[Illustration: Cover art]
THE LONG ARM
OF THE MOUNTED
BY
JAMES FRENCH DORRANCE
_Author of "Never Fire First"_
_Frontispiece by_
EDWARD C. CASWELL
(Missing from source book)
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1926,
BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
To
ESTHER DORRANCE
OUR BELOVED AUNT
AND
SUBSTITUTE MOTHER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Across Medicine Line
II Rescue Unwelcome
III In the Wrong Party
IV Riding Boot Rivals
V Too Much Luck
VI Sealed Lips
VII Last Warning
VIII Threat of Doubt
IX Bust 'em, Broncho
X Home of Flame
XI Did He Dare?
XII By Single Strand
XIII In Punishment Gulch
XIV His Biggest Debt
XV Trapping for Proof
XVI Clean as a Hound's Tooth
XVII Calling a Bluff
XVIII Rustled to a Finish
XIX Surprises for Flame
XX Poor Branded Man
XXI The Nest of the Crow
XXII Threat of Spikes
XXIII Coming a Cropper
XXIV Out of the Nest
XXV Grip of the Law
THE LONG ARM OF THE MOUNTED
CHAPTER I.
ACROSS MEDICINE LINE.
An inanimate monument of whitewashed stones glistened in the
moonlight as though each boulder was of pure platinum.
Not much to enthuse about, especially were you the one who had helped
in its erection in the years of your youth; yet sight of it gripped
John Childress, sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, much
in the same way as Miss Liberty, down in New York harbor, takes hold
of the immigrant entering the alleged promised land. For the moment
he forgot that he had ever had a part in long-ago boundary-line
marking. A touch of spur, a lunge of willing horse and he was on--he
was across "Medicine Line," thus giving, as did the non-com in his
thoughts, the Indian name to that more-or-less mythical smear which
separates all King George's American acres from all of Uncle Sam's.
Childress was riding a draw in the hills which gave from the States
into the Fire Weed Country of Canada's marvelous West. He wore the
scarlet-blue-gold uniform that knows no stain. The horse he rode, a
gray stallion whose coat glistened like silver in the moonlight,
might have looked white under sun-glare, but in any light he was
_somebody's_ horse.
At the heels of the gray tailed a brindle hound. Poison was his
name--just that all may know his disgrace and have it over with.
Childress had bought the horse down in Missoula, when his service
mount had gone painfully lame from the hard riding of a scouting trip
on the star-spangled side of that mythical boundary line. Poison,
the pup, who had grown to believe that the big gray and he were
kennel-mates, had followed along, in that faithfulness of beast to
beast which passeth human understanding. The sergeant possessed no
bill-of-sale for or to the dog. Repeatedly, in his severest
regimental manner, he had ordered the queer-looking canine home. But
always a snort from the silver beast had countermanded orders. At
that, after closer inspection of Poison, the sergeant decided none
would make pursuit for recovery.
Although Luna was silvering that she'd be gone and night-dark soon
would be there, Childress was not hurrying into the Fire Weed
Country. To be sure, there were ranch-houses where he might have
spent a comfortable night, but, no matter how soft the bed, he must
have suffered because of his uniform. Give him just a week or two, a
visit to a cache already made, and he'd be as plain a looking citizen
as ever forked a horse. He was going into mufti, the penalty for
secret service in the "Royal." To-night he meant to skirt the
region, seeing no one of the local ranchmen. But he was coming back
a plain cow-punch in an effort to solve the problem of stock that
must have been exceedingly sick to drift so regularly across
"Medicine Line."
Childress was a mile beyond the border when the hit-hit-hit of a
horse coming at race-track speed caused him to draw rein and wheel
the silver bulk of his mount across the trail. Came at once a whine
from Poison.
"What's the matter, pup?" he asked, as the hound lofted himself
against the stirrup. "Do you think they've missed you over in the
States and are needing sausage-meat?"
Poison, perhaps realizing his limitations, did not say.
"Don't worry, brute," he said laughing. "You're an alien now and The
Force'll look after you."
