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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, by Ralph Connor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail
+
+Author: Ralph Connor
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2001 [eBook #3247]
+[Most recently updated: March 4, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Donald Lainson and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATROL OF THE SUN DANCE TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+THE PATROL OF THE SUN DANCE TRAIL
+
+By Ralph Connor
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER I. THE TRAIL-RUNNER
+CHAPTER II. HIS COUNTRY'S NEED
+CHAPTER III. A-FISHING WE WILL GO
+CHAPTER IV. THE BIG CHIEF
+CHAPTER V. THE ANCIENT SACRIFICE
+CHAPTER VI. THE ILLUSIVE COPPERHEAD
+CHAPTER VII. THE SARCEE CAMP
+CHAPTER VIII. THE GIRL ON NO. 1.
+CHAPTER IX. THE RIDE UP THE BOW
+CHAPTER X. RAVEN TO THE RESCUE
+CHAPTER XI. SMITH'S WORK
+CHAPTER XII. IN THE SUN DANCE CANYON
+CHAPTER XIII. IN THE BIG WIGWAM
+CHAPTER XIV. “GOOD MAN—GOOD SQUAW”
+CHAPTER XV. THE OUTLAW
+CHAPTER XVI. WAR
+CHAPTER XVII. TO ARMS!
+CHAPTER XVIII. AN OUTLAW, BUT A MAN
+CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT CHIEF
+CHAPTER XX. THE LAST PATROL
+CHAPTER XXI. WHY THE DOCTOR STAYED
+
+
+
+
+THE PATROL OF THE SUN DANCE TRAIL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE TRAIL-RUNNER
+
+
+High up on the hillside in the midst of a rugged group of jack pines the
+Union Jack shook out its folds gallantly in the breeze that swept down
+the Kicking Horse Pass. That gallant flag marked the headquarters of
+Superintendent Strong, of the North West Mounted Police, whose special
+duty it was to preserve law and order along the construction line of the
+Canadian Pacific Railway Company, now pushed west some scores of miles.
+
+Along the tote-road, which ran parallel to the steel, a man, dark of
+skin, slight but wiry, came running, his hard panting, his streaming
+face, his open mouth proclaiming his exhaustion. At a little trail that
+led to the left he paused, noted its course toward the flaunting flag,
+turned into it, then struggled up the rocky hillside till he came to the
+wooden shack, with a deep porch running round it, and surrounded by
+a rustic fence which enclosed a garden whose neatness illustrated a
+characteristic of the British soldier. The runner passed in through the
+gate and up the little gravel walk and began to ascend the steps.
+
+“Halt!” A quick sharp voice arrested him. “What do you want here?” From
+the side of the shack an orderly appeared, neat, trim and dandified in
+appearance, from his polished boots to his wide cowboy hat.
+
+“Beeg Chief,” panted the runner. “Me--see--beeg Chief--queeck.”
+
+The orderly looked him over and hesitated.
+
+“What do you want Big Chief for?”
+
+“Me--want--say somet'ing,” said the little man, fighting to recover his
+breath, “somet'ing beeg--sure beeg.” He made a step toward the door.
+
+“Halt there!” said the orderly sharply. “Keep out, you half-breed!”
+
+“See--beeg Chief--queeck,” panted the half-breed, for so he was, with
+fierce insistence.
+
+The orderly hesitated. A year ago he would have hustled him off the
+porch in short order. But these days were anxious days. Rumors wild
+and terrifying were running through the trails of the dark forest.
+Everywhere were suspicion and unrest. The Indian tribes throughout the
+western territories and in the eastern part of British Columbia, under
+cover of an unwonted quiet, were in a state of excitement, and this none
+knew better than the North West Mounted Police. With stoical unconcern
+the Police patroled their beats, rode in upon the reserves, careless,
+cheery, but with eyes vigilant for signs and with ears alert for
+sounds of the coming storm. Only the Mounted Police, however, and a
+few old-timers who knew the Indians and their half-breed kindred gave
+a single moment's thought to the bare possibility of danger. The
+vast majority of the Canadian people knew nothing of the tempestuous
+gatherings of French half-breed settlers in little hamlets upon the
+northern plains along the Saskatchewan. The fiery resolutions reported
+now and then in the newspapers reciting the wrongs and proclaiming the
+rights of these remote, ignorant, insignificant, half-tamed pioneers
+of civilization roused but faint interest in the minds of the people of
+Canada. Formal resolutions and petitions of rights had been regularly
+sent during the past two years to Ottawa and there as regularly
+pigeon-holed above the desks of deputy ministers. The politicians had
+a somewhat dim notion that there was some sort of row on among the
+“breeds” about Prince Albert and Battleford, but this concerned them
+little. The members of the Opposition found in the resolutions and
+petitions of rights useful ammunition for attack upon the Government. In
+purple periods the leader arraigned the supineness and the indifference
+of the Premier and his Government to “the rights and wrongs of our
+fellow-citizens who, amid the hardships of a pioneer civilization, were
+laying broad and deep the foundations of Empire.” But after the smoke
+and noise of the explosion had passed both Opposition and Government
+speedily forgot the half-breed and his tempestuous gatherings in the
+stores and schoolhouses, at church doors and in open camps, along the
+banks of the far away Saskatchewan.
+
+There were a few men, however, that could not forget. An Indian agent
+here and there with a sense of responsibility beyond the pickings of his
+post, a Hudson Bay factor whose long experience in handling the affairs
+of half-breeds and Indians instructed him to read as from a printed page
+what to others were meaningless and incoherent happenings, and above all
+the officers of the Mounted Police, whose duty it was to preserve the
+“pax Britannica” over some three hundred thousand square miles of Her
+Majesty's dominions in this far northwest reach of Empire, these carried
+night and day an uneasiness in their minds which found vent from time
+to time in reports and telegraphic messages to members of Government and
+other officials at headquarters, who slept on, however, undisturbed. But
+the word was passed along the line of Police posts over the plains and
+far out into British Columbia to watch for signs and to be on guard. The
+Police paid little heed to the high-sounding resolutions of a few angry
+excitable half-breeds, who, daring though they were and thoroughly able
+to give a good account of themselves in any trouble that might arise,
+were quite insignificant in number; but there was another peril, so
+serious, so terrible, that the oldest officer on the force spoke of it
+with face growing grave and with lowered voice--the peril of an Indian
+uprising.
+
+All this and more made the trim orderly hesitate. A runner with news was
+not to be kicked unceremoniously off the porch in these days, but to be
+considered.
+
+“You want to see the Superintendent, eh?”
+
+“Oui, for sure--queeck--run ten mile,” replied the half-breed with angry
+impatience.
+
+“All right,” said the orderly, “what's your name?”
+
+“Name? Me, Pinault--Pierre Pinault. Ah, sacr-r-e! Beeg Chief know
+me--Pinault.” The little man drew himself up.
+
+“All right! Wait!” replied the orderly, and passed into the shack. He
+had hardly disappeared when he was back again, obviously shaken out of
+his correct military form.
+
+“Go in!” he said sharply. “Get a move on! What are you waiting for?”
+
+The half-breed threw him a sidelong glance of contempt and passed
+quickly into the “Beeg Chief's” presence.
+
+Superintendent Strong was a man prompt in decision and prompt in action,
+a man of courage, too, unquestioned, and with that bulldog spirit that
+sees things through to a finish. To these qualities it was that he owed
+his present command, for it was no insignificant business to keep the
+peace and to make the law run along the line of the Canadian Pacific
+Railway through the Kicking Horse Pass during construction days.
+
+The half-breed had been but a few minutes with the Chief when the
+orderly was again startled out of his military decorum by the
+bursting open of the Superintendent's door and the sharp rattle of the
+Superintendent's orders.
+
+“Send Sergeant Ferry to me at once and have my horse and his brought
+round immediately!” The orderly sprang to attention and saluted.
+
+“Yes, sir!” he replied, and swiftly departed.
+
+A few minutes' conference with Sergeant Ferry, a few brief commands to
+the orderly, and the Superintendent and Sergeant were on their way down
+the steep hillside toward the tote-road that led eastward through the
+pass. A half-hour's ride brought them to a trail that led off to the
+south, into which the Superintendent, followed by the Sergeant,
+turned his horse. Not a word was spoken by either man. It was not the
+Superintendent's custom to share his plans with his subordinate officers
+until it became necessary. “What you keep behind your teeth,” was a
+favorite maxim with the Superintendent, “will harm neither yourself nor
+any other man.” They were on the old Kootenay Trail, for a hundred years
+and more the ancient pathway of barter and of war for the Indian tribes
+that hunted the western plains and the foothill country and brought
+their pelts to the coast by way of the Columbia River. Along the lower
+levels the old trail ran, avoiding, with the sure instinct of a skilled
+engineer, nature's obstacles, and taking full advantage of every sloping
+hillside and every open stretch of woods. Now and then, however, the
+trail must needs burrow through a deep thicket of spruce and jack pine
+and scramble up a rocky ridge, where the horses, trained as they were in
+mountain climbing, had all they could do to keep their feet.
+
+Ten miles and more they followed the tortuous trail, skirting mountain
+peaks and burrowing through underbrush, scrambling up rocky ridges and
+sliding down their farther sides, till they came to a park-like country
+where from the grassy sward the big Douglas firs, trimmed clear of lower
+growth and standing spaced apart, lifted on red and glistening trunks
+their lofty crowns of tufted evergreen far above the lesser trees.
+
+As they approached the open country the Superintendent proceeded with
+greater caution, pausing now and then to listen.
+
+“There ought to be a big powwow going on somewhere near,” he said to his
+Sergeant, “but I can hear nothing. Can you?”
+
+The Sergeant leaned over his horse's ears.
+
+“No, sir, not a sound.”
+
+“And yet it can't be far away,” growled the Superintendent.
+
+The trail led through the big firs and dipped into a little grassy
+valley set round with thickets on every side. Into this open glade they
+rode. The Superintendent was plainly disturbed and irritated; irritated
+because surprised and puzzled. Where he had expected to find a big
+Indian powwow he found only a quiet sunny glade in the midst of a silent
+forest. Sergeant Ferry waited behind him in respectful silence, too wise
+to offer any observation upon the situation. Hence in the Superintendent
+grew a deeper irritation.
+
+“Well, I'll be--!” He paused abruptly. The Superintendent rarely used
+profanity. He reserved this form of emphasis for supreme moments. He was
+possessed of a dramatic temperament and appreciated at its full value
+the effect of a climax. The climax had not yet arrived, hence his
+self-control.
+
+“Exactly so,” said the Sergeant, determined to be agreeable.
+
+“What's that?”
+
+“They don't seem to be here, sir,” replied the Sergeant, staring up into
+the trees.
+
+“Where?” cried the Superintendent, following the direction of the
+Sergeant's eyes. “Do you suppose they're a lot of confounded monkeys?”
+
+“Exactly--that is--no, sir, not at all, sir. But--”
+
+“They were to have been here,” said the Superintendent angrily. “My
+information was most positive and trustworthy.”
+
+“Exactly so, sir,” replied the Sergeant. “But they haven't been here at
+all!” The Superintendent impatiently glared at the Sergeant, as if he
+were somehow responsible for this inexplicable failure upon the part of
+the Indians.
+
+“Exactly--that is--no, sir. No sign. Not a sign.” The Sergeant was most
+emphatic.
+
+“Well, then, where in--where--?” The Superintendent felt himself rapidly
+approaching an emotional climax and took himself back with a jerk.
+“Well,” he continued, with obvious self-control, “let's look about a
+bit.”
+
+With keen and practised eyes they searched the glade, and the forest
+round about it, and the trails leading to it.
+
+“Not a sign,” said the Superintendent emphatically, “and for the first
+time in my experience Pinault is wrong--the very first time. He was dead
+sure.”
+
+“Pinault--generally right, sir,” observed the Sergeant.
+
+“Always.”
+
+“Exactly so. But this time--”
+
+“He's been fooled,” declared the Superintendent. “A big sun dance was
+planned for this identical spot. They were all to be here, every tribe
+represented, the Stonies even had been drawn into it, some of the young
+bloods I suppose. And, more than that, the Sioux from across the line.”
+
+“The Sioux, eh?” said the Sergeant. “I didn't know the Sioux were in
+this.”
+
+“Ah, perhaps not, but I have information that the Sioux--in fact--” here
+the Superintendent dropped his voice and unconsciously glanced about
+him, “the Sioux are very much in this, and old Copperhead himself is the
+moving spirit of the whole business.”
+
+“Copperhead!” exclaimed the Sergeant in an equally subdued tone.
+
+“Yes, sir, that old devil is taking a hand in the game. My information
+was that he was to have been here to-day, and, by the Lord Harry! if
+he had been we would have put him where the dogs wouldn't bite him. The
+thing is growing serious.”
+
+“Serious!” exclaimed the Sergeant in unwonted excitement. “You
+just bet--that is exactly so, sir. Why the Sioux must be good for a
+thousand.”
+
+“A thousand!” exclaimed the Superintendent. “I've the most positive
+information that the Sioux could place in the war path two thousand
+fighting-men inside of a month. And old Copperhead is at the bottom
+of it all. We want that old snake, and we want him badly.” And the
+Superintendent swung on to his horse and set off on the return trip.
+
+“Well, sir, we generally get what we want in that way,” volunteered the
+Sergeant, following his chief.
+
+“We do--in the long run. But in this same old Copperhead we have the
+acutest Indian brain in all the western country. Sitting Bull was a
+fighter, Copperhead is a schemer.”
+
+They rode in silence, the Sergeant busy with a dozen schemes whereby
+he might lay old Copperhead by the heels; the Superintendent planning
+likewise. But in the Superintendent's plans the Sergeant had no place.
+The capture of the great Sioux schemer must be entrusted to a cooler
+head than that of the impulsive, daring, loyal-hearted Sergeant.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HIS COUNTRY'S NEED
+
+
+For full five miles they rode in unbroken silence, the Superintendent
+going before with head pressed down on his breast and eyes fixed upon
+the winding trail. A heavy load lay upon him. True, his immediate sphere
+of duty lay along the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but as an
+officer of Her Majesty's North West Mounted Police he shared with the
+other officers of that force the full responsibility of holding in
+steadfast loyalty the tribes of Western Indians. His knowledge of the
+presence in the country of the arch-plotter of the powerful and warlike
+Sioux from across the line entailed a new burden. Well he knew that his
+superior officer would simply expect him to deal with the situation in
+a satisfactory manner. But how, was the puzzle. A mere handful of men
+he had under his immediate command and these dispersed in ones and twos
+along the line of railway, and not one of them fit to cope with the
+cunning and daring Sioux.
+
+With startling abruptness he gave utterance to his thoughts.
+
+“We must get him--and quick. Things are moving too rapidly for any
+delay. The truth is,” he continued, with a deepening impatience in his
+voice, “the truth is we are short-handed. We ought to be able to patrol
+every trail in this country. That old villain has fooled us to-day and
+he'll fool us again. And he has fooled Pinault, the smartest breed we've
+got. He's far too clever to be around loose among our Indians.”
+
+Again they rode along in silence, the Superintendent thinking deeply.
+
+“I know where he is!” he exclaimed suddenly, pulling up his horse. “I
+know where he is--this blessed minute. He's on the Sun Dance Trail
+and in the Sun Dance Canyon, and they're having the biggest kind of a
+powwow.”
+
+“The Sun Dance!” echoed the Sergeant. “By Jove, if only Sergeant Cameron
+were on this job! He knows the Sun Dance inside and out, every foot.”
+
+The Superintendent swung his horse sharply round to face his Sergeant.
+
+“Cameron!” he exclaimed thoughtfully. “Cameron! I believe you're right.
+He's the man--the very man. But,” he added with sudden remembrance,
+“he's left the Force.”
+
+“Left the Force, sir. Yes, sir,” echoed the Sergeant with a grin. “He
+appeared to have a fairly good reason, too.”
+
+“Reason!” snorted the Superintendent. “Reason! What in--? What did he--?
+Why did he pull off that fool stunt at this particular time? A kid like
+him has no business getting married.”
+
+“Mighty fine girl, sir,” suggested the Sergeant warmly. “Mighty lucky
+chap. Not many fellows could resist such a sharp attack as he had.”
+
+“Fine girl! Oh, of course, of course--fine girl certainly. Fine girl.
+But what's that got to do with it?”
+
+“Well, sir,” ventured the Sergeant in a tone of surprise, “a good deal,
+sir, I should say. By Jove, sir, I could have--if I could have pulled it
+off myself--but of course she was an old flame of Cameron's and I'd no
+chance.”
+
+“But the Service, sir!” exclaimed the Superintendent with growing
+indignation. “The Service! Why! Cameron was right in line for promotion.
+He had the making of a most useful officer. And with this trouble coming
+on it was--it was--a highly foolish, indeed a highly reprehensible
+proceeding, sir.” The Superintendent was rapidly mounting his pet hobby,
+which was the Force in which he had the honor to be an officer, the
+far-famed North West Mounted Police. For the Service he had sacrificed
+everything in life, ease, wealth, home, yes, even wife and family, to
+a certain extent. With him the Force was a passion. For it he lived and
+breathed. That anyone should desert it for any cause soever was to him
+an act unexplainable. He almost reckoned it treason.
+
+But the question was one that touched the Sergeant as well, and deeply.
+Hence, though he well knew his Chief's dominant passion, he ventured an
+argument.
+
+“A mighty fine girl, sir, something very special. She saw me through a
+mountain fever once, and I know--”
+
+“Oh, the deuce take it, Sergeant! The girl is all right. I grant you all
+that. But is that any reason why a man should desert the Force? And now
+of all times? He's only a kid. So is she. She can't be twenty-five.”
+
+“Twenty-five? Good Lord, no!” exclaimed the shocked Sergeant. “She isn't
+a day over twenty. Why, look at her. She's--”
+
+“Oh, tut-tut! If she's twenty it makes it all the worse. Why couldn't
+they wait till this fuss was over? Why, sir, when I was twenty--” The
+Superintendent paused abruptly.
+
+“Yes, sir?” The Sergeant's manner was respectful and expectant.
+
+“Never mind,” said the Superintendent. “Why rush the thing, I say?”
+
+“Well, sir, I did hear that there was a sudden change in Cameron's
+home affairs in Scotland, sir. His father died suddenly, I believe. The
+estate was sold up and his sister, the only other child, was left all
+alone. Cameron felt it necessary to get a home together--though I don't
+suppose he needed any excuse. Never saw a man so hard hit myself.”
+
+“Except yourself, Sergeant, eh?” said the Superintendent, relaxing into
+a grim smile.
+
+“Oh, well, of course, sir, I'm not going to deny it. But you see,”
+ continued the Sergeant, his pride being touched, “he had known her
+down East--worked on her father's farm--young gentleman--fresh from
+college--culture, you know, manner--style and that sort of thing--rushed
+her clean off her feet.”
+
+“I thought you said it was Cameron who was the one hard hit?”
+
+“So it was, sir. Hadn't seen her for a couple of years or so. Left her a
+country lass, uncouth, ignorant--at least so they say.”
+
+“Who say?”
+
+“Well, her friends--Dr. Martin and the nurse at the hospital. But I
+can't believe them, simply impossible. That this girl two years
+ago should have been an ignorant, clumsy, uncouth country lass is
+impossible. However, Cameron came on her here, transfigured, glorified
+so to speak, consequently fell over neck in love, went quite batty in
+fact. A secret flame apparently smoldering all these months suddenly
+burst into a blaze--a blaze, by Jove!--regular conflagration. And no
+wonder, sir, when you look at her, her face, her form, her style--”
+
+“Oh, come, Sergeant, we'll move on. Let's keep at the business in hand.
+The question is what's to do. That old snake Copperhead is three hundred
+miles from here on the Sun Dance, plotting hell for this country, and
+we want him. As you say, Cameron's our man. I wonder,” continued the
+Superintendent after a pause, “I wonder if we could get him.”
