PIEGAN TAKES A HAND.
I don't believe a detailed account of how we spent that night would be
classed as wildly interesting; if memory serves me right, it was a
bleak, hungry, comfortless passage of time, and I am willing to let it
go at that. We managed to secure a buffalo steak for breakfast. No man
needed to starve in that country during those days of plentiful game;
but we were handicapped by the necessity of doing our hunting in a very
surreptitious manner. However, we didn't starve; the worst we
experienced was an occasional period of acute hunger, when we didn't
dare fire a shot for fear of revealing our whereabouts.
Nor can I see, now, where we accomplished anything beyond killing time
the following day. To be sure, we scouted faithfully, and once or twice
came perilously near being caught by squads of Mounted Police appearing
from unexpected quarters. Our scouting was so much wasted energy. We got
nowhere near the Police camp; we failed to get a glimpse of any of our
men; and so, for all we knew to the contrary, they might have loaded the
plunder and decamped for other regions. When night again spread its
concealing folds about us, we had only one tangible fact as a reward for
our exertions--Lessard had returned to Fort Walsh--presumably. Early
that morning, escorted by four troopers, he had crossed Lost River and
disappeared in the direction of the post. Of his identity the
field-glasses assured us. But that was the sum total of our acquired
knowledge, and it brought us no nearer the breaking up of the
Goodell-Gregory combination or the recovery of the loot.
So for a third night we were compelled to seek sanctuary in the silent
canyons. And the third day brought us no better luck. At evening we were
constrained to admit that we were simply butting our heads against a
wall--with an ever-present possibility of the wall toppling over and
crushing us flat.
Altogether, we spent five consecutive days hovering around that
collection of law-enforcers, in imminent risk of capture. Each night in
the open was more cheerless than the preceding one, and each day brought
the same sense of futile effort at its close. Twice during that time the
Police camp moved, and we had to be wary, for they scoured the
surrounding territory with painstaking thoroughness. But we felt that
there was yet a chance for us to turn the tables, for Goodell was still
with the troop, and also Gregory; we saw them both the morning of the
fifth day.
"It beats me why they're pecking around over the same ground so much,"
Mac observed. "I suppose they're looking for us, but I'm pretty sure
they haven't had a glimpse of us for three days, and so I don't see why
they should think we're still hanging around. Logically, if we'd got
that bunch of money, we'd be getting out of the country. Lord, I do wish
those four would show their hand--make a move of some kind."
"So do I," I seconded. "We're not doing much good that I can see. And I
think I could play the game with a heap more enthusiasm if I had some
coffee and white bread under my belt once or twice a day. We'll go
hungry, and likewise get a devilish good soaking to-night, or I'm badly
mistaken."
We had checked our horses on the summit of the divide that ran down to
Lost River on one side and on the other sloped away to the southeast.
The wind that was merely a breath at sundown had gathered strength to
itself and now swept across the hill-tops with a resonant roar, piling
layer on layer of murky low-flying clouds into a dense mass overhead.
Night, black as the bottomless pit, walled us in. A fifty-mile breeze
lashed us spitefully, tugging at our shirt-sleeves and drowning our
voices, while we halted on that pinnacle. By the dank breath of the
wind, the ominous overcasting of the sky, all the little signs that a
prairie-wise man learns to read, we knew that a storm was close at hand.
Shelter there was none, nor food, and we stood in need of both.
"You're right," MacRae admitted. "But how are we going to help it?
We'll just have to grin and tough it out."
"I'll tell you how we'll help it," I proposed recklessly, shouting to
make myself heard above the noisy wind. "We can go down and tackle that
bull-train we saw pulling along the foot of the ridge. They'll know
we're on the dodge, but that won't make any difference to them. I know
nearly every bull-whacker that freights out of Benton, and they're a
pretty white bunch. If it's Baker's outfit, especially, we'll be welcome
as flowers in May. You said they'd likely camp at that spring--Ten Mile,
isn't it? What d'ye think? Shall we go down and take a chance? I sure
don't like the look of things up here. It's going to be a rip-snorter of
a night, once it cuts loose."