As Poison licked the man's rein-tired hand, there came streaking
through the moonlight what looked to be a slender lad astride a rangy
bay. The horse had gone lame in its right forefoot, but was making
speed despite any handicap of pain.
"Pull up a bit, kid!" Childress shouted in time to prevent being run
down by any blind rush. "What's the moonlit hurry."
The bay slid to a stop, almost within touch of the silver and scarlet
apparition which blocked the narrow trail.
"Let me pass--let me pass!" The cry was in a treble that pronounced
the rider either exceeding young, or something else again.
"Sure, you can pass," said Childress. "I don't own this trail. But
you might tell me just what's the all-fired hurry?"
At the moment a fleck of cloud shrugged one side of the moon, putting
all the silver spot-light upon the uniformed sergeant.
"A Mountie!" cried the rider. "Thank God for a Mountie!"
"No desire to deny the uniform of the service," said the sergeant.
"What can I do for you, son?"
For answer, a concealing hat of black felt was swept off and hung
upon the saddle. The cloud took itself still farther from out the
orbit of the moon, which then played all its light upon the reddest
strands of braided hair that ever a girl wrapped around her head.
Such was the trust of the uniform that, honestly worn, never has
failed woman, beast or mere man.
"Son!" laughed Childress. "One on me. What can I do for you,
sister, that you're willing to thank God about in advance?"
The boy-clad girl plunged. "I'm Bernice Gallegher from the Lazy G
Ranch. Some of that damn Yankee bunch down at Crow's Nest has been
running off our stock. Thought I could get away with the boy stuff.
One of our old punchers, the darned renegade, recognized me and
chased me out."
She paused for breath. Sergt. Childress waited anxiously for her
next word. The Crow's Nest renegades over in Montana and their
particular connection with the rustling of stock out of Fire Weed was
the detail which would take him into mufti in the next few days.
"Running me out of the Nest wasn't enough," went on the girl whose
mane looked like flaming gold in the moonlight. "I went to the
nearest county-seat of that State they call Montana. The Nesters
followed, charged me with horse stealing, although this poor beast
has been mine since he was a colt. They got up a posse of roughs
that stood in. Been chasing me all afternoon--running me ragged.
They're right behind me now, and my horse is all in. Any wonder I
thanked the good God for meeting up with a Mountie?"
Years of training in emergency had made Childress a man of instant
decision. For no part of a second did he doubt the girl's story.
And there came confirmation thereof in the distant thud of many
hoofs. To get the flame-haired youngling out of danger zone became
his first consideration.
"We'll swap horses," he suggested, swinging from the silver beast's
saddle. "Off that bay, miss, and on your way. Meet me at Soda
Springs anytime to-morrow and we'll trade back."
The girl tried to obey. But evidently there had been too much
previous strain. As she kicked a boyish leg over the saddle horn,
she collapsed in his arms--absolutely out, in a dead faint.
With suddenly terrified tenderness the sergeant--known throughout The
Force as absolutely "hard boiled"--held her from any possibility of a
fall. The flame head fell against his chest, pillowed upon the honor
ribbons which, through luck and utter unconsciousness of death-fear,
he had brought back from the World War. Her lips were parted, her
eyes closed. But he noticed, as his arms tightened about her and he
leaned to utter anxious words into the fragrance of her hair, that a
rich, healthful color began to spread upward into the creamy-tan of
her cheeks. Recent years in Arctic patrol, where Eskimo squaws
didn't know how to pass out of any picture except from over-feeding
on blubber, hadn't sharpened his experience, but he would have taken
King's oath that no fainting girl ever looked so much like a
blush-rose at dawn.
"Bernice!" he demanded, remembering the name she had given.
As suddenly as she had passed did she snap out of the faint. There
was a more or less spasmodic hold upon him as she caught herself
together.
"Mount the silver beast--quick!" he directed.
"But, sergeant, there are five of them!" she cried. "I counted,
looking back from the top of the hill, just the other side of the
boundary."
"You heard me, girl," he snarled, a tone that few had dared disobey.
"Make a dust away from here."