+
+“I should say certainly not!” replied the Sergeant promptly. “He's only
+a few months married, sir.”
+
+“He might,” mused the Superintendent, “if it were properly put to him.
+It would be a great thing for the Service. He's the man. By the Lord
+Harry, he's the only man! In short,” with a resounding whack upon his
+thigh, “he has got to come. The situation is too serious for trifling.”
+
+“Trifling?” said the Sergeant to himself in undertone.
+
+“We'll go for him. We'll send for him.” The Superintendent turned and
+glanced at his companion.
+
+“Not me, sir, I hope. You can quite see, sir, I'd be a mighty poor
+advocate. Couldn't face those blue eyes, sir. They make me grow quite
+weak. Chills and fever--in short, temporary delirium.”
+
+“Oh, well, Sergeant,” replied the Superintendent, “if it's as bad as
+that--”
+
+“You don't know her, sir. Those eyes! They can burn in blue flame or
+melt in--”
+
+“Oh, yes, yes, I've no doubt.” The Superintendent's voice had a touch of
+pity, if not contempt. “We won't expose you, Sergeant. But all the same
+we'll make a try for Cameron.” His voice grew stern. His lips drew to a
+line. “And we'll get him.”
+
+The Sergeant's horse took a sudden plunge forward.
+
+“Here, you beast!” he cried, with a fierce oath. “Come back here! What's
+the matter with you?” He threw the animal back on his haunches with a
+savage jerk, a most unaccustomed thing with the Sergeant.
+
+“Yes,” pursued the Superintendent, “the situation demands it. Cameron's
+the man. It's his old stamping-ground. He knows every twist of its
+trails. And he's a wonder, a genius for handling just such a business as
+this.”
+
+The Sergeant made no reply. He was apparently having some trouble with
+his horse.
+
+“Of course,” continued the Superintendent, with a glance at his
+Sergeant's face, “it's hard on her, but--” dismissing that feature of
+the case lightly--“in a situation like this everything must give way.
+The latest news is exceedingly grave. The trouble along the Saskatchewan
+looks to me exceedingly serious. These half-breeds there have real
+grievances. I know them well, excitable, turbulent in their spirits,
+uncontrollable, but easily handled if decently treated. They've sent
+their petitions again and again to Ottawa, and here are these Members
+of Parliament making fool speeches, and the Government pooh-poohing the
+whole movement, and meantime Riel orating and organizing.”
+
+“Riel? Who's he?” inquired the Sergeant.
+
+“Riel? You don't know Riel? That's what comes of being an island-bred
+Britisher. You people know nothing outside your own little two by four
+patch on the world's map. Haven't you heard of Riel?”
+
+“Oh, yes, by the way, I've heard about the Johnny. Mixed up in something
+before in this country, wasn't he?”
+
+“Well, rather! The rebel leader of 1870. Cost us some considerable
+trouble, too. There's bound to be mischief where that hair-brained
+four-flusher gets a crowd to listen to him. For egoist though he is, he
+possesses a wonderful power over the half-breeds. He knows how to work.
+And somehow, too, they're suspicious of all Canadians, as they call the
+new settlers from the East, ready to believe anything they're told, and
+with plenty of courage to risk a row.”
+
+“What's the row about, anyway?” inquired the Sergeant. “I could never
+quite get it.”
+
+“Oh, there are many causes. These half-breeds are squatters, many of
+them. They have introduced the same system of survey on the Saskatchewan
+as their ancestors had on the St. Lawrence, and later on the Red, the
+system of 'Strip Farms.' That is, farms with narrow fronts upon the
+river and extending back from a mile to four miles, a poor arrangement
+for farming but mighty fine for social purposes. I tell you, it takes
+the loneliness and isolation out of pioneer life. I've lived among them,
+and the strip-farm survey possesses distinct social advantages. You
+have two rows of houses a few rods apart, and between them the river,
+affording an ice roadway in the winter and a waterway in the summer.
+And to see a flotilla of canoes full of young people, with fiddles and
+concertinas going, paddle down the river on their way to a neighbor's
+house for a dance, is something to remember. For my part I don't wonder
+that these people resent the action of the Government in introducing
+a completely new survey without saying 'by your leave.' There are
+troubles, too, about their land patents.”
+
+“How many of these half-breeds are there anyway?”
+
+“Well, only a few hundreds I should say. But it isn't the half-breeds we
+fear. The mischief of it is they have been sending runners all through
+this country to their red-skin friends and relatives, holding out all
+sorts of promises, the restoration of their hunting grounds to the
+Indians, the establishing of an empire of the North, from which the
+white race shall be excluded. I've heard them. Just enough truth and
+sense in the whole mad scheme to appeal to the Indian mind. The older
+men, the chiefs, are quiet so far, but the young braves are getting out
+of hand. You see they have no longer their ancient excitement of war and
+the chase. Life has grown monotonous, to the young men especially, on
+the reserves. They are chafing under control, and the prospect of a
+fight appeals to them. In every tribe sun dances are being held,
+braves are being made, and from across the other side weapons are being
+introduced. And now that this old snake Copperhead has crossed the
+line the thing takes an ugly look. He's undeniably brainy, a fearless
+fighter, an extraordinary organizer, has great influence with his own
+people and is greatly respected among our tribes. If an Indian war
+should break out with Copperhead running it--well--! That's why it's
+important to get this old devil. And it must be done quietly. Any
+movement in force on our part would set the prairie on fire. The thing
+has got to be done by one or two men. That's why we must have Cameron.”
+
+In spite of his indignation the Sergeant was impressed. Never had he
+heard his Chief discourse at such length, and never had he heard
+his Chief use the word “danger.” It began to dawn upon his mind that
+possibly it might not be such a crime as he had at first considered it
+to lure Cameron away from his newly made home and his newly wedded wife
+to do this bit of service for his country in an hour of serious if not
+desperate need.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A-FISHING WE WILL GO
+
+
+But Sergeant Cameron was done with the Service for ever. An accumulating
+current of events had swept him from his place in the Force, as an
+unheeding traveler crossing a mountain torrent is swept from his feet
+by a raging freshet. The sudden blazing of his smoldering love into a
+consuming flame for the clumsy country girl, for whom two years ago he
+had cherished a pitying affection, threw up upon the horizon of his life
+and into startling clearness a new and absorbing objective. In one brief
+quarter of an hour his life had gathered itself into a single purpose; a
+purpose, to wit, to make a home to which he might bring this girl he had
+come to love with such swift and fierce intensity, to make a home for
+her where she could be his own, and for ever. All the vehement passion
+of his Highland nature was concentrated upon the accomplishing of
+this purpose. That he should ever have come to love Mandy Haley, the
+overworked slattern on her father's Ontario farm, while a thing of
+wonder, was not the chief wonder to him. His wonder now was that he
+should ever have been so besottedly dull of wit and so stupidly unseeing
+as to allow the unlovely exterior of the girl to hide the radiant soul
+within. That in two brief years she had transformed herself into a woman
+of such perfectly balanced efficiency in her profession as nurse, and a
+creature of such fascinating comeliness, was only another proof of his
+own insensate egotism, and another proof, too, of those rare powers that
+slumbered in the girl's soul unknown to herself and to her world. Small
+wonder that with her unfolding Cameron's whole world should become new.
+
+Hard upon this experience the unexpected news of his father's death and
+of the consequent winding up of the tangled affairs of the estate threw
+upon Cameron the responsibility of caring for his young sister, now left
+alone in the Homeland, except for distant kindred of whom they had but
+slight knowledge.
+
+A home was immediately and imperatively necessary, and hence he must at
+once, as a preliminary, be married. Cameron fortunately remembered that
+young Fraser, whom he had known in his Fort Macleod days, was dead keen
+to get rid of the “Big Horn Ranch.” This ranch lay nestling cozily among
+the foothills and in sight of the towering peaks of the Rockies, and was
+so well watered with little lakes and streams that when his eyes fell
+upon it Cameron was conscious of a sharp pang of homesickness, so
+suggestive was it of the beloved Glen Cuagh Oir of his own Homeland.
+There would be a thousand pounds or more left from his father's estate.
+Everybody said it was a safe, indeed a most profitable investment.
+
+A week's leave of absence sufficed for Cameron to close the deal with
+Fraser, a reckless and gallant young Highlander, whose chivalrous soul,
+kindling at Cameron's romantic story, prompted a generous reduction
+in the price of the ranch and its outfit complete. Hence when Mandy's
+shrewd and experienced head had scanned the contract and cast up the
+inventory of steers and horses, with pigs and poultry thrown in, and had
+found nothing amiss with the deal--indeed it was rather better than she
+had hoped--there was no holding of Cameron any longer. Married he would
+be and without delay.
+
+The only drag in the proceedings had come from the Superintendent, who,
+on getting wind of Cameron's purpose, had thought, by promptly promoting
+him from Corporal to Sergeant, to tie him more tightly to the Service
+and hold him, if only for a few months, “till this trouble should blow
+over.” But Cameron knew of no trouble. The trouble was only in the
+Superintendent's mind, or indeed was only a shrewd scheme to hold
+Cameron to his duty. A rancher he would be, and a famous rancher's
+wife Mandy would make. And as for his sister Moira, had she not highly
+specialized in pigs and poultry on the old home farm at the Cuagh Oir?
+There was no stopping the resistless rush of his passionate purpose.
+Everything combined to urge him on. Even his college mate and one time
+football comrade of the old Edinburgh days, the wise, cool-headed Dr.
+Martin, now in charge of the Canadian Pacific Railway Hospital, as
+also the little nurse who, through those momentous months of Mandy's
+transforming, had been to her guide, philosopher and friend, both had
+agreed that there was no good reason for delay. True, Cameron had no
+means of getting inside the doctor's mind and therefore had no knowledge
+of the vision that came nightly to torment him in his dreams and the
+memory that came daily to haunt his waking hours; a vision and a memory
+of a trim little figure in a blue serge gown, of eyes brown, now sunny
+with laughing light, now soft with unshed tears, of hair that got itself
+into a most bewildering perplexity of waves and curls, of lips curving
+deliciously, of a voice with a wonderfully soft Highland accent; the
+vision and memory of Moira, Cameron's sister, as she had appeared to him
+in the Glen Cuagh Oir at her father's door. Had Cameron known of this
+tormenting vision and this haunting memory he might have questioned
+the perfect sincerity of his friend's counsel. But Dr. Martin kept his
+secret well and none shared with him his visions and his dreams.
+
+So there had been only the Superintendent to oppose.
+
+Hence, because no really valid objection could be offered, the marriage
+was made. And with much shrieking of engines--it seemed as if all the
+engines with their crews within a hundred miles had gathered to the
+celebration--with loud thunder of exploding torpedoes, with tumultuous
+cheering of the construction gangs hauled thither on gravel trains,
+with congratulations of railroad officials and of the doctor, with the
+tearful smiles of the little nurse, and with grudging but finally hearty
+good wishes of the Superintendent, they had ridden off down the Kootenay
+Trail for their honeymoon, on their way to the Big Horn Ranch some
+hundreds of miles across the mountains.
+
+There on the Big Horn Ranch through the long summer days together they
+rode the ranges after the cattle, cooking their food in the open and
+camping under the stars where night found them, care-free and deeply
+happy, drinking long full draughts of that mingled wine of life into
+which health and youth and love and God's sweet sun and air poured their
+rare vintage. The world was far away and quite forgotten.
+
+Summer deepened into autumn, the fall round-up was approaching, and
+there came a September day of such limpid light and such nippy sprightly
+air as to suggest to Mandy nothing less than a holiday.
+
+“Let's strike!” she cried to her husband, as she looked out toward
+the rolling hills and the overtopping peaks shining clear in the early
+morning light. “Let's strike and go a-fishing.”
+
+Her husband let his eyes wander over the full curves of her strong and
+supple body and rest upon the face, brown and wholesome, lit with her
+deep blue eyes and crowned with the red-gold masses of her hair, and
+exclaimed:
+
+“You need a holiday, Mandy. I can see it in the drooping lines of your
+figure, and in the paling of your cheeks. In short,” moving toward her,
+“you need some one to care for you.”
+
+“Not just at this moment, young man,” she cried, darting round the
+table. “But, come, what do you say to a day's fishing away up the Little
+Horn?”
+
+“The Little Horn?”
+
+“Yes, you know the little creek running into the Big Horn away up the
+gulch where we went one day in the spring. You said there were fish
+there.”
+
+“Yes, but why 'Little Horn,' pray? And who calls it so? I suppose you
+know that the Big Horn gets its name from the Big Horn, the mountain
+sheep that once roamed the rocks yonder, and in that sense there's no
+Little Horn.”
+
+“Well, 'Little Horn' I call it,” said his wife, “and shall. And if
+the big stream is the Big Horn, surely the little stream should be the
+Little Horn. But what about the fishing? Is it a go?”
+
+“Well, rather! Get the grub, as your Canadian speech hath it.”
+
+“My Canadian speech!” echoed his wife scornfully. “You're just as much
+Canadian as I am.”
+
+“And I shall get the ponies. Half an hour will do for me.”
+
+“And less for me,” cried Mandy, dancing off to her work.
+
+And she was right. For, clever housekeeper that she was, she stood with
+her hamper packed and the fishing tackle ready long before her husband
+appeared with the ponies.
+
+The trail led steadily upward through winding valleys, but for the most
+part along the Big Horn, till as it neared a scraggy pine-wood it bore
+sharply to the left, and, clambering round an immense shoulder of rock,
+it emerged upon a long and comparatively level ridge of land that rolled
+in gentle undulations down into a wide park-like valley set out with
+clumps of birch and poplar, with here and there the shimmer of a lake
+showing between the yellow and brown of the leaves.
+
+“Oh, what a picture!” cried Mandy, reining up her pony. “What a ranch
+that would make, Allan! Who owns it? Why did we never come this way
+before?”
+
+“Piegan Reserve,” said her husband briefly.
+
+“How beautiful! How did they get this particular bit?”
+
+“They gave up a lot for it,” said Cameron drily.
+
+“But think, such a lovely bit of country for a few Indians! How many are
+there?”
+
+“Some hundreds. Five hundred or so. And a tricky bunch they are. They're
+over-fond of cattle to be really desirable neighbors.”
+
+“Well, I think it rather a pity!”
+
+“Look yonder!” cried her husband, sweeping his arm toward the eastern
+horizon. From the height on which they stood a wonderful panorama of
+hill and valley, river, lake and plain lay spread out before them. “All
+that and for nine hundred miles beyond that line these Indians and their
+kin gave up to us under persuasion. There was something due them, eh?
+Let's move on.”
+
+For a mile or more the trail ran along the high plateau skirting the
+Piegan Reserve, where it branched sharply to the right. Cameron paused.
+
+“You see that trail?” pointing to the branch that led to the left and
+downward into the valley. “That is one of the oldest and most famous
+of all Indian trails. It strikes down through the Crow's Nest Pass and
+beyond the pass joins the ancient Sun Dance Trail. That's my old beat.
+And weird things are a-doing along that same old Sun Dance Trail this
+blessed minute or I miss my guess. I venture to say that this old trail
+has often been marked with blood from end to end in the fierce old
+days.”
+
+“Let's go,” said Mandy, with a shudder, and, turning her pony to the
+right, she took the trail that led them down from the plateau, plunged
+into a valley, wound among rocks and thickets of pine till it reached a
+tumbling mountain torrent of gray-blue water, fed from glaciers high up
+between the great peaks beyond.
+
+“My Little Horn!” cried Mandy with delight.
+
+Down by its rushing water they scrambled till they came to a sunny glade
+where the little fretful torrent pitched itself headlong into a deep
+shady pool, whence, as if rested in those quiet deeps, it issued at
+first with gentle murmuring till, out of earshot of the pool, it broke
+again into turbulent raging, brawling its way to the Big Horn below.
+
+Mandy could hardly wait for the unloading and tethering of the ponies.
+
+“Now,” she cried, when all was ready, “for my very first fish. How shall
+I fling this hook and where?”
+
+“Try a cast yonder, just beside that overhanging willow. Don't splash!
+Try again--drop it lightly. That's better. Don't tell me you've never
+cast a fly before.”
+
+“Never in my life.”
+
+“Let it float down a bit. Now back. Hold it up and let it dance there.
+I'll just have a pipe.”
+
+But next moment Cameron's pipe was forgotten. With a shout he sprang to
+his wife's side.
+
+“By Jove, you've got him!”
+
+“No! No! Leave me alone! Just tell me what to do. Go away! Don't touch
+me! Oh-h-h! He's gone!”
+
+“Not a bit. Reel him up--reel him up a little.”
+
+“Oh, I can't reel the thing! Oh! Oh-h-h! Is he gone?”
+
+“Hold up. Don't haul him too quickly--keep him playing. Wait till I get
+the net.” He rushed for the landing net.
+
+“Oh, he's gone! He's gone! Oh, I'm so mad!” She stamped savagely on the
+grass. “He was a monster.”
+
+“They always are,” said her husband gravely. “The fellows that get off,
+I mean.”
+
+“Now you're just laughing at me, and I won't have it! I could just sit
+down and cry! My very first fish!”
+
+“Never mind, Mandy, we'll get him or just as good a one again.”
+
+“Never! He'll never bite again. He isn't such a fool.”
+
+“Well, they do. They're just like the rest of us. They keep nibbling
+till they get caught; else there would be no fun in fishing or in--Now
+try another throw--same place--a little farther down. Ah! That was a
+fine cast. Once more. No, no, not that way. Flip it lightly and if you
+ever get a bite hold your rod so. See? Press the end against your body
+so that you can reel your fish in. And don't hurry these big fellows.
+You lose them and you lose your fun.”
+
+“I don't want the fun,” cried Mandy, “but I do want that fish and I'm
+going to get him.”
+
+“By Jove, I believe you just will!” The young man's dark eyes flashed an
+admiring glance over the strong, supple, swaying figure of the girl
+at his side, whose every move, as she cast her fly, seemed specially
+designed to reveal some new combination of the graceful curves of her
+well-knit body.
+
+“Keep flicking there. You'll get him. He's just sulking. If he only
+knew, he'd hurry up.”
+
+“Knew what?”
+
+“Who was fishing for him.”
+
+“Oh! Oh! I've got him.” The girl was dancing excitedly along the bank.
+“No! Oh, what a wretch! He's gone. Now if I get him you tell me what to
+do, but don't touch me.”
+
+“All you have to do is to hold him steady at the first. Keep your line
+fairly tight. If he begins to plunge, give him line. If he slacks, reel
+in. Keep him nice and steady, just like a horse on the bit.”
+
+“Oh, why didn't you tell me before? I know exactly what that means--just
+like a colt, eh? I can handle a colt.”
+
+“Exactly! Now try lower down--let your fly float down a bit--there.”
+
+Again there was a wild shriek from the girl.
+
+“Oh, I've got him sure! Now get the net.”
+
+“Don't jump about so! Steady now--steady--that's better. Fine! Fine
+work! Let him go a bit--no, check--wind him up. Look out! Not too quick!
+Fine! Oh! Look out! Get him away from that jam! Reel him up! Quick! Now
+play him! Let me help you.”
+
+“Don't you dare touch this rod, Allan Cameron, or there'll be trouble!”
+
+“Quite right--pardon me--quite right. Steady! You'll get him sure. And
+he's a beauty, a perfect Rainbow beauty.”
+
+“Keep quiet, now,” admonished Mandy. “Don't shout so. Tell me quietly
+what to do.”
+
+“Do as you like. You can handle him. Just watch and wait--feel him all
+the time. Ah-h-h! For Heaven's sake don't let him into that jam! There
+he goes up stream! That's better! Good!”
+
+“Don't get so excited! Don't yell so!” again admonished Mandy. “Tell me
+quietly.”
+
+“Quietly? Who's yelling, I'd like to know? Who's excited? I won't say
+another word. I'll get the landing-net ready for the final act.”
