CORPORAL SLANEY'S DEFEAT
The sun had just dipped, and there was a wonderful invigorating coolness
in the dew-chilled air. Winthrop sat in the cook-shed which was built
against the back of the iron store-shack. Outside, as he could see
through the doorway, the prairie ran back, a vast gray-white stretch, to
the horizon, beneath as vast a sweep of green transparency. The little
shed, however, was growing shadowy, and a red twinkle showed through the
front of the stove in which the sinking fire was still burning.
The cook was somewhere outside talking with the boys, and Winthrop, who
wished to beg a cotton flour-bag from him to use in mending his clothes,
sat quietly smoking while he waited until he should come back. He felt
no inclination to join the others, for he had grown anxious and morose
since Lucy's warning had reached him a week or two earlier. He was quite
aware that there was some danger in remaining at his work, but pay-day
was approaching and he meant at least to wait until he could collect the
money due him. After that he would disappear again if anything
transpired to render it necessary. Just then Watson looked into the
shed.
"I guess you'd better come right out," he said hurriedly. "There are two
strangers riding into camp."
Winthrop was on his feet in a moment, and the haste with which he rose
betrayed his anxiety. Going out, he ran forward until he could obtain an
uninterrupted view of the plain. The waste of grass was growing dim,
but two mounted figures showed up black on it. Watson indicated them
with outstretched hand.
"Notice anything interesting about them?"
"Yes," Winthrop answered grimly; "they ride like police troopers."
"That's just how it seemed to me," exclaimed Drakesford. "They're coming
from southward, and if they'd left the trunk line soon after the
Vancouver train came in they would get here about now. They could have
borrowed horses from the rancher near the station."
Winthrop watched them steadily before he spoke.
"They're troopers, sure," he said at length. "The short one looks like
Corporal Slaney, who's out after me; and they'll be in before I could
catch either of my horses. I turned them out in the soft grass some way
back in the coulée."
"You have got to do something," declared Watson, "and do it right now!"
Winthrop glanced out across the great, level plain, and his face grew
set.
"They'd sure search the coulée, and, except for that, there isn't cover
for a coyote for a league or two. It won't be dark for half an hour yet,
and they'd ride me down in three or four minutes in the open."
This was obvious, and silence followed until Winthrop spoke again.
"I haven't a gun of any kind."
"That's fortunate," said Drakesford. "What do you want a gun for,
anyway? Plugging one of the troopers wouldn't help you."
In the meanwhile, the mounted figures were rapidly drawing nearer. The
three men stood tensely watching them until Winthrop suddenly swung
round toward his companions.
"You can tell them where my tent is, and they'll waste some minutes
going there. That's all I want you to do."
Watson looked at him inquiringly, but he made a sign of impatience.
"I'm going back to the cook-shed. You can't help any. Keep out of this
trouble."
Moving away from them, he disappeared into the shadowy interior of the
shed, and his companions waited until the rest of the men came running
up as the police rode in. The latter asked a few questions which Watson
answered truthfully, and then they rode off toward Winthrop's tent.
Presently one dismounted trooper reappeared, and proceeded to search the
other tents, amid ironical banter and a few protests. This took him some
time, and darkness was not far off when he reached the iron shack, the
door of which was unusually difficult to open, though Watson, who had
visited it in the meanwhile, could have explained the cause of it. Then
the other trooper came back, and led both horses out upon the prairie.
Leaving them there, he joined his comrade, who addressed the men.
"Boys," he said, "we're holding a warrant for your partner, and we've
got to have him."
"Nobody's stopping you," one of them answered. "We haven't a place to
hide him in unless he's crawled down a gopher-hole."
As a gopher is smaller than an ordinary squirrel, the point of this was
evident, and while a laugh went up the policemen conferred together in
front of the iron shack; then, after looking in, they walked around to
the back of it. They had no doubt already noticed the cook-shed, but as
it was very small and the door stood partly open, it appeared a most
unpromising place for the fugitive to seek refuge. Now, however, they
moved close to it, and Winthrop, sitting back in the shadow, became
dimly visible.
"Come out! We've got you!" one trooper cried.
The man did not move, but he had something in his hand, which was
stretched out toward the stove. One of the pot-holes in the top of the
stove was open, and a faint glow shone upon the object he held clenched
in his fingers. It bore, as Corporal Slaney noticed, no resemblance to a
pistol.
"Come out!" he repeated. "There's no use in making trouble."
