CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SPOILS OF WAR.
All things considered, it was a joyous knot of humanity that gathered onthat sand-bar--if one excepts the two plunderers who were tied hard andfast, their most cheerful outlook a speedy trial with a hangman's nooseat the finish. I recollect that we shook hands all around, and that ourtongues wagged extravagantly, regardless of whoever else might bespeaking. We settled down before long, however, remembering that we werenot altogether out of the woods.
The fire by this time had, to a great extent, beaten itself out on theopposite bank, and with nothing left but a few smoldering brush-patches,the smoke continued to lift and give us sundry glimpses of the blackdesolation that spread to the north. So far as we knew, the wind hadcarried no sparks across the river to fire the south side and drive usback to the barrenness of the burned lands. And with the certainty thatLyn was safe, and that we were beyond disputing masters of thesituation, came consciousness of hunger and great bodily weariness. Itwas almost twenty-four hours since we had eaten, and we were simplyravenous. As a start toward an orderly method of procedure, we began byre-dressing Piegan's punctured arm, which had begun to bleed again;though it was by no means as serious a hurt as it might have been.Piegan himself seemed to consider it a good deal of a joke on him, andwhen I remarked that I failed to see how a bullet-hole through any partof one's person could be regarded in a humorous light, Piegan snorted,and told me that I would know more when I grew up. A little ventilation,he declared, was something a man's system needed every year or two.
Then we unsaddled and unpacked the horses, and moved them up on thegrassy flat. Piegan elected himself guard over the prisoners, while therest of us cooked a belated breakfast, and he assured them repeatedlythat he would be delighted to have them make a break, so that he couldhave the pleasure of perforating their individual and collective hides.I really believe the old rascal meant it, too; he succeeded, at least,in giving that impression, and his crippled arm was no handicap tohim--he could juggle a six-shooter right or left-handed with amazingdexterity.
Lyn substantiated Goodell's story in every detail, so far as it haddealt with her, and she told me, while we pottered about the fire, howshe waited her chance when they made camp in Sage Creek, and, snatchingLessard's gun, ran for it in the dark.
"I didn't really know where I was," she told me naively. "So I thoughtI'd better hide till daylight and watch them go before I started. Then Icould try and make my way back to the freight outfit--I felt sure theywould either wait for me or send a man back to Walsh when I didn't comeback. I was hiding in those cottonwoods when you came stealing in therethis morning. You were so quiet, I couldn't tell who it was--I thoughtperhaps they were still hunting for me; they did, you know--they wererummaging around after me for a long time. But I never dreamed it couldbe you and Gordon. So I sneaked down to the river and crossed; I wasdeadly afraid they'd find me, and I thought once I was on the other sideI could hear them coming, and scuttle away in the brush. Then aboutdaylight I heard some shooting, and wondered if they had been followed.I didn't dare cross the river and start over the hills with that firecoming, and the smoke so thick I couldn't tell a hill from a hollow. Iwaited a while longer--I was in this brush up here"--she pointed to aplace almost opposite--"and in a little while I heard more shooting, andin a minute or so, he"--indicating Hicks--"came splashing through theriver. He was on the sand-bar before I could see him clearly, and comingstraight toward where I was huddled in the brush. Oh, but I wasfrightened, and before I knew it, almost, I poked the gun between thebranches and fired at his head as straight as I could--and he fell offhis horse. Then I ran, before any more of them came. And that's reallyall there is to it. I was plodding up the river, when I heard Gordonshouting two or three hundred yards behind. Of course I knew his voice,and stopped. But dear me! this seems like a bad dream, or maybe I oughtto say a good one. I hope you won't all disappear in the smoke."
"Don't you worry," MacRae assured her. "When we vanish in the smokewe'll take you with us."
After we had eaten we made a systematic search of packs andsaddle-pockets, and when we had finished there was more of the root ofall evil in sight than I have laid my eyes on at any one time before orsince. The gold that had drawn us into the game was there in the samelong, buckskin sacks, a load for one horse. The government money, lootedfrom the paymaster, part gold coin and part bills, they had divided, andit was stowed in various places. Lessard's saddle-pockets were crammed,and likewise those of Hicks and Gregory. Bevans' _anqueros_, which I hadtaken from his dead horse, yielded a goodly sum. Altogether, we countedsome seventy-odd thousand dollars, exclusive of the gold-dust in thesacks.
"There's a good deal more than that, according to Goodell's figures,"MacRae commented. "Lessard must have got away with quite a sum from thepost. I daresay the pockets of the combination hold the rest. But Idon't hanker to search a dead man, and that can wait till we get toWalsh."
"Yuh goin' t' lug this coyote bait t' Fort Walsh?" Piegan inquired. "I'dleave 'em right here without the ceremony uh plantin'. An' I vote righthere an' now t' neck these other two geesers together an' run 'em off'na high bank into deep water."
