She was silent for a moment, then was about to answer, when he turned
to the gambler and said: "You are at the bottom of this. Give me my
papers." But Pierre and Galbraith were as dumbfounded as the Sergeant
himself to know that the letter was gone. They were stunned beyond
speech when Jen said, flushing: "No, Sergeant Tom, I am the thief. When
I could not wake you, I took the letter from your pocket and carried it
to Inspector Jules last night,--or, rather, Sergeant Gellatly carried
them. I wore his cap and cloak and passed for him."
"You carried that letter to Inspector Jules last night, Jen?" said the
soldier, all his heart in his voice.
Jen saw her father blanch, his mouth open blankly, and his lips refuse to
utter the words on them. For the first time she comprehended some danger
to him, to herself--to Val!
"Father, father," she said,--" what is it?"
Pierre shrugged his shoulders and rejoined: "Eh, the devil! Such
mistakes of women. They are fools--all." The old man put out a shaking
hand and caught his daughter's arm. His look was of mingled wonder and
despair, as he said, in a gasping whisper, "You carried that letter to
Archangel's Rise?"
"Yes," she answered, faltering now; "Sergeant Tom had said how important
it was, you remember. That it was his duty to take it to Inspector
Jules, and be back within forty-eight hours. He fell asleep. I could
not wake him. I thought, what if he were my brother--our Val. So, when
you and Pretty Pierre went to bed, I put on Val's clothes, took Sergeant
Tom's cloak and hat, carried the orders to Jules, and was back here by
six o'clock this morning."
Sergeant Tom's eyes told his tale of gratitude. He made a step towards
her; but the old man, with a strange ferocity, motioned him back, saying,
"Go away from this house. Go quick. Go now, I tell you, or by God,--
I'll--"
Here Pretty Pierre touched his arm.
Sergeant Tom drew back, not because he feared but as if to get a mental
perspective of the situation. Galbraith again said to his daughter,--
"Jen, you carried them papers? You! for him--for the Law!" Then he
turned from her, and with hand clenched and teeth set spoke to the
soldier: "Haven't you heard enough? Curse you, why don't you go?"
Sergeant Tom replied coolly: "Not so fast, Galbraith. There's some
mystery in all this. There's my sleep to be accounted for yet. You had
some reason, some"--he caught the eyes of Pierre. He paused. A light
began to dawn on his mind, and he looked at Jen, who stood rigidly pale,
her eyes fixed fearfully, anxiously, upon him. She too was beginning to
frame in her mind a possible horror; the thing that had so changed her
father, the cause for drugging the soldier. There was a silence in which
Pierre first, and then all, detected the sound of horses' hoofs. Pierre
went to the door and looked out. He turned round again, and shrugged his
shoulders with an expression of helplessness. But as he saw Jen was
about to speak, and Sergeant Tom to move towards the door, he put up his
hand to stay them both, and said: "A little--wait!"
Then all were silent. Jen's fingers nervously clasped and unclasped, and
her eyes were strained towards the door. Sergeant Tom stood watching her
pityingly; the old man's head was bowed. The sound of galloping grew
plainer. It stopped. An instant and then three horsemen appeared before
the door. One was Inspector Jules, one was Private Waugh, and the other
between them was--let Jen tell who he was. With an agonised cry she
rushed from the house and threw herself against the saddle, and with her
arms about the prisoner, cried: "Oh, Val, Val, it was you! It was you
they were after. It was you that--oh no, no, no! My poor Val, and I
can't tell you--I can't tell you!"
Great as was her grief and self-reproach, she felt it would be cruel to
tell him the part she had taken in placing him in this position. She
hated herself, but why deepen his misery? His face was pale, but it had
its old, open, fearless look, which dissipation had not greatly marred.
His eyelids quivered, but he smiled, and touching her with his steel-
bound hands, gently said:
"Never mind, Jen. It isn't so bad. You see it was this way: Snow Devil
said something about someone that belonged to me, that cares more about
me than I deserve. Well, he died sudden, and I was there at the time.
That's all. I was trying with the help of Pretty Pierre to get out of
the country"--and he waved his hand towards the half-breed.
"With Pretty Pierre--Pierre?" she said.
"Yes, he isn't all gambler. But they were too quick for me, and here I
am. Jules is a hustler on the march. But he said he'd stop here and let
me see you and dad as we go up to Fort Desire, and--there, don't mind,
Sis--don't mind it so!"
Her sobs had ceased, but she clung to him as if she could never let him
go. Her father stood near her, all the lines in his face deepened into
bitterness. To him Val said: "Why, dad, what's the matter? Your hand
is shaky. Don't you get this thing eatin' at your heart.
"It isn't worth it. That Injin would have died if you'd been in my place,
I guess. Between you and me, I expect to give Jules the slip before we
get there." And he laughed at the Inspector, who laughed a little
austerely too, and in his heart wished that it was anyone else he had as
a prisoner than Val Galbraith, who was a favourite with the Riders of the
Plains.
Sergeant Tom had been standing in the doorway regarding this scene, and
working out in his mind the complications that had led to it. At this
point he came forward, and Inspector Jules said to him, after a curt
salutation:
"You were in a hurry last night, Sergeant Gellatly. You don't seem so
pushed for time now. Usual thing. When a man seems over-zealous--drink,
cards, or women behind it. But your taste is good, even if, under
present circumstances"--He stopped, for he saw a threatening look in the
eyes of the other, and that other said: "We won't discuss that matter,
Inspector, if you please. I'm going on to Fort Desire now. I couldn't
have seen you if I'd wanted to last night."
"That's nonsense. If you had waited one minute longer at the barracks
you could have done so. I called to you as you were leaving, but you
didn't turn back."
"No. I didn't hear you."
All were listening to this conversation, and none more curiously than
Private Waugh. Many a time in days to come he pictured the scene for the
benefit of his comrades. Pretty Pierre, leaning against the hitching-
post near the bar-room, said languidly:
"But, Inspector, he speaks the truth--quite: that is a virtue of the
Riders of the Plains." Val had his eyes on the half-breed, and a look of
understanding passed between them. While Val and his father and sister
were saying their farewells in few words, but with homely demonstrations,
Sergeant Tom brought his horse round and mounted it. Inspector Jules
gave the word to move on. As they started, Gellatly, who fell behind the
others slightly, leaned down and whispered: "Forgive me, Jen. You did
a noble act for me, and the life of me would prove to you that I'm
grateful. It's sorry, sorry I am. But I'll do what I can for Val,
as sure as the heart's in me. Good-bye, Jen."
She looked up with a faint hope in her eyes. "Goodbye!" she said.
"I believe you . . . Good-bye!"
In a few minutes there was only a cloud of dust on the prairie to tell
where the Law and its quarry were. And of those left behind, one was a
broken-spirited old man with sorrow melting away the sinister look in his
face; one, a girl hovering between the tempest of bitterness and a storm
of self-reproach; and one a half-breed gambler, who again sat on the bar-
counter smoking a cigarette and singing to himself, as indolently as if
he were not in the presence of a painful drama of life, perhaps a
tragedy. But was the song so pointless to the occasion, after all, and
was the man so abstracted and indifferent as he seemed? For thus the
song ran:
"Oh, the bird in a cage and the bird on a tree
Voila! 'tis a different fear!
The maiden weeps and she bends the knee
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
But the bird in a cage has a friend in the tree,
And the maiden she dries her tear:
And the night is dark and no moon you see
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
When the doors are open the bird is free
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!"