IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY.
From then until near noon we worked our passage if ever men did. On the
high benches it was not so bad for the springy, porous turf soaked up
the excessive moisture and held its firmness tolerably well. But every
bank of any steepness meant a helter-skelter slide to its foot, with
either a bog-hole or swimming water when we got there, and getting up
the opposite hill was like climbing a greased pole--except that there
was no purse at the top to reward our perseverance. Between the
succeeding tablelands lay gumbo flats where the saturated clay hung to
the feet of our horses like so much glue, or opened under hoof-pressure
and swallowed them to the knees. So that our going was slow and
wearisome.
About mid-day the storm gradually changed from unceasing downpour to
squally outbursts, followed by banks of impenetrable fog that would
shut down on us solidly for a few minutes, then vanish like the good
intentions of yesterday; the wind switched a few points and settled to a
steady gale which lashed the spent clouds into hurrying ships of the
air, scudding full-sail before the droning breeze. Before long little
patches of blue began to peep warily through narrow spaces above. The
wind-blown rain-makers lost their leaden hue and became a soft
pearl-gray, all fleecy white around the edges. Then bars of warm
sunshine poured through the widening rifts and the whole rain-washed
land lay around us like a great checker-board whereon black
cloud-shadows chased each other madly over prairies yellow with the hot
August sun and gray-green in the hollows where the grass took on a new
lease of life.
That night we camped west of Lost River, lying prudently in a
brush-grown coulée, for we were within sight of the Police camp--by
grace of the field-glasses. At sundown the ground had dried to such a
degree that a horse could lift foot without raising with it an abnormal
portion of the Northwest. The wind veered still farther to the south,
blowing strong and warm, sucking greedily the surplus moisture from the
saturated earth. So we resolved ourselves into a committee of ways and
means and decided that since the footing promised to be normal in the
morning the troop would likely scatter out, might even move camp, and
therefore it behooved us to get in touch with them at once; accordingly
Piegan rode away to spend the night in the Police tents, with a tale of
horses strayed from Baker's outfit to account for his wandering. From
our nook in the ridge he could easily make it by riding a little after
dark.
"Goodell and Gregory and Hicks you know," said MacRae. "Bevans is a
second edition of Hicks, only not so tall by two or three inches--a
square-shouldered, good-looking brute, with light hair and steel-gray
eyes and a short brown mustache. He has an ugly scar--a
knife-cut--across the back of one hand; you can't mistake him if you get
sight of him. Stick around the camp in the morning if you can manage it,
till they start, and notice which way all those fellows go. The sooner
we get our hands on one or more of them the better we'll be able to get
at the bottom of this; I reckon we could find a way to make him talk. Of
course, if anything out of the ordinary comes up you'll have to use your
own judgment; you know just as much as we do, now. And we'll wait here
for you unless they jump us up. In that case we'll try and round up
somewhere between here and Ten Mile."
"Right yuh are, old-timer," Piegan responded. "I'll do the best I can.
Yuh want t' keep your eye glued t' that peep-glass in the mornin', and
not overlook no motions. Yuh kain't tell what might come up. So-long!"
And away he went.
When he was gone from sight we built a tiny fire in the scrub--for it
was twilight, at which time keen eyes are needed to detect either smoke
or fire, except at close range--and cooked our supper. That done, we
smothered what few embers remained and laid us down to sleep. That
wasn't much of a success, however. We had got into action again, with
more of a chance to bring about certain desired results, and inevitably
we laid awake reckoning up the chances for and against a happy
conclusion to our little expedition.
"It's a wonder," I said, as the thought occurred to me, "that Lyn quit
Walsh so soon. Why didn't she stay a while longer and see if these
famous preservers of the peace wouldn't manage to gather in the men who
killed her father? Why, hang it! she didn't even wait to see if you
found that stuff at the Stone--and Lessard must have told her that
somebody had gone to look for it."
Mac snapped out an oath in the dark. "Lessard simply lost his head," he
growled. "Damn him! He told her that he had sent us to look for it, and
that we had taken advantage of the opportunity to rob the paymaster. Oh,
he painted us good and black, I tell you. Then he had the nerve to ask
her to marry him. And he was so infernally insistent about it, that she
was forced to pull up and get away from the post in self-defense. That's
why she left so suddenly."
Well, I couldn't find it in my heart to blame Lessard for that last, so
long as he acted the gentleman about it. In fact, it was to be expected
of almost any man who happened to be thrown in contact with Lyn Rowan
for any length of time. I can't honestly lay claim to being absolutely
immune myself; only my attack had come years earlier, and had not been
virulent enough to make me indulge in any false hopes. It's no crime for
an unattached man to care for a woman; but naturally, MacRae would be
prejudiced against any one who laid siege to a castle he had marked for
his own. I had disliked that big, autocratic major, too, from our first
meeting, but it was pure instinctive antipathy on my part, sharpened,
perhaps, by his outrageous treatment of MacRae.
We dropped the subject forthwith. Lessard's relation to the problem was
a subject we had so far shied around. It was beside the point to indulge
in footless theory. We knew beyond a doubt who were the active agents in
every blow that had been struck, and the first move in the tangle we
sought to unravel was to lay hands on them, violently if necessary, and
through them recover the stolen money. Only by having that in our
possession--so MacRae argued--could we hope to gain credible hearing,
and when that was accomplished whatever part Lessard had played would
develop of itself.
