E-text prepared by Al Haines
THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE
by
LUKE ALLAN
Author of "Blue Pete: Half-Breed," "The Lone Trail," "The Blue Wolf,"
Etc.
New York
George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1922,
by George H. Doran Company
THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE. II
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I MAHON ON THE TRAIL
II EVENING AT MILE 130
III THE MYSTERIOUS RAFT
IV IGNACE KOPPOWSKI APPEARS
V BLUE PETE, FRIEND AND LOVER
VI THE HIDDEN MARKSMAN
VII CONRAD FLASHES A GUN
VIII A TRAGEDY OF CONSTRUCTION
IX TORRANCE EVOLVES A PLAN
X MAVY TAKES A RISK
XI THE DESERTED CAMP
XII SERGEANT MAHON SKIRTS DEATH
XIII THE VISIT OF THE INDIANS
XIV THE FIGHT IN THE SHACK
XV KOPPY MAKES A THREAT
XVI THE HEART OF A HALF-BREED
XVII A PLOT DEFEATED
XVIII THE CONSCIENCE OF A BOHUNK
XIX THE BEAT OF A MOUNTED POLICEMAN
XX INDIAN OR POLICEMAN?
XXI BLUE PETE WORKS ALONE
XXII NIGHT--AND THE MYSTERIOUS SPEEDERS
XXIII RIFLES!
XXIV THE SCHEMES OF A LEADER
XXV BLUE PETE AND WHISKERS TO THE RESCUE
XXVI SERGEANT MAHON'S VISION
XXVII AN IRISHMAN AND AN ENGLISHMAN
XXVIII THE SIEGE OF THE SHACK
XXIX RETRIBUTION BEGINS
XXX KOPPY PAYS
XXXI BLUE PETE RETURNS
THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE
CHAPTER I
MAHON ON THE TRAIL
Sergeant Mahon emptied the barracks mail bag on the desk before
Inspector Barker and stood awaiting instructions. The Inspector passed
his hand over the small pile of letters and let his eye roam from one
to another in the speculative way that added zest to the later
revelation of their contents.
One from headquarters at Regina he set carefully aside. With an "ah!"
of satisfied expectancy he selected one from the remainder and placed
it before him. Mahon was mildly interested. The little foibles of his
superior were always amusing to him. Eyes still fixed on the envelope,
the Inspector commenced to fill his pipe.
"Spoiling for a job, Mahon?"
"Depends."
"Hm-m! Beautifully non-committal."
Mahon's interest was rising. The Inspector went on calmly cramming in
the tobacco. When the job was completed to his liking, he thrust the
pipe between his lips, flicked a loose flake from his tunic, and forgot
to apply a match. Instead, he picked up the envelope and examined it
on all sides. Mahon began to grow impatient.
Twice the Inspector turned the letter over. Mahon fretted. He could
see on its face the Division headquarters stamp--Lethbridge--but why
all this ceremony and pother about an official note that came almost
every day? He recalled suddenly that his wife would be holding lunch
for him--with fresh fish he had seen unloaded little more than an hour
ago from the through train from Vancouver. He could almost smell it
sizzling on the natural gas cooker.
"Hm-m!" The envelope was not yet broken. "I imagine this will
interest you, Mahon."
Suddenly the Inspector dived into a drawer and, taking from it an
official looking envelope, passed it back to the Sergeant. The latter
accepted it with fading interest. The Assistant Commissioner at Regina
was unfolding to Inspector Barker's immediate superior, the
Superintendent at Lethbridge, an unexciting tale of crime. Crime was
their daily diet, and this was located far beyond their district.
Somewhere away up north, hundreds of miles beyond the jurisdiction of
the Medicine Hat unit of the Mounted Police, events of concern to the
Police were happening along the line of the transcontinental railway
now under construction. Certain acts of sabotage--tearing down railway
trestles and bridges, undermining trains, displacing grade, tampering
with rails and switches--were not only hampering construction but
endangering life. And things were growing worse. In addition there
was complaint of horse-stealing at one isolated camp.
The point of the letter was contained in the last paragraph. Could
Superintendent Magwood spare an experienced bushman and trailer to go
north and take temporary charge?
Mahon handed the letter back with a laugh.
"Bit of a joke, horse-stealing from contractors who only last year
grabbed every stolen horse offered them. Retribution!"
The Inspector swung about on his swivel chair.
"We never discovered who got those horses."
"The ones Blue Pete stole?" A cloud came to Mahon's face. "Not
exactly the contractors who got them, but there was no doubt where they
went."
"I always regretted we had to hand over the search just there to a
Division that knows little about ranch horses," murmured the Inspector.
