E-text prepared by Barbara Watson, James Wright, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustration.
See 35180-h.htm or 35180-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35180/pg35180-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35180/35180-h.zip)
SERGEANT SILK
* * * * *
_A New Series of Popular Books for Boys and Girls_
THE WARWICK REWARDS.
Price 2s. each.
TITLES FOR BOYS.
THE TREASURES OF ASSHUR Oswald Dallas
THE SECRET OF THE SWORD Draycott M. Dell
THE LUCK OF ST. BONIFACE L. P. Douthwaite
THE LIFE OF THE SCHOOL R. A. H. Goodyear
HIS BROTHER AT ST. CONCORD'S R. A. H. Goodyear
TODDY NOTT, SCHOOLBOY Alfred Judd
THE PERILS OF PETERKIN Robert Leighton
SERGEANT SILK Robert Leighton
THE BRAVEST BOY IN THE CAMP Robert Leighton
THE CLEVEREST CHAP IN THE SCHOOL Robert Leighton
THE TREASURE HUNTERS John Mackie
BULLY, FAG AND HERO Charles J. Mansford
PREFECT AND FAG Charles J. Mansford
THE BOY SKIPPER W. C. Metcalfe
AFTER SCHOOL Robert Overton
TITLES FOR GIRLS.
KITTY LANDON'S GIRLHOOD J. Armstrong
POLLY OF LADY GAY COTTAGE Emma C. Dowd
THE STRAWBERRY GIRLS Helen M. Duffus
THE NEW GIRL AT ST. MALTBY Jessie Leckie Herbertson
THREE BOLD EXPLORERS Ida Gandy
A HANDFUL OF REBELS Raymond Jacberns
UNCLE HAL Lady Macalister
THE GIRLS OF ST. BEDE'S Geraldine Mockler
THE COMING OF CARLINA L. E. Tiddeman
THE ADVENTURES OF JASMIN L. E. Tiddeman
TRIXY AND HER TRIO L. E. Tiddeman
THE FORTUNES OF JOYCE L. E. Tiddeman
A REBEL AT SCHOOL May Wynne
ANGELA GOES TO SCHOOL May Wynne
THE SECRET OF CARRICK SCHOOL May Wynne
* * * * *
[Frontispiece: uncaptioned picture illustrating scene in Chap. IV
(Sergeant Silk with prisoner galloping away from brush fire)]
SERGEANT SILK THE PRAIRIE SCOUT
by
ROBERT LEIGHTON
Author of "The Cleverest Chap in the School," "The
Bravest Boy in the Camp," etc.
Jarrolds
Publishers (London) Ltd.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I 'LIKE A DESTITUTE TRAMP' 9
II THE BAG OF GOLD 20
III THE MYSTERY OF GREY WOLF FOREST 33
IV THE FUGITIVE AND HIS PURSUER 55
V NICK-BY-NIGHT 75
VI THE SURPRISE VISIT 92
VII LOCOMOTIVE 99 105
VIII THREE MOOSE CROSSING 115
IX RED DERRICK 129
X THE OUTSIDE PASSENGERS 141
XI MAPLE LEAF'S SCAR 156
XII A PERILOUS MOMENT 169
XIII THE MAN WHO WAS GLAD 189
XIV IN THE POWER OF HIS PRISONER 198
XV THE GREAT JAM AT STONE PINE RAPIDS 209
XVI THE MAN THAT THE WOLVES SPARED 221
SERGEANT SILK
CHAPTER I
'LIKE A DESTITUTE TRAMP'
"If you ask me, there's nothing like riding across the open prairie for
quickening a fellow's eyesight," remarked the Honourable Percy Rapson,
breaking a long spell of silence. "There's so little to be seen, anyhow,
except the grass and the flowers, that he's bound to catch sight of
anything unusual."
Sergeant Silk smiled at his companion's boyish enthusiasm for the
open-air life of the plains. Percy had been sent out to Western Canada
to learn farming, but there was no doubt that he was learning a lot that
had no direct connection with agriculture. Owing largely to his
friendship with Sergeant Silk, of the North-West Mounted Police, he was
learning to be manly and self-reliant, and he was beginning to know so
much scout-craft that his remark concerning the quickening of his powers
of observation was quite justified.