"I'm ready to go against nearly anything, right now," MacRae frankly
owned. "If you think it's worth trying, why, it's a go with me."
"Let's drift, then," I declared; and straightway we turned our horses
broadside to the wind and tore away for Ten Mile Spring and the
creature comforts I knew were to be had at the white-sheeted wagons we
saw crawling slowly along the Stony Crossing trail late that afternoon.
As Mac had calculated, the freight-train was camped at the Spring; and
it was a mighty good thing for us that MacRae knew that country so well
or we would never have found them, short of riding our horses to a
standstill. Long before we got there the deep-throated thunder was
growling over us, and the clouds spat occasional flurries of rain.
We made the freight camp, however, just as the storm cut loose in deadly
earnest. Luckily for me, it was Baker's outfit. I took a long chance,
and stalked boldly in. And here I was treated to a surprise, one that
afforded both MacRae and me considerable food for thought; Horner, the
wagon-boss, a man I knew well, frankly declared that no one at Fort
Walsh had heard that we were accused of robbery and murder. For that
matter, he said, he didn't care a tinker's dam if we were; he had grub
and bedding and we were welcome to both.
So with this assurance of good-will we picketed our horses close by the
circle of wagons--where we could get to them quickly should any of
Lessard's troop happen into the camp--and prepared to devour the supper
Horner's good-natured cook bestirred himself to make ready. As we filled
our plates and squatted under the canvas that sheltered the cook's
Dutch-oven layout, a man under the hind end of the chuck-wagon propped
himself on elbow and shouted greeting to us. In the semi-dark I couldn't
see his face, but I recognized the voice. It was our friend of the
whisky-keg episode, Piegan Smith.
"Hello, thar, fellers!" he bellowed (Piegan always spoke to a man as if
he were a hundred yards away). "Say, Flood, yuh ain't been t' Benton an'
back already, have yuh?"
"Faith, no," I owned, between mouthfuls, "and it's hard telling when I
will get there. How come you to be pacing along this trail, Piegan? Gone
to freighting in your old age?"
"Not what yuh could notice, I ain't," he snorted. "Catch _me_ whackin'
bulls for a livin'! Naw, I sold my outfit to a goggle-eyed pilgrim that
has an idea buffalo hides is prime all summer. So I'm headed for Benton
to see if I kain't stir up a little excitement now an' then, to pass
away the time till the fall buffalo-run begins."
"If you're looking for excitement, Piegan," MacRae put in dryly, "you'd
better come along with us. We'll introduce you to more different brands
of it in the next few days than Benton could furnish in six months."
"Maybe," Piegan laughed. "But not the brand I'm a-thirstin' for."
Mac was on the point of replying when there came a most unexpected
interruption. I looked up at sound of a startled exclamation, and beheld
the round African physog of Lyn Rowan's colored mammy. But she had no
eyes for me; she stood like a black statue just within the firelight, a
tin bucket in one hand, staring over my head at MacRae.
"Lawd a-me!" she gulped out. "Ef Ah ain't sho'ly laid mah ol' eyes on
Marse Go'don. Is dat sho' 'nuf yo', wid yo' red coat an' all?"
"It sure is, Mammy," Mac answered. "How does it happen you're traveling
this way? I thought you were at Fort Walsh. Is Miss Lyn along?"
"She suttinly am," Mammy Thomas emphatically asserted. "Yo' doan catch
dis chile a-mosyin' obeh dese yeah plains by huh lonesome. Since dey
done brought Miss Lyn's paw in an' planted him, she say dey ain't no use
foh huh to stay in dis yeah redcoat country no longer; so we all packed
up an' sta'ted back foh de lan' ob de free."