Winthrop laughed in a jarring fashion.
"I guess I'll stay a while right where I am."
Then he raised his voice.
"If you're wise you'll wait outside, Corporal."
Slaney stood still just outside the door, peering into the shed; and the
trooper behind him had his carbine ready.
"Don't be foolish, Jake. We've got you sure," he called.
He moved a pace nearer, and Winthrop leaned forward a little farther
over the pot-hole.
"See what this is?" he inquired, glancing down at the object in his
hand.
"It's not a gun, anyway," said the trooper to his superior.
"It's a stick of giant-powder. There's a detonator in it and an inch or
two of fuse. As soon as you're inside the door I drop it in the stove."
Slaney promptly recoiled a yard or two. Having had some experience in
dealing with men driven to extremities, he knew that Winthrop's warning
was not empty bluff. There was something in the man's voice that
convinced him that he meant what he said. For the next few moments he
and the trooper stood irresolutely still, wondering what they should do,
while the motionless figure quietly watched them through the doorway.
The corporal was by no means timid or overcautious, and had Winthrop
held a pistol it is highly probable that he would have attempted to rush
him. Except in the hands of a master of it, the short-barreled weapon is
singularly unreliable, and shots fired by a man disturbed by fear or
anger as a rule go wide; but the stick of dynamite meant certain death.
Slaney had not the nerve to face that, and, besides, as he rightfully
reflected, it would serve no purpose except to nip in the bud the career
of a promising police officer. Then Winthrop spoke again.
"You'll have to haul off this time, Corporal. Letting this thing drop is
quicker than shooting, even if you had me covered."
"We could plug you from a distance through the shack," Slaney pointed
out.
"That's so," Winthrop assented calmly; "I guess you could; but I'm not
sure your bosses would thank you for doing it."
There was, as the corporal recognized, some truth in this. The police
would be held blameless for shooting down a fugitive who refused to
surrender, but after all the exploit would not count to their credit
unless the man were a desperado guilty of some particularly serious
offense. It was their business to capture the person for whom they had a
warrant.
Drawing back a little farther, the corporal conferred with the trooper,
who suggested several ways of getting over the difficulty, none of
which, however, appeared altogether practicable. For one thing, he said,
they could wait, sleeping in turn, until from utter weariness Winthrop's
vigilance relaxed; but that, it was evident, would most likely take more
time than they could spare. They could also seek the assistance of the
trackgraders and arrange with them to make a diversion while they crept
up unobserved. Against this there was, however, as the corporal pointed
out, the probability that the men were more or less in sympathy with the
fugitive, and that as a result any assistance they might be commanded to
render could not be depended on. He added that he would rather wait for
daylight, and then, if it should be absolutely necessary, fire into the
shed.
In the meantime Watson was discussing the affair with Drakesford.
"That man has some kind of plan in his mind, though I can't tell you
what it is," he declared. "Anyway, it would be better that the troopers
hadn't their horses handy in case he gets out in the dark and makes a
break for the prairie."
"They're back behind the tents," observed Drakesford, pointedly.
"Picketed," grinned Watson. "They should have knee-hobbled them. A horse
will now and then pull a picket out when the soil's light."
It was too dark to see his companion's face clearly, but Drakesford
appeared to smile in a manner that suggested comprehension, and they
strolled a little nearer the corporal, who had just sent for the cook.
The corporal explained that he had ridden a long way since his dinner,
and asked for a can of coffee and some eatables, and the cook proceeded
dubiously toward the shed. He came back empty-handed in a minute or two.
"I can't get you anything," he said. "The man you're after won't let me
in."
The corporal expressed his feelings somewhat freely, but the cook
grinned.
"You want to be reasonable," he protested. "How do you expect me to get
in, when he's holding off the two of you, and you've got arms?"
Watson touched his companion's shoulder.
"It's my opinion that our friend would better get out to-night," he
whispered. "The boys are holding off in the meanwhile, but if they can't
get their breakfast there'll probably be trouble."
Drakesford agreed with this, and shortly afterward he proceeded
circuitously toward the troopers' horses.
In the meanwhile, Slaney and his subordinate sat down on the grass well
apart from each other and about sixty yards from the cook-shed, and,
rolling their blankets about them, prepared to spend the night as
comfortably as possible. It was not very dark, though there was no moon,
and a slight haze, which promised an increased obscurity, was now
creeping across the sky. They could see the black shape of the shed, and
it was evident that nobody could slip out from it without their
observation; and they had their carbines handy. Slaney would have crept
up a little nearer, only that he felt it desirable to keep outside the
striking range of the giant-powder, in case Winthrop happened to get
drowsy and drop it in the stove.