+
+“Don't leave me! Tell me just what to do. He's getting tired, I think.”
+
+“Watch him close. Wind him up a bit. Get all the line in you can.
+Steady! Let go! Let go! Let him run! Now wind him again. Wait, hold him
+so, just a moment--a little nearer! Hurrah! Hurrah! I've got him and
+he's a beauty--a perfectly typical Rainbow trout.”
+
+“Oh, you beauty!” cried Mandy, down on her knees beside the trout that
+lay flapping on the grass. “What a shame! Oh, what a shame! Oh, put him
+in again, Allan, I don't want him. Poor dear, what a shame.”
+
+“But we must weigh him, you see,” remonstrated her husband. “And we need
+him for tea, you know. He really doesn't feel it much. There are lots
+more. Try another cast. I'll attend to this chap.”
+
+“I feel just like a murderer,” said Mandy. “But isn't it glorious? Well,
+I'll just try one more. Aren't you going to get your rod out too?”
+
+“Well, rather! What a pool, all unspoiled, all unfished!”
+
+“Does no one fish up here?”
+
+“Yes, the Police come at times from the Fort. And Wyckham, our neighbor.
+And old man Thatcher, a born angler, though he says it's not sport, but
+murder.”
+
+“Why not sport?”
+
+“Why? Old Thatcher said to me one day, 'Them fish would climb a tree to
+get at your hook. That ain't no sport.'”
+
+But sport, and noble sport, they found it through the long afternoon,
+so that, when through the scraggy pines the sun began to show red in the
+western sky, a score or more lusty, glittering, speckled Rainbow trout
+lay on the grass beside the shady pool.
+
+Tired with their sport, they lay upon the grassy sward, luxuriating in
+the warm sun.
+
+“Now, Allan,” cried Mandy, “I'll make tea ready if you get some wood for
+the fire. You ought to be thankful I taught you how to use the ax. Do
+you remember?”
+
+“Thankful? Well, I should say. Do YOU remember that day, Mandy?”
+
+“Remember!” cried the girl, with horror in her tone. “Oh, don't speak of
+it. It's too awful to think of.”
+
+“Awful what?”
+
+“Ugh!” she shuddered, “I can't bear to think of it. I wish you could
+forget.”
+
+“Forget what?”
+
+“What? How can you ask? That awful, horrid, uncouth, sloppy girl.” Again
+Mandy shuddered. “Those hands, big, coarse, red, ugly.”
+
+“Yes,” cried Allan savagely, “the badge of slavery for a whole household
+of folk too ignorant to know the price that was being paid for the
+service rendered them.”
+
+“And the hair,” continued Mandy relentlessly, “uncombed, filthy, horrid.
+And the dress, and--”
+
+“Stop it!” cried Allan peremptorily.
+
+“No, let me go on. The stupid face, the ignorant mind, the uncouth
+speech, the vulgar manners. Oh, I loathe the picture, and I wonder you
+can ever bear to look at her again. And, oh, I wish you could forget.”
+
+“Forget!” The young man's lean, swarthy face seemed to light up with the
+deep glowing fires in his dark eyes. His voice grew vibrant. “Forget!
+Never while I live. Do you know what _I_ remember?”
+
+“Ah, spare me!” moaned his wife, putting her hands over his mouth.
+
+“Do you know what _I_ remember?” he repeated, pulling her hands away and
+holding them fast. “A girl with hands, face, hair, form, dress, manners
+damned to coarseness by a cruel environment? That? No! No! To-day as
+I look back I remember only two blue eyes, deep, deep as wells, soft,
+blue, and wonderfully kind. And I remember all through those days--and
+hard days they were to a green young fool fresh from the Old Country
+trying to keep pace with your farm-bred demon-worker Perkins--I remember
+all through those days a girl that never was too tired with her own
+unending toil to think of others, and especially to help out with many
+a kindness a home-sick, hand-sore, foot-sore stranger who hardly knew a
+buck-saw from a turnip hoe, and was equally strange to the uses of both,
+a girl that feared no shame nor harm in showing her kindness. That's
+what I remember. A girl that made life bearable to a young fool, too
+proud to recognize his own limitations, too blind to see the gifts the
+gods were flinging at him. Oh, what a fool I was with my silly pride of
+family, of superior education and breeding, and with no eye for the
+pure gold of as true and loyal a soul as ever offered itself in daily
+unmurmuring sacrifice for others, and without a thought of sacrifice.
+Fool and dolt! A self-sufficient prig! That's what I remember.”
+
+The girl tore her hands away from him.
+
+“Ah, Allan, my boy,” she cried with a shrill and scornful laugh that
+broke at the end, “how foolishly you talk! And yet I love to hear
+you talk so. I love to hear you. But, oh, let me tell you what else I
+remember of those days!”
+
+“No, no, I will not listen. It's all nonsense.”
+
+“Nonsense! Ah, Allan! Let me tell you this once.” She put her hands upon
+his shoulders and looked steadily into his eyes. “Let me tell you. I've
+never told you once during these six happy months--oh, how happy, I fear
+to think how happy, too much joy, too deep, too wonderful, I'm afraid
+sometimes--but let me tell you what I see, looking back into those old
+days--how far away they seem already and not yet three years past--I
+see a lad so strange, so unlike all I had known, a gallant lad, a very
+knight for grace and gentleness, strong and patient and brave, not
+afraid--ah, that caught me--nothing could make him afraid, not Perkins,
+the brutal bully, not big Mack himself. And this young lad, beating them
+all in the things men love to do, running, the hammer--and--and fighting
+too!--Oh, laddie, laddie, how often did I hold my hands over my heart
+for fear it would burst for pride in you! How often did I check back my
+tears for very joy of loving you! How often did I find myself sick with
+the agony of fear that you should go away from me forever! And then you
+went away, oh, so kindly, so kindly pitiful, your pity stabbing my heart
+with every throb. Why do I tell you this to-day? Let me go through it.
+But it was this very pity stabbing me that awoke in me the resolve that
+one day you would not need to pity me. And then, then I fled from the
+farm and all its dreadful surroundings. And the nurse and Dr. Martin,
+oh how good they were! And all of them helped me. They taught me.
+They scolded me. They were never tired telling me. And with that
+flame burning in my soul all that outer, horrid, awful husk seemed to
+disappear and I escaped, I became all new.”
+
+“You became yourself, yourself, your glorious, splendid, beautiful
+self!” shouted Allan, throwing his arms around her. “And then I found
+you again. Thank God, I found you! And found you for keeps, mine
+forever. Think of that!”
+
+“Forever.” Mandy shuddered again. “Oh, Allan, I'm somehow afraid. This
+joy is too great.”
+
+“Yes, forever,” said Allan again, but more quietly, “for love will last
+forever.”
+
+Together they sat upon the grass, needing no words to speak the joy that
+filled their souls to overflowing. Suddenly Mandy sprang to her feet.
+
+“Now, let me go, for within an hour we must be away. Oh, what a day
+we've had, Allan, one of the very best days in all my life! You know
+I've never been able to talk of the past to you, but to-day somehow I
+could not rest till I had gone through with it all.”
+
+“Yes, it's been a great day,” said Allan, “a wonderful day, a day
+we shall always remember.” Then after a silence, “Now for a fire and
+supper. You're right. In an hour we must be gone, for we are a long way
+from home. But, think of it, Mandy, we're going HOME. I can't quite get
+used to that!”
+
+And in an hour, riding close as lovers ride, they took the trail to
+their home ten miles away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BIG CHIEF
+
+
+When on the return journey they arrived upon the plateau skirting the
+Piegan Reserve the sun's rays were falling in shafts of slanting light
+upon the rounded hilltops before them and touching with purple the great
+peaks behind them. The valleys were full of shadows, deep and blue. The
+broad plains that opened here and there between the rounded hills were
+still bathed in the mellow light of the westering sun.
+
+“We will keep out a bit from the Reserve,” said Cameron, taking a trail
+that led off to the left. “These Piegans are none too friendly. I've had
+to deal with them a few times about my straying steers in a way which
+they are inclined to resent. This half-breed business is making them all
+restless and a good deal too impertinent.”
+
+“There's not any real danger, is there?” inquired his wife. “The Police
+can handle them quite well, can't they?”
+
+“If you were a silly hysterical girl, Mandy, I would say 'no danger' of
+course. But the signs are ominous. I don't fear anything immediately,
+but any moment a change may come and then we shall need to act quickly.”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“We shall ride to the Fort, I can tell you, without waiting to take our
+stuff with us. I take no chances now.”
+
+“Now? Meaning?”
+
+“Meaning my wife, that's all. I never thought to fear an Indian, but, by
+Jove! since I've got you, Mandy, they make me nervous.”
+
+“But these Piegans are such--”
+
+“The Piegans are Indians, plain Indians, deprived of the privilege of
+war by our North West Mounted Police regulations and of the excitement
+of the chase by our ever approaching civilization, and the younger
+bloods would undoubtedly welcome a 'bit of a divarshun,' as your friend
+Mike would say. At present the Indians are simply watching and waiting.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“News. To see which way the cat jumps. Then--Steady, Ginger! What the
+deuce! Whoa, I say! Hold hard, Mandy.”
+
+“What's the matter with them?”
+
+“There's something in the bushes yonder. Coyote, probably. Listen!”
+
+There came from a thick clump of poplars a low, moaning cry.
+
+“What's that?” cried Mandy. “It sounds like a man.”
+
+“Stay where you are. I'll ride in.”
+
+In a few moments she heard his voice calling.
+
+“Come along! Hurry up!”
+
+A young Indian lad of about seventeen, ghastly under his copper skin
+and faint from loss of blood, lay with his ankle held in a powerful
+wolf-trap, a bloody knife at his side. With a cry Mandy was off her
+horse and beside him, the instincts of the trained nurse rousing her to
+action.
+
+“Good Heavens! What a mess!” cried Cameron, looking helplessly upon the
+bloody and mangled leg.
+
+“Get a pail of water and get a fire going, Allan,” she cried. “Quick!”
+
+“Well, first this trap ought to be taken off, I should say.”
+
+“Quite right,” she cried. “Hurry!”
+
+Taking his ax from their camp outfit, he cut down a sapling, and, using
+it as a lever, soon released the foot.
+
+“How did all this mangling come?” said Mandy, gazing at the limb, the
+flesh and skin of which were hanging in shreds about the ankle.
+
+“Cutting it off, weren't you?” said Allan.
+
+The Indian nodded.
+
+Mandy lifted the foot up.
+
+“Broken, I should say.”
+
+The Indian uttered not a sound.
+
+“Run,” she continued. “Bring a pail of water and get a fire going.”
+
+Allan was soon back with the pail of water.
+
+“Me--water,” moaned the Indian, pointing to the pail. Allan held it
+to his lips and he drank long and deep. In a short time the fire was
+blazing and the tea pail slung over it.
+
+“If I only had my kit here!” said Mandy. “This torn flesh and skin ought
+to be all cut away.”
+
+“Oh, I say, Mandy, you can't do that. We'll get the Police doctor!” said
+Allan in a tone of horrified disgust.
+
+But Mandy was feeling the edge of the Indian's knife.
+
+“Sharp enough,” she said to herself. “These ragged edges are just
+reeking with poison. Can you stand it if I cut these bits off?” she said
+to the Indian.
+
+“Huh!” he replied with a grunt of contempt. “No hurt.”
+
+“Mandy, you can't do this! It makes me sick to see you,” said her
+husband.
+
+The Indian glanced with scorn at him, caught the knife out of Mandy's
+hand, took up a flap of lacerated flesh and cut it clean away.
+
+“Huh! No-t'ing.”
+
+Mandy took the knife from him, and, after boiling it for a few minutes,
+proceeded to cut away the ragged, mangled flesh and skin. The Indian
+never winced. He lay with eyes closed, and so pallid was his face and so
+perfectly motionless his limbs that he might have been dead. With deft
+hands she cleansed the wounds.
+
+“Now, Allan, you must help me. We must have splints for this ankle.”
+
+“How would birch-bark do?” he suggested.
+
+“No, it's too flimsy.”
+
+“The heavy inner rind is fairly stiff.” He ran to a tree and hacked off
+a piece.
+
+“Yes, that will do splendidly. Get some about so long.”
+
+Half an hour's work, and the wounded limb lay cleansed, bandaged, packed
+in soft moss and bound in splints.
+
+“That's great, Mandy!” exclaimed her husband. “Even to my untutored eyes
+that looks like an artistic bit of work. You're a wonder.”
+
+“Huh!” grunted the Indian. “Good!” His piercing black eyes were lifted
+suddenly to her face with such a look of gratitude as is seen in the
+eyes of dumb brutes or of men deprived of speech.
+
+“Good!” echoed Allan. “You're just right, my boy. I couldn't have done
+it, I assure you.”
+
+“Huh!” grunted the Indian in eloquent contempt. “No good,” pointing
+to the man. “Good,” pointing to the woman. “Me--no--forget.” He lifted
+himself upon his elbow, and, pointing to the sun like a red eye glaring
+in upon them through a vista of woods and hills, said, “Look--He
+see--me no forget.”
+
+There was something truly Hebraic in the exultant solemnity of his tone
+and gesture.
+
+“By Jove! He won't either, I truly believe,” said Allan. “You've made a
+friend for life, Mandy. Now, what's next? We can't carry this chap. It's
+three miles to their camp. We can't leave him here. There are wolves all
+around and the brutes always attack anything wounded.”
+
+The Indian solved the problem.
+
+“Huh!” he grunted contemptuously. He took up his long hunting-knife.
+“Wolf--this!” He drove the knife to the hilt into the ground.
+
+“You go--my fadder come. T'ree Indian,” holding up three fingers. “All
+right! Good!” He sank back upon the ground exhausted.
+
+“Come on then, Mandy, we shall have to hurry.”
+
+“No, you go. I'll wait.”
+
+“I won't have that. It will be dark soon and I can't leave you here
+alone with--”
+
+“Nonsense! This poor boy is faint with hunger and pain. I'll feed him
+while you're gone. Get me afresh pail of water and I can do for myself.”
+
+“Well,” replied her husband dubiously, “I'll get you some wood and--”
+
+“Come, now,” replied Mandy impatiently, “who taught you to cut wood? I
+can get my own wood. The main thing is to get away and get back. This
+boy needs shelter. How long have you been here?” she inquired of the
+Indian.
+
+The boy opened his eyes and swung his arm twice from east to west,
+indicating the whole sweep of the sky.
+
+“Two days?”
+
+He nodded.
+
+“You must be starving. Want to eat?”
+
+“Good!”
+
+“Hurry, then, Allan, with the water. By the time this lad has been fed
+you will be back.”
+
+It was not long before Allan was back with the water.
+
+“Now, then,” he said to the Indian, “where's your camp?”
+
+The Indian with his knife drew a line upon the ground. “River,” he said.
+Another line parallel, “Trail.” Then, tracing a branching line from
+the latter, turning sharply to the right, “Big Hill,” he indicated.
+“Down--down.” Then, running the line a little farther, “Here camp.”
+
+“I know the spot,” cried Allan. “Well, I'm off. Are you quite sure,
+Mandy, you don't mind?”
+
+“Run off with you and get back soon. Go--good-by! Oh! Stop, you foolish
+boy! Aren't you ashamed of yourself before--?”
+
+Cameron laughed in happy derision.
+
+“Ashamed? No, nor before his whole tribe.” He swung himself on his pony
+and was off down the trail at a gallop.
+
+“You' man?” inquired the Indian lad.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “my man,” pride ringing in her voice.
+
+“Huh! Him Big Chief?”
+
+“Oh, no! Yes.” She corrected herself hastily. “Big Chief. Ranch, you
+know--Big Horn Ranch.”
+
+“Huh!” He closed his eyes and sank back again upon the ground.
+
+“You're faint with hunger, poor boy,” said Mandy. She hastily cut a
+large slice of bread, buttered it, laid upon it some bacon and handed it
+to him.
+
+“Here, take this in the meantime,” she said. “I'll have your tea in a
+jiffy.”
+
+The boy took the bread, and, faint though he was with hunger, sternly
+repressing all sign of haste, he ate it with grave deliberation.
+
+In a few minutes more the tea was ready and Mandy brought him a cup.
+
+“Good!” he said, drinking it slowly.
+
+“Another?” she smiled.
+
+“Good!” he replied, drinking the second cup more rapidly.
+
+“Now, we'll have some fish,” cried Mandy cheerily, “and then you'll be
+fit for your journey home.”
+
+In twenty minutes more she brought him a frying pan in which two large
+beautiful trout lay, browned in butter. Mandy caught the wolf-like look
+in his eyes as they fell upon the food. She cut several thick slices of
+bread, laid them in the pan with the fish and turned her back upon him.
+The Indian seized the bread, and, noting that he was unobserved, tore
+it apart like a dog and ate ravenously, the fish likewise, ripping the
+flesh off the bones and devouring it like some wild beast.
+
+“There, now,” she said, when he had finished, “you've had enough to keep
+you going. Indeed, you have had all that's good for you. We don't want
+any fever, so that will do.”
+
+Her gestures, if not her words, he understood, and again as he watched
+her there gleamed in his eyes that dumb animal look of gratitude.
+
+“Huh!” he grunted, slapping himself on the chest and arms. “Good! Me
+strong! Me sleep.” He lay back upon the ground and in half a dozen
+breaths was dead asleep, leaving Mandy to her lonely watch in the
+gathering gloom of the falling night.
+
+The silence of the woods deepened into a stillness so profound that a
+dead leaf, fluttering from its twig and rustling to the ground, made her
+start in quick apprehension.
+
+“What a fool I am!” she muttered angrily. She rose to pile wood upon the
+fire. At her first movement the Indian was broad awake and half on his
+knees with his knife gleaming in his hand. As his eyes fell upon the
+girl at the fire, with a grunt, half of pain and half of contempt, he
+sank back again upon the ground and was fast asleep before the fire was
+mended, leaving Mandy once more to her lonely watch.
+
+“I wish he would come,” she muttered, peering into the darkening woods
+about her. A long and distant howl seemed to reply to her remark.
+
+It was answered by a series of short, sharp yelps nearer at hand.
+
+“Coyote,” she said disdainfully, for she had learned to despise the
+cowardly prairie wolf.
+
+But again that long distant howl. In spite of herself she shuddered.
+That was no coyote, but a gray timber wolf.
+
+“I wish Allan would come,” she said again, thinking of wakening the
+Indian. But her nurse's instincts forbade her breaking his heavy sleep.
+
+“Poor boy, he needs the rest! I'll wait a while longer.”
+
+She took her ax and went bravely at some dead wood lying near, cutting
+it for the fire. The Indian never made a sound. He lay dead in sleep.
+She piled the wood on the fire till the flames leaped high, shining
+ruddily upon the golden and yellow leaves of the surrounding trees.
+
+But again that long-drawn howl, and quite near, pierced the silence
+like the thrust of a spear. Before she was aware Mandy was on her feet,
+determined to waken the sleeping Indian, but she had no more than taken
+a single step toward him when he was awake and listening keenly. A soft
+padding upon the dead leaves could be heard like the gentle falling
+of raindrops. The Indian rolled over on his side, swept away some dead
+leaves and moss, and drew toward him a fine Winchester rifle.
+
+“Huh! Wolf,” he said, with quiet unconcern. “Here,” he continued,
+pointing to a rock beside him. Mandy took the place indicated. As she
+seated herself he put up his hand with a sharp hiss. Again the pattering
+feet could be heard. Suddenly the Indian leaned forward, gazing intently
+into the gloom beyond the rim of the firelight, then with a swift
+gliding movement he threw his rifle up and fired. There was a sharp
+yelp, followed by a gurgling snarl. His shot was answered by a loud
+shout.
+
+“Huh!” said the lad with quiet satisfaction, holding up one finger, “One
+wolf. Big Chief come.”
