OUTLAWED.
I sat where I was for a while, fingering my sore head and keeping my
thoughts to myself, for I had a keen sense of the mood he was in. For
the second time, through no fault of his own, he had failed to live up
to that tradition of the Force which accepts nothing short of
unqualified victory for a Mounted Policeman when he clashes with
breakers of the law. And, in addition, he had let slip through his
fingers a fortune that belonged to a woman for whom he cared a great
deal more than he was willing to admit. I felt pretty small and ashamed
myself, to think of the ease with which they had left us afoot on the
bald prairie after all our scheming, our precaution against something we
were sure would happen; and there was no responsibility on my
shoulders--except for that ten thousand of La Pere's, which I was
beginning to think I'd looked my last upon. Mac had not only the
knowledge of personal failure--bitter enough, itself, to a man of his
temperament--to gnaw at him, but the prospect of another grilling from
the powers in gold braid. It would have been strange if he hadn't felt
blue.
He came back, however, in a few minutes, and squatting beside me
abstractedly got out papers and tobacco.
"I suppose that bunch will quit the country now," he remarked at length.
"They've got their hands on a heap of money in the last ten days; all
they'll have a chance to grab for some time. And they've come out into
the open. So there's not much doubt of their next move--they'll be on
the wing."
"Well, we have a cinch on identifying them now," I commented. "We've got
that much out of the deal. If the Mounted Police are half as good
man-hunters as they are said to be, they ought to round up that bunch in
short order. Did the black hurt you when he fell?"
"Bruised my leg some," he returned indifferently. Then, scowling at the
remembrance: "If he hadn't caught me right under him I'd have got
action on those two. But the jar threw my six-shooter where I couldn't
reach it, and the carbine was jammed in the stirrup-leather on the wrong
side. I reckon Gregory thought he got me first shot. He would have, too,
only Crow threw up his head and stopped the bullet instead of me. They
had ducked into that coulée by the time I got clear. Hicks grabbed your
horse and took him along. I'm somewhat puzzled to know why they didn't
stand pat and make a clean job of us both. Blast them, anyway!"
"Same here, and more of it," I fervently exclaimed.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Mac abruptly proposed. "We'll have to
make Pend d' Oreille and send word to Walsh. It'll take the whole force
to catch them now."
My gun lay where it had fallen when Hicks whacked me over the head. I
picked it up, replaced the empty cartridge, and shoved it back into the
scabbard. MacRae hoisted the carbine to his shoulder, and we started.
We poked along slowly at first, for I was still a bit dizzy from that
blow. Before long we came to a spring seeping from the hillside, and
when I had bathed my head in the cool water I began to feel more like
myself. Thereafter, we tramped silently across high, dry benches, slid
and scrambled to the bottoms of an endless succession of coulées, and
wearily climbed the steep banks that lay beyond. The cool morning wind
died away; the sun reeled up on its appointed circle, glaring brazenly
into every nook and cranny in the land. Underfoot, the dry sod grew
warm, then hot, till the soles of our boots became instruments of
torture to feet that were sadly galled by fruitless tramping around the
Stone. When a man has grown up in the habit of mounting a horse to
travel any distance over three hundred yards, a walk of twenty
undulating miles over a network of bald ridges and yawning coulées makes
him think that a sulphur-and-brimstone hereafter can't possibly hold
much discomfort that he hasn't sampled. A cowpuncher in high-heeled
riding-boots is handicapped for pedestrianism by both training and
inclination--and that scarred and wrinkled portion of the Northwest is a
mighty poor strolling-ground for any man.
But we kept on, for the simple reason that there was nothing else we
could do. MacRae wasted no breath in words. If the heat and the ungodly
steepness of the hills and the luke-warm water that trickled along the
creek channels ruffled his temper, he made no noise about it, only
pressed doggedly toward Pend d' Oreille. I daresay he thought I was
attending to that part of it, registering a complaint for both of us.
And if I didn't rise to the occasion it was the fault of my limited
vocabulary. I kept a stiff backbone for a while, but presently a futile
rage against circumstances bubbled up and boiled over. I climbed each
succeeding canyon wall oozing perspiration and profanity, and when the
top was reached took fresh breath and damned the Northwest by sections
in a large, fluent manner of speech. In time, however, the foolishness
of this came home to me, and I subsided into spasmodic growling, saving
my wind for the miles yet to cover.
Well past noon we reached the summit of a hog-backed ridge that
overlooked the tortuous windings of Lost River, a waterless channel
between banks that were void of vegetation. The crest of the divide was
studded with great outcroppings of sand-stone, and in the shadow of one
giant rock we laid down to rest before we descended into that barren
valley where the heat-waves shimmered like crepon silk. The cool bit of
earth was good to stretch upon; for nearly an hour we laid there, beyond
reach of the glowing sun; it was worth almost the treasure we had lost
to ease our aching feet. Then reluctantly we started again.