After a while the track-graders, who had sat among the grass smoking and
watching the troopers, began to drift away to their sleeping-quarters.
The drama was interesting, but they had no part in it, and they would
certainly have to rise soon after sunup to a long day's arduous toil. In
the meanwhile, their attitude could best be described as reluctantly
neutral. There were a few toughs among them who had no doubt sufficient
reason for not loving a policeman of any kind, but the rest recognized
the inadvisability of any interference with constituted authority. On
the other hand, though they did not know the rights or wrongs of the
matter, the desperate, cold-blooded courage of the hard-pressed man
appealed to them, and they decided that Corporal Slaney need not look
for any effective assistance which it might be in their power to render.
Most of them were simple men who lived and toiled in the open, and, as
is usual with their kind, their sympathies were with the weaker party.
In an hour or two the last of them had vanished, and if a few still
watched outside their tents there was, at least, nothing that suggested
their presence to Corporal Slaney. He lay resting on one elbow, with his
eyes fixed on the shed, while a little chilly breeze set the dry grasses
rustling about him. It was now slightly darker than it usually is on the
prairie in summer-time, for the haze had gradually spread across most of
the sky. The tents had faded almost out of sight, though the black shape
of the shack remained, and now and then, when the breeze sank away, the
silence grew almost oppressive. Once the corporal started as he heard a
sound in the shed, but he sank down again when he recognized the clatter
and rattle that succeeded it. Winthrop, who evidently did not mean to
neglect any precaution, was, he decided, putting more fuel into the
stove. After that the howl of a coyote came faintly up the breeze, which
grew stronger, and the low murmur of the grasses began once more.
A pearly light was growing clearer on the eastern rim of the prairie
when at length Slaney, damp with the dew, rose to his feet with a shiver
and softly called the trooper, who announced that he had heard nothing
suspicious during the night. After a brief parley they crept up
cautiously a little nearer the shed, but there was, so far as they could
make out, no sign of life within. Indeed, the stillness was becoming
suspicious. Moving nearer still, they could look into part of the shed
through the open door, and, for the light was getting clearer, it became
evident that Winthrop was no longer sitting beside the stove. This was
encouraging, because it looked as if he had fallen asleep.
Making a short detour, so as to keep to one side of the entrance, they
crept up closer, with faces set and hearts beating a good deal faster
than usual; but there was no sound except a faint crackle, apparently
from the stove. Then Slaney lay down in the grass and crawled up to the
doorway, where he rose and suddenly sprang into the shed. The next
moment his voice rang out hoarse with anger, for the place was empty. He
waited until the trooper joined him, and then pointed to a little door
in the back of the larger building.
"That explains the thing!" he exclaimed. "You looked round the shack?"
"I did," the trooper admitted, and added, somewhat tactlessly, "so did
you."
Slaney frowned at this reminder, but it was evident that a discussion as
to whose fault it was that Winthrop had got away would in no way assist
them in his capture, and they proceeded into the larger building, where
they had no trouble in finding an explanation of his escape.
Men working on the prairie or in the bush of Canada are usually boarded
by their employers at a weekly charge, and there were a good many of
them engaged on the track. As a result of it, the iron shack was partly
filled with provisions, and when Slaney and the trooper entered by the
front they had seen a pile of cases and flour-bags apparently built up
against one wall. It was, however, growing dark then, and neither of
them had noticed that there was a narrow space behind the provisions
which had been left to facilitate the entrance of the cook. Winthrop, it
was clear, had slipped out through it in the darkness, and the shack had
prevented either of the watchers from seeing him crawl away across the
prairie. It occurred to Slaney that from the position of the tents it
was scarcely likely he had got away quite unnoticed, but he had reasons
for believing that it would be difficult to elicit any reliable
information on that point from the man's comrades.
There was only one thing to be done, and that was to mount as soon as
possible and endeavor to pick up the fugitive's trail; but when they
reached the spot where they had left their horses there was no sign of
them, and it was half an hour before the trooper came upon them some
distance up the coulée. Slaney was quite convinced that neither of the
beasts had succeeded in dragging the picket out of the ground
unassisted, but this was a thing he could not prove; and when the cook
had supplied them with a hastily prepared breakfast he and the trooper
rode away across the prairie.