+
+At the shout Mandy had sprung to her feet, answering with a loud glad
+halloo. Immediately, as if in response to her call, an Indian swung
+his pony into the firelight, slipped off and stood looking about him.
+Straight, tall and sinewy, he stood, with something noble in his face
+and bearing.
+
+“He looks like a gentleman,” was the thought that leaped into Mandy's
+mind. A swift glance he swept round the circle of the light. Mandy
+thought she had never seen so piercing an eye.
+
+The Indian lad uttered a low moaning sound. With a single leap the man
+was at his side, holding him in his arms and kissing him on both cheeks,
+with eager guttural speech. A few words from the lad and the Indian was
+on his feet again, his eyes gleaming, but his face immobile as a death
+mask.
+
+“My boy,” he said, pointing to the lad. “My boy--my papoose.” His voice
+grew soft and tender.
+
+Before Mandy could reply there was another shout and Allan, followed by
+four Indians, burst into the light. With a glad cry Mandy rushed into
+his arms and clung to him.
+
+“Hello! What's up? Everything all right?” cried Allan. “I was a deuce of
+a time, I know. Took the wrong trail. You weren't frightened, eh? What?
+What's happened?” His voice grew anxious, then stern. “Anything wrong?
+Did he--? Did anyone--?”
+
+“No, no, Allan!” cried his wife, still clinging to him. “It was only a
+wolf and I was a little frightened.”
+
+“A wolf!” echoed her husband aghast.
+
+The Indian lad spoke a few words and pointed to the dark. The Indians
+glided into the woods and in a few minutes one of them returned,
+dragging by the leg a big, gray timber wolf. The lad's bullet had gone
+home.
+
+“And did this brute attack you?” cried Allan in alarm.
+
+“No, no. I heard him howling a long way off, and then--then--he came
+nearer, and--then--I could hear his feet pattering.” Cameron drew
+her close to him. “And then he saw him right in the dark. Wasn't it
+wonderful?”
+
+“In the dark?” said Allan, turning to the lad. “How did you do it?”
+
+“Huh!” grunted the lad in a tone of indifference. “See him eyes.”
+
+Already the Indians were preparing a stretcher out of blankets and two
+saplings. Here Mandy came to their help, directing their efforts so that
+with the least hurt to the boy he was lifted to his stretcher.
+
+As they were departing the father came close to Mandy, and, holding out
+his hand, said in fairly good English:
+
+“You--good to my boy. You save him--to-day. All alone maybe he die. You
+give him food--drink. Sometime--perhaps soon--me pay you.”
+
+“Oh,” cried Mandy, “I want no pay.”
+
+“No money--no!” cried the Indian, with scorn in his voice. “Me save
+you perhaps--sometime. Save you--save you, man. Me Big Chief.” He drew
+himself up his full height. “Much Indian follow me.” He shook hands with
+Mandy again, then with her husband.
+
+“Big Piegan Chief?” inquired her husband.
+
+“Piegan!” said the Indian with hearty contempt. “Me no Piegan--me
+Big Chief. Me--” He paused abruptly, turned on his heel and, flinging
+himself on to his pony, disappeared in the shadows.
+
+“He's jolly well pleased with himself, isn't he?” said Cameron.
+
+“He's splendid,” cried Mandy enthusiastically. “Why, he's just like
+one of Cooper's Indians. He's certainly like none of the rest I've seen
+about here.”
+
+“That's true enough,” replied her husband. “He's no Piegan. Who is he, I
+wonder? I don't remember seeing him. He thinks no end of himself, at any
+rate.”
+
+“And looks as if he had a right to.”
+
+“Right you are! Well, let's away. You must be dog tired and used up.”
+
+“Never a bit,” cried Mandy. “I'm fresh as a daisy. What a wonderful
+ending to a wonderful day!”
+
+They extinguished the fire carefully and made their way out to the
+trail.
+
+But the end of this wonderful day had not yet come.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ANCIENT SACRIFICE
+
+
+The moon was riding high in the cloudless blue of the heavens, tricked
+out with faintly shining stars, when they rode into the “corral” that
+surrounded the ranch stable. A horse stood tethered at the gate.
+
+“Hello, a visitor!” cried Cameron. “A Police horse!” his eyes falling
+upon the shining accouterments.
+
+“A Policeman!” echoed Mandy, a sudden foreboding at her heart. “What can
+he want?”
+
+“Me, likely,” replied her husband with a laugh, “though I can't think
+for which of my crimes it is. It's Inspector Dickson, by his horse. You
+know him, Mandy, my very best friend.”
+
+“What does he want, Allan?” said Mandy, anxiety in her voice.
+
+“Want? Any one of a thousand things. You run in and see while I put up
+the ponies.”
+
+“I don't like it,” said Mandy, walking with him toward the stable. “Do
+you know, I feel there is something--I have felt all day a kind of dread
+that--”
+
+“Nonsense, Mandy! You're not that style of girl. Run away into the
+house.”
+
+But still Mandy waited beside him.
+
+“We've had a great day, Allan,” she said again. “Many great days, and
+this, one of the best. Whatever comes nothing can take those happy days
+from us.” She put her arms about his neck and drew him toward her.
+“I don't know why, Allan, I know it's foolish, but I'm afraid,” she
+whispered, “I'm afraid.”
+
+“Now, Mandy,” said her husband, with his arms round about her, “don't
+say you're going to get like other girls, hysterical and that sort of
+thing. You are just over-tired. We've had a big day, but an exhausting
+day, an exciting day. What with that Piegan and the wolf business and
+all, you are done right up. So am I and--by Jove! That reminds me, I am
+dead famished.”
+
+No better word could he have spoken.
+
+“You poor boy,” she cried. “I'll have supper ready by the time you
+come in. I am silly, but now it's all over. I shall go in and face the
+Inspector and dare him to arrest you, no matter what you have done.”
+
+“That's more like the thing! That's more like my girl. I shall be with
+you in a very few minutes. He can't take us both, can he? Run in and
+smile at him.”
+
+Mandy found the Inspector in the cozy ranch kitchen, calmly smoking his
+pipe, and deep in the London Graphic. As she touched the latch he sprang
+to his feet and saluted in his best style.
+
+“Never heard you ride up, Mrs. Cameron, I assure you. You must think me
+rather cool to sit tight here and ignore your coming.”
+
+“I am very glad to see you, Inspector Dickson, and Allan will be
+delighted. He is putting up your horse. You will of course stay the
+night with us.”
+
+“Oh, that's awfully kind, but I really can't, you know. I shall tell
+Cameron.” He took his hat from the peg.
+
+“We should be delighted if you could stay with us. We see very few
+people and you have not been very neighborly, now confess.”
+
+“I have not been, and to my sorrow and loss. If any man had told me that
+I should have been just five weeks to a day within a few hours' ride of
+my friend Cameron, not to speak of his charming wife, without visiting
+him, well I should have--well, no matter--to my joy I am here to-night.
+But I can't stay this trip. We are rather hard worked just now, to tell
+the truth.”
+
+“Hard worked?” she asked.
+
+“Yes. Patrol work rather heavy. But I must stop Cameron in his
+hospitable design,” he added, as he passed out of the door.
+
+It was a full half hour before the men returned, to find supper spread
+and Mandy waiting. It was a large and cheerful apartment that did both
+for kitchen and living room. The sides were made of logs hewn smooth,
+plastered and whitewashed. The oak joists and planking above were
+stained brown. At one end of the kitchen two doors led to as many rooms,
+at the other a large stone fireplace, with a great slab for mantelpiece.
+On this slab stood bits of china bric-a-brac, and what not, relics
+abandoned by the gallant and chivalrous Fraser for the bride and her
+house furnishing. The prints, too, upon the wall, hunting scenes of the
+old land, sea-scenes, moorland and wild cattle, with many useful
+and ornamental bits of furniture, had all been handed over with true
+Highland generosity by the outgoing owner.
+
+In the fireplace, for the night had a touch of frost in it, a log fire
+blazed and sparked, lending to the whole scene an altogether delightful
+air of comfort.
+
+“I say, this does look jolly!” cried the Inspector as he entered.
+“Cameron, you lucky dog, do you really imagine you know how jolly well
+off you are, coddled thus in the lap of comfort and surrounded with all
+the enervating luxuries of an effete and forgotten civilization?
+Come now, own up, you are beginning to take this thing as a matter of
+course.”
+
+But Cameron stood with his back to the light, busying himself with his
+fishing tackle and fish, and ignoring the Inspector's cheerful chatter.
+And thus he remained without a word while the Inspector talked on in a
+voluble flow of small talk quite unusual with him.
+
+Throughout the supper Cameron remained silent, rallying spasmodically
+with gay banter to the Inspector's chatter, or answering at random, but
+always falling silent again, and altogether was so unlike himself that
+Mandy fell to wondering, then became watchful, then anxious. At length
+the Inspector himself fell silent, as if perceiving the uselessness of
+further pretense.
+
+“What is it, Allan?” said Mandy quietly, when silence had fallen upon
+them all. “You might as well let me know.”
+
+“Tell her, for God's sake,” said her husband to the Inspector.
+
+“What is it?” inquired Mandy.
+
+The Inspector handed her a letter.
+
+“From Superintendent Strong to my Chief,” he said.
+
+She took it and as she read her face went now white with fear, now red
+with indignation. At length she flung the letter down.
+
+“What a man he is to be sure!” she cried scornfully. “And what nonsense
+is this he writes. With all his men and officers he must come for my
+husband! What is HE doing? And all the others? It's just his own stupid
+stubbornness. He always did object to our marriage.”
+
+The Inspector was silent. Cameron was silent too. His boyish face, for
+he was but a lad, seemed to have grown old in those few minutes. The
+Inspector wore an ashamed look, as if detected in a crime.
+
+“And because he is not clever enough to catch this man they must come
+for my husband to do it for them. He is not a Policeman. He has nothing
+to do with the Force.”
+
+And still the Inspector sat silent, as if convicted of both crime and
+folly.
+
+At length Cameron spoke.
+
+“It is quite impossible, Inspector. I can't do it. You quite see how
+impossible it is.”
+
+“Most certainly you can't,” eagerly agreed the Inspector. “I knew from
+the first it was a piece of--sheer absurdity--in fact brutal inhumanity.
+I told the Commissioner so.”
+
+“It isn't as if I was really needed, you know. The Superintendent's idea
+is, as you say, quite absurd.”
+
+The Inspector gravely nodded.
+
+“You don't think for a moment,” continued Cameron, “there is any
+need--any real need I mean--for me to--” Cameron's voice died away.
+
+The Inspector hesitated and cleared his throat. “Well--of course, we
+are desperately short-handed, you know. Every man is overworked. Every
+reserve has to be closely patroled. Every trail ought to be watched.
+Runners are coming in every day. We ought to have a thousand men instead
+of five hundred, this very minute. Of course one can never tell. The
+chances are this will all blow over.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Cameron. “We've heard these rumors for the past year.”
+
+“Of course,” agreed the Inspector cheerfully.
+
+“But if it does not,” asked Mandy, suddenly facing the Inspector, “what
+then?”
+
+“If it does not?”
+
+“If it does not?” she insisted.
+
+The Inspector appeared to turn the matter over in his mind.
+
+“Well,” he said slowly and thoughtfully, “if it does not there will be a
+deuce of an ugly time.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. But Mandy waited, her eyes fixed
+on his face demanding answer.
+
+“Well, there are some hundreds of settlers and their families scattered
+over this country, and we can hardly protect them all. But,” he added
+cheerfully, as if dismissing the subject, “we have a trick of worrying
+through.”
+
+Mandy shuddered. One phrase in the Superintendent's letter to the
+Commissioner which she had just read kept hammering upon her brain,
+“Cameron is the man and the only man for the job.”
+
+They turned the talk to other things, but the subject would not be
+dismissed. Like the ghost at the feast it kept ever returning. The
+Inspector retailed the most recent rumors, and together he and his host
+weighed their worth. The Inspector disclosed the Commissioner's plans
+as far as he knew them. These, too, were discussed with approval or
+condemnation. The consequences of an Indian uprising were hinted at, but
+quickly dropped. The probabilities of such an uprising were touched upon
+and pronounced somewhat slight.
+
+But somehow to the woman listening as in a maze this pronouncement and
+all the reassuring talk rang hollow. She sat staring at the Inspector
+with eyes that saw him not. What she did see was a picture out of an
+old book of Indian war days which she had read when a child, a smoking
+cabin, with mangled forms of women and children lying in the blackened
+embers. By degrees, slow, painful, but relentlessly progressive, certain
+impressions, at first vague and passionately resisted, were wrought into
+convictions in her soul. First, the Inspector, in spite of his light
+talk, was undeniably anxious, and in this anxiety her husband shared.
+Then, the Force was clearly inadequate to the duty required of it. At
+this her indignation burned. Why should it be that a Government should
+ask of brave men what they must know to be impossible? Hard upon this
+conviction came the words of the Superintendent, “Cameron is the man and
+the only man for the job.” Finally, the Inspector was apologizing for
+her husband. It roused a hot resentment in her to hear him. That thing
+she could not and would not bear. Never should it be said that her
+husband had needed a friend to apologize for him.
+
+As these convictions grew in clearness she found herself brought
+suddenly and sharply to face the issue. With a swift contraction of the
+heart she realized that she must send her husband on this perilous duty.
+Ah! Could she do it? It was as if a cold hand were steadily squeezing
+drop by drop the life-blood from her heart. In contrast, and as if with
+one flash of light, the long happy days of the last six months passed
+before her mind. How could she give him up? Her breathing came in short
+gasps, her lips became dry, her eyes fixed and staring. She was fighting
+for what was dearer to her than life. Suddenly she flung her hands to
+her face and groaned aloud.
+
+“What is it, Mandy?” cried her husband, starting from his place.
+
+His words seemed to recall her. The agonizing agitation passed from her
+and a great quiet fell upon her soul. The struggle was done. She had
+made the ancient sacrifice demanded of women since ever the first man
+went forth to war. It remained only to complete with fitting ritual this
+ancient sacrifice. She rose from her seat and faced her husband.
+
+“Allan,” she said, and her voice was of indescribable sweetness, “you
+must go.”
+
+Her husband took her in his arms without a word, then brokenly he said:
+
+“My girl! My own brave girl! I knew you must send me.”
+
+“Yes,” she replied, gazing into his face with a wan smile, “I knew it
+too, because I knew you would expect me to.”
+
+The Inspector had risen from his chair at her first cry and was standing
+with bent head, as if in the presence of a scene too sacred to witness.
+Then he came to her, and, with old time and courtly grace of the fine
+gentleman he was, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.
+
+“Dear lady,” he said, “for such as you brave men would gladly give their
+lives.”
+
+“Give their lives!” cried Mandy. “I would much rather they would save
+them. But,” she added, her voice taking a practical tone, “sit down and
+let us talk. Now what's the work and what's the plan?”
+
+The men glanced at each other in silent admiration of this woman who,
+without moan or murmur, could surrender her heart's dearest treasure for
+her country's good. This was a spirit of their own type.
+
+They sat down before the fire and discussed the business before them.
+But as they discussed ever and again Mandy would find her mind wandering
+back over the past happy days. Ever and again a word would recall her,
+but only for a brief moment and soon she was far away again.
+
+A phrase of the Inspector, however, arrested and held her.
+
+“He's really a fine looking Indian, in short a kind of aristocrat among
+the Indians,” he was saying.
+
+“An aristocrat?” she exclaimed, remembering her own word about the
+Indian Chief they had met that very evening. “Why, that is like our
+Chief, Allan.”
+
+“By Jove! You're right!” exclaimed her husband. “What's your man like,
+again? Describe him, Inspector.”
+
+The Inspector described him in detail.
+
+“The very man we saw to-night!” cried Mandy, and gave her description of
+the “Big Chief.”
+
+When she had finished the Inspector sat looking into the fire.
+
+“Among the Piegans, too,” he mused. “That fits in. There was a big
+powwow the other day in the Sun Dance Canyon. The Piegans' is the
+nearest reserve, and a lot of them were there. The Superintendent says
+he is somewhere along the Sun Dance.”
+
+“Inspector,” said Allan, with sudden determination, “we will drop in on
+the Piegans to-morrow morning by sun-up.”
+
+Mandy started. This pace was more rapid than she had expected, but,
+having made the sacrifice, there was with her no word of recall.
+
+The Inspector pondered the suggestion.
+
+“Well,” he said, “it would do no harm to reconnoiter at any rate. But we
+can't afford to make any false move, and we can't afford to fail.”
+
+“Fail!” said Cameron quietly. “We won't fail. We'll get him.” And the
+lines in his face reminded his wife of how he looked that night three
+years before when he cowed the great bully Perkins into submission at
+her father's door.
+
+Long they sat and planned. As the Inspector said, there must be no
+failure; hence the plan must provide for every possible contingency. By
+far the keenest of the three in mental activity was Mandy. By a curious
+psychological process the Indian Chief, who an hour before had awakened
+in her admiration and a certain romantic interest, had in a single
+moment become an object of loathing, almost of hatred. That he should be
+in this land planning for her people, for innocent and defenseless women
+and children, the horrors of massacre filled her with a fierce anger.
+But a deeper analysis would doubtless have revealed a personal element
+in her anger and loathing. The Indian had become the enemy for whose
+capture and for whose destruction her husband was now enlisted. Deep
+down in her quiet, strong, self-controlled nature there burned a passion
+in which mingled the primitive animal instincts of the female, mate for
+mate, and mother for offspring. Already her mind had leaped forward to
+the moment when this cunning, powerful plotter would be at death-grips
+with her husband and she not there to help. With intensity of purpose
+and relentlessness of determination she focused the powers of her
+forceful and practical mind upon the problem engaging their thought.
+
+With mind whetted to its keenest she listened to the men as they made
+and unmade their plans. In ordinary circumstances the procedure of
+arrest would have been extremely simple. The Inspector and Cameron would
+have ridden into the Piegan camp, and, demanding their man, would have
+quietly and without even a show of violence carried him off. It would
+have been like things they had each of them done single-handed within
+the past year.
+
+“When once we make a start, you see, Mrs. Cameron, we never turn back.
+We could not afford to,” said the Inspector. There was no suspicion
+of boasting in the Inspector's voice. He was simply enunciating the
+traditional code of the Police. “And if we should hesitate with this
+man or fail to land him every Indian in these territories would have
+it within a week and our prestige would receive a shock. We dare not
+exhibit any sign of nerves. On the other hand we dare not make any
+movement in force. In short, anything unusual must be avoided.”
+
+“I quite see,” replied Mandy with keen appreciation of the delicacy of
+the situation.
+
+“So that I fancy the simpler the plan the better. Cameron will ride
+into the Piegan camp inquiring about his cattle, as, fortunately for the
+present situation, he has cause enough to in quite an ordinary way.
+I drop in on my regular patrol looking up a cattle-thief in quite the
+ordinary way. Seeing this strange chief, I arrest him on suspicion.
+Cameron backs me up. The thing is done. Luckily Trotting Wolf, who is
+the Head Chief now of the Piegans, has a fairly thorough respect for
+the Police, and unless things have gone much farther in his band than I
+think he will not resist. He is, after all, rather harmless.”
+
+“I don't like your plan at all, Inspector,” said Mandy promptly. “The
+moment you suggest arrest that moment the younger men will be up. They
+are just back from a big brave-making powwow, you say. They are all
+worked up, and keen for a chance to prove that they are braves in more
+than in name. You give them the very opportunity you wish to avoid.
+Now hear my plan,” she continued, her voice eager, keen, hard, in the
+intensity of her purpose. “I ride into camp to-morrow morning to see
+the sick boy. I promised I would and I really want to. I find him in a
+fever, for a fever he certainly will have. I dress his wounded ankle and
+discover he must have some medicine. I get old Copperhead to ride back
+with me for it. You wait here and arrest him without trouble.”