"I'd vote with you, so far as my personal feeling in the matter goes,"MacRae replied. "But we've got a lot of mighty black marks against us,right now, and we're going in there to relate a most amazing tale. Ofcourse, we can prove every word of it. But I reckon we'll have to takethese two carcasses along as a sort of corroborative evidence. Everyconfounded captain in the Force will have to view them officially; theywouldn't take our word for their being dead. So it would only delay theclearing up of things to leave them here. These other jaspers will lenda fine decorative effect to the noosed end of a three-quarter-inch ropefor their part in the play--unless Canadian justice miscarries, whichdoesn't often happen if you give it time enough to get at the root ofthings."
Much as we had accomplished, we still had a problem or two ahead of us.While we didn't reckon on having to defend ourselves against thepreposterous charge of holding up the paymaster, there was that littlematter of violent assault on the persons of three uniformedrepresentatives of Northwestern law--assault, indeed, with deadlyweapons; also the forcible sequestration of government property in theshape of three troop-horses with complete riding appurtenances; theuttering of threats; all of which was strictly against the peace anddignity of the Crown and the statutes made and provided. No man issupposed, as MacRae had pointed out to me after we'd held up those threetroopers, to inflict a compound fracture on one law in his efforts topreserve another. But it had been necessary for us to do so, and we hadjustified our judgment in playing a lone hand and upsetting Lessard'ssmoothly conceived plan to lay us by the heels while he and his thugsgot away with the plunder. We had broken up as hard a combination asever matched itself against the scarlet-coated keepers of the law; wehad gathered them in with the loot intact, and for this signal servicewe had hopes that the powers that be would overlook the break we made onLost River ridge. Lessard had created a damnatory piece of evidenceagainst himself by lifting the post funds; that in itself would bearwitness to the truth of our story. It might take the authorities a whileto get the proper focus on the tangle, but we could stand that, seeingthat we had won against staggering odds.
From the mouth of Sage Creek to Fort Walsh it is a fraction over fiftymiles, across comparatively flat country. By the time our breakfast wasdone we calculated it to be ten o'clock. We had the half of a longmid-summer day to make it. So, partly because we might find the fullfifty miles an ash-strewn waste, fodderless, blackened, where anafternoon halt would be a dreary sojourn, and partly for the sake of thethree good horses we had pushed so unmercifully through the early hoursof the night, we laid on the grassy river-bottom till noon. Then wepacked, placed the sullen captives in the saddle with hands lashedstoutly, mounted our horses and recrossed the river. Once on the uplandswe struck the long trot--eight hours of daylight to make fifty miles.And we made it.
CHAPTER XXIV.
r />
THE PIPE OF PEACE.
Twenty minutes after the sunset gun awoke the echoes along Battle Creekwe slipped quietly into Fort Walsh and drew rein before the officialquarters of the officer of the day; a stiffened, saddle-weary group,grimy with the sooty ash of burned prairies. From the near-by barrackstroopers craned through windows, and gathered in doorways. For a momentI thought the office was deserted, but before we had time to dismount,the captain ranking next to Lessard appeared from within, and behind himcame a medium-sized man, gray-haired and pleasant of countenance, atsight of whom MacRae straightened in his saddle with a stifledexclamation and repeated the military salute.
The captain stared in frank astonishment as MacRae got stiffly out ofhis saddle and helped Lyn to the ground. Then he snapped out some sharpquestion, but the gray-haired one silenced him with a gesture.
"Softly, softly, Stone," he said. "Let the man explain voluntarily."
"Beg to report, sir," MacRae began evenly, "that we have captured themen who robbed Flood, murdered those two miners, and held up thepaymaster. Also that we have recovered all the stolen money."
"What sort of cock-and-bull story is this?" Stone broke in angrily."Preposterous! Orderly, call----"
"Easy, easy now, Captain Stone," the older man cut in sharply. "A mandoesn't make a statement like that without some proof. By the way," heasked abruptly, "how did you manage to elude Major Lessard and get inhere?"
MacRae pointed to one of the horses. "We didn't elude him. You'll findwhat's left of the black-hearted devil under that canvas," he answeredcoolly. "Lessard was at the bottom of the crookedness. We've packed himand Paul Gregory fifty miles for you to see."
"Ha!" the old fellow seemed not so surprised as I had expected. Heglanced over the lot of us and let another long-drawn "ha" escape.
"May I ask a favor, Colonel Allen?" MacRae continued. "This lady has hada hard day. Will you excuse her, for the present? We have a story totell that you may find hard to credit."
The colonel (I'd heard of him before; I knew when MacRae spoke his namethat he was Commander-in-Chief of the Northwest Mounted Police, thebiggest gun of all) favored us with another appraising stare.
"These men, I take it, are prisoners?" he said, pointing to Hicks andBevans.
