, and go down with a bullet in his body, or by some
contrivance evade the deadly rifle and come to grips with his enemy.
He also knew Lance Courthorne, and, remembering how the lash had
seamed his face, expected no pity. One of them it was tolerably
certain would have set out on the long trail before the morning, but
they breed grim men in the bush of Ontario, and no other kind ride
very long with the wardens of the prairie.
"Stop where you are," said Courthorne presently. "Now then, turn
round. Move a finger or open your lips, and I'll have great pleasure
in shooting you. In the meanwhile you can endeavour to make favour
with whatever saint is honoured by the charge of you."
Shannon smiled in a fashion that resembled a snarl as once more a
blink of moonlight shone down upon them, and in place of showing
apprehension, his young white face, from which the bronze had faded,
was venomous.
"And my folks were Orange, but what does that matter now?" said he.
"There'll be one of us in----to-morrow, but for the shame ye put on
Larry ye'll carry my mark there with ye."
Courthorne looked at him with a little glow in his eyes. "You haven't
felt mine yet," he said. "You will probably talk differently when you
do."
It may have been youthful bravado, but Trooper Shannon laughed. "In
the meanwhile," he said, "I'm wondering why you're wearing an honest
man's coat and cap. Faith, if he saw them on ye, Witham would burn
them."
Courthorne returned no answer and the moonlight went out, but they
stood scarcely three feet apart, and one of them knew that any move he
made would be followed by the pressure of the other's finger on the
trigger. He, however, did not move at all, and while the birches
roared about them they stood silently face to face, the man of birth
and pedigree with a past behind him and blood already upon his head,
and the raw lad from the bush, his equal before the tribunal that
would presently judge their quarrel.
In the meanwhile Trooper Shannon heard a drumming of hoofs that grew
steadily louder before Courthorne apparently noticed the sound, and
his trained ears told him that the rustlers' horses were coming down
the trail. Now they had passed the forking, and when the branches
ceased roaring again he knew they had floundered down the first of the
declivity, and it would be well to wait a little until they had
straggled out where the trail was narrow and deeply rutted. No one
could turn them hastily there, and the men who drove them could
scarcely escape the troopers who waited them, if they blundered on
through the darkness of the bush. So five breathless minutes passed,
Trooper Shannon standing tense and straight with every nerve tingling
as he braced himself for an effort, Courthorne stooping a little with
forefinger on the trigger, and the Marlin rifle at his hip. Then
through a lull there rose a clearer thud of hoofs. It was lost in the
thrashing of the twigs as a gust roared down again, and Trooper
Shannon launched himself like a panther upon his enemy.
He might have succeeded, and the effort was gallantly made, but
Courthorne had never moved his eyes from the shadowy object before
him, and even as it sprang, his finger contracted further on the
trigger. There was a red flash and because he fired from the hip the
trigger guard gashed his mitten. He sprang sideways, scarcely feeling
the bite of the steel, for the lad's hand brushed his shoulder. Then
there was a crash as something went down heavily amidst the crackling
twigs. Courthorne stooped a little, panting in the smoke that blew
into his eyes, jerked the Marlin lever, and, as the moon came through
again, had a blurred vision of a white, drawn face that stared up at
him still with defiance in its eyes. He looked down into it as he drew
the trigger once more.
Shannon quivered a moment, and then lay very still, and it was high
time for Courthorne to look to himself, for there was a shouting in
the bluff, and something came crashing through the undergrowth. Even
then his cunning did not desert him, and flinging the Marlin down
beside the trooper, he slipped almost silently in and out among the
birches and swung himself into the saddle of a tethered horse.
Unlooping the bridle from a branch, he pressed his heels home,
realizing as he did it that there was no time to lose, for it was
evident that one of the troopers was somewhat close behind him, and
others were coming across the river. He knew the bluff well, and
having no desire to be entangled in it was heading for the prairie,
when a blink of moonlight showed him a lad in uniform riding at a
gallop between him and the crest of the slope. It was Trooper Payne,
and Courthorne knew him for a very bold horseman.
Now, it is possible that had one of the rustlers, who were simple men
with primitive virtues as well as primitive passions, been similarly
placed, he would have joined his comrades and taken his chance with
them, but Courthorne kept faith with nobody unless it suited him, and
was equally dangerous to his friends and enemies. Trooper Shannon had
also been silenced for ever, and if he could cross the frontier
unrecognized, nobody would believe the story of the man he would leave
to bear the brunt in place of him. Accordingly he headed at a gallop
down the winding trail, while sharp orders and a drumming of hoofs
grew louder behind him, and hoarse cries rose in front. Trooper Payne
was, it seemed, at least keeping pace with him, and he glanced over
his shoulder as he saw something dark and shadowy across the trail. It
was apparently a horse from which two men were struggling to loose its
burden.