As we stepped from behind the rock three riders came into sight on the
opposite slope of Lost River. A moment's scrutiny assured us that they
were Mounted Policemen. From habit our eyes swept the surrounding
country, and in a moment we observed other groups of mounted men, an
equal distance apart and traveling in the same general direction--like a
round-up sweeping over a cattle-range.
"They're out for somebody. I shouldn't be surprised if they have
smelled out our friends," said MacRae. "And seeing this bunch is heading
right toward us, we might as well take it easy here till they come up."
Returning to the cool shade, we waited till they crossed that miniature
desert. I looked once or twice, and hoped we would not have to walk over
it; I'd seen the Mohave and the Staked Plains, and I knew it was
sizzling hot in that ancient river-bed--it _is_ hot, and dry, when the
heat-waves play tricks with objects seen from afar. Those three riders
moved in a transparent haze, distorted, grotesque figures; now giants,
broad, uncouth shapes; now pigmies astride of horses that progressed
slowly on long, stiltlike legs, again losing form and waving like tall,
slender trees swayed by vagrant winds. After a time they ascended above
the level where the superheated atmosphere played its pranks, and came
riding up the ridge in their true presentment. When they got within
shouting distance we stepped into the sunlight and hailed them.
From the moment that they jerked up their horses at MacRae's call, I
had an odd sense of impending trouble. For an instant it seemed as if
they were about to break for cover; and when they approached us there
was a strained, expectant expression on each tanned face, a wariness in
their actions that looked unnatural to me. The nearer they came the more
did I feel keyed up for some emergency. I can't explain why; that's
something that I don't think will bear logical analysis. Who can explain
the sixth sense that warns a night-herder of a stampede a moment before
the herd jumps off the bed-ground? But that is how I felt--and
immediately it transpired that there was good reason.
They stopped their horses within ten feet of us and dismounted, all
three of them, a corporal and two privates, in the same breath that we
said "hello." The corporal, rather chalky-looking under his tan, stepped
forward and laid a hand on MacRae's shoulder.
"Gordon MacRae and Sarge Flood, in the Queen's name I arrest you for the
robbery of Paymaster Ingstram on the MacLeod trail and the murder of
two of his escort, and I warn you that anything you may say will be used
against you."
He poured it out without pause or inflection, like a lesson well
learned, a little ceremony of speech that it was well to hurry over; and
the two troopers edged nearer, the right hand of each stealing toward
the pistol that rested on his hip. It took nerve to beard us that way,
when one comes to think it over. If we had been guilty of that raid, it
was dollars to doughnuts that we would resist arrest, and according to
the rules and regulations of the Force, they were compelled to take a
long chance. A Mounted Policeman can't use his gun except in
self-defense. He isn't supposed to smoke up a fugitive unless the
fugitive begins to throw lead his way--which method of procedure gives a
man who is, in the vernacular, "on the dodge" all the best of a
situation like that; for it gives an outlaw a chance to take the
initiative, and the first shot often settles an argument of that kind.
The dominating idea, as I understood it, was that the majesty of the law
should prove a sufficiently powerful weapon; and in the main it did. No
thief, murderer, or smuggler ever yet successfully and systematically
defied it. Men have gone to the bad up there--robbed, murdered,
defrauded, killed a Policeman or two, maybe, but in the end were
gathered in by "the riders of the plains" and dealt with according to
their just deserts. So it has come to pass throughout the length and
breadth of the Northwest that "in the Queen's name" out of the mouth of
an unarmed redcoat, with one hand lightly on your shoulder, carries more
weight than a smoking gun.
None of this occurred to me, just then. The one thing that loomed big in
my mind's eye was the monstrous injustice of the accusation. Coming
right on top of what I'd lately experienced at the hands of the men who
had really done that dirty job--my head still tingled from the impact of
Hicks' pistol--it stirred up all the ugliness I was capable of, and a
lot that I had never suspected. No Fort Walsh guardhouse for me! No
lying behind barred windows, with my feet chain-hobbled like a straying
horse, while the slow-moving Canadian courts debated my guilt or
innocence! Not while I had the open prairie underfoot and the summer sky
above, and hands to strike a blow or pull a trigger.
Even had I been alone I think that I was crazy enough, for the moment,
to have matched myself single-handed against the three of them. In which
case I should likely have bidden a premature farewell to all earthly
interests--though I might, perhaps, have managed to take with me a
Policeman or two for company on the long trail. But a queer look that
flashed over MacRae's face, a suggestive drawing back of his arm,
intimated that something of the same was in his mind. Heavens, but a man
can think a lot in the space of time it takes to count three!