+
+The two men looked at each other, then at her, with a gentle admiring
+pity. The plan was simplicity itself and undoubtedly eliminated the
+elements of danger which the Inspector's possessed. It had, however, one
+fatal defect.
+
+“Fine, Mandy!” said her husband, reaching across the table and patting
+her hand that lay clenched upon the cloth. “But it won't do.”
+
+“And why not, pray?” she demanded.
+
+“We do not use our women as decoys in this country, nor do we expose
+them to dangers we men dare not face.”
+
+“Allan,” cried his wife with angry impatience, “you miss the whole
+point. For a woman to ride into the Piegan camp, especially on this
+errand of mercy, involves her in no danger. And what possible danger
+would there be in having the old villain ride back with me for
+medicine? And as to the decoy business,” here she shrugged her shoulders
+contemptuously, “do you think I care a bit for that? Isn't he planning
+to kill women and children in this country? And--and--won't he do his
+best to kill you?” she panted. “Isn't it right for me to prevent him?
+Prevent him! To me he is like a snake. I would--would--gladly kill
+him--myself.” As she spoke these words her eyes were indeed, in Sergeant
+Ferry's words, “like little blue flames.”
+
+But the men remained utterly unmoved. To their manhood the plan
+was repugnant, and in spite of Mandy's arguments and entreaties was
+rejected.
+
+“It is the better plan, Mrs. Cameron,” said the Inspector kindly, “but
+we cannot, you must see we cannot, adopt it.”
+
+“You mean you will not,” cried Mandy indignantly, “just because you are
+stupid stubborn men!” And she proceeded to argue the matter all over
+again with convincing logic, but with the same result. There are
+propositions which do not lend themselves to the arbitrament of logic
+with men. When the safety of their women is at stake they refuse to
+discuss chances. In such a case they may be stupid, but they are quite
+immovable.
+
+Blocked by this immovable stupidity, Mandy yielded her ground, but only
+to attempt a flank movement.
+
+“Let me go with you on your reconnoitering expedition,” she pleaded.
+“Rather, let US go, Allan, you and I together, to see the boy. I am
+really sorry for that boy. He can't help his father, can he?”
+
+“Quite true,” said the Inspector gravely.
+
+“Let us go and find out all we can and next day make your attempt.
+Besides, Allan,” she cried under a sudden inspiration of memory, “you
+can't possibly go. You forget your sister arrives at Calgary this week.
+You must meet her.”
+
+“By Jove! Is that so? I had forgotten,” said Cameron, turning to study
+the calendar on the wall, a gorgeous work of art produced out of
+the surplus revenues of a Life Insurance Company. “Let's see,” he
+calculated. “This week? Three days will take us in. We are still all
+right. We have five. That gives us two days clear for this job. I feel
+like making this try, Mandy,” he continued earnestly. “We have this chap
+practically within our grasp. He will be off guard. The Piegans are not
+yet worked up to the point of resistance. Ten days from now our man may
+be we can't tell where.”
+
+Mandy remained silent. The ritual of her sacrifice was not yet complete.
+
+“I think you are right, Allan,” at length she said slowly with a twisted
+smile. “I'm afraid you are right. It's hard not to be in it, though.
+But,” she added, as if moved by a sudden thought, “I may be in it yet.”
+
+“You will certainly be with us in spirit, Mandy,” he replied, patting
+the firm brown hand that lay upon the table.
+
+“Yes, truly, and in our hearts,” added the Inspector with a bow.
+
+But Mandy made no reply. Already she was turning over in her mind a
+half-formed plan which she had no intention of sharing with these men,
+who, after the manner of their kind, would doubtless block it.
+
+Early morning found Cameron and the Inspector on the trail toward the
+Piegan Reserve, riding easily, for they knew not what lay before them
+nor what demand they might have to make upon their horses that day. The
+Inspector rode a strongly built, stocky horse of no great speed but good
+for an all-day run. Cameron's horse was a broncho, an unlovely
+brute, awkward and ginger-colored--his name was Ginger--sad-eyed
+and wicked-looking, but short-coupled and with flat, rangy legs that
+promised speed. For his sad-eyed, awkward broncho Cameron professed a
+deep affection and defended him stoutly against the Inspector's jibes.
+
+“You can't kill him,” he declared. “He'll go till he drops, and then
+twelve miles more. He isn't beautiful to look at and his manners are
+nothing to boast of, but he will hang upon the fence the handsome skin
+of that cob of yours.”
+
+When still five or six miles from camp they separated.
+
+“The old boy may, of course, be gone,” said the Inspector as he was
+parting from his friend. “By Superintendent Strong's report he seems to
+be continually on the move.”
+
+“I rather think his son will hold him for a day or two,” replied
+Cameron. “Now you give me a full half hour. I shall look in upon the
+boy, you know. But don't be longer. I don't as a rule linger among these
+Piegan gentry, you know, and a lengthened stay would certainly arouse
+suspicion.”
+
+Cameron's way lay along the high plateau, from which a descent could
+be made by a trail leading straight south into the Piegan camp. The
+Inspector's course carried him in a long detour to the left, by which
+he should enter from the eastern end the valley in which lay the Indian
+camp. Cameron's trail at the first took him through thick timber, then,
+as it approached the level floor of the valley, through country that
+became more open. The trees were larger and with less undergrowth
+between them. In the valley itself a few stubble fields with fences
+sadly in need of repair gave evidence of the partial success of the
+attempts of the farm instructor to initiate the Piegans into the science
+and art of agriculture. A few scattering log houses, which the Indians
+had been induced by the Government to build for themselves, could be
+seen here and there among the trees. But during the long summer days,
+and indeed until driven from the open by the blizzards of winter, not
+one of these children of the free air and open sky could be persuaded to
+enter the dismal shelter afforded by the log houses. They much preferred
+the flimsy teepee or tent. And small wonder. Their methods of sanitation
+did not comport with a permanent dwelling. When the teepee grew foul,
+which their habits made inevitable, a simple and satisfactory remedy
+was discovered in a shift to another camp-ground. Not so with the log
+houses, whose foul corners, littered with the accumulated filth of a
+winter's occupation, became fertile breeding places for the germs of
+disease and death. Irregularly strewn upon the grassy plain in
+the valley bottom some two dozen teepees marked the Piegan summer
+headquarters. Above the camp rose the smoke of their camp-fires, for it
+was still early and their morning meal was yet in preparation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE ILLUSIVE COPPERHEAD
+
+
+Cameron's approach to the Piegan camp was greeted by a discordant
+chorus of yelps and howls from a pack of mangy, half-starved curs of all
+breeds, shapes and sizes, the invariable and inevitable concomitants of
+an Indian encampment. The squaws, who had been busy superintending the
+pots and pans in which simmered the morning meal of their lords and
+masters, faded from view at Cameron's approach, and from the teepees on
+every side men appeared and stood awaiting with stolid faces the white
+man's greeting. Cameron was known to them of old.
+
+“Good-day!” he cried briefly, singling out the Chief.
+
+“Huh!” replied the Chief, and awaited further parley.
+
+“No grub yet, eh? You sleep too long, Chief.”
+
+The Chief smiled grimly.
+
+“I say, Chief,” continued Cameron, “I have lost a couple of steers--big
+fellows, too--any of your fellows seen them?”
+
+Trotting Wolf turned to the group of Indians who had slouched toward
+them in the meantime and spoke to them in the singsong monotone of the
+Indian.
+
+“No see cow,” he replied briefly.
+
+Cameron threw himself from his horse and, striding to a large pot
+simmering over a fire, stuck his knife into the mass and lifted up a
+large piece of flesh, the bones of which looked uncommonly like ribs of
+beef.
+
+“What's this, Trotting Wolf?” he inquired with a stern ring in his
+voice.
+
+“Deer,” promptly and curtly replied the Chief.
+
+“Who shot him?”
+
+The Chief consulted the group of Indians standing near.
+
+“This man,” he replied, indicating a young Indian.
+
+“What's your name?” said Cameron sharply. “I know you.”
+
+The young Indian shook his head.
+
+“Oh, come now, you know English all right. What's your name?”
+
+Still the Indian shook his head, meeting Cameron's look with a fearless
+eye.
+
+“He White Cloud,” said the Chief.
+
+“White Cloud! Big Chief, eh?” said Cameron.
+
+“Huh!” replied Trotting Wolf, while a smile appeared on several faces.
+
+“You shot this deer?”
+
+“Huh!” replied the Indian, nodding.
+
+“I thought you could speak English all right.”
+
+Again a smile touched the faces of some of the group.
+
+“Where did you shoot him?”
+
+White Cloud pointed vaguely toward the mountains.
+
+“How far? Two, three, four miles?” inquired Cameron, holding up his
+fingers.
+
+“Huh!” grunted the Indian, holding up five fingers.
+
+“Five miles, eh? Big deer, too,” said Cameron, pointing to the ribs.
+
+“Huh!”
+
+“How did you carry him home?”
+
+The Indian shook his head.
+
+“How did he carry him these five miles?” continued Cameron, turning to
+Trotting Wolf.
+
+“Pony,” replied Trotting Wolf curtly.
+
+“Good!” said Cameron. “Now,” said he, turning swiftly upon the young
+Indian, “where is the skin?”
+
+The Indian's eyes wavered for a fleeting instant. He spoke a few words
+to Trotting Wolf. Conversation followed.
+
+“Well?” said Cameron.
+
+“He says dogs eat him up.”
+
+“And the head? This big fellow had a big head. Where is it?”
+
+Again the Indian's eyes wavered and again the conversation followed.
+
+“Left him up in bush,” replied the chief.
+
+“We will ride up and see it, then,” said Cameron.
+
+The Indians became voluble among themselves.
+
+“No find,” said the Chief. “Wolf eat him up.”
+
+Cameron raised the meat to his nose, sniffed its odor and dropped it
+back into the pot. With a single stride he was close to White Cloud.
+
+“White Cloud,” he said sternly, “you speak with a forked tongue. In
+plain English, White Cloud, you lie. Trotting Wolf, you know that is no
+deer. That is cow. That is my cow.”
+
+Trotting Wolf shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“No see cow me,” he said sullenly.
+
+“White Cloud,” said Cameron, swiftly turning again upon the young
+Indian, “where did you shoot my cow?”
+
+The young Indian stared back at Cameron, never blinking an eyelid.
+Cameron felt his wrath rising, but kept himself well in hand,
+remembering the purpose of his visit. During this conversation he had
+been searching the gathering crowd of Indians for the tall form of his
+friend of the previous night, but he was nowhere to be seen. Cameron
+felt he must continue the conversation, and, raising his voice as if in
+anger--and indeed there was no need of pretense for he longed to seize
+White Cloud by the throat and shake the truth out of him--he said:
+
+“Trotting Wolf, your young men have been killing my cattle for many
+days. You know that this is a serious offense with the Police. Indians
+go to jail for this. And the Police will hold you responsible. You are
+the Chief on this reserve. The Police will ask why you cannot keep your
+young men from stealing cattle.”
+
+The number of Indians was increasing every moment and still Cameron's
+eyes searched the group, but in vain. Murmurs arose from the Indians,
+which he easily interpreted to mean resentment, but he paid no heed.
+
+“The Police do not want a Chief,” he cried in a still louder voice, “who
+cannot control his young men and keep them from breaking the law.”
+
+He paused abruptly. From behind a teepee some distance away there
+appeared the figure of the “Big Chief” whom he so greatly desired to
+see. Giving no sign of his discovery, he continued his exhortation to
+Trotting Wolf, to that worthy's mingled rage and embarrassment. The
+suggestion of jail for cattle-thieves the Chief knew well was no empty
+threat, for two of his band even at that moment were in prison for this
+very crime. This knowledge rendered him uneasy. He had no desire himself
+to undergo a like experience, and it irked his tribe and made them
+restless and impatient of his control that their Chief could not protect
+them from these unhappy consequences of their misdeeds. They knew
+that with old Crowfoot, the Chief of the Blackfeet band, such untoward
+consequences rarely befell the members of that tribe. Already Trotting
+Wolf could distinguish the murmurs of his young men, who were resenting
+the charge against White Cloud, as well as the tone and manner in
+which it was delivered. Most gladly would he have defied this truculent
+rancher to do his worst, but his courage was not equal to the plunge,
+and, besides, the circumstances for such a break were not yet favorable.
+
+At this juncture Cameron, facing about, saw within a few feet of him the
+Indian whose capture he was enlisted to secure.
+
+“Hello!” he cried, as if suddenly recognizing him. “How is the boy?”
+
+“Good,” said the Indian with grave dignity. “He sick here,” touching his
+head.
+
+“Ah! Fever, I suppose,” replied Cameron. “Take me to see him.”
+
+The Indian led the way to the teepee that stood slightly apart from the
+others.
+
+Inside the teepee upon some skins and blankets lay the boy, whose bright
+eyes and flushed cheeks proclaimed fever. An old squaw, bent in form and
+wrinkled in face, crouched at the end of the couch, her eyes gleaming
+like beads of black glass in her mahogany face.
+
+“How is the foot to-day?” cried Allan. “Pain bad?”
+
+“Huh!” grunted the lad, and remained perfectly motionless but for the
+restless glittering eyes that followed every movement of his father.
+
+“You want the doctor here,” said Cameron in a serious tone, kneeling
+beside the couch. “That boy is in a high fever. And you can't get him
+too quick. Better send a boy to the Fort and get the Police doctor. How
+did you sleep last night?” he inquired of the lad.
+
+“No sleep,” said his father. “Go this way--this way,” throwing his arms
+about his head. “Talk, talk, talk.”
+
+But Cameron was not listening to him. He was hearing a jingle of spurs
+and bridle from down the trail and he knew that the Inspector had
+arrived. The old Indian, too, had caught the sound. His piercing eyes
+swiftly searched the face of the white man beside him. But Cameron,
+glancing quietly at him, continued to discuss the condition of the boy.
+
+“Yes, you must get the doctor here at once. There is danger of
+blood-poisoning. The boy may lose his foot.” And he continued to
+describe the gruesome possibilities of neglect of that lacerated wound.
+As he rose from the couch the boy caught his arm.
+
+“You' squaw good. Come see me,” he said. “Good--good.” The eager look in
+the fevered eye touched Cameron.
+
+“All right, boy, I shall tell her,” he said. “Good-by!” He took the
+boy's hand in his. But the boy held it fast in a nervous grasp.
+
+“You' squaw come--sure. Hurt here--bad.” He struck his forehead with his
+hand. “You' squaw come--make good.”
+
+“All right,” said Cameron. “I shall bring her myself. Good-by!”
+
+Together they passed out of the teepee, Cameron keeping close to the
+Indian's side and talking to him loudly and earnestly about the boy's
+condition, all the while listening to the Inspector's voice from behind
+the row of teepees.
+
+“Ah!” he exclaimed aloud as they came in sight of the Inspector mounted
+on his horse. “Here is my friend, Inspector Dickson. Hello, Inspector!”
+ he called out. “Come over here. We have a sick boy and I want you to
+help us.”
+
+“Hello, Cameron!” cried the Inspector, riding up and dismounting.
+“What's up?”
+
+Trotting Wolf and the other Indians slowly drew near.
+
+“There is a sick boy in here,” said Cameron, pointing to the teepee
+behind him. “He is the son of this man, Chief--” He paused. “I don't
+know your name.”
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the Indian replied:
+
+“Chief Onawata.”
+
+“His boy got his foot in a trap. My wife dressed the wound last night,”
+ continued Cameron. “Come in and see him.”
+
+But the Indian put up his hand.
+
+“No,” he said quietly. “My boy not like strange man. Bad head--here.
+Want sleep--sleep.”
+
+“Ah!” said the Inspector. “Quite right. Let him sleep. Nothing better
+than sleep. A good long sleep will fix him up.”
+
+“He needs the doctor, however,” said Cameron.
+
+“Ah, yes, yes. Well, we shall send the doctor.”
+
+“Everything all right, Inspector?” said Cameron, throwing his friend a
+significant glance.
+
+“Quite right!” replied the Inspector. “But I must be going. Good-by,
+Chief!” As his one hand closed on the Indian's his other slid down upon
+his wrist. “I want you, Chief,” he said in a quiet stern voice. “I want
+you to come along with me.”
+
+His hand had hardly closed upon the wrist than with a single motion,
+swift, snake-like, the Indian wrenched his hand from the Inspector's
+iron grasp and, leaping back a space of three paces, stood with body
+poised as if to spring.
+
+“Halt there, Chief! Don't move or you die!”
+
+The Indian turned to see Cameron covering him with two guns. At once
+he relaxed his tense attitude and, drawing himself up, he demanded in a
+voice of indignant scorn:
+
+“Why you touch me? Me Big Chief! You little dog!”
+
+As he stood, erect, tall, scornful, commanding, with his head thrown
+back and his arm outstretched, his eyes glittering and his face eloquent
+of haughty pride, he seemed the very incarnation of the wild unconquered
+spirit of that once proud race he represented. For a moment or two a
+deep silence held the group of Indians, and even the white men were
+impressed. Then the Inspector spoke.
+
+“Trotting Wolf,” he said, “I want this man. He is a horse-thief. I know
+him. I am going to take him to the Fort. He is a bad man.”
+
+“No,” said Trotting Wolf, in a loud voice, “he no bad man. He my friend.
+Come here many days.” He held up both hands. “No teef--my friend.”
+
+A loud murmur rose from the Indians, who in larger numbers kept crowding
+nearer. At this ominous sound the Inspector swiftly drew two revolvers,
+and, backing toward the man he was seeking to arrest, said in a quiet,
+clear voice:
+
+“Trotting Wolf, this man goes with me. If he is no thief he will be
+back again very soon. See these guns? Six men die,” shaking one of them,
+“when this goes off. And six more die,” shaking the other, “when
+this goes off. The first man will be you, Trotting Wolf, and this man
+second.”
+
+Trotting Wolf hesitated.
+
+“Trotting Wolf,” said Cameron. “See these guns? Twelve men die if you
+make any fuss. You steal my cattle. You cannot stop your young men. The
+Piegans need a new Chief. If this man is no thief he will be back again
+in a few days. The Inspector speaks truth. You know he never lies.”
+
+Still Trotting Wolf stood irresolute. The Indians began to shuffle and
+crowd nearer.
+
+“Trotting Wolf,” said the Inspector sharply, “tell your men that the
+first man that steps beyond that poplar-tree dies. That is my word.”
+
+The Chief spoke to the crowd. There was a hoarse guttural murmur in
+response, but those nearest to the tree backed away from it. They knew
+the Police never showed a gun except when prepared to use it. For
+years they had been accustomed to the administration of justice and the
+enforcement of law at the hands of the North West Mounted Police, and
+among the traditions of that Force the Indians had learned to accept two
+as absolutely settled: the first, that they never failed to get the man
+they wanted; the second, that their administration of law was marked
+by the most rigid justice. It was Chief Onawata himself that found the
+solution.
+
+“Me no thief. Me no steal horse. Me Big Chief. Me go to your Fort. My
+heart clean. Me see your Big Chief.” He uttered these words with an air
+of quiet but impressive dignity.
+
+“That's sensible,” said the Inspector, moving toward him. “You will get
+full justice. Come along!”
+
+“I go see my boy. My boy sick.” His voice became low, soft, almost
+tremulous.
+
+“Certainly,” said Cameron. “Go in and see the lad. And we will see that
+you get fair play.”
+
+“Good!” said the Indian, and, turning on his heel, he passed into the
+teepee where his boy lay.
+
+Through the teepee wall their voices could be heard in quiet
+conversation. In a few minutes the old squaw passed out on an errand and
+then in again, eying the Inspector as she passed with malevolent hate.
+Again she passed out, this time bowed down under a load of blankets and
+articles of Indian household furniture, and returned no more. Still the
+conversation within the teepee continued, the boy's voice now and again
+rising high, clear, the other replying in low, even, deep tones.
+
+“I will just get my horse, Inspector,” said Cameron, making his way
+through the group of Indians to where Ginger was standing with sad and
+drooping head.
