LYN.
Whereas Lessard had acted the martinet with MacRae, he took another tack
and became the very essence of affability toward me. (I'd have enjoyed
punching his proud head, for all that; it was a dirty way to serve a man
who had done his level best.)
"Rather unfortunate happening for you, Flood," he began. "I think,
however, that we shall eventually get your money back."
"I hope so," I replied coolly. "But I must say that it begins to look
like a big undertaking."
"Well, yes; it is," he observed. "Still, we have a pretty thorough
system of keeping track of things like that. This is a big country, but
you can count on the fingers of one hand the places where a man can
spend money. Of course, you probably realize the difficulty of laying
hands on men who know they are wanted, and act accordingly. We can't
arrest on a description, because you wouldn't know the men if you saw
them. Our only chance is to be on the lookout for free spenders. It's a
certainty that they will be captured if they spend that money at any
trading-post within our jurisdiction. I'll find out if the quartermaster
knows the numbers and denomination of the bills. On the other hand, if
they go south, cross the line, you know, we won't get much of a show at
them. But we'll have to take chances on that."
"I've done all I can do in that direction," I said. "I've sent word to
La Pere."
"You had better stay hereabout for a while," he decided. "You can put up
at one of the troop-messes for a few days. I'll send a despatch to Whoop
Up and MacLeod, and we'll see what turns up. Also I think I shall send a
detail to bring in those bodies. The identification must be made
complete. No doubt it will be a trial for Miss Rowan, but I think she
would feel better to have her father buried here. By the way, you knew
the Rowans in the States, I believe."
"Was trail-boss three seasons for Hank Rowan and his partner," I
returned briefly. I didn't much like his offhand way of asking; not that
it wasn't a perfectly legitimate query. But I couldn't get rid of the
notion that he would hand me out the same dose he had given MacRae if
only he had the power.
"Ah," he remarked. "Then perhaps you would like to go out and help bring
in those bodies. It will save taking the Pend d' Oreille riders from
their regular patrol, and we are having considerable trouble with
whisky-runners these days."
I agreed to go, and that terminated the conversation. I didn't mind
going; in fact some sort of action appealed to me just then. I had no
idea of going back to Benton right away, and sitting around Fort Walsh
waiting for something to turn up was not my taste. It never struck me
till I was outside the office that Lessard had passed up the gold
episode altogether; he hadn't said whether he would send any one to
prognosticate around Writing-Stone or not. I wondered if he took any
stock in Rutter's story, or thought it merely one of the queer turns a
man's brain will sometimes take when he is dying. It had sounded
off-color to me, at first; but I knew old Hans pretty well, and he
always seemed to me a hard-headed, matter of fact sort of man, not at
all the flighty kind of pilgrim that gets mixed in his mental processes
when things go wrong. Besides, if there wasn't some powerful incentive,
why that double killing, to say nothing of the incredible devilishness
that accompanied it.
Once out of the official atmosphere, I hesitated over my next move.
Lessard's high-handed squelching of MacRae had thrown everything out of
focus. We'd planned to report at headquarters, see Lyn, if she were at
Walsh, and then with Pend d' Oreille as a base of operations go on a
still hunt for whatever the Writing-Stone might conceal. That scheme was
knocked galley-west and crooked, for even when MacRae's term expired
he'd get a long period of duty at the Fort; he'd lost his rank, and as a
private his coming and going would be according to barrack-rule instead
of the freedom allowed a sergeant in charge of an outpost like Pend
d' Oreille--I knew that much of the Mounted Police style of doing
business. And so far as my tackling single-handed a search for Hank
Rowan's _cache_--well, I decided to see Lyn before I took that
contract.
I hated that, too. It always went against my grain to be a bearer of ill
tidings. I hate to make a woman cry, especially one I like. Some one had
to tell her, though, and, much as I disliked the mission, I felt that I
ought not to hang back and let some stranger blurt it out. So I nailed
the first trooper I saw, and had him show me the domicile of Mrs.
