AN IDLE AFTERNOON.
For the next hour or two I poked aimlessly around the post buildings,
chafing at the forced inaction and wondering what I would better do
after I'd gone with the squad of redcoats to those graves and helped
bring the bodies in. Even if I had a pack-horse and a grub-stake, it
would be on a par with chasing a rainbow for me to start on a lone hunt
for Hank Rowan's _cache_. I didn't know the Writing-Stone country, and a
man had no business wandering up and down those somber ridges alone,
away from the big freight-trails, unless he was anxious to be among the
"reported missing"--which he sure would be if a bunch of non-treaty
Indians ever got within gunshot of him. I damned Major Lessard earnestly
for what I considered his injustice to MacRae, and wondered if he would
send his troopers out to look for that hypothetical gold-dust. I didn't
see how he could avoid making a bluff at doing so, even if he secretly
classed Rutter's story as a fairy-tale, and I promised myself to find
out what he was going to do before I started in the morning.
While I was sitting with my back against the shaded wall of troop G's
barrack, turning this over in my mind, a Policeman with the insignia of
a sergeant on his sleeve came sauntering leisurely by. He took me in
with an appraising glance, and stopped.
"How d'ye do," he greeted, with a friendly nod. "You're the man that
came in with MacRae, aren't you?"
I laconically admitted that I was.
"The k. o. has detailed me to bring in the bodies of the two men who
were killed," he informed me. "He said that you were going along, and so
I thought I'd hunt you up and tell you that we'll start about seven in
the morning."
"I'll be ready," I assured him.
"Come on over to the bull-pen," he invited cordially. "Sorry we haven't
a canteen in connection, but it's more comfortable over there. Good
place to lop about, y' know; a decent place to sit, and a few books and
cards and that sort of thing. Come along."
I rather liked the man's style, and as he seemed to be really anxious to
make things pleasant for me, I shuffled off the pessimistic mood I was
drifting into, and fell in with his proposal. The "bull-pen" proved to
be a combination reading and lounging-room for the troopers not on duty.
My self-appointed host, whose name was Goodell, waved me to a chair, and
took one opposite. With his feet cocked up on a window-sill, and a
cigarette going, he leaned back in his chair, and our conversation
slackened so that I had a chance to observe my surroundings. It was a
big place, probably fifty feet by a hundred, and quite a number of
redcoats were sprinkled about, some reading, some writing letters, and
two or three groups playing cards. None of them paid any attention to
me, beyond an occasional disinterested glance, until my roving eyes
reached a point directly behind me. Then I became aware that one of a
bunch of four poker-players a few feet distant was regarding me with an
expression that puzzled me. I had turned my head rather quickly and
caught him staring straight at me. It was an odd look, sort of amused,
and speculative; at least, that was the way I read it. Twice in the next
ten minutes I glanced around quickly and caught him sizing me up, as it
were; and then I hitched my chair sidewise, and deliberately began
studying the gentleman to see if I could discover the source of his
interest in me.
I failed in that, but I stopped his confounded quizzical stare. He
wasn't the style of man that I'd care to stir up trouble with, judging
from his size and the shape of his head. He was about my height, but
half as broad again across the shoulders, and his thick, heavy-boned
wrists showed hairy as an ape's when he stretched his arms to deal the
cards. Aside from his physical proportions, there was nothing about the
man to set him apart from his fellows. Half a dozen men in that room had
the same shade of hair and mustache, and the same ordinary blue eyes. I
turned back to the window again, thinking that I was getting nervous as
an old maid, to let a curious look from a stranger stir me like that.
In a few minutes the trooper opposite my friend of the poker-game drew
out, and one of the players called loudly on Goodell to take his place.
Goodell lighted another cigarette and nonchalantly seated himself in the
vacant chair. Then I observed for the first time that the game was for
blood rather than pastime, for Goodell paid for his little pile of white
beans in good, gold coin of the realm. Next to playing a little "draw"
myself, I like to watch the game, and so I moved over where I could see
the bets made and the hands exhibited. And there I stuck till "stables"
sounded, watching the affable sergeant outgeneral his opponents, and
noting with some amusement the sulky look that grew more intensified on
the heavy face of Hicks (as they called the man who had favored me with
that peculiar stare) when Goodell finessed him out of two or three
generous-sized pots.
On my way to attend to my horse, Bat Perkins overtook me.
"Say, old-timer, is it right about Mac losing his stripes and getting
thirty days in the cooler?" he asked in lowered tone.
"It sure is," I answered emphatically.
"What in thunder for?" he inquired resentfully. And because I was aching
to express my candid opinion of Major Lessard and all his works to some
one who would understand my point of view, I told Bat all about
it--omitting any mention of the gold-dust. Only four men, Dobson the
fathead, Lessard, MacRae and myself, knew what little was known of that,
and I felt that I had no license to spread the knowledge further.
"Oh, they sure do hand it to a man if he makes the least break," Bat
sympathized. "Mac's one uh the best men they've got in the Force, an'
they know it, too. Darned if that don't sound queer t' me; what else
could he do? But Lessard's a overbearin' son-of-a-gun all round, and
he's always breakin' out in a new place. Say, you might as well come
over an' stay with me while you're round here. I don't reckon you'll
enjoy herdin' with these rough-necks."