MacRae, I am sure, was no more than half through his meal. But he
swallowed the coffee in his cup, and tossed his eating-implements into
the cook's wash-pan.
"I'll go with you, Mammy," he told her. "I want to see Miss Lyn myself."
"Jes' a minute, Marse Go'don," she said. "Ah's got to git some wa'm
watah f'om dis yeah Mr. Cook."
The cook signaled her to help herself from the kettle that bubbled over
the fire, and she filled her bucket and disappeared, chattering volubly,
MacRae at her heels.
I finished my supper more deliberately. There was no occasion for me to
gobble my food and rush off to talk with Lyn Rowan. MacRae, I suspected,
would be inclined to monopolize her for the rest of the evening. So I
ate leisurely, and when done crawled under the wagon beside Piegan Smith
and gave myself up to cigarettes and meditation, while over his pipe
Piegan expressed a most unflattering opinion of the weather.
It was a dirty night, beyond question; one that gave color to Piegan's
prophesy that Milk River would be out of its banks if the storm held
till morning, and that Baker's freight-train would be stalled by mud and
high water for three or four days. I was duly thankful for the shelter
we had found. A tarpaulin stretched from wheel to wheel of the wagon
shut out the driving rain that fled in sheets before the whooping wind.
The lightning-play was hidden behind the drifting cloud-bank, for no
glint of it penetrated the gloom; but the cavernous thunder-bellow
roared intermittently, and a fury of rain drove slantwise against sodden
earth and creaking wagon-tops.
If the next two hours were as slow in passing, to MacRae and Lyn, as
they seemed to me, the two of them had time to dissect and discuss the
hopes and fears and errors of their whole existence, and formulate a new
philosophy of life. Piegan broke a long silence to remark sagely that if
Mac was putting in all this time talking to that "yaller-headed fairy,"
he was a plumb good stayer.
"They're old friends," I told him. "Mac knew her long ago; and all her
people."
"Well, he's in darned agreeable company," Piegan observed. "She's a
mighty fine little woman, far's I've seen. I dunno's I'd know when t'
jar loose m'self, if I knowed her an' she didn't object t' me hangin'
around. But seein' we ain't in on the reception, we might as well get
under the covers, eh? I reckon most everybody in camp's turned in."
Piegan had a bulky roll of bedding under the wagon. Spread to its full
width, it was ample for three ordinary men. We had just got out of our
outside garments and were snuggling down between the blankets when Mac
came slopping through the puddles that were now gathering in every
depression. He crawled under the wagon, shed some of his clothing, and
got into bed with us. But he didn't lie down until he had rolled a
cigarette, and then instead of going to sleep he began talking to
Piegan, asking what seemed to me a lot of rather trifling questions. I
was nearly worn out, and their conversation was nowise interesting to
me, so listening to the monotonous drone of their voices and the steady
beat of falling rain, I went to sleep.
Before a great while I wakened; to speak truthfully, the ungentle voice
of Piegan Smith brought me out of dreamland with a guilty start. MacRae
was still sitting up in bed, and from that part of his speech which
filtered into my ears I gathered that he was recounting to Piegan the
tale of our adventures during the past week. I thought that odd, for Mac
was a close-mouthed beggar as a general thing; but there was no valid
reason why he should not proclaim the story from the hill-tops if he
chose, so I rolled over and pulled the blankets above my head--to
protect my ear-drums if Piegan's astonishment should again find verbal
expression.
The cook's battle-cry of "Grub _pi-i-ile_" wakened me next. A thin line
of yellowish-red in the east betokened the birth of another day, a day
born in elemental turmoil, for the fierce wind was no whit abated, nor
the sullen, driving rain.
"I've enlisted a recruit," MacRae told me in an undertone, as we ate
breakfast. "It struck me that if we had somebody along that we could
trust to ride into that Police camp with his mouth shut and his ears and
eyes open, we might find out something that would show us how the land
lay; even if he accomplished nothing else, he could learn if those
fellows are still with the troop."