Stone--who, I learned, was the wife of Lessard's favorite captain--and
thither I rambled, wishing mightily for a good stiff jolt out of the keg
that Piegan Smith and Mac had clashed over. But if there was any bottled
nerve-restorer around Fort Walsh it was tucked away in the officers'
cellars, and not for the benefit of the common herd; so I had to fall
back on a cigarette.
Lyn was sitting out in front when I reached the place. Another female
person, whom I put down as Madam Stone, arose and disappeared through
an open door at my approach. Lyn motioned me to a camp-stool close by. I
sat down, and immediately my tongue became petrified. My think-machinery
was running at a dizzy speed, but words--if silence is truly golden, I
was the richest man in Fort Walsh that afternoon, for a few minutes, at
least. And when my vocal organs did at last consent to fulfil their
natural office, they refused to deliver anything but empty commonplaces,
the kind one's tongue carries in stock for occasional moments of barren
speech. These oral inanities only served to make Lyn give me the benefit
of a look of amused wonder.
"Dear me," she laughed at last. "I wonder what weighty matter is
crushing you to the earth. If you've got anything on your conscience,
Sarge, for goodness' sake confess. I'll give you absolution, if you
like, and then perhaps you'll be a little more cheerful."
"No, there's nothing particular weighing me down," I lied flatly.
"Anyway, I don't aim to unload my personal troubles on you. I came over
here to acquire a little information. How came you away up here by your
lonesome, and what brought your father and old Hans----"
Her purple-shaded eyes widened, each one a question-mark.
"Who told you that Hans was up North? I know I didn't mention him," she
cut in quickly. "Have you seen them?"
It's a wonder my face didn't betray the fact that I was holding
something back. I know I must have looked guilty for a second. That was
a question I would gladly have passed up, but her eyes demanded an
answer.
"Well," I protested, "it occurred to me that if you expected to meet
your father here in a day or two, Rutter would naturally be with him,
seeing that they've paddled in the same canoe since a good many years
before you were born, my lady. What jarred you all loose from Texas? And
what the mischief did you do to MacRae that he quit the South next
spring after I did, and straightway went to soldiering in this
country?"
She shied away from that query, just as I expected. "We had oceans of
trouble after you left there, Sarge," she told me, turning her head from
me so that her gaze wandered over the barrack-square. "It really doesn't
make pleasant telling, but you'll understand better than some one that
didn't know the country. You remember Dick Feltz, and that old trouble
about the Conway brand that dad bought a long time back?"
I nodded; I remembered Mr. Feltz very well indeed, for the well-merited
killing of one of his hired assassins was the main cause of my hasty
departure from Texas.
"Well, it came to a head, one day, in Fort Worth. They shot each other
up terribly, and a week or so later Feltz died. His people in the East
got it into their heads that it was a case of murder. They stirred up
the county authorities till every one was taking sides. Of course, dad
was cleared; but that seemed to be the beginning of a steady run of bad
luck. The trial cost an awful lot of money, and made enemies, too. Feltz
had plenty of friends of his own calibre--you know that to your sorrow,
don't you, Sarge?--and they started trouble on the range. It was simply
terrible for a while. Dad can supply the details when he comes." ("when
he comes"--I tell you, that jarred me.) "Finally things got to such a
pass that dad had to quit. And what with a deal in some Mexican cattle
that didn't turn out well, and some other business troubles that I never
quite understood, we were just about finished when we closed out."
She let her eyes meet mine for an instant, and they were smiling, making
light of it all. Most women, I thought, would have had a good cry, or at
least pulled a long face, over a hard-luck story like that. But she was
really more of a woman than I had thought her, and I thanked the Lord
she was game when I remembered what I had to tell her before I was
through.
