RIFLES!
Mira and Blue Pete rested on the ground in the shadows of the clump of
spruce that concealed the entrance to their cave, watching the flicker
of the setting sun on the smooth surface of the sluggish river. Except
for moccasins and blankets they always wore now the Indian disguise in
which Torrance and his friends knew them. In the semi-darkness of the
trees the old corncob pipe sparked rapidly, sweeter to the halfbreed
than nectar, for Mira had held the match that lit it.
Night after night he was content to sit like that, her small hand
cuddled in his; but in the evening hours there were so many things to
do toward the fulfilment of their dream.
"Jest a coupla weeks more, Mira," he murmured. "Mebbe a few days
longer."
"And the last two horses?"
"I'll git 'em somehow. It gits harder every time the bohunks do
things, 'cause somebody's allus watchin'. But I never was fooled yet,
an' no tenderfoot's goin' to start. . . . Only I don't want no
shootin'."
"Perhaps he'll sell now when the time's so near."
Blue Pete laughed mirthlessly. "Yuh don't know Torrance. He said he
wudn't, an' that's better'n a million dollars to him."
"But you think he's going to give them to us when he's through?"
She leaned forward anxiously to catch a glimpse of his swarthy face in
the dim light, and he did not reply until he had considered it.
"If I was sartin! But if, when I'd lef' 'em to the las' minute, if he
took it in his head to pull out with 'em! I dassent take no chances.
I gotta have them horses."
He knew by her silence that she was contemplating the possibility of
failure.
"If yuh say so, Mira, mebbe I cud git myself to take 'em now an' pull
out."
She was fighting the stern battle which in his innocence he had roused
in her hungry mind, and for a moment he trembled for the result.
Vaguely he felt that he had done something unfair in shifting the
responsibility to her shoulders, but whatever her answer he knew what
his duty was; and only her wishes could drown that duty.
"Bert is waiting for us down in the Hills," she sighed, not to unsettle
his convictions but merely as a fact to be considered.
"Mebbe yuh'd bes' run down an' tell him we'll be a while yet," he
replied, understanding her perfectly. "I don't see no way out neither.
I'll come 'long soon's I can. Whiskers an' me can git the horses down."
She gurgled softly into the darkness, and clasped his arm with both her
hands. Nothing more was necessary. A thrill ran through his big
frame, and almost reverently he pressed his dark cheek against her hair.
Thus they sat, until the gleam faded from the water and only a dim glow
remained; and the pale sky peeped down through the trees with the chill
of a clear moon. High up in the unseen trails of the air a flight of
wild geese honked its weary way southward, and the halfbreed read the
warning of approaching winter. Some creature splashed into the water
straight before them with a noise that awakened the forest echoes and
deepened the enveloping silence afterwards. Juno lifted her head and
sniffed, and nosed into her mistress. She longed to get into the open
and howl, and this was how she fought the instinct. Deepest peace
closed down on them with the night.
It was Juno heard the speeders first. With a faint whimper she lifted
her ears and sniffed to the east. It was sufficient for Blue Pete. In
an instant he had picked out the purring sound and went back into the
cave for blanket and moccasins and rifle. When he returned, the
throbbing was booming through the woods, though the grade was a mile
and a half away, and the speeders miles more.
At first he did not hurry. His move to closer quarters with the
oncoming speeders was little more than instinct. He had no reason to
be suspicious, but he always wanted to unravel the unknown that was
tangible and audible and visible. If the speeders were going through
there was no chance of his reaching the grade in time to satisfy his
curiosity; if they were stopping at the trestle there was no hurry.
With unerring sense he made straight for the trestle.
As he walked along he was conscious of rising concern, of more than
ordinary personal connection with the visitors, and in a minute or two
he was running in the long easy lope which carries the Indian over
incredible distances in a space of time that challenges the ordinary
horse.
So that when the rattle of the engines ceased with suspicious
suddenness midway between the end-of-steel village and the trestle he
was not far from the grade. He deflected his course and presently,
with scarcely deepened breath to show the speed at which he had come,
he was watching from the shadows a strange scene.
In a long line, soundless but for the hurried tramp of their heavy
boots, dim figures emerged from the bush, lifted something from a
speeder, and disappeared the way they had come. The first speeder,
already unloaded, stood awaiting its companion. Blue Pete saw at first
without grasping the meaning. Then a jangle of metal enlightened him.
Rifles--that was what these men were carrying away!
For an agonised moment he felt unequal to the occasion. He knew in a
flash what arms portended among these foreign devils. But it was too
late to do much to forestall it. One speeder load was gone, and the
second was emptying fast. He might frighten the silent porters away
and perhaps capture the remainder of their burdens, but that would, at
best, rob them of a few dozen rifles, while scores--perhaps
hundreds--were by this time secure. And the bohunks would be warned.
A plan developed.
If only he had brought Mira! She could trail almost as well as he, and
her wits were quick. Danger or no danger, if only Mira were there to
help! On the trail of the last figure he crept, and the chug of the
flying speeders roared back to him in diminuendo.
The task he had set himself was an easy one. The man he followed,
clumsy and stupid, was anxious only to make speed. In among the trees
he led, though not far from the grade, and when at last he stopped and
began to rustle among the leaves and dead boughs, Blue Pete knew he had
reached the end of the trail. Yet even as the man worked feverishly
the halfbreed visualised the spot; and he knew no great cache could be
there. It puzzled him, alarmed him.
When the man was gone, and Blue Pete feverishly tore away the brush and
leaves, he realised with a pang of shame and alarm how he had been
outwitted. The rifles had been removed armful by armful. And armful
by armful they had been hidden, each in its own hiding place. There
was no common cache to rob, no possibility now of laying hands on the
lot.
In deep dejection the halfbreed returned to the cave with his burden.
Mira met him at the door without even a murmur of surprise. And as he
dumped the load noisily on the stone floor, she pointed to another
little pile in a distant niche.
"They've beat us, Pete. It was Werner I trailed. I just banged him
over the head with a stick and he dropped everything and bolted."
And Blue Pete chuckled. He could see only one picture: Werner, running
and tumbling through the forest, squealing with more fright than pain,
preparing as he ran a tall story for his leader.