"That is so," the sergeant acknowledged. "The prairie teaches you a lot.
It's like being on the sea, where everything that isn't water or sky
attracts your attention. I'm bound to say that your own eyesight is
improving wonderfully by practice. You don't miss a great deal. What do
you make of the stranger that we're coming up to?"
Percy glanced at the red-coated soldier policeman in sharp surprise.
"Stranger?" he repeated inquiringly. "I haven't noticed one. Where?"
Silk returned the boy's glance with a curious lift of the eyebrows.
"Why, I supposed it was your spotting him that prompted your remark
about eyesight," he said lightly. And he pointed towards a clump of
bushes some little distance in advance of them across the fresh green
prairie grass. "He's sitting hunched up alongside of that patch of
cactus scrub in front of us, with his head in his hands, as if he had
something tremendously serious to think about. Ah, he's moving now. He
hears us. What's he mooching around here for, I wonder?"
"You appear to know him?" said Percy.
Sergeant Silk nodded.
"I know him, yes. It's a chap named Charlie Fortescue."
Percy saw the stranger plainly now, a slightly built, rather
good-looking young fellow, dressed as an ordinary plainsman, standing
upright and looking expectantly towards the two riders who were
approaching him. He waited until they came to a halt in front of him.
Sergeant Silk dropped his bridle rein over the horn of his saddle and
slowly regarded the man from the toes of his boots to the crown of his
wide felt hat.
"Something gone wrong, Charlie?" he casually inquired. "Where's your
pony? What are you doing hanging around here, like a destitute tramp?"
Charlie shrugged his shoulders.
"That's sure what I am, Sergeant," he answered with an awkward attempt
at a smile, "a destitute tramp."
"Eh?" exclaimed Silk. He evidently did not believe him. "D'you mind
explaining? I don't understand--unless you mean that you've had a
disagreement with old man Crisp?"
"You've hit the mark, first shot," said Charlie. "But it's something
more than a mere disagreement. I've quitted the ranch. I'm not going
back--ever."
"That's bad," reflected Sergeant Silk, taking out his pipe to indicate
that he had leisure enough to listen to the explanation that he had
invited. "Real bad, it is. You were such friends, he and you. He was
shaping to take you into partnership, and--well, there's that pretty
daughter of his. I've heard you were likely to marry her. Surely you
haven't broken off with Dora, as well as her father?"
"I'm afraid so," Charlie gloomily answered. "I couldn't expect her to
marry a man whom her father has accused of committing a crime."
"A crime?" Sergeant Silk looked at him in perplexity. "A crime?" he
repeated. "That's the way of the wind, is it? Tell me about it."
Charlie Fortescue nibbled nervously at an end of his moustache.
"The worst of it is," he presently began to explain, "I haven't been
able to prove my innocence. Appearances are against me."
He raised his dark eyes appealingly to the red-coated soldier policeman,
and his face brightened as with a new hope. Percy Rapson was conscious
that it was the face of a man of good class. It was almost aristocratic
in its refinement of feature. And the tone of his voice was that of an
educated Englishman as he added--
"Perhaps you can help me, Silk. You're a member of the North-West
Mounted Police and accustomed to dealing with crimes. Perhaps you can
try to get at the root of this one?"
Sergeant Silk struck a match and held the flame to the bowl of his pipe.
"Why, cert'nly," he said. "It is in my line. I shall be glad if I can
clear you of suspicion. What are the circumstances? You may say whatever
you like before my chum here--the Honourable Percy Rapson, late of Eton
College, now of Rattlesnake Ranch."
He dismounted, and Percy followed his example. The three of them stood
close together.
"You were right about my wishing to marry Dora Crisp," Fortescue
resumed. "We've been engaged for a long time. We were to have been
married next month. I had been saving up, on the quiet. But I never told
Sam or Dora anything about it. I was keeping it for a surprise, see? I
didn't want to say anything until I had saved off my own bat a sum equal
to the pile that Sam had put aside to give her as her dowry.