+
+“Time's up, I should say,” said the Inspector to Cameron as he returned
+with his horse. “Just give him a call, will you?”
+
+Cameron stepped to the door of the teepee.
+
+“Come along, Chief, we must be going,” he said, putting his head inside
+the teepee door. “Hello!” he cried, “Where the deuce--where is he gone?”
+ He sprang quickly out of the teepee. “Has he passed out?”
+
+“Passed out?” said the Inspector. “No. Is he not inside?”
+
+“He's not here.”
+
+Both men rushed into the teepee. On the couch the boy still lay, his
+eyes brilliant with fever but more with hate. At the foot of the couch
+still crouched the old crone, but there was no sign of the Chief.
+
+“Get up!” said the Inspector to the old squaw, turning the blankets and
+skins upside down.
+
+“Hee! hee!” she laughed in diabolical glee, spitting at him as he
+passed.
+
+“Did no one enter?” asked Cameron.
+
+“Not a soul.”
+
+“Nor go out?”
+
+“No one except the old squaw here. I saw her go out with a pack.”
+
+“With a pack!” echoed Cameron. And the two men stood looking at each
+other. “By Jove!” said Cameron in deep disgust, “We're done. He is
+rightly named Copperhead. Quick!” he cried, “Let us search this camp,
+though it's not much use.”
+
+And so indeed it proved. Through every teepee they searched in hot
+haste, tumbling out squalling squaws and papooses. But all in vain.
+Copperhead had as completely disappeared as if he had vanished into thin
+air. With faces stolid and unmoved by a single gleam of satisfaction the
+Indians watched their hurried search.
+
+“We will take a turn around this camp,” said Cameron, swinging on to his
+pony. “You hear me!” he continued, riding up close to Trotting Wolf, “We
+haven't got our man but we will come back again. And listen carefully!
+If I lose a single steer this fall I shall come and take you, Trotting
+Wolf, to the Fort, if I have to bring you by the hair of the head.”
+
+But Trotting Wolf only shrugged his shoulders, saying:
+
+“No see cow.”
+
+“Is there any use taking a look around this camp?” said the Inspector.
+
+“What else can we do?” said Cameron. “We might as well. There is a faint
+chance we might come across a trace.”
+
+But no trace did they find, though they spent an hour and more in close
+and minute scrutiny of the ground about the camp and the trails leading
+out from it.
+
+“Where now?” inquired the Inspector.
+
+“Home for me,” said Cameron. “To-morrow to Calgary. Next week I take up
+this trail. You may as well come along with me, Inspector. We can talk
+things over as we go.”
+
+They were a silent and chagrined pair as they rode out from the Reserve
+toward the ranch. As they were climbing from the valley to the plateau
+above they came to a soft bit of ground. Here Cameron suddenly drew rein
+with a warning cry, and, flinging himself off his broncho, was upon his
+knee examining a fresh track.
+
+“A pony-track, by all that's holy! And within an hour. It is our man,”
+ he cried, examining the trail carefully and following it up the hill and
+out on to the plateau. “It is our man sure enough, and he is taking this
+trail.”
+
+For some miles the pony-tracks were visible enough. There was no attempt
+to cover them. The rider was evidently pushing hard.
+
+“Where do you think he is heading for, Inspector?”
+
+“Well,” said the Inspector, “this trail strikes toward the Blackfoot
+Reserve by way of your ranch.”
+
+“My ranch!” cried Cameron. “My God! Look there!”
+
+As he spoke the ginger-colored broncho leaped into a gallop. Five miles
+away a thin column of smoke could be seen rising up into the air. Every
+mile made it clearer to Cameron that the smoke rising from behind the
+round-topped hill before him was from his ranch-buildings, and every
+mile intensified his anxiety. His wife was alone on the ranch at the
+mercy of that fiend. That was the agonizing thought that tore at his
+heart as his panting broncho pounded along the trail. From the top
+of the hill overlooking the ranch a mile away his eye swept the scene
+below, swiftly taking in the details. The ranch-house was in flames and
+burning fiercely. The stables were untouched. A horse stood tied to
+the corral and two figures were hurrying to and fro about the blazing
+building. As they neared the scene it became clear that one of the
+figures was that of a woman.
+
+“Mandy!” he shouted from afar. “Mandy, thank God it's you!”
+
+But they were too absorbed in their business of fighting the fire. They
+neither heard nor saw him till he flung himself off his broncho at their
+side.
+
+“Oh, thank God, Mandy!” he panted, “you are safe.” He gathered her into
+his arms.
+
+“Oh, Allan, I am so sorry.”
+
+“Sorry? Sorry? Why?”
+
+“Our beautiful house!”
+
+“House?”
+
+“And all our beautiful things!”
+
+“Things!” He laughed aloud. “House and things! Why, Mandy, I have YOU
+safe. What else matters?” Again he laughed aloud, holding her off from
+him at arm's length and gazing at her grimy face. “Mandy,” he said, “I
+believe you are improving every day in your appearance, but you never
+looked so stunning as this blessed minute.” Again he laughed aloud. He
+was white and trembling.
+
+“But the house, Allan!”
+
+“Oh, yes, by the way,” he said, “the house. And who's the Johnny
+carrying water there?”
+
+“Oh, I quite forgot. That's Thatcher's new man.”
+
+“Rather wobbly about the knees, isn't he?” cried Cameron. “By Jove,
+Mandy! I feared I should never see you again,” he said in a voice that
+trembled and broke. “And what's the chap's name?” he inquired.
+
+“Smith, I think,” said Mandy.
+
+“Smith? Fine fellow! Most useful name!” cried Cameron.
+
+“What's the matter, Allan?”
+
+“The matter? Nothing now, Mandy. Nothing matters. I was afraid that--but
+no matter. Hello, here's the Inspector!”
+
+“Dear Mrs. Cameron,” cried the Inspector, taking both her hands in his,
+“I'm awfully glad there's nothing wrong.”
+
+“Nothing wrong? Look at that house!”
+
+“Oh, yes, awfully sorry. But we were afraid--of that--eh--that is--”
+
+“Yes, Mandy,” said her husband, making visible efforts to control his
+voice, “we frankly were afraid that that old devil Copperhead had come
+this way and--”
+
+“He did!” cried Mandy.
+
+“What?”
+
+“He did. Oh, Allan, I was going to tell you just as the Inspector came,
+and I am so sorry. When you left I wanted to help. I was afraid of what
+all those Indians might do to you, so I thought I would ride up the
+trail a bit. I got near to where it branches off toward the Reserve near
+by those pine trees. There I saw a man come tearing along on a pony. It
+was this Indian. I drew aside. He was just going past when he glanced at
+me. He stopped and came rushing at me, waving a pistol in his hand. Oh,
+such a face! I wonder I ever thought him fine-looking. He caught me by
+the arm. I thought his fingers would break the bone. Look!” She pulled
+up her sleeve, and upon the firm brown flesh blue and red finger marks
+could be seen. “He caught me and shook me and fairly yelled at me, 'You
+save my boy once. Me save you to-day. Next time me see your man me kill
+him.' He flung me away from him and nearly off my horse--such eyes! such
+a face!--and went galloping off down the trail. I feared I was going to
+be ill, so I came on homeward. When I reached the top of the hill I saw
+the smoke and by the time I arrived the house was blazing and Smith was
+carrying water to put out the fire where it had caught upon the smoke
+house and stables.”
+
+The men listened to her story with tense white faces. When she had
+finished Cameron said quietly:
+
+“Mandy, roll me up some grub in a blanket.”
+
+“Where are you going, Allan?” her face pale as his own.
+
+“Going? To get my hands on that Indian's throat.”
+
+“But not now?”
+
+“Yes, now,” he said, moving toward his horse.
+
+“What about me, Allan?”
+
+The word arrested him as if a hand had gripped him.
+
+“You,” he said in a dazed manner. “Why, Mandy, of course, there's you.
+He might have killed you.” Then, shaking his shoulders as if throwing
+off a load, he said impatiently, “Oh, I am a fool. That devil has sent
+me off my head. I tell you what, Mandy, we will feed first, then we will
+make new plans.”
+
+“And there is Moira, too,” said Mandy.
+
+“Yes, there is Moira. We will plan for her too. After all,”
+ he continued, with a slight laugh and with slow deliberation,
+“there's--lots--of time--to--get him!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SARCEE CAMP
+
+
+The sun had reached the peaks of the Rockies far in the west, touching
+their white with red, and all the lesser peaks and all the rounded
+hills between with great splashes of gold and blue and purple. It is the
+sunset and the sunrise that make the foothill country a world of mystery
+and of beauty, a world to dream about and long for in later days.
+
+Through this mystic world of gold and blue and purple drove Cameron and
+his wife, on their way to the little town of Calgary, three days after
+the ruthless burning of their home. As the sun dipped behind the western
+peaks they reached the crossing of the Elbow and entered the wide Bow
+Valley, upon whose level plain was situated the busy, ambitious and
+would-be wicked little pioneer town. The town and plain lay bathed in
+a soft haze of rosy purple that lent a kind of Oriental splendor to
+the tawdry, unsightly cluster of shacks that sprawled here and there in
+irregular bunches on the prairie.
+
+“What a picture it makes!” cried Mandy. “How wonderful this great plain
+with its encircling rivers, those hills with the great peaks beyond!
+What a site for a town!”
+
+“There is no finer,” replied her husband, “anywhere in the world that I
+know, unless it be that of 'Auld Reekie.'”
+
+“Meaning?”
+
+“Meaning!” he echoed indignantly. “What else but the finest of all the
+capitals of Europe?”
+
+“London?” inquired Mandy.
+
+“London!” echoed her husband contemptuously. “You ignorant Colonial!
+Edinburgh, of course. But this is perfectly splendid,” he continued. “I
+never get used to the wonder of Calgary. You see that deep cut between
+those peaks in the far west? That is where 'The Gap' lies, through which
+the Bow flows toward us. A great site this for a great town some day.
+But you ought to see these peaks in the morning with the sunlight coming
+up from the east across the foothills and falling upon them. Whoa,
+there! Steady, Pepper!” he cried to the broncho, which owed its name to
+the speckled appearance of its hide, and which at the present moment
+was plunging and kicking at a dog that had rushed out from an Indian
+encampment close by the trail. “Did you never see an Indian dog before?”
+
+“Oh, Allan,” cried Mandy with a shudder, “do you know I can't bear to
+look at an Indian since last week, and I used to like them.”
+
+“Hardly fair, though, to blame the whole race for the deviltry of one
+specimen.”
+
+“I know that, but--”
+
+“This is a Sarcee camp, I fancy. They are a cunning lot and not the most
+reliable of the Indians. Let me see--three--four teepees. Ought to be
+fifteen or twenty in that camp. Only squaws about. The braves apparently
+are in town painting things up a bit.”
+
+A quarter of a mile past the Indian encampment the trail made a sharp
+turn into what appeared to be the beginning of the main street of the
+town.
+
+“By Jove!” cried Cameron. “Here they come. Sit tight, Mandy.” He pointed
+with his whip down the trail to what seemed to be a rolling cloud of
+dust, vocal with wild whoops and animated with plunging figures of men
+and ponies.
+
+“Steady, there, boys! Get on!” cried Cameron to his plunging, jibing
+bronchos, who were evidently unwilling to face that rolling cloud of
+dust with its mass of shrieking men and galloping ponies thundering down
+upon them. Swift and fierce upon their flanks fell the hissing lash.
+“Stand up to them, you beggars!” he shouted to his bronchos, which
+seemed intent upon turning tail and joining the approaching cavalcade.
+“Hie, there! Hello! Look out!” he yelled, standing up in his wagon,
+waving his whip and holding his bronchos steadily on the trail. The
+next moment the dust cloud enveloped them and the thundering cavalcade,
+parting, surged by on either side. Cameron was wild with rage.
+
+“Infernal cheeky brutes!” he cried. “For two shillings I'd go back and
+break some of their necks. Ride me down, would they?” he continued,
+grinding his teeth in fury.
+
+He pulled up his bronchos with half a mind to turn them about and pursue
+the flying Indians. His experience and training with the Mounted Police
+made it difficult for him to accept with equal mind what he called the
+infernal cheek of a bunch of Indians. At the entreaties of his wife,
+however, he hesitated in carrying his purpose into effect.
+
+“Let them go,” said Mandy. “They didn't hurt us, after all.”
+
+“Didn't? No thanks to them. They might have killed you. Well, I shall
+see about this later.” He gave his excited bronchos their head and
+sailed into town, drawing up in magnificent style at the Royal Hotel.
+
+An attendant in cowboy garb came lounging up.
+
+“Hello, Billy!” cried Cameron. “Still blooming?”
+
+“Sure! And rosebuds ain't in it with you, Colonel.” Billy was from the
+land of colonels. “You've got a whole garden with you this trip, eh?”
+
+“My wife, Billy,” replied Cameron, presenting her.
+
+Billy pulled off his Stetson.
+
+“Proud to meet you, madam. Hope I see you well and happy.”
+
+“Yes, indeed, well and happy,” cried Mandy emphatically.
+
+“Sure thing, if looks mean anything,” said Billy, admiration glowing in
+his eyes.
+
+“Take the horses, Billy. They have come a hundred and fifty miles.”
+
+“Hundred and fifty, eh? They don't look it. But I'll take care of 'em
+all right. You go right in.”
+
+“I shall be back presently, Billy,” said Cameron, passing into the dingy
+sitting-room that opened off the bar.
+
+In a few minutes he had his wife settled in a frowsy little eight-by-ten
+bedroom, the best the hotel afforded, and departed to attend to his
+team, make arrangements for supper and inquire about the incoming train.
+The train he found to be three hours late. His team he found in the
+capable hands of Billy, who was unharnessing and rubbing them down.
+While ordering his supper a hand gripped his shoulder and a voice
+shouted in his ear:
+
+“Hello, old sport! How goes it?”
+
+“Martin, old boy!” shouted Cameron in reply. “It's awfully good to see
+you. How did you get here? Oh, yes, of course, I remember. You left the
+construction camp and came here to settle down.” All the while Cameron
+was speaking he was shaking his friend's hand with both of his. “By
+Jove, but you're fit!” he continued, running his eye over the slight but
+athletic figure of his friend.
+
+“Fit! Never fitter, not even in the old days when I used to pass the
+pigskin to you out of the scrimmage. But you? You're hardly up to the
+mark.” The keen gray eyes searched Cameron's face. “What's up with you?”
+
+“Oh, nothing. A little extra work and a little worry, but I'll tell you
+later.”
+
+“Well, what are you on to now?” inquired Martin.
+
+“Ordering our supper. We've just come in from a hundred and fifty miles'
+drive.”
+
+“Supper? Your wife here too? Glory! It's up to me, old boy! Look here,
+Connolly,” he turned to the proprietor behind the bar, “a bang-up supper
+for three. All the season's delicacies and all the courses in order. As
+you love me, Connolly, do us your prettiest. And soon, awfully soon. A
+hundred and fifty miles, remember. Now, then, how's my old nurse?” he
+continued, turning back to Cameron. “She was my nurse, remember, till
+you came and stole her.”
+
+“She was, eh? Ask her,” laughed Cameron. “But she will be glad to see
+you. Where's MY nurse, then, my little nurse, who saw me through a fever
+and a broken leg?”
+
+“Oh, she's up in the mountains still, in the construction camp. I
+proposed to bring her down here with me, but there was a riot. I barely
+escaped. If ever she gets out from that camp it will be when they are
+all asleep or when she is in a box car.”
+
+“Come along, then,” cried Cameron. “I have much to tell you, and my wife
+will be glad to see you. My sister comes in by No. 1, do you know?”
+
+“Your sister? By No. 1? You don't say! Why, I never thought your
+sister--by No. 1, eh?”
+
+“Yes, by No. 1.”
+
+“Say, Doc,” said the hotel man, breaking into the conversation. “There's
+a bunch of 'em comin' in, ain't there? Who's the lady you was expectin'
+yourself on No. 1?”
+
+“Lady?” said Cameron. “What's this, Martin?”
+
+“Me? Wake up, Connolly, you're walking in your sleep,” violently
+signaling to the hotel man.
+
+“Oh, it won't do, Martin,” said Cameron with grave concern. “You may
+as well own up. Who is it? Come. By Jove! What? A blush? And on that
+asbestos cheek? Something here, sure enough.”
+
+“Oh, rot, Cameron! Connolly is a well-known somnambulist.”
+
+“Sure thing!” said Connolly. “Is it catchin,' for I guess you had the
+same thing last night?”
+
+“Connolly, you've gone batty! You need a nurse.”
+
+“A nurse? Maybe so. Maybe so. But I guess you've got to the point where
+you need a preacher. Ha! ha! Got you that time, Doc!” laughed the hotel
+man, winking at Cameron.
+
+“Oh, let it out, Martin. You'll feel better afterward. Who is it?”
+
+“Cameron, so help me! Connolly is an infernal ass. He's batty, I tell
+you. I'm treating him for it right now.”
+
+“All right,” said Cameron, “never mind. I shall run up and tell my wife
+you are here. Wait for me,” he cried, as he ran up the stairs.
+
+“Connolly, you fool! I'll knock your wooden block off!” said the doctor
+in a fury.
+
+“But, Doc, you did say--”
+
+“Oh, confound you! Shut up! It was--”
+
+“But you did say--”
+
+“Will you shut up?”
+
+“Certain, sure I'll shut up. But you said--”
+
+“Look here!” broke in the doctor impatiently. “He'll be down in a
+minute. I don't want him to know.”
+
+“Aw, Doc, cut it out! He ain't no Lady Clara.”
+
+“Connolly, close that trap of yours and listen to me. This is serious.
+He'll be back in a jiffy. It's the same lady as he is going to meet.”
+
+“Same lady? But she's his sister.”
+
+“Yes, of course, you idiot! She's his sister. And now you've queered me
+with him and he will think--”
+
+“Aw, Doc, let me be. I'll straighten that tangle out.”
+
+“Sh-h! Here he is. Not a word, on your life!”
+
+“Aw, get out!” replied Connolly with generous enthusiasm. “I don't leave
+no pard of mine in a hole. Say,” he cried, turning to Cameron, “about
+that lady. Ha! ha!”
+
+“Shut your ugly mug!” said the doctor savagely.
+
+“It's the same lady. Ha! ha! Good joke, eh, Sergeant?”
+
+“Same lady?” echoed Cameron.
+
+“Sure, same lady.”
+
+“What does he mean, Martin?”
+
+“The man's drunk, Cameron. He got a permit last week and he hasn't been
+sober for a day since.”
+
+“Ha! ha!” laughed Connolly again. “Wish I had a chance.”
+
+“But the lady?” said Cameron, looking at his friend suspiciously. “And
+these blushes?”
+
+“Oh, well, hang it!” said Martin. “I suppose I might as well tell you.
+I found out that your sister was to be in on this train, and in case you
+should not turn up I told Connolly here to have a room ready.”
+
+“Oh,” said Cameron, with his eyes upon his friend's face. “You found
+out? And how did you find out that Moira was coming?”
+
+“Well,” said Martin, his face growing hotter with every word of
+explanation, “you have a wife and we have a mutual friend in our little
+nurse, and that's how I learned. And so I thought I'd be on hand
+anyway. You remember I met your sister up at your Highland home with the
+unpronounceable name.”
+
+“Ah, yes! Cuagh Oir. Dear old spot!” said Cameron reminiscently. “Moira
+will be heart broken every day when she sees the Big Horn Ranch, I'm
+afraid. But here comes Mandy.”
+
+The meeting between the doctor and Cameron's wife was like that between
+old comrades in arms, as indeed they had been through many a hard fight
+with disease, accident and death during the construction days along the
+line of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky Mountains.
+
+A jolly hour they had together at supper, exchanging news and retailing
+the latest jokes. And then Cameron told his friend the story of old
+Copperhead and of the task laid upon him by Superintendent Strong.