"Dad and Hans Rutter, as you know, weren't the sort of men to sit around
and mourn over anything like that," she laughed. "I don't know where
they got the idea of going to Peace River. But dad settled me and Mammy
Thomas in a little cottage in Austin, and they started. I wanted to go
along, but dad wouldn't hear of it. They've been gone a little over two
years. I'd get word from them about every three months, and early this
spring dad wrote that they had made a good stake and were coming home.
He said I could come as far as Benton to meet them, and we would take
the boat from there down to St. Louis. So I looked up the lay of the
country, and sent him word I would come as far as Walsh. He had said
they would come out by way of this place. And then I rounded up Mammy
Thomas and struck out. I've rather enjoyed the trip, too. They should be
here any day, now."
My conscience importuned me to tell her bluntly that they would only
come into Walsh feet first. But I dodged the unpleasant opening. There
was another matter I wanted to touch upon first.
"Look here, Lyn," I said--rather dubiously, it must be confessed, for I
didn't know how she would take it, "I'm going to tell you something on
my own responsibility, and you mustn't get the idea that I'm trying to
mix into your personal affairs without a warrant. But I have a hunch
that you're laboring under a mistaken impression, right now; that is, if
you care anything about an old friend like MacRae."
"I can't really say that I do, though," she assured me quickly, but she
colored in a way that convinced me that her feeling toward MacRae was of
the sort she would never admit to any one but himself.
"Well," I continued, "I imagined you would think it queer that he should
pass you up as he did a while ago. But here at Fort Walsh we're among a
class of people that are a heap different from Texas cow-punchers. These
redcoats move along social lines that don't look like much to a cowman;
but once in the Force you must abide by them. It was consideration for
you that forbade MacRae to stop. Any woman in the company of an officer
is taboo to an enlisted man, according----"
"I know all that," she interrupted impatiently. "Probably they'd cut me,
and all that sort of thing. I understand their point of view, exactly,
but I'm not here to play the social game, and I shall talk to whom it
pleases me. Do you or Gordon MacRae honestly believe I care a snap for
their petty conventions?"
"No, I know you better than that," I responded. "All the same, this is a
pretty rough country for a woman, and if you've made friends among the
people on top, they may come in handy. For that matter," I concluded,
"you won't get a chance to have the cold shoulder turned to you for
associating with MacRae; not for some time, anyway."
"What do you mean?" she demanded, in that answer-me-at-once way I knew
of old.
"MacRae has gotten into a bad hole," I told her plainly. "Major Lessard,
who happens to be the big chief in this neck of the woods, seems to have
developed a sudden grouch against him. There was a hold-up night before
last--in fact, I was the victim. I was separated from a big bunch of
money that belongs to the outfit I'm working for. Mac was with me at the
time. He had to come in here and report it, for it happened in his
district, and the major raked him over the coals in a way that was hard
to stand. You know MacRae, Lyn; it's mighty poor business for any man to
tread on his toes, much less go walking rough-shod all over him. Lessard
went the length of accusing him of being in with these hold-up men,
because he did a little investigating on his own account before coming
in to report. Mac took that pretty hard, and came mighty near making the
major eat his words with gunpowder sauce on the side. So, for having the
nerve to declare himself, he has lost his sergeant's stripes and has
likewise gone to the guardhouse to meditate over the foolishness of
taking issue with his superiors. If you don't see him for the next
thirty days, you'll have the consolation of knowing that he isn't
avoiding you purposely."
It was a rather flippant way to talk, but it was the best I could do
under the circumstances. The last three days hadn't been exactly
favorable to a normal state of mind, or well-considered speech.
But--who was the wise mortal that said: "No man knoweth the mind of a
maid"?--she sat there quite unmoved, her hands resting quietly in her
lap. "We all seem to be more or less under a cloud, Sarge," she said
slowly. "Maybe when dad comes he can furnish a silver lining for it. I
sometimes--what makes you look that way? You look as if you were
thinking it my fault that Gordon is in trouble."