Courthorne guessed that the trail was blocked in front of it by other
loaded beasts, and he could not get past in time, for the half-seen
trooper was closing with him fast, and another still rode between him
and the edge of the bluff cutting off his road to the prairie. It was
evident he could not go on, while the crackle of twigs, roar of hoofs,
and jingle of steel behind him, made it plain that to turn was to ride
back upon the carbines of men who would be quite willing to use them.
There alone remained the river. It ran fast below him, and the ice was
thin, and for just a moment he tightened his grip on the bridle.
"We've got you!" a hoarse voice reached him. "You're taking steep
chances if you go on."
Courthorne swung off from the trail. There was a flash above him,
something whirred through the twigs above his head, and the horse
plunged as he drove his heels in.
"One of them gone for the river," another shout rang out, and
Courthorne was crashing through the undergrowth straight down the
declivity, while thin snow whirled about him, and now and then he
caught the faint glimmer flung back by the ice beneath.
Swaying boughs lashed him, his fur cap was whipped away, and he felt
that his face was bleeding, but there was another crackle close behind
him, for Trooper Payne was riding as daringly, and he carried a
carbine. Had he desired it Courthorne could not turn. The bronco he
bestrode was madly excited and less than half broken, and it is
probable no man could have pulled him up just then. It may also have
been borne in upon Courthorne, that he owed a little to those he had
left behind him in the old country, and he had not lost his pride.
There was, it seemed, no escape, but he had at least a choice of
endings, and with a little breathless laugh he rode straight for the
river.
It was with difficulty Trooper Payne pulled his horse up on the steep
bank a minute later. A white haze was now sliding down the hollow
between the two dark walls of trees, and something seemed to move in
the midst of it while the ice rang about it. Then, as the trooper
pitched up his carbine, there was a crash that was followed by a
horrible floundering and silence again. Payne sat still, shivering a
little in his saddle until the snow that whirled about him blotted out
all the birches, and a roaring blast came down.
He knew there was now nothing that he could do. The current had
evidently sucked the fugitive under, and, dismounting, he groped his
way up the slope, leading the horse by the bridle, and only swung
himself into the saddle when he found the trail again. A carbine
flashed in front of him, two dim figures went by at a gallop, and a
third one flung an order over his shoulder as he passed.
"Go back. The Sergeant's hurt and Shannon has got a bullet in him."
Trooper Payne had surmised as much already, and went back as fast as
he could ride, while the beat of hoofs grew fainter down the trail.
Ten minutes later he drew bridle close by a man who held a lantern,
and saw Sergeant Stimson sitting very grim in face on the ground. It
transpired later that his horse had fallen and thrown him, and it was
several weeks before he rode again.
"You lost your man?" he said. "Get down."
Payne dismounted. "Yes, sir, I fancy he is dead," he said. "He tried
the river, and the ice wouldn't carry him. I saw him ride away from
here just after the first shot, and fancied he fired at Shannon. Have
you seen him, sir?"
The other trooper moved his lantern, and Payne gasped as he saw a
third man stooping, with the white face of his comrade close by his
feet. Shannon appeared to recognize him, for his eyes moved a little
and the grey lips fell apart. Then Payne turned his head aside while
the other trooper nodded compassionately in answer to his questioning
glance.
"I've sent one of the boys to Graham's for a wagon," said the
Sergeant. "You saw the man who fired at him?"
"Yes, sir," said Trooper Payne.
"You knew him?" and there was a ring in the Sergeant's voice.
"Yes, sir," said the trooper. "At least he was riding Witham's horse,
and had on the old, long coat of his."
Sergeant Stimson nodded, and pointed to the weapon lying with
blackened muzzle at his feet. "And I think you could recognize that
rifle? There's F. Witham cut on the stock of it."
Payne said nothing, for the trooper signed to him.
"I fancy Shannon wants to talk to you," he said.
The lad knelt down, slipped one arm about his comrade's neck, and took
the mittened hand in his own. Shannon smiled up at him feebly.
"Witham's horse and his cap," he said, and then stopped, gasping
horribly.
"You will remember that, boys," said the Sergeant.
Payne could say nothing. Trooper Shannon and he had ridden through icy
blizzard and scorching heat together, and he felt his manhood melting
as he looked down into his dimming eyes. There was a curious look in
them which suggested a strenuous endeavour and an appeal, and the lips
moved again.
"It was," said Shannon, and moved his head a little on Payne's arm,
apparently in an agony of effort.
Then the birches roared about them, and drowned the feeble utterance,
while, when the gust passed, all three, who had not heard what
preceded it, caught only one word--"Witham."
Trooper Shannon's eyes closed, and his head fell back, while the snow
beat softly in to his upturned face, and there was a very impressive
silence, intensified by the moaning of the wind, until the rattle of
wheels came faintly down the trail.