+Martin listened in grave silence till the tale was done, then said with
+quiet gravity:
+
+“Cameron, this is a serious business. Why! It's--it's terrible.”
+
+“Yes,” replied Mandy quickly, “but you can see that he must do it. We
+have quite settled that. You see there are the women and children.”
+
+“And is there no one else? Surely--”
+
+“No, there is no one else quite so fit to do it,” said Mandy.
+
+“By Jove, you're a wonder!” cried Martin, his face lighting up with
+sudden enthusiasm.
+
+“Not much of a wonder,” she replied, a quick tremor in her voice. “Not
+much of a wonder, I'm afraid. But how could I keep him? I couldn't keep
+him, could I,” she said, “if his country needs him?”
+
+The doctor glanced at her face with its appealing deep blue eyes.
+
+“No, by Jove! You couldn't keep him, not you.”
+
+“Now, Mandy,” said Cameron, “you must upstairs and to bed.” He read
+aright the signs upon her face. “You are tired and you will need all the
+sleep you can get. Wait for me, Martin, I'll be down in a few moments.”
+
+When they reached their room Cameron turned and took his wife in his
+arms.
+
+“Mandy! as Martin says, you are wonderful. You are a brave woman. You
+have nerve enough for both of us, and you will need to have nerve for
+both, for how I am going to leave you I know not. But now you must to
+bed. I have a little business to attend to.”
+
+“Business?” inquired his wife.
+
+“Yes. Oh, I won't try to hide it from you, Mandy. It's 'The Big
+Business.' We are--Dr. Martin and I--going up to the Barracks.
+Superintendent Strong has come down for a consultation.” He paused and
+looked into his wife's face. “I must go, dear.”
+
+“Yes, yes, I know, Allan. You must go. But--do you know--it's foolish
+to say it, but as those Indians passed us I fancied I saw the face of
+Copperhead.”
+
+“Hardly, I fancy,” said her husband with a laugh. “He'd know better than
+run into this town in open day just now. All Indians will look to you
+like old Copperhead for a while.”
+
+“It may be so. I fancy I'm a little nervous. But come back soon.”
+
+“You may be sure of that, sweetheart. Meantime sleep well.”
+
+The little town of Calgary stands on one of the most beautiful
+town-sites in all the world. A great plain with ramparts of hills on
+every side, encircled by the twin mountain rivers, the Bow and the
+Elbow, overlooked by rolling hills and far away to the west by the
+mighty peaks of the Rockies, it holds at once ample space and unusual
+picturesque beauty. The little town itself was just emerging from its
+early days as a railway construction-camp and was beginning to develop
+ambitions toward a well-ordered business activity and social stability.
+It was an all-night town, for the simple and sufficient reason that its
+communications with the world lying to the east and to the west began
+with the arrival of No. 2 at half-past twelve at night and No. 1 at
+five o'clock next morning. Few of its citizens thought it worth while
+to settle down for the night until after the departure of No. 2 on its
+westward journey.
+
+Through this “all-night” little town Cameron and the doctor took their
+way. The sidewalks were still thronged, the stores still doing business,
+the restaurants, hotels, pool-rooms all wide open. It kept
+Sergeant Crisp busy enough running out the “tin-horn” gamblers and
+whisky-peddlers, keeping guard over the fresh and innocent lambs
+that strayed in from the East and across from the old land ready for
+shearing, and preserving law and order in this hustling frontier town.
+Money was still easy in the town, and had Sergeant Crisp been minded
+for the mere closing of his eyes or turning of his back upon occasion he
+might have retired early from the Force with a competency. Unhappily for
+Sergeant Crisp, however, there stood in the pathway of his fortune the
+awkward fact of his conscience and his oath of service. Consequently
+he was forced to grub along upon the munificent bounty of the daily pay
+with which Her Majesty awarded the faithful service of the non-coms.
+in her North West Mounted Police Force. And indeed through all the wide
+reaches of that great West land during those pioneer days and among all
+the officers of that gallant force no record can be found of an officer
+who counted fortune dearer than honor.
+
+Through this wide awake, wicked, but well-watched little town Cameron
+with his friend made his way westward toward the Barracks to keep his
+appointment with his former Chief, Superintendent Strong. The Barracks
+stood upon the prairie about half a mile distant from the town. They
+found Superintendent Strong fuming with impatience, which he controlled
+with difficulty while Cameron presented his friend.
+
+“Well, Cameron, you've come at last,” was his salutation when the
+introduction was completed. “When did you get into town? I have been
+waiting all day to see you. Where have you been?”
+
+“Arrived an hour ago,” said Cameron shortly, for he did not half like
+the Superintendent's brusque manner. “The trail was heavy owing to the
+rain day before yesterday.”
+
+“When did you leave the ranch?” inquired Sergeant Crisp.
+
+“Yesterday morning,” said Cameron. “The colts were green and I couldn't
+send them along.”
+
+“Yesterday morning!” exclaimed Sergeant Crisp. “You needn't apologize
+for the colts, Cameron.”
+
+“I wasn't apologizing for anybody or anything. I was making a statement
+of fact,” replied Cameron curtly.
+
+“Ah, yes, very good going, Cameron. Very good going, indeed, I should
+say,” said the Superintendent, conscious of his own brusqueness and
+anxious to appease. “Did Mrs. Cameron come with you?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“Indeed. That is a long drive for a lady to make, Cameron. Too long a
+drive, I should say. I hope she is quite well, not--eh--over-fatigued?”
+
+“She is quite well, thank you.”
+
+“Well, she is an old campaigner,” said the Superintendent with a smile,
+“and not easily knocked up if I remember her aright. But I ought to
+say, Cameron, how very deeply I appreciate your very fine--indeed very
+handsome conduct in volunteering to come to our assistance in this
+matter. Very handsome indeed I call it. It will have a good effect upon
+the community. I appreciate the sacrifice. The Commissioner and the
+whole Force will appreciate it. But,” he added, as if to himself,
+“before we are through with this business I fear there will be more
+sacrifice demanded from all of us. I trust none of us will be found
+wanting.” The Superintendent's voice was unduly solemn, his manner
+almost somber. Cameron was impressed with this manifestation of feeling
+so unusual with the Superintendent.
+
+“Any more news, sir?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes, every post brings news of seditious meetings up north along the
+Saskatchewan and of indifference on the part of the Government. And
+further, I have the most conclusive evidence that our Indians are being
+tampered with, and successfully too. There is no reason to doubt that
+the head chiefs have been approached and that many of the minor chiefs
+are listening to the proposals of Riel and his half-breeds. But you
+have some news to give, I understand? Dickson said you would give me
+particulars.”
+
+Thereupon Cameron briefly related the incidents in connection with the
+attempted arrest of the Sioux Chief, and closed with a brief account of
+the burning of his home.
+
+“That is most daring, most serious,” exclaimed the Superintendent. “But
+you are quite certain that it was the Sioux that was responsible for the
+outrage?”
+
+“Well,” said Cameron, “he met my wife on a trail five miles away,
+threatened her, and--”
+
+“Good God, Cameron! Threatened your wife?”
+
+“Yes, nearly flung her off her horse,” replied Cameron, his voice quiet
+and even, but his eyes glowing like fires in his white face.
+
+“Flung her off her horse? But--he didn't injure her?” replied the
+Superintendent.
+
+“Only that he terrified her with his threats and then went on toward the
+house, which he left in flames.”
+
+“My God, Cameron!” said the Superintendent, rising in his excitement.
+“This is really terrible. You must have suffered awful anxiety. I
+apologize for my abrupt manner a moment ago,” he added, offering his
+hand. “I'm awfully sorry.”
+
+“It's all right, Superintendent,” replied Cameron. “I'm afraid I am a
+little upset myself.”
+
+“But what a God's mercy she escaped! How came that, I wonder?”
+
+Then Cameron told the story of the rescue of the Indian boy.
+
+“That undoubtedly explains it,” exclaimed the Superintendent. “That
+was a most fortunate affair. Do an Indian a good turn and he will never
+forget it. I shudder to think of what might have happened, for I assure
+you that this Copperhead will stick at nothing. We have an unusually
+able man to deal with, and we shall put our whole Force on this business
+of arresting this man. Have you any suggestions yourself?”
+
+“No,” said Cameron, “except that it would appear to be a mistake to give
+any sign that we were very specially anxious to get him just now. So
+far we have not shown our hand. Any concentrating of the Force upon his
+capture would only arouse suspicion and defeat our aim, while my going
+after him, no matter how keenly, will be accounted for on personal
+grounds.”
+
+“There is something in that, but do you think you can get him?”
+
+“I am going to get him,” said Cameron quietly.
+
+The superintendent glanced at his face.
+
+“By Jove, I believe you will! But remember, you can count on me and on
+my Force to a man any time and every time to back you up, and there's my
+hand on it. And now, let's get at this thing. We have a cunning devil
+to do with and he has gathered about him the very worst elements on the
+reserves.”
+
+Together they sat and made their plans till far on into the night. But
+as a matter of fact they could make little progress. They knew well it
+would be extremely difficult to discover their man. Owing to the state
+of feeling throughout the reserves the source of information upon
+which the Police ordinarily relied had suddenly dried up or become
+untrustworthy. A marked change had come over the temper of the Indians.
+While as yet they were apparently on friendly terms and guilty of no
+open breach of the law, a sullen and suspicious aloofness marked the
+bearing of the younger braves and even of some of the chiefs toward the
+Police. Then, too, among the Piegans in the south and among the
+Sarcees whose reserve was in the neighborhood of Calgary an epidemic
+of cattle-stealing had broken out and the Police were finding it
+increasingly difficult to bring the criminals to justice. Hence with
+this large increase in crime and with the changed attitude and temper of
+the Indians toward the Police, such an amount of additional patrol-work
+was necessary that the Police had almost reached the limit of their
+endurance.
+
+“In fact, we have really a difficult proposition before us, short-handed
+as we are,” said the Superintendent as they closed their interview.
+“Indeed, if things become much worse we may find it necessary to
+organize the settlers as Home Guards. An outbreak on the Saskatchewan
+might produce at any moment the most serious results here and in British
+Columbia. Meantime, while we stand ready to help all we can, it looks to
+me, Cameron, that you are right and that in this business you must go it
+alone pretty much.”
+
+“I realize that, sir,” replied Cameron. “But first I must get my house
+built and things in shape, then I hope to take this up.”
+
+“Most certainly,” replied the Superintendent. “Take a month. He can't do
+much more harm in a month, and meantime we shall do our utmost to obtain
+information and we shall keep you informed of anything we discover.”
+
+The Superintendent and Sergeant accompanied Cameron and his friend to
+the door.
+
+“It is a black night,” said Sergeant Crisp. “I hope they're not running
+any 'wet freight' in to-night.”
+
+“It's a good night for it, Sergeant,” said Dr. Martin. “Do you expect
+anything to come in?”
+
+“I have heard rumors,” replied the Sergeant, “and there is a freight
+train standing right there now which I have already gone through but
+upon which it is worth while still to keep an eye.”
+
+“Well, good-night,” said the Superintendent, shaking Cameron by
+the hand. “Keep me posted and when within reach be sure and see me.
+Good-night, Dr. Martin. We may want you too before long.”
+
+“All right, sir, you have only to say the word.”
+
+The night was so black that the trail which in the daylight was worn
+smooth and plainly visible was quite blotted out. The light from the
+Indian camp fire, which was blazing brightly a hundred yards away,
+helped them to keep their general direction.
+
+“For a proper black night commend me to the prairie,” said the doctor.
+“It is the dead level does it, I believe. There is nothing to cast a
+reflection or a shadow.”
+
+“It will be better in a few minutes,” said Cameron, “when we get our
+night sight.”
+
+“You are off the trail a bit, I think,” said the doctor.
+
+“Yes, I know. I am hitting toward the fire. The light makes it better
+going that way.”
+
+“I say, that chap appears to be going some. Quite a song and dance he's
+giving them,” said the doctor, pointing to an Indian who in the full
+light of the camp fire was standing erect and, with hand outstretched,
+was declaiming to the others, who, kneeling or squatting about the fire,
+were giving him rapt attention. The erect figure and outstretched arm
+arrested Cameron. A haunting sense of familiarity floated across his
+memory.
+
+“Let's go nearer,” he said, “and quietly.”
+
+With extreme caution they made about two-thirds of the distance when a
+howl from an Indian dog revealed their presence. At once the speaker
+who had been standing in the firelight sank crouching to the ground.
+Instantly Cameron ran forward a few swift steps and, like a hound upon
+a deer, leapt across the fire and fair upon the crouching Indian, crying
+“Call the Police, Martin!”
+
+With a loud cry of “Police! Police! Help here!” Martin sprang into the
+middle of an excited group of Indians. Two of them threw themselves
+upon him, but with a hard right and left he laid them low and, seizing
+a stick of wood, sprang toward two others who were seeking to batter the
+life out of Cameron as he lay gripping his enemy by the throat with one
+hand and with the other by the wrist to check a knife thrust. Swinging
+his stick around his head and repeating his cry for help, Martin made
+Cameron's assailants give back a space and before they could renew the
+attack Sergeant Crisp burst open the door of the Barracks, and, followed
+by a Slim young constable and the Superintendent, came rushing with
+shouts upon the scene. Immediately upon the approach of the Police the
+Indians ceased the fight and all that could faded out of the light into
+the black night around them, while the Indian who continued to struggle
+with incredible fury to free himself from Cameron's grip suddenly became
+limp and motionless.
+
+“Now, what's all this?” demanded the Sergeant. “Why, it's you, doctor,
+and where--? You don't mean that's Cameron there? Hello, Cameron!” he
+said, leaning over him. “Let go! He's safe enough. We've got him all
+right. Let go! By Jove! Are they both dead?”
+
+Here the Superintendent came up. The incidents leading up to the present
+situation were briefly described by the doctor.
+
+“I can't get this fellow free,” said the Sergeant, who was working hard
+to release the Indian's throat from the gripping fingers. He turned
+Cameron over on his back. He was quite insensible. Blood was pouring
+from his mouth and nose, but his fingers like steel clamps were gripping
+the wrist and throat of his foe. The Indian lay like dead.
+
+“Good Lord, doctor! What shall we do?” cried the Superintendent. “Is he
+dead?”
+
+“No,” said Martin, with his hand upon Cameron's heart. “Bring water.
+You can't loosen his fingers till he revives. The blow that knocked him
+senseless set those fingers as they are and they will stay set thus till
+released by returning consciousness.”
+
+“Here then, get water quick!” shouted the Superintendent to the slim
+young constable.
+
+Gradually as the water was splashed upon his face Cameron came back to
+life and, relaxing his fingers, stretched himself with a sigh as of vast
+relief and lay still.
+
+“Here, take that, you beast!” cried the Sergeant, dashing the rest of
+the water into the face of the Indian lying rigid and motionless on the
+ground. A long shudder ran through the Indian's limbs. Clutching at
+his throat with both hands, he raised himself to a sitting posture, his
+breath coming in raucous gasps, glared wildly upon the group, then sank
+back upon the ground, rolled over upon his side and lay twitching and
+breathing heavily, unheeded by the doctor and Police who were working
+hard over Cameron.
+
+“No bones broken, I think,” said the doctor, feeling the battered head.
+“Here's where the blow fell that knocked him out,” pointing to a ridge
+that ran along the side of Cameron's head. “A little lower, a little
+more to the front and he would never have moved. Let's get him in.”
+
+Cameron opened his eyes, struggled to speak and sank back again.
+
+“Don't stir, old chap. You're all right. Don't move for a bit. Could you
+get a little brandy, Sergeant?”
+
+Again the slim young constable rushed toward the Barracks and in a few
+moments returned with the spirits. After taking a sip of the brandy
+Cameron again opened his eyes and managed to say “Don't--”
+
+“All right, old chap,” said the doctor. “We won't move you yet. Just lie
+still a bit.” But as once more Cameron opened his eyes the agony of the
+appeal in them aroused the doctor's attention. “Something wrong, eh?” he
+said. “Are you in pain, old boy?”
+
+The appealing eyes closed, then, opening again, turned toward the
+Superintendent.
+
+“Copperhead,” he whispered.
+
+“What do you say?” said the Superintendent kneeling down.
+
+Once more with painful effort Cameron managed to utter the word
+“Copperhead.”
+
+“Copperhead!” ejaculated the Superintendent in a low tense voice,
+springing to his feet and turning toward the unconscious Indian. “He's
+gone!” he cried with a great oath. “He's gone! Sergeant Crisp!” he
+shouted, “Call out the whole Force! Surround this camp and hold every
+Indian. Search every teepee for this fellow who was lying here. Quick!
+Quick!” Leaving Cameron to the doctor, who in a few minutes became
+satisfied that no serious injury had been sustained, he joined in the
+search with fierce energy. The teepees were searched, the squaws and
+papooses were ruthlessly bundled out from their slumbers and with the
+Indians were huddled into the Barracks. But of the Sioux Chief there was
+no sign. He had utterly vanished. The black prairie had engulfed him.
+
+But the Police had their own methods. Within a quarter of an hour half
+a dozen mounted constables were riding off in different directions to
+cover the main trails leading to the Indian reserves and to sweep a wide
+circle about the town.
+
+“They will surely get him,” said Dr. Martin confidently.
+
+“Not much chance of it,” growled Cameron, to whom with returning
+consciousness had come the bitter knowledge of the escape of the man
+he had come to regard as his mortal enemy. “I had him fast enough,” he
+groaned, “in spite of the best he could do, and I would have choked his
+life out had it not been for these other devils.”
+
+“They certainly jumped in savagely,” said Martin. “In fact I cannot
+understand how they got at the thing so quickly.”
+
+“Didn't you hear him call?” said Cameron. “It was his call that did it.
+Something he said turned them into devils. They were bound to do for me.
+I never saw Indians act like that.”
+
+“Yes, I heard that call, and it mighty near did the trick for you. Thank
+Heaven your thick Hielan' skull saved you.”
+
+“How did they let him go?” again groaned Cameron.
+
+“How? Because he was too swift for us,” said the Superintendent, who had
+come in, “and we too slow. I thought it was an ordinary Indian row,
+you see, but I might have known that you would not have gone in in that
+style without good reason. Who would think that this old devil should
+have the impudence to camp right here under our nose? Where did he come
+from anyway, do you suppose?”
+
+“Been to the Blackfoot Reserve like enough and was on his way to the
+Sarcees when he fell in with this little camp of theirs.”
+
+“That's about it,” replied the Superintendent gloomily. “And to think
+you had him fast and we let him go!”
+
+The thought brought small comfort to any of them, least of all to
+Cameron. In that vast foothill country with all the hidings of the hills
+and hollows there was little chance that the Police would round up the
+fugitive, and upon Cameron still lay the task of capturing this cunning
+and resourceful foe.
+
+“Never mind,” said Martin cheerily. “Three out, all out. You'll get him
+next time.”
+
+“I don't know about that. But I'll get him some time or he'll get me,”
+ replied Cameron as his face settled into grim lines. “Let's get back.”
+
+“Are you quite fit?” inquired the Superintendent.
+
+“Fit enough. Sore a bit in the head, but can navigate.”
+
+“I can't tell you how disappointed and chagrined I feel. It isn't often
+that my wits are so slow but--” The Superintendent's jaws here cut off
+his speech with a snap. The one crime reckoned unpardonable in the men
+under his own command was that of failure and his failure to capture old
+Copperhead thus delivered into his hands galled him terribly.
+
+“Well, good-night, Cameron,” said the Superintendent, looking out into
+the black night. “We shall let you know to-morrow the result of our
+scouting, though I don't expect much from it. He is much too clever to
+be caught in the open in this country.”
+
+“Perhaps he'll skidoo,” said Dr. Martin hopefully.
+
+“No, he's not that kind,” replied the Superintendent. “You can't scare
+him out. You have got to catch him or kill him.”