"That was why you were making that talk to Piegan last night, was it?" I
said. "Well, from what little I've seen and heard of him, he'd be a
whole team if he's willing to throw in with us and take a chance." Which
was perfectly true. Old Piegan had the reputation, on both sides of the
line, of loving to jump into a one-sided fight for the pure joy of
evening up the odds. He was a boisterous, rough-spoken mortal, but his
heart was big, and set in the right place. And, though I didn't know it
then, he had a grouch against Hicks, who had once upon a time run him
into Fort Walsh in irons on an unjustified suspicion of whisky-running.
That was really what started Piegan in the smuggling business--a desire
to play even, after getting what he called a "damn rough deal."
"He's willing enough," Mac assured me. "Aside from the fact that most
any white man would go out of his way to help a girl like Lyn Rowan,
there's the certainty that the Canadian government will be pretty
generous to anybody who helps round up that crooked bunch and restore
the stolen money. Piegan snorted when I told him we were on the
dodge--that they were trying to nail us for holding up the paymaster.
That's the rottenest part of the whole thing. I think--but then we've
got to do more than think to get ourselves out of this jackpot."
He stopped abruptly, and went on with his breakfast. By the time we were
done eating, the gray light of a bedraggled morning revealed tiny lakes
in every hollow, and each coulée and washout was a miniature torrent of
muddy water--with a promise of more to come in the murky cloud-drift
that overcast the sky. Horner sent out two men to relieve the
night-herders, remarked philosophically "More rain, more rest," and
retired to the shelter of the cook's canvas. His drivers sought cover in
and under the wagons, where they had spent the night. But though mud and
swollen streams might hold back the cumbrous freight outfit, it did not
follow that heavy going would delay the flitting of the thieves, if they
planned such a move; nor would it prevent the Mounted Police from
descending on the Baker outfit if they thought we had taken refuge
there. So we held council of war with Piegan, after which we saddled up
and made ready to tackle the soaked prairies.
While we were packing grub and bedding on Piegan's extra horse, Lyn
joined us, wrapped from head to heel in a yellow slicker. And by the way
Mac greeted her I knew that they had bridged that gap of five years to
their mutual satisfaction; that she was loath to see him set out on a
hazardous mission she presently made plain.
"Let it go, Gordon," she begged. "There's been too much blood shed over
that wretched gold already. Let them have it. I know something dreadful
will happen if you follow it up."
MacRae smiled and shook his head stubbornly. "I'm too deep in, little
woman, to quit now," he told her patiently. "If it was only a matter of
your money, we could get along without it. But Sarge stands to lose a
lot, if we give up at this stage of the game. And besides, I'd always be
more or less on the dodge if this thing isn't cleared up. I've got to
see it through. You wouldn't have me sneak out of this country like a
whipped pup, would you? There's too big an account to settle with those
fellows, Lyn; it's up to us, if we're men. I can't draw back now, till
it's settled for good and all, one way or the other."
[Illustration: "THERE'S BEEN TOO MUCH BLOOD SHED OVER THAT WRETCHED GOLD
ALREADY. LET THEM HAVE IT."
_Page 212._]
"Oh, I know how you feel about it," she sighed. "But even if it comes
out all right, you're still tied here. You know they won't let you go."
"Don't you worry about that," he comforted. "I'll cross that bridge fast
enough when I come to it. You go on to Benton, like a good girl. I feel
it in my bones that we're going to have better luck from now on. And if
we do, you'll see us ride down the Benton hill one of these fine
mornings. Anyway, I'll send you word by Piegan before long."
Piegan was already mounted, watching us whimsically from under the
dripping brim of his hat. I shook hands with Lyn, and swung into my
saddle. And when Mac had kissed her, we crowded through a gap in the
circle of wagons, waved a last good-by, and rode away in the steadily
falling rain.