THE GENTLEMAN WHO RODE IN THE LEAD.
It took us all of the next day to make the trip to Stony Crossing and
back by way of the place where Rutter was buried. Goodell had no fancy,
he said, for a night camp on the prairie when it could be avoided. He
planned to make an early start from Pend d' Oreille, and thus reach Walsh
by riding late the next night. So, well toward evening, we swung back to
the river post. Goodell and his fellows were nowise troubled by the
presence of dead men; they might have been packing so much merchandise,
from their demeanor. But I was a long way from feeling cheerful. The
ghastly burdens, borne none too willingly by the extra horses, put a
damper on me, and I'm a pretty sanguine individual as a rule.
When we had unloaded the bodies from the uneasy horses, and laid them
carefully in a lean-to at the stable-end, we led our mounts inside.
Goodell paused in the doorway and emitted a whistle of surprise at sight
of a horse in one of the stalls. I looked over his shoulder and
recognized at a glance the rangy black MacRae had ridden.
"They must have given Mac's horse to another trooper," I hazarded.
"Not that you could notice," Goodell replied, going on in. "They don't
switch mounts in the Force. If they have now, it's the first time to my
knowledge. When a man's in clink, his nag gets nothing but mild exercise
till his rightful rider gets out. And MacRae got thirty days. Well,
we'll soon find out who rode him in."
I pulled the saddle off my horse, slapped it down on the dirt floor, and
went stalking up to the long cabin. The first man my eyes lighted upon
as I stepped inside was MacRae, humped disconsolately on the edge of a
bunk. I was mighty glad to see him, but I hadn't time to more than say
"hello" before Goodell and the others came in. Mac drew a letter from
his pocket and handed it to Goodell.
He glanced quickly through it, then swept the rest of us with a
quizzical smile. "By Jove! you must have a pull with the old man, Mac,"
he said to MacRae. "I suppose you know what's in this epistle?"
"Partly." Mac answered as though it were no particular concern of his.
"I'm to turn Hicks and Gregory over to you," he read the note again to
be sure of his words, "see that you get a week's supply of grub here,
and then leave you to your own devices. What's the excitement, now?
Piegans on the war-path? Bull-train missing, or whisky-runners getting
too fresh, or what? My word, the major has certainly established a
precedent; you're the first man I've known that got thirty days in clink
and didn't have to serve it to the last, least minute. How the deuce did
you manage it? Put me on, like a good fellow--I might want to get a
sentence suspended some day. Any of us are liable to get it, y'know."
Goodell's tone was full of gentle raillery.
"The high and mighty sent me out to lead a forlorn hope," Mac dryly
responded. "Does that look like a suspended sentence?" He turned his arm
so that we could see the ripped stitching where his sergeant's stripes
had been cut away.
"Tough--but most of us have been there, one time or another," Goodell
observed sympathetically; and with that the subject rested.
Though I was burning to know things, we hadn't the least chance to talk
that evening. Nine lusty-lunged adults in that one room prohibited
confidential speech. Not till next morning, when we rode away from Pend
d' Oreille with our backs to a sun that was lazily clearing the
hill-tops, did MacRae and I have an opportunity to unburden our souls.
When we were fairly under way in the direction of Writing-Stone, Hicks
and Gregory--the breed scout--lagged fifty or sixty yards behind, and
MacRae turned in his saddle and gave me a queer sort of look.
"I wasn't joking last night when I told Goodell that this was something
of a forlorn hope," he said. "Are you ready to take a chance on getting
your throat cut or being shot in the back, Sarge?"
I stared at him a second. It was certainly an astounding question,
coming from that source--more like the language of the villain in a
howling melodrama than a cold-blooded inquiry that called for a serious
answer. But he was looking at me soberly enough; and he wasn't in the
habit of saying startling things, unless there was a fairly solid basis
of truth in them. He was the last man in the world to accuse of saying
or doing anything merely for the sake of effect.
"That depends," I returned. "Why?"
"Because if we find what we're going after that's the sort of formation
we may have to buck against until we get that stuff to Walsh," he
replied coolly. "Beautiful prospect, eh? I reckon you'll understand
better if I tell you how it came about.
"The day you left, Lessard had me up on the carpet again. When he got
through cross-questioning me, he considered a while, and finally said
that under the circumstances he felt that losing my stripes would be
punishment enough for the rank insubordination I'd been guilty of, and
he would therefore revoke the thirty-day sentence. I pricked up my ears
at that, I can tell you, because Lessard isn't built that way at all.