+
+“I think you are right, sir,” said Cameron. “He will stay till his work
+is done or till he is made to quit.”
+
+“That is true, Cameron--till he is made to quit--and that's your job,”
+ said the Superintendent solemnly.
+
+“Yes, that is my job, sir,” replied Cameron simply and with equal
+solemnity. “I shall do my best.”
+
+“We have every confidence in you, Cameron,” replied the Superintendent.
+“Good-night,” he said again, shutting the door.
+
+“Say, old man, this is too gruesome,” said Martin with fierce
+impatience. “I can't see why it's up to you more than any other.”
+
+“The Sun Dance Trail is the trail he must take to do his work. That was
+my patrol last year--I know it best. God knows I don't want this--”
+ his breath came quick--“I am not afraid--but--but there's--We have been
+together for such a little while, you know.” He could get no farther for
+a moment or two, then added quietly, “But somehow I know--yes and she
+knows--bless her brave heart--it is my job. I must stay with it.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE GIRL ON NO. 1.
+
+
+By the time they had reached the hotel Cameron was glad enough to go to
+his bed.
+
+“You need not tell your wife, I suppose,” said the doctor.
+
+“Tell her? Certainly!” said Cameron. “She is with me in this. I play
+fair with her. Don't you fear, she is up to it.”
+
+And so she was, and, though her face grew white as she listened to the
+tale, never for a moment did her courage falter.
+
+“Doctor, is Allan all right? Tell me,” she said, her big blue eyes
+holding his in a steady gaze.
+
+“Right enough, but he must have a long sleep. You must not let him stir
+at five.”
+
+“Then,” said Mandy, “I shall go to meet the train, Allan.”
+
+“But you don't know Moira.”
+
+“No, but I shall find her out.”
+
+“Of course,” said Dr. Martin in a deprecating tone, “I know Miss
+Cameron, but--”
+
+“Of course you do,” cried Mandy. “Why, that is splendid! You will go
+and Allan need not be disturbed. She will understand. Not a word, now,
+Allan. We will look after this, the doctor and I, eh, Doctor?”
+
+“Why--eh--yes--yes certainly, of course. Why not?”
+
+“Why not, indeed?” echoed Mandy briskly. “She will understand.”
+
+And thus it was arranged. Under the influence of a powder left by Dr.
+Martin, Cameron, after an hour's tossing, fell into a heavy sleep.
+
+“I am so glad you are here,” said Mandy to the doctor, as he looked in
+upon her. “You are sure there is no injury?”
+
+“No, nothing serious. Shock, that's all. A day's quiet will fix him up.”
+
+“I am so thankful,” said Mandy, heaving a deep sigh of relief, “and I am
+so glad that you are here. And it is so nice that you know Moira.”
+
+“You are not going to the train?” said the doctor.
+
+“No, no, there is no need, and I don't like to leave him. Besides you
+don't need me.”
+
+“N-o-o, no, not at all--certainly not,” said the doctor with growing
+confidence. “Good-night. I shall show her to her room.”
+
+“Oh,” cried Mandy, “I shall meet you when you come. Thank you so much.
+So glad you are here,” she added with a tremulous smile.
+
+The doctor passed down the stairs.
+
+“By Jove, she's a brick!” he said to himself. “She has about all she
+can stand just now. Glad I am here, eh? Well, I guess I am too. But what
+about this thing? It's up to me now to do the Wild West welcome act, and
+I'm scared--plain scared to death. She won't know me from a goat. Let's
+see. I've got two hours yet to work up my ginger. I'll have a pipe to
+start with.”
+
+He passed into the bar, where, finding himself alone, he curled up in
+a big leather chair and gave himself up to his pipe and his dreams. The
+dingy bar-room gave place to a little sunny glen in the Highlands of
+Scotland, in which nestled a little cluster of stone-built cottages,
+moss-grown and rose-covered. Far down in the bottom of the Glen a tiny
+loch gleamed like a jewel. Up on the hillside above the valley an avenue
+of ragged pines led to a large manor house, old, quaint, but dignified,
+and in the doorway a maiden stood, grave of face and wonderfully sweet,
+in whose brown eyes and over whose brown curls all the glory of the
+little Glen of the Cup of Gold seemed to gather. Through many pipes he
+pursued his dreams, but always they led him to that old doorway and
+the maiden with the grave sweet face and the hair and eyes full of the
+golden sunlight of the Glen Cuagh Oir.
+
+“Oh, pshaw!” he grumbled to himself at last, knocking the ashes from
+his pipe. “She has forgotten me. It was only one single day. But what a
+day!”
+
+He lit a fresh pipe and began anew to dream of that wonderful day, that
+day which was the one unfading point of light in all his Old Country
+stay. Not even the day when he stood to receive his parchment and the
+special commendation of the Senatus and of his own professor for his
+excellent work lived with him like that day in the Glen. Every detail of
+the picture he could recall and ever in the foreground the maiden. With
+deliberate purpose he settled himself in his chair and set himself to
+fill in those fine and delicate touches that were necessary to make
+perfect the foreground of his picture, the pale olive face with its
+bewildering frame of golden waves and curls, the clear brown eyes, now
+soft and tender, now flashing with wrath, and the voice with its soft
+Highland cadence.
+
+“By Jove, I'm dotty! Clean dotty! I'll make an ass of myself, sure
+thing, when I see her to-day.” He sprang from his chair and shook
+himself together. “Besides, she has forgotten all about me.” He looked
+at his watch. It was twenty minutes to train-time. He opened the door
+and looked out. The chill morning air struck him sharply in the face. He
+turned quickly, snatched his overcoat from a nail in the hall and put it
+on.
+
+At this point Billy, who combined in his own person the offices of
+ostler, porter and clerk, appeared, his lantern shining with a dim
+yellow glare in the gray light of the dawn.
+
+“No. 1 is about due, Doc,” he said.
+
+“She is, eh? I say, Billy,” said the Doctor, “want to do something for
+me?” He pushed a dollar at Billy over the counter.
+
+“Name it, Doc, without further insult,” replied Billy, shoving the
+dollar back with a lordly scorn.
+
+“All right, Billy, you're a white little soul. Now listen. I want your
+ladies' parlor aired.”
+
+“Aired?” gasped Billy.
+
+“Yes, open the windows. Put on a fire. I have a lady coming--I
+have--that is--Sergeant Cameron's sister is coming--”
+
+“Say no more,” said Billy with a wink. “I get you, Doc. But what about
+the open window, Doc? It's rather cold.”
+
+“Open it up and put on a fire. Those Old Country people are mad about
+fresh air.”
+
+“All right, Doc,” replied Billy with another knowing wink. “The best is
+none too good for her, eh?”
+
+“Look here, now, Billy--” the doctor's tone grew severe--“let's have no
+nonsense. This is Sergeant Cameron's sister. He is knocked out, unable
+to meet her. I am taking his place. Do you get me? Now be quick. If you
+have any think juice in that block of yours turn it on.”
+
+Billy twisted one ear as if turning a cock, and tapped his forehead with
+his knuckles.
+
+“Doc,” he said solemnly, “she's workin' like a watch, full jewel, patent
+lever.”
+
+“All right. Now get on to this. Sitting-room aired, good fire going,
+windows open and a cup of coffee.”
+
+“Coffee? Say, Doc, there ain't time. What about tea?”
+
+“You know well enough, Billy, you haven't got any but that infernal
+green stuff fit to tan the stomach of a brass monkey.”
+
+“There's another can, Doc. I know where it is. Leave it to me.”
+
+“All right, Billy, I trust you. They are death on tea in the Old
+Country. And toast, Billy. What about toast?”
+
+“Toast? Toast, eh? Well, all right, Doc. Toast it is. Trust yours truly.
+You keep her out a-viewin' the scenery for half an hour.”
+
+“And Billy, a big pitcher of hot water. They can't live without hot
+water in the morning, those Old Country people.”
+
+“Sure thing, Doc. A tub if you like.”
+
+“No, a pitcher will do.”
+
+At this point a long drawn whistle sounded through the still morning
+air.
+
+“There she goes, Doc. She has struck the grade. Say, Doc--”
+
+But his words fell upon empty space. The doctor had already disappeared.
+
+“Say, he's a sprinter,” said Billy to himself. “He ain't takin' no
+chances on bein' late. Shouldn't be surprised if the Doc got there all
+right.”
+
+He darted upstairs and looked around the ladies' parlor. The air was
+heavy with mingled odors of the bar and the kitchen. A spittoon occupied
+a prominent place in the center of the room. The tables were dusty, the
+furniture in confusion. The ladies' parlor was perfectly familiar to
+Billy, but this morning he viewed it with new eyes.
+
+“Say, the Doc ain't fair. He's too swift in his movements,” he muttered
+to himself as he proceeded to fling things into their places. He raised
+the windows, opened the stove door and looked in. The ashes of many
+fires half filling the box met his eyes with silent reproach. “Say, the
+Doc ain't fair,” he muttered again. “Them ashes ought to have been out
+of there long ago.” This fact none knew better than himself, inasmuch as
+there was no other from whom this duty might properly be expected. Yet
+it brought some small relief to vent his disgust upon this offending
+accumulation of many days' neglect. There was not a moment to lose. He
+was due in ten minutes to meet the possible guests for the Royal at the
+train. He seized a pail left in the hall by the none too tidy housemaid
+and with his hands scooped into it the ashes from the stove, and,
+leaving a cloud of dust to settle everywhere upon tables and chairs, ran
+down with his pail and back again with kindling and firewood and had
+a fire going in an extraordinarily short time. He then caught up an
+ancient antimacassar, used it as a duster upon chairs and tables, flung
+it back again in its place over the rickety sofa and rushed for the
+station to find that the train had already pulled in, had come to a
+standstill and was disgorging its passengers upon the platform.
+
+“Roy--al Ho--tel!” shouted Billy. “Best in town! All the comforts and
+conveniences! Yes, sir! Take your grip, sir? Just give me them checks!
+That's all right, leave 'em to me. I'll get your baggage all right.”
+
+He saw the doctor wandering distractedly up and down the platform.
+
+“Hello, Doc, got your lady? Not on the Pullman, eh? Take a look in the
+First Class. Say, Doc,” he added in a lower voice, coming near to the
+doctor, “what's that behind you?”
+
+The doctor turned sharply and saw a young lady whose long clinging black
+dress made her seem taller than she was. She wore a little black hat
+with a single feather on one side, which gave it a sort of tam o'
+shanter effect. She came forward with hand outstretched.
+
+“I know you, Mr. Martin,” she said in a voice that indicated immense
+relief.
+
+“You?” he cried. “Is it you? And to think I didn't know you. And to
+think you should remember me.”
+
+“Remember! Well do I remember you--and that day in the Cuagh Oir--but
+you have forgotten all about that day.” A little flush appeared on her
+pale cheek.
+
+“Forgotten?” cried Martin.
+
+“But you didn't know me,” she added with a slight severity in her tone.
+
+“I was not looking for you.”
+
+“Not looking for me?” cried the girl. “Then who--?” She paused in a
+sudden confusion, and with a little haughty lift of her head said,
+“Where is Allan, my brother?”
+
+But the doctor ignored her question. He was gazing at her in stupid
+amazement.
+
+“I was looking for a little girl,” he said, “in a blue serge dress and
+tangled hair, brown, and all curls, with brown eyes and--”
+
+“And you found a grown up woman with all the silly curls in their proper
+place--much older--very much older. It is a habit we have in Scotland of
+growing older.”
+
+“Older?”
+
+“Yes, older, and more sober and sensible--and plainer.”
+
+“Plainer?” The doctor's mind was evidently not working with its usual
+ease and swiftness, partly from amazement at the transformation that had
+resulted in this tall slender young lady standing before him with
+her stately air, and partly from rage at himself and his unutterable
+stupidity.
+
+“But you have not answered me,” said the girl, obviously taken aback at
+the doctor's manner. “Where is my brother? He was to meet me. This is
+Cal--gar--ry, is it not?”
+
+“It's Calgary all right,” cried the doctor, glad to find in this fact a
+solid resting place for his mind.
+
+“And my brother? There is nothing wrong?” The alarm in her voice brought
+him to himself.
+
+“Wrong? Not a bit. At least, not much.”
+
+“Not much? Tell me at once, please.” With an imperious air the young
+lady lifted her head and impaled the doctor with her flashing brown
+eyes.
+
+“Well,” said the doctor in halting confusion, “you see, he met with an
+accident.”
+
+“An accident?” she cried. “You are hiding something from me, Mr. Martin.
+My brother is ill, or--”
+
+“No, no, not he. An Indian hit him on the head,” said the doctor,
+rendered desperate by her face.
+
+“An Indian?” Her cry, her white face, the quick clutch of her hands at
+her heart, roused the doctor's professional instincts and banished his
+confusion.
+
+“He is perfectly all right, I assure you, Miss Cameron. Only it was
+better that he should have his sleep out. He was most anxious to meet
+you, but as his medical adviser I urged him to remain quiet and offered
+to come in his place. His wife is with him. A day's rest, believe me,
+will make him quite fit.” The doctor's manner was briskly professional
+and helped to quiet the girl's alarm.
+
+“Can I see him?” she asked.
+
+“Most certainly, in a few hours when he wakes and when you are rested.
+Here, Billy, take Miss Cameron's checks. Look sharp.”
+
+“Say, Doc,” said Billy in an undertone, “about that tea and toast--”
+
+“What the deuce--?” said the doctor impatiently. “Oh, yes--all right!
+Only look lively.”
+
+“Keep her a-viewin' the scenery, Doc, a bit,” continued Billy under his
+breath.
+
+“Oh, get a move on, Billy! What are you monkeying about?” said the
+doctor quite crossly. He was anxious to escape from a position that had
+become intolerable to him. For months he had been looking forward to
+this meeting and now he had bungled it. In the first place he had begun
+by not knowing the girl who for three years and more had been in his
+dreams day and night, then he had carried himself like a schoolboy
+in her presence, and lastly had frightened her almost to death by his
+clumsy announcement of her brother's accident. The young lady at his
+side, with the quick intuition of her Celtic nature, felt his mood, and,
+not knowing the cause, became politely distant.
+
+On their walk to the hotel Dr. Martin pointed out the wonderful pearly
+gray light stealing across the plain and beginning to brighten on the
+tops of the rampart hills that surrounded the town.
+
+“You will see the Rockies in an hour, Miss Cameron, in the far west
+there,” he said. But there was no enthusiasm in his voice.
+
+“Ah, yes, how beautiful!” said the young lady. But her tone, too, was
+lifeless.
+
+Desperately the doctor strove to make conversation during their short
+walk and with infinite relief did he welcome the appearance of Mandy at
+her bedroom door waiting their approach.
+
+“Your brother's wife, Miss Cameron,” said he.
+
+For a single moment they stood searching each other's souls. Then by
+some secret intuition known only to the female mind they reached a
+conclusion, an entirely satisfactory conclusion, too, for at once they
+were in each other's arms.
+
+“You are Moira?” cried Mandy.
+
+“Yes,” said the girl in an eager, tremulous voice. “And my brother? Is
+he well?”
+
+“Well? Of course he is--perfectly fine. He is sleeping now. We will not
+wake him. He has had none too good a night.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Moira, “don't wake him. Oh, I am so glad. You see, I was
+afraid.”
+
+“Afraid? Why were you afraid?” inquired Mandy, looking indignantly at
+the doctor, who stood back, a picture of self condemnation.
+
+“Yes, yes, Mrs. Cameron, blame me. I deserve it all. I bungled the whole
+thing this morning and frightened Miss Cameron nearly into a fit, for
+no other reason than that I am all ass. Now I shall retire. Pray deal
+gently with me. Good-by!” he added abruptly, lifted his hat and was
+gone.
+
+“What's the matter with him?” said Mandy, looking at her sister-in-law.
+
+“I do not know, I am sure,” replied Moira indifferently. “Is there
+anything the matter?”
+
+“He is not like himself a bit. But come, my dear, take off your things.
+As the doctor says, a sleep for a couple of hours will do you good.
+After that you will see Allan. You are looking very weary, dear, and no
+wonder, no wonder,” said Mandy, “with all that journey and--and all you
+have gone through.” She gathered the girl into her strong arms. “My, I
+could just pick you up like a babe!” She held her close and kissed her.
+
+The caressing touch was too much for the girl. With a rush the tears
+came.
+
+“Och, oh,” she cried, lapsing into her Highland speech, “it iss
+ashamed of myself I am, but no one has done that to me for many a day
+since--since--my father--”
+
+“There, there, you poor darling,” said Mandy, comforting her as if she
+were a child, “you will not want for love here in this country. Cry
+away, it will do you good.” There was a sound of feet on the stairs.
+“Hush, hush, Billy is coming.” She swept the girl into her bedroom as
+Billy appeared.
+
+“Oh, I am just silly,” said Moira impatiently, as she wiped her eyes.
+“But you are so good, and I will never be forgetting your kindness to me
+this day.”
+
+“Hot water,” said Billy, tapping at the door.
+
+“Hot water! What for?” cried Mandy.
+
+“For the young lady. The doctor said she was used to it.”
+
+“The doctor? Well, that is very thoughtful. Do you want hot water,
+Moira?”
+
+“Yes, the very thing I do want to get the dust out of my eyes and the
+grime off my face.”
+
+“And the tea is in the ladies' parlor,” added Billy.
+
+“Tea!” cried Mandy, “the very thing!”
+
+“The doctor said tea and toast.”
+
+“The doctor again!”
+
+“Sure thing! Said they were all stuck on tea in the Old Country.”
+
+“Oh, he did, eh? Will you have tea, Moira?”
+
+“No tea, thank you. I shall lie down, I think, for a little.”
+
+“All right, dear, we will see you at breakfast. Don't worry. I shall
+call you.”
+
+Again she kissed the girl and left her to sleep. She found Billy
+standing in the ladies' parlor with a perplexed and disappointed look on
+his face.
+
+“The Doc said she'd sure want some tea,” he said.
+
+“And you made the tea yourself?” inquired Mandy.
+
+“Sure thing! The Doc--”
+
+“Well, Billy, I'd just love a cup of tea if you don't mind wasting it on
+me.”
+
+“Sure thing, ma'm! The Doc won't mind, bein' as she turned it down.”
+
+“Where is Dr. Martin gone, Billy? He needs a cup of tea; he's been up
+all night. He must be feeling tough.”
+
+“Judgin' by his langwidge I should surmise yes,” said Billy judicially.
+
+“Would you get him, Billy, and bring him here?”
+
+“Get him? S'pose I could. But as to bringin' him here, I'd prefer wild
+cats myself. The last I seen of him he was hikin' for the Rockies with a
+blue haze round his hair.”
+
+“But what in the world is wrong with him, Billy?” said Mandy anxiously.
+“I've never seen him this way.”
+
+“No, nor me,” said Billy. “The Doc's a pretty level headed cuss. There's
+somethin' workin' on him, if you ask me.”
+
+“Billy, you get him and tell him we want to see him at breakfast, will
+you?”
+
+Billy shook his head.
+
+“Tell him, Billy, I want him to see my husband then.”
+
+“Sure thing! That'll catch him, I guess. He's dead stuck on his work.”
+
+And it did catch him, for, after breakfast was over, clean-shaven, calm
+and controlled, and in his very best professional style, Dr. Martin made
+his morning call on his patient. Rigidly he eliminated from his manner
+anything beyond a severe professional interest. Mandy, who for two years
+had served with him as nurse, and who thought she knew his every mood,
+was much perplexed. Do what she could, she was unable to break through
+the barrier of his professional reserve. He was kindly courteous and
+perfectly correct.
+
+“I would suggest a quiet day for him, Mrs. Cameron,” was his verdict
+after examining the patient. “He will be quite able to get up in the
+afternoon and go about, but not to set off on a hundred and fifty mile
+drive. A quiet day, sleep, cheerful company, such as you can furnish
+here, will fix him up.”
+
+“