I jumped for the two troopers, with a frenzied notion that I could put
them both out of business if MacRae would only attend to the corporal.
The distance didn't permit of gun-play; and, hot as I was, I had the
sense to know that those men weren't responsible for my troubles; I
didn't want to kill them, if I could help it--what I desired above all
else was to get away, and burn powder with Hicks, Gregory and Co., if
powder-burning was to be on the programme. They did try to pull their
guns, but I was too close. I spoiled their good intentions by kicking
one with all the force I could muster, and throwing my arms in a fervent
embrace about the neck of the other.
A number eight box-toed riding-boot planted suddenly in the pit of one's
stomach brings about the same result as a kick from a vigorous Missouri
mule, I should imagine; anyway, that Mounted Policeman was eliminated as
a fighting unit from the instant my toe made connections with his
person. The other fellow and I went to the ground, and our struggle was
of short duration, for Mac bought into the ruction with his carbine for
a club, and under its soothing touch my wiry antagonist ceased from
troubling. I scrambled to my feet and glanced around. The corporal was
sprawled on the grass, his face to the sky.
"We've burned our bridges now, sure as fate," Mac broke out. "Here,
I'll peel the guns off the bunch, and you lead their horses up to the
rock out of sight of these other fellows. If they catch sight of us
milling around here they're apt to swing over this way to see what's
up."
I led the horses close to the boulder and left them standing there while
I hurried back. By that time the fellow I'd kicked had so far recovered
as to sit up, and the look he gave us was a scorcher. MacRae, with
cocked carbine to emphasize his command, ordered him to drag his comrade
to where the horses stood; and I followed after, lugging the insensible
corporal to the same shady place.
"I want to know the how of this," Mac demanded of the trooper. "Who
issued orders for our arrest on this damn fool charge? And when?"
"Lessard give us our orders," the Policeman growled. "He's been out with
a whole bloomin' troop ever since he got word the paymaster 'ad bin
stuck up. We got a commissary along, an' nooned about ten miles east o'
here. After dinner--about two or three hours ago--he lined us up an'
said as 'ow he'd got word that you two fellers 'ad bin identified as
bein' the chaps as pulled off that paymaster row, an' that he wanted
you. Said he 'ad reason t' believe you was some'ers between Lost River
an' the Stone, an' you was t' be captured without fail. An' that's all I
know about it," he concluded frankly, "except that you fellers is bloody
fools t' make a break like this. It'll go that much 'arder with
you--there ain't a bloomin' chance for you t' get away. You might just
as well give up peaceable."
"Oh, don't preach," MacRae protested. "I know all that as well as you
do. Great Scott! Burky, you've known me ever since I joined; do you
imagine for a minute that I was in on that hold-up? Why, you know
better. If I'd done anything so damned rotten, I'd have been out of the
country long before this."
"Orders is orders," Burky sententiously observed. "Headquarters sez
you're t' be took in, an' you'll be took in, no matter what a feller's
private opinion happens t' be. I ain't no bloomin' judge an' jury t'
set on your case, anyway. You'll get a square trial--same as everybody
gets. But you ain't a-helpin' yourself a-cuttin' of didoes like this."
"I haven't time to go into details," Mac told him, "and I don't suppose
you'd believe me if I did. But I've a blamed good reason for not wanting
to put in several months cooling my heels under guard while the men that
got the stuff get clear out of the country. We're going to take two of
these horses, because we'll need them in our business; and we'll leave
your guns at that big rock down the ridge. I don't want to hurt you,
Burky, but if you start making signals to the rest of the bunch before
we get out of sight, you'll go back to Walsh feet first. So be good.
You'll see us again before long."
When we were ready to mount, MacRae fired another question at Burky.
"Say, have you seen anything of Frank Hicks or Paul Gregory to-day?"
"They was both in camp at noon," the trooper replied.
"Huh! They were, eh?" MacRae swung up, and spoke from the saddle. "Well,
if you see them again, tell them we'll sure give them a hard run for
the money. And if you've got your month's pay on you, Burky, you'd
better keep your hand on it while those two pilgrims are about."
We took the third horse along as a precautionary measure. At a boulder
down the ridge we left him, together with their belts, as Mac had
promised. The only bit of their property we kept besides the horses was
a pair of field-glasses--something that we knew would be priceless to
men who were practically outlawed. For the next two hours we slunk like
coyotes in coulée-bottoms and deep washouts, until we saw the commissary
wagon cross the ridge west of Lost River, saw from a safe distance the
brown specks that were riders, casting in wide circles for sight of us
or our trail.
Then MacRae leaned over his saddle-horn and made a wry face at them.
"Hunt, confound you," he said, almost cheerfully. "We'll give you some
hunting to do before you're through with us."