When a man talks to any officer the way I did to him, he gets all that's
coming, and then some for good measure. I began to see light pretty
quick, though. He went on to say that he had spoken to Miss Rowan about
her father, and had learned that without doubt those two old fellows
were headed this way with between forty and fifty thousand dollars in
gold-dust, that they'd washed on Peace River. Since I'd been on the spot
when Rutter died, and knew the Writing-Stone country so well, he thought
I would stand a better show of finding their _cache_ than any one else
he could send out. He wanted to recover that stuff for Miss Rowan, if it
were possible. So he wrote that order to Goodell and started me out to
join you--with a warning to keep our eyes open, for undoubtedly the men
who killed Rutter and held you up would be watching for a chance at us
if we found that gold."
"Very acute reasoning on his part, I'm sure," I interrupted. "We knew
that without his telling. And if he thinks those fellows are hanging
about waiting for a whack at that dust, why doesn't he get out with a
bunch of his troopers and round them up?"
"That's what," Mac grinned. "But wait a minute. This was about three in
the afternoon, and he ordered me to start at once so as to catch you
fellows as soon as possible. I started a few minutes after three. You
remember the paymaster's train left that morning. He had a mounted
escort of six or seven besides his teamster. The MacLeod trail runs less
than twenty miles north of here, you know. I followed it, knowing about
where they'd camp for the night, thinking I'd make their outfit and get
something to eat and a chance to sleep an hour or two; then I could come
on here early in the morning. I got to the place where I had figured
they would stop, about eleven o'clock, but they had made better time
than usual and gone farther, so I quit the trail and struck across the
hills, for I didn't want to ride too far out of my way. When I got on
top of the first divide I ran onto a little spring and stopped to water
my horse and let him pick a bit of grass; I'd been riding eight hours,
and still had quite a jaunt to make. I must have been about three miles
south of the trail then."
He stopped to light the cigarette he had rolled while he talked, and I
kept still, wondering what would come next. MacRae wasn't the man to go
into detail like that unless he had something important to bring out.
"I sat there about an hour, I reckon," he continued. "By that time it
was darker than a stack of black cats, and fixing to storm. I thought I
might as well be moving as sit there and get soaked to the hide. While I
was tinkering with the cinch I thought I heard a couple of shots. Of
course, I craned my neck to listen, and in a second a regular fusillade
broke out--away off, you know; about like a stick of dry wood crackling
in the stove when you're outside the cabin. I loped out of the hollow
by the spring and looked down toward the trail. The red flashes were
breaking out like a bunch of firecrackers, and with pretty much the same
sound. It didn't last long--a minute or so, maybe. I listened for a
while, but there was nothing to be seen and I heard no more shooting.
Now, I knew the pay-wagon was somewhere on that road, and it struck me
that the bunch that got Hans and Rowan and held us up might have tried
the same game on it; and from the noise I judged it hadn't been a
walkaway. It was a wild guess; but I thought I ought to go down and see,
anyway. Single-handed, and in that dark you could almost feel, I knew I
was able to sidestep the trouble, if it should be Indians or anything I
didn't care to get mixed up in.
"I'd gone about a mile down the slope when the lightning began to tear
the sky open. In five minutes the worst of it was right over me, and one
flash came on top of the other so fast it was like a big eye winking
through the clouds. One second the hills and coulées would show plain as
day, and next you'd have to feel to find the ears of your horse. I
pulled up, for I didn't care to go down there with all that
lightning-play to make a shining mark of me, and while I sat there
wondering how long it was going to last, a long, sizzling streak went
zig-zagging up out of the north and another out of the east, and when
they met overhead and the white glare spread over the clouds, it was
like the sun breaking out over the whole country. It lit up every ridge
and hollow for two or three seconds, and showed me four riders tearing
up the slope at a high run. I don't think they saw me at all, for they
passed me, in the dark that shut down after that flash of lightning, so
close that I could hear the pat-a-pat of the hoofs. And when the next
flash came they were out of sight.
"Right after that the rain hit me like a cloudburst. That was over
quick, and by the time it had settled to a drizzle I was down in the
paymaster's camp. Things were sure in an uproar there. Two men killed,
two more crippled, and the paymaster raving like a maniac. I hadn't been
far wide of the mark. The men that passed me on the ridge had held up
the outfit--and looted fifty thousand dollars in cold cash."
"Fifty thousand--the devil!" I broke in. "And they got away with it?"
"With all the ease in the world," MacRae answered calmly. "They made a
sneak on the camp in the dark, clubbed both sentries, and had their guns
on the rest before they knew what was wrong. They got the money, and
every horse in camp. The shooting I heard came off as they started away
with the plunder. Some of the troopers grabbed up their guns and cut
loose at random, and these hold-up people returned the compliment with
deadly effect.