"Still--perhaps--" He stopped and shifted the letter he held from one
hand to the other, as if weighing it.
"We'd have made short work of it, sir."
"Even if we'd implicated your halfbreed friend?" The older man was
peering beneath his iron-grey brows.
"I'm afraid nothing more was needed to implicate Blue Pete," sighed
Mahon.
"For a halfbreed rustler he seems to have stamped himself on your
imagination, Boy." They had called Mahon "Boy" almost since he joined
the force seven years before as a young man, packed with youthful
vitality, frankness and ambition, and the nickname was dear to him.
"But he wasn't always a rustler. I remember him only for the two years
he spent unofficially in the Force, the best rustler-buster we ever
had. That was the real Blue Pete. That he died a rustler was due to
crooked 'justice.' Poor old Pete! If only he hadn't had the Indian
strain!"
"He wouldn't have been so useful to us. His uncanny scent on the
trail--By the way, Mahon, strange we never found trace of him--his
grave or something--when you're so certain how and where he died. And
where's that ugly pinto of his? Whiskers, he called her, wasn't it?"
"Mira found the body, sir--that last letter she sent us said as much.
She'd hide him from us--it's exactly the thing she would do. She was a
loyal wife--"
"Not quite a wife."
"A wife as truly as absence of formal ceremony can make one. He's
lying out there somewhere in the heart of the Hills he loved. . . .
They were a sentimental pair."
"Almost too much sentiment in Mira Stanton for you," chuckled the
Inspector. "When I think of how near a thing it was--"
"I was a fool, sir." Mahon's face was red. "But it wasn't because I
was too good for her. We'd never have pulled together; I know that
now. She was born and bred in the wild ways. I respect her as much as
I ever did--perhaps more because she has steadfastly refused even to
let us know where she is--we who sent her down and indirectly killed
the man she loved."
"I suppose you've talked all this over with your wife, young man?"
"Yes, sir. Helen, though reared in such a different atmosphere from
her cousin, understands Mira better than I. She sympathises--"
"But where is she--Mira, I mean? We know she's drawing the profits
regularly from the 3-bar-Y. But that foreman of hers is as mute as a
clam. . . . And now Bert, her best cowboy, has disappeared. Hm-m!
What d'ye make of it, Mahon?"
It was not like the Inspector to draw the opinions of his staff, and
Mahon regarded him slyly.
"You have a theory, sir. I haven't. I only see what's clear. Mira's
over in Montana--"
"And so you think Mira Stanton is living on her past in
Montana--gamboling about with Whiskers, I suppose? And Blue Pete lies
in the Hills? Comfortable disposal of the whole affair. I envy you."
"I've searched the Hills in all his old haunts, sir--"
"And I'm dam glad you didn't find him."
The Inspector tore open the letter in his hand, smiled, and passed it
back.
"You have a copy of the Assistant Commissioner's letter to me of the
tenth," it ran. "In observance of his orders I would suggest that you
send Sergeant Mahon, who is, I believe, the best for the purpose in the
Division."
Mahon flushed. A gleam of boyish excitement made him look five years
younger. Eagerly he searched the Inspector's face.
"I'd like it, sir. I'd do my best. I've done bush work in the Hills,
and Blue Pete knocked something into me about trails."
"It always surprises me," began the Inspector maliciously, "how eager
young husbands are to get away--"
"May I take Helen, sir?"
"No--you--may--not! What do you think this is--a honeymoon? In the
first place you'll probably be located in some defunct end-of-steel
village where even the ghosts are abominable. In the next place you'll
be too busy to know you're married. Horse-thieves? Bah! This is
different stuff. You'll be up against something new. We've more than
a suspicion that those devils, the Independent Workers of the World,
are at the bottom of it. When you get on the trail of the I.W.W., Boy,
there'll be no chivalry of the plains. It'll be knives, and poison,
and dynamite . . . and darkness for deeds of darkness. All the
criminals you've met are saints compared with these foreign devils.
Thank the Lord, they've come no further from the States as yet than the
construction camps!"
He rose and deliberately removed the tunic that was to him the badge of
office.
"Speaking unofficially," he observed, "my advice is to shoot first and
enquire after. Remember that every Pole and Russian and Hungarian
there carries a knife or a slug--he has to in self-protection--and uses
it as we do slang. Every foreign workman on a railway construction
gang is a potential murderer. . . . I'd rather give evidence for you
on a murder charge than strew flowers on your grave."
He reached for his tunic.
"You'll have a chance to do credit to Blue Pete's memory. . . . About
Helen--wait till we see what size the cloud is."
He thrust his arms into the tunic and buttoned it tight to his chin.
"You leave on Saturday," he growled.