Bernice Gallegher watched his square-shouldered back, upon the
scarlet coat on which the moon was playing so vividly, as he strode
down the road to face, single-handed, the wild, rough-riding quintet
who had followed the supposed boy, intent upon a necktie-party. For
no fraction of a second had she thought of accepting his generous
offer--considered making a "dust" away from her Providence-sent
protector. Like a streak, she took after him.
The galloping horses of the outlaw posse pounded nearer and nearer.
Sergt. Childress set himself squarely in the road, ready for
King's-name confrontation. The pad-pad of the girl's rushing feet
caused him to turn.
"You--here?" he grumbled, as though disbelieving that his order had
been disobeyed. "Thought I told you--"
"Two guns are better than one against five," she said, panting.
"It's my battle you're fighting and I've the right to help you shoot
it out." From somewhere about her boy clothes she whipped an
automatic.
"Too late," the sergeant groaned, as he saw the lead rider of the
posse top the rise of Medicine Line. "Too late for a get-away.
Behind me, woman!"
Childress would have made a perfect target as he stood mid-trail, the
moon multiplying the brilliance of his uniform. But the weird light
also showed the raiders what he was. Perhaps some of the band had
felt the steel of the Mounted before. At any rate, his sharp "Who
goes?" brought the girl's pursuers to a stop.
"We're chasing a hawse thief," drawled one of the interlopers,
possibly the leader. "Let us pass an' we'll get him."
"Describe the stolen horse and the man you're after," said Childress.
"The Mounted will get him for you."
There was momentary discussion in tones too low to carry to the ears
of the uniformed obstruction.
"Come along with the description, if you're serious," prodded the
sergeant.
"At him and over him, boys," someone of the five suggested.
"Mounties never shoot first, you know."
Five horsemen lined up abreast, completely filling the trail.
Touches of spurs must have ground the sergeant, and the girl behind
him, into the dust, but neither of the two flinched.
With the heel of his boot Childress cut a line across the roadway.
Doubting if any of the Americans could see, in the uncertain light,
what he was about, the trooper explained.
"I've dragged a dead-line. Just try to cross it--any one, or all, of
you--and learn that a Mountie shoots, perhaps not first, but always
last."
"Hell!" growled one of the night riders.
"'Tain't worth the risk," advised another.
Childress waited, gun in hand, until patience ceased to be one of his
virtues. "You're on Canadian soil, gents. The prospect isn't
favorable for any crop of armed invasion. Better head back home
before you start something you can't fertilize. Otherwise I'll have
to take you in charge."
"We're five to one," suggested the leader.
"Five to two," corrected a shrill voice from behind the sergeant.
"Come to it, you cowardly Crows!"
Childress groaned inwardly at this unexpected intervention. Why
couldn't women stay where they were put? Yet, perhaps, the shrilled
invitation turned the tide of conflict. A moment's hesitation and
the rope-carriers from the States turned their horses and trotted
away into the night.
"To whom am I indebted?" asked Bernice as they walked back to their
waiting mounts.
"Suppose we set it down to Lady Luck and your own nerve, young woman."
She might have pouted had there been any chance of his seeing the
same in the flickering light. "But my father, when I tell him about
it to-night, will wish to write a letter to headquarters commending
your bravery."
Childress chuckled. "Child, they wouldn't know what to do with that
up at Ottawa. If your father wants to do a real favor to the
Dominion, you might tell him, for the Mounted, to do his own tracing
of rustled stock and to keep you at home where you doubtless belong."
Childress busied himself quickly with an examination of the bay
horse's injured hoof.
"You're something of a brute, aren't you?" suggested Bernice.
He pretended not to hear. "Your horse," he said, "will carry you
home if you don't crowd him. I'll camp trail-side, right here, so
you needn't fear any change of mind on the part of your friends from
over the border. Good night!"
The accent put upon this last decided the girl.
"Sergeant Brave but Impossible," she said, as she swung herself into
the saddle, snapped a salute and was gone, for once in her flaming
life obeying a man's orders.
When he had spread his slicker and persuaded the pup, Poison, to
serve as pillow, Sergt. Jack Childress thanked the Lord that Canada
grew such women. He drifted into slumber still wondering would this
boy-girl of the range recognize him when clad in mufti. Important it
was that she should not.