"That isn't all," he continued moodily. "I stayed there till daylight,
and then gathered up their stock. All the thieves wanted of the horses
was to set the outfit afoot for the time being--a trick which bears the
earmarks of the bunch that got in their work on us. They had turned the
horses loose a mile or so away, and I found them grazing together. When
I'd brought them in I got a bite to eat and came on about my own
business.
"Up on the ridge, close by the spring I had stopped at, I came slap on
their track; the four horses had pounded a trail in the wet sod that a
kid could follow. I tore back to the paymaster's camp and begged him to
get his men mounted and we would follow it up. But he wouldn't listen to
such a thing. I don't know why, unless he had some money they had
overlooked and was afraid they might come back for another try at him.
So I went back and hit the trail alone. It led south for a while, and
then east to Sage Creek. This was day before yesterday, you _sabe_. Near
noon I found a place where they'd _cached_ two extra horses in the brush
on Sage Creek. After that their track turned straight west again, and it
was hard to follow, for the ground was drying fast. Finally I had to
quit--couldn't make out hoof-marks any more. And it was so late I had to
lie out that night. I got to Pend d' Oreille yesterday morning two or
three hours after you fellows left for the crossing."
I haven't quite got a gambler's faith in a hunch, or presentiment, or
intuitive conclusion--whatever term one chooses to apply--but from the
moment he spoke of seeing four riders on a ridge during that frolic of
the elements, a crazy idea kept persistently turning over and over in my
mind; and when Mac got that far I blurted it out for what it was worth,
prefacing it with the happenings of the trip from Walsh to Pend
d' Oreille. He listened without manifesting the interest I looked for,
tapping idly on the saddle-horn, and staring straight ahead with an odd
pucker about his mouth.
"I was just going to ask you if you all came through together," he
observed, in a casual tone. "I neglected to say that I got a pretty fair
look at those fellows. In fact, I wouldn't hesitate to swear to the face
of the gentleman who rode in the lead of the four."
"You did? Was it--was my hunch right?" I demanded eagerly.
"I could turn in my saddle and shoot his eye out," MacRae responded
whimsically. "And I don't know but that would be more than justice. Of
course, the others were the men, but I'm positive of Gregory. You see
what we're up against, Sarge.
"That's why," he soberly concluded, "I think we'll have our hands full
if we do locate that stuff. It's a big chunk of money, and a little
thing like killing a man or two won't trouble them. We'll be watched
every minute of the time that we prowl around those painted rocks;
that's a cinch. And when we've pulled the chestnut out of the fire
they'll gobble it--if there's the ghost of a chance."
While I was digesting this unpalatable information, Hicks and Gregory
spurred abreast of us; for the remainder of the journey we four rode
elbow to elbow, and conversation was scant.
Mid-afternoon found us camped under the Stone. Once on the ground, I
began to think we were in no immediate danger of getting our throats cut
for the sake of the treasure. Rutter had said "under the Stone"--and the
vagueness of his words came home to me with considerable force, for the
Stone, roughly estimated, was a good mile in length. It paralleled the
river, a perpendicular wall of gray sandstone. An aptly-named place;
wherever a ledge offered foothold, and even in places that seemed wholly
beyond reach of human hands, the bald front of the cliff was chiseled
with rude traceries--the picture-writing of the Blackfoot tribe. The
history of a thousand battles and buffalo-hunts was written there. And
somewhere at the foot of that mile-long cliff, under the uncouth figures
carved by the red men in their hour of triumphant ease, rested that
which we had come to find. I sat with my back against a cottonwood and
smoked a cigarette while I considered the impassive front of
Writing-On-the-Stone; and the fruit of my consideration was that he who
sought for the needle in the haystack had no more difficult task than
ours.
In due time we ate supper, and dark spread its mantle over the land.
Then MacRae and I crawled up on a projecting ledge of rock to roll out
our blankets--in a place where we could not well be surprised. Not that
either of us anticipated anything of the sort so early in the game; when
we had found what we were after, that would come. But the mere fact
that we were all playing a part made us incline to caution. I don't know
if we betrayed our knowledge or suspicions to Hicks and Gregory, but it
was a good deal of an effort to treat those red-handed scoundrels as if
they were legitimate partners in a risky enterprise. We had to do it,
though. Until they showed their hand we could do nothing but stand pat
and wait for developments; and if they watched us unobtrusively, we did
the same by them. It is not exactly soothing to the nerves, however, to
be in touch all day and then lie down to sleep at night within a few
feet of men whom you imagine are only awaiting the proper moment to
introduce a chunk of lead into your system or slip a knife under your
fifth rib. I can't truthfully say that I slept soundly on that ledge.