By and by, my brain wearied with fruitless speculation, I began to doze,
and from then till daylight I slept in five-minute snatches.
Dawn brought an access of caution, and we forbore building a fire. Our
horses, which we had picketed in the open overnight, we saddled and tied
out of sight in the brush. Then we ate a cold breakfast and betook
ourselves to the nearest hill-top, where, screened by a huddle of rocks,
we could watch for the coming of Piegan Smith; and, incidentally, keep
an eye on the redcoat camp, though the distance was too great to observe
their movements with any degree of certainty. The most important thing
was to avoid letting a bunch of them ride up on us unheralded.
"They're not setting the earth afire looking for anybody," Mac declared,
when the sun was well started on its ante-meridian journey and there
was still no sign of riders leaving the cluster of tents. "Ah, there
they go."
A squad of mounted men in close formation, so that their scarlet jackets
stood out against the dun prairie like a flame in the dark, rode away
from the camp, halted on the first hill an instant, then scattered
north, south, and west. After that there was no visible stir around the
white-sheeted commissary.
"They're not apt to disturb us if they keep going the opposite
direction," Mac reflected, his eyes conning them through the glasses.
"And neither do they appear to be going to move camp. Therefore, we'll
be likely to see Piegan before long."
But it was some time ere we laid eyes on that gentleman. We didn't see
him leaving the camp--which occasioned us no uneasiness, because a lone
rider could very well get away from there unseen by us, especially if he
was circumspect in his choice of routes, as Piegan would probably be.
Only when two hours had dragged by, and then two more, did we begin to
get anxious. I was lying on my back, staring up at the sky, all sorts
of possible misfortune looming large on my mental horizon, when MacRae,
sweeping the hills with the glasses, grunted satisfaction, and I turned
my head in time to see Piegan appear momentarily on high ground a mile
to the south of us.
"What's he doing off there?" I wondered. "Do you suppose somebody's
following him, that he thinks it necessary to ride clear around us?"
"Hardly; but you can gamble that he isn't riding for his health," Mac
responded. "Anyway, you'll soon know; he's turning."
Piegan swung into the coulée at a fast lope, and we stole carefully down
to meet him. In the brush that concealed our horses Piegan dismounted,
and, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground, began to fill his
pipe.
"First thing," said he, "we're a little behind the times. Your birds has
took wing and flew the coop."
"Took wing--how? And when?" we demanded.
"You'll _sabe_ better, I reckon, if I tell yuh just how I made out,"
Piegan answered, after a pause to light his pipe. "When I got there last
night they was most all asleep. But this mornin' I got a chance to size
up the whole bunch, and nary one uh them jaspers I wanted t' see was in
sight. So whilst we was eatin' breakfast I begins t' quiz, an', one way
an' another, lets on I wanted t' see that Injun scout. One feller up an'
tells me he guess I'll find the breed at Fort Walsh, most likely. After
a while I hears more talk, an' by askin' a few innocent questions I gets
next t' some more. Puttin' this an' that together, this here's the way
she stacks up: Lessard, as you fellers took notice, went in t' Walsh,
takin' several men with him, Gregory bein' among the lot. He leaves
orders that these fellers behind are t' comb the country till he calls
'em off. Yesterday mornin', in the thick uh the storm, a buck trooper
arrives from Walsh, bearin' instructions for Goodell, Hicks an' another
feller, which I reckon is Bevans. So when she clears up a little along
towards noon, these three takes a packadero layout an' starts,
presumable for Medicine Lodge. An' that's all I found out from the
Policemen."
"Scattered them around the country, eh?" Mac commented. "Damn it, we're
just as far behind as ever."
"Hold your hosses a minute," Piegan grinned knowingly. "I said that was
all I found out from the red jackets--but I did a little prognosticatin'
on my own hook. I figured that if them fellers hit the trail yesterday
afternoon as soon as the storm let up, they'd make one hell of a good
plain track in this sloppy goin' an' I was curious t' see if they lit
straight for the Lodge. So when the bunch got out quite a ways, I quits
the camp an' swings round in a wide circle--an' sure enough they'd left
their mark. Three riders an' two pack-hosses. Easy trackin'? Well, I
should say! They'd cut a trail in them doby flats like a bunch uh
gallopin' buffalo. Say, where _is_ Medicine Lodge?"
"Oh, break away, Piegan," Mac impatiently exclaimed. "What are you
trying to get at? You know where the Lodge is as well as I do."
"Well, I always thought I knowed where 'twas," Piegan retorted
spiritedly, a wicked twinkle in his shrewd old eyes. "But it must 'a'
changed location lately, for them fellers rode north a ways, an' then
kept swingin' round till they was headin' due southeast. I follered
their trail t' where yuh seen me turn this way, if yuh was watchin'.
Poor devils"--Piegan grinned covertly while voicing this mock
sympathy--"they must 'a' got lost, I reckon. It really ain't safe for
such pilgrims t' be cavortin' over the prairies with all that boodle in
their jeans. I reckon we'll just naturally have t' pike along after 'em
an' take care of it ourselves. They ain't got such a rip-roarin' start
of us--an' I'm the boy can foller that track from hell t' breakfast an'
back again. So let's eat a bite, an' then straddle our _caballos_ for
some tall ridin'."