"You're wrong there," I protested, truthfully enough.
"But you have that air," she declared. "And I'm not to blame. If he
hadn't been so--so--I'm sure he'd get out of the Mounted Police fast
enough if he didn't like it. I can't imagine him doing anything against
his will. I never knew him"--with a faint smile--"to stay anywhere or do
anything that didn't suit him." She took to staring out across the
grounds again, and one hand drew up slowly till it was doubled into a
tight-shut little fist.
"Well, he's in that very fix right now. And he's likely to continue so,
unless some one buys his release from the service and makes him a
present of it. You might play the good angel," I suggested, half in
earnest. "It only costs about five hundred dollars"--Mac had told me
that--"and I'm sure he'd be properly grateful."
The red flag waved in her cheeks again. "I don't particularly like the
idea," she said, rather crossly, still keeping her face turned away from
me, "and I'm very sure he wouldn't care to have me. But dad thinks a lot
of him; he might do something of the kind when he gets here. Dear, I
wish they'd hurry along."
She had me at the end of my rope at last, and I felt like breaking away
right there; any one not utterly calloused would, I think, have felt the
same squeamishness with that sort of a tale crowding close. If she had
been expecting bad news of any kind it wouldn't have been so hard to go
on; but I couldn't beat about the bush any longer, so I made the plunge
with what grace I could.
"Lyn, I've got something to tell you about your father and old Hans, and
I'm afraid it's going to hurt," I prefaced gently, and went on before
she could interrupt. "The fellows who held MacRae and me up had someway
got wind of the gold they were packing out. They tried to get it. So far
as I know, they haven't succeeded yet. Rutter tried to tell us where it
was _cached_. There was a fight over it, you see, and he was shot. Mac
and I came across him--but not soon enough." I stopped and got out
cigarette material in an absent sort of way. My lips, I remember, were
almighty dry just then.
"And dad?" Lyn was looking at me intently, and her voice was steady;
that squeezed kind of steadiness that is almost worse than tears.
"He wasn't with Rutter." I drew a long breath and hurried on, slurring
over the worst of it. "They had got separated. Hans was about done when
we found him--he died in a few minutes--but he told us where to go. Then
we went to look for your father. We found him; too late to do any good.
We buried him--both of them--and came on here."
I felt like a beast, as if I had struck her with my fist, but at any
rate, it was all told; all that she need ever know. I sat still and
watched her, wondering nervously what she would do.
It was a strain to sit there silent, for Lyn neither did or said
anything at first. Perhaps she cried afterward, when she got by herself,
but not then; just looked at me, through me, almost, her face white and
drawn into pained lines, and those purple-blue eyes perfectly black. I
got up at last, and put one hand on her shoulder.
"It's hell, little girl, I know." I said this hardly realizing that I
swore. "We can't bring the old man back to life, but we can surely run
down the cold-blooded devils that killed him. I have a crow to pick with
them myself; but that doesn't matter; I'd be in the game anyway. We'll
get them somehow, when Mac gets out and can play his hand again. It was
finding your father and giving him decent burial that kept us out so
long. I don't understand, yet, why Lessard should pitch into MacRae so
hard for doing that much. You know Mac, Lyn, and you know me--we'll do
what we can."
She didn't move for a minute, and the shocked, stricken look in her eyes
grew more intense. Then she dropped her head in the palms of her hands
with a little sobbing cry. "Sarge, I--I wish you'd go, now," she
whispered. "I want to--to be all by myself, for a while. I'll be all
right by and by."
I stood irresolute for a second. It may have been my fancy, but I seemed
to hear her whisper, "Oh, Gordon, Gordon!" Then I hesitated no longer,
but turned away and left her alone with her grief; it was not for me to
comfort her. And when I had walked a hundred yards or more, I looked
back. She was still sitting as I had left her, head bowed on her hands,
and the afternoon sun playing hide-and-seek in the heavy coils of her
tawny-gold hair.