"One day last week the old man sent me to Banff to look at a new
reaping machine attachment he thought of buying, and he asked me also to
call at the bank and cash a cheque for him. I drew the money--it was two
hundred pounds in gold--and delivered it to him safely.
"'It's for Dora,' he told me, when, having carefully counted it, he
swept it into a chamois leather bag and tied the bag round with a wisp
of red tape. Then, signing to me to go with him, he went into the
harness-room, and I watched him as he cunningly hid the bag of gold in a
ventilation hole in the wall; high up, where it couldn't be seen or
easily reached. 'It'll be safe there, Charlie,' he said with
satisfaction. 'We'll let it stop there until the wedding morning.
There's only you and me who know where it is. It's sure safe up there.'"
Sergeant Silk shook his head.
"I shouldn't have thought so," he said. "When was it missed?"
"It was last night that it was stolen," Fortescue explained. "Stolen!
and I--_I_ was accused of being the thief; though I'd never touched it,
never even looked at it."
"And your own savings," pursued Silk. "Were they stolen, too?"
"No. That's where the whole complication came in," returned Charlie.
"You see, Sam didn't know that I had any money of my own. He believed
that I'd sent all that I saved home to my mother in England, and that I
was really hard up, as I'd half pretended to be. And this morning, when
he rushed into the house, wildly declaring that he'd been robbed, it was
his belief that I was in want of money that made him so sure that I, and
I alone, was the thief. No one else knew where the gold had been hidden.
Who else could have taken it? He had heard me go downstairs in the
middle of the night, and it was useless my protesting I'd only gone down
to discover why the horses were restless in the stable, and why one of
the dogs had barked.
"The more I protested, the more annoyed he grew. He was just mad with
rage against me. He wouldn't listen to me when I asked him if it was
likely that I, his future son-in-law, should steal money that was
intended for my own sweetheart--money that was to go to the making of my
own home. Nothing I could say would convince him. And at last he went so
far as to demand that I should let him search my room and boxes, see?"
Charlie was anxiously watching Sergeant Silk's face as he spoke. But it
betrayed no sign either of belief or of doubt.
"It wasn't until that moment that I realised how awkward was my
situation," he went on. "I must have looked some guilty. I was certainly
flustered. And very naturally; because, you see, my own money, my
savings, which I kept upstairs in my trunk, happened also to be in
English gold; and what was more suspicious and difficult to explain, it
was the same in amount as the sum that had been stolen--two hundred
pounds exactly; two hundred sovereigns. And I was supposed to be as poor
as a church rat."
Sergeant Silk was puffing vigorously at his pipe, but he paused to say,
very quietly--
"That was awkward, real awkward for you, Charlie. But, of course, you
let him search your room? You didn't hide anything? You explained how
you happened to have money of your own?"
"I hid nothing," declared Charlie. "But his finding and counting the
money seemed to be the final proof of my guilt, and I wasn't able to
show how any one else could be guilty."
"That's the important point," urged Silk. "You've got to prove that
somebody else than yourself--one of the ranch hands, one of the farm
servants, or even some stranger, had discovered where that money was
hidden and could have stolen it. You say the horses were restless; you
say a dog barked. Did that mean nothing? Say, you'd better leave this
affair in my hands. I'll ride along to the ranch right now and have a
jaw with Sam Crisp. Are you coming back with me?"
Charlie Fortescue's face went very red under its sunburn. He shook his
head resolutely.
"No," he objected. "I'm not going back. Sam Crisp believes me guilty.
He has denounced me as a contemptible thief; and in Dora's hearing, too.
I couldn't face Dora. I shall never look into her eyes or take her hand
in mine again until her father owns that I'm guiltless. Go yourself, if
you will. I've told you everything. I'm not going back. If I'm wanted,
either to be arrested as a thief or apologised to as an honest man,
you'll not have much difficulty in finding me."
Sergeant Silk mounted to the saddle.
"Very well," he agreed. "So long!"