Bat's offer was not one to be overlooked by a man in my circumstances,
so after supper found me sitting in his kitchen making gloomy forecasts
of the future, between cigarettes. Shortly before the moon-faced clock
nailed on the wall struck the hour of nine with a great internal
whirring, some one tapped lightly on the door. Bat himself answered the
knock. His body shut off sight of whoever stood outside. I could just
catch the murmur of a subdued voice. After a few seconds of listening
Bat nodded vigorously, and closed the door. He came back to his chair
grinning pleasantly, and handed me a little package. I tore it open and
found, wrapped tightly about three twenty-dollar gold pieces, an
unsigned note from MacRae. It ran:
"Get after Lessard and see if he won't send an escort with you to
Writing-Stone. If he does, and you find anything, I needn't warn
you to be careful. I don't think he believed our yarn, at all. If
he refuses to act, stay here till I get out. This money will hold
you for a while. It's all I could rustle. If you need more, maybe
Bat can stake you--he will if he can."
That was all. Not a word about Lyn. The stiff-necked devil!
"You know what this is, don't you?" I said to Bat. "How the dickens did
he manage it?"
Bat's grin became even more expansive. "There ain't a buck trooper on
the job," he replied, "that wouldn't help Mac if he got half a show;
he's a white man. It's easy for a prisoner t' slip a note to a friend
that happens t' be mountin' guard. He sent it t' me because I'd be apt
t' know where yuh was. _Sabe?_"
I did. Mac's suggestion was right in line with my own idea. Lessard
could scarcely refuse to do that much, I thought; and it would be rather
unhealthy for those prairie pirates to match themselves against a bunch
of Mounted Policemen who were on their guard--provided we found anything
that was worth fighting over.
A little later Bat spread a bed for me on the kitchen floor, and I
turned in. But my sleep resolved itself into a series of cat-naps. When
the first sunbeam gleamed through the window of Bat's tiny kitchen, I
arose, pulled on my boots and went to feed my horse. And when we had
eaten breakfast I headed straight for Lessard's private quarters. I
expected he would object to talking business out of business hours, but
I didn't care; I wanted to know what he was going to do, before I
started on that three-day trip. Fortunately Lessard was an early bird,
like myself. I met him striding toward the building that seemed to be a
clearing house for the official contingent.
"Good-morning, major," I said, mustering up a semblance of heartiness
that was far from being the genuine article--I didn't like the man and
it galled me to ask anything of him. "I want to ask you something before
I leave. Have you talked this affair over with Miss Rowan?"
"Yes. Why?" He was maddeningly curt, but I pocketed my feelings and
persisted.
"Then you must know beyond a doubt that there was some truth in
Rutter's story," I declared. "Hank Rowan was my friend. I'd go out of my
way any time to help his daughter. Will you send four or five of your
men with me to the Writing-Stone to look for that stuff?" I asked him
point-blank.
He looked me up and down curiously, and did not answer for a minute.
"How do you know where to look?" he suddenly demanded. "Writing-Stone
ridge is ten miles long. What chance would you have of finding anything
in a territory of that extent?" His cold eyes rested on me in a
disagreeable way. "I thought Rutter died before giving you the exact
location."
As a matter of fact, MacRae, in detailing the lurid happenings of that
night, did not repeat the words Rutter had gasped out with his last
breath. He simply said that Hans died after telling us that they had
been attacked, and that the gold was hidden at Writing-Stone. And
Lessard, as I said before, had passed up the gold episode at the time;
all his concern seemed to be for the robbers' apprehension, which was
natural enough since a crime had undoubtedly been committed and he bore
the responsibility of catching and punishing the perpetrators. The
restoration of stolen goods was probably dwarfed in his mind by the
importance of capturing the stealers.
I was vastly interested in that phase of it, too, for I realized that a
speedy gathering in of those men of the mask was my only chance to lay
hold of La Pere's ten thousand; and I had a theory that they were hardly
the sort to be content with that sum, and that Hank Rowan's _cached_
gold would be an excellent bait for them, if it could be uncovered.
Those steadily reiterated phrases, "raw gold--on the rock" might have
some understandable meaning if one were on the spot, but MacRae had kept
that to himself--and I wasn't running a bureau of information for
Lessard's benefit. The Canadian government might trust him, but I
wouldn't--not if he took oath on a stack of Bibles, and gave a cast-iron
bond to play fair. I couldn't give any sound reason for feeling that
way, beyond the shabby treatment he'd given MacRae. But somehow the
man's personality grated on me. Lessard was of the type, rare enough,
that can't be overlooked if one comes in contact with it; a big,
dominant, magnetic brute type that rouses either admiration or
resentment in other ordinary mortals; the kind of a man that women
become fascinated with, and other men invariably hate--and sometimes
fear. I didn't stop to analyze my feeling toward him, just then; but I
had the impulse to keep what little I knew to myself, and I obeyed the
promptings of the sixth sense.
"He did," I answered. "But we can take a chance. Send men that know the
country. Lyn Rowan's kinfolk are few and far between, now; that gold
means a good deal to her, in her present circumstances."
"H--m-m." He mused a few seconds. Then: "If I think there's any
possibility of finding it--well, I'll see what can be done, after those
bodies are brought in. You, I suppose, are ready to start?"
I nodded.
"Sergeant Goodell is in charge of the detail. You'll probably find him
about to go. That's all."
It was like being dismissed from parade; a right-about-face, march!
command straight from the shoulder. Again I was overwhelmed with
thankfulness that the N. W. M. P. had no string on me; I never took
orders from anybody in that tone of voice, and I wanted to shake a
defiant fist under the autocratic major's nose and tell him so. I had
sense enough to see that the time and place was unpropitious for
starting an argument of that sort, so I kept an unperturbed front and
went about my business.