"You bet your sweet life them's prisoners," Piegan broke in withcheerful assurance. "Them gentlemen is candidates for a rope necktieapiece--nice perfessional assassins t' have in the Police!"
Allen turned to the orderly. "A detail of four from the guardhouse onthe double-quick," he commanded.
Captain Stone stood by gnawing his mustache while Allen listenedunmoved as MacRae pointed out the horse on which was packed the bulk ofthe loot, and gave him a brief outline of the abduction and thesubsequent fight at the mouth of Sage Creek. The orderly returned withthe detail, and Allen courteously sent him to escort Lyn to thehospitality of Bat Perkins' wife, as MacRae asked. After which the guardmarshaled Piegan, MacRae, and me, along with Hicks and Bevans, into theroom where MacRae and Lessard had clashed that memorable day. Then theycarried in the two bodies and laid them on the floor, and last of allthe pack that held Hank Rowan's gold and the government currency.
While this was being done an orderly flitted from house to house onofficers' row; the calm, pleasant-voiced, shrewd old Commissionergathered his captains about him for a semi-official hearing. The duskfaded into night. Here and there about the post lights began to twinkle.We stood about in the ante-room, silent under the vigilant eye of theguard. After an uncertain period of waiting, the orderly called "GordonMacRae," and the inquisition began.
One at a time they put us on the rack--probing each man's story down tothe smallest detail. It was long after midnight when the questioning wasat an end. The finale came when a trooper searched the bodies of Lessardand Gregory, and relieved Hicks and Bevans of the plunder that was stillconcealed about their persons. They counted the money solemnly, on thesame desk by which Lessard stood when MacRae flung that hot challenge inhis teeth, and lost his stripes as the penalty. Outside, the wind aroseand whoo-_ee_-ed around the corner of the log building; inside, therewas a strained quiet, broken only by the occasional rattle of a loosewindow, the steady chink--chink of coin slipping through fingers, thecrisp rustle of bills, like new silk. And when it was done Allen leanedback in his chair, patting the arm of it with one hand, and surveyed theneatly piled money and the three buckskin sacks on the desk before him.Then he stood up, very erect and stern in the yellow lamplight.
"Take those men to the guardhouse," he ordered curtly, pointing anaccusing finger at Hicks and Bevans. "Iron them securely--securely!"
He turned to me. "I regret that it will be necessary for you to waitsome little time, Flood, before your money can be restored to you," hesaid in a pleasanter tone. "There will be certain formalities to gothrough, you understand. You will also be required as a witness at theforthcoming trial. We shall be glad to furnish you and Smith withcomfortable quarters until then. It is late, but MacRae knows thesebarracks, and doubtless he can find you a temporary sleeping place.And, in conclusion, I wish to compliment all three of you on thecourage and resource you displayed in tracking down these damnablescoundrels--_damnable_ scoundrels."
He fairly exploded that last phrase. I daresay it was something of ablow to his pride in the Force to learn that such deviltry had actuallybeen fathered by one of his trusted officers; something the samesorrowful anger that stirs a man when one of his own kin goes wrong.Then, as if he were half-ashamed of his burst of feeling, he dismissedus with a wave of his hand and a gruff "That's all, to-night."
* * * * *
That practically was the finish of the thing. There was, of course, atrial, at which Hicks and Bevans were convicted out of hand and dulysentenced to be hung--a sentence that was carried out with neatness anddespatch in the near future. Also, I did manage, in the fullness oftime, to deliver La Pere's ten thousand dollars without furthergun-play.
Colonel Allen knew a good man when he saw one--he was not long indemonstrating that fact. When everything was straightened out,MacRae--urged thereto by Lyn--made a straightforward request forhonorable discharge But he did not get it. Instead, the gray-hairedCommissioner calmly offered him promotion to an Inspectorship, which isequivalent to the rank of a captain, and carries pay of two thousand ayear. And MacRae, of course, accepted.
The day he cast off the old red jacket of the rank and file and put onthe black uniform with braid looped back and forth across the front ofit, and gold hieroglyphics on the collar, Piegan Smith and I stood upwith him and Lyn and helped them get fitted to double harness. Not thatthere was any lack of other folk; indeed, it seemed to me that theofficial contingent of Fort Walsh had turned out en masse to attend theceremony. But Piegan and I were the star guests.
* * * * *
Ah, well, we can't always be young and full of the pure joy of living.One must grow old. And inevitably one looks back with a pang, and sighsfor the vanished days. But Time keeps his scythe a-swinging, and we goout--like a snuffed candle. We _lived_, though, we who frolicked alongthe forty-ninth parallel when Civilization stood afar and viewed thescene askance; but she came down upon us and took possession fast enoughwhen that wild land was partly tamed, and now few are left of those whoknew and loved the old West, its perils, its hardships, its bigness ofheart and readiness of hand. Such of us as remain are like the buffalopenned in national parks--a sorry remnant of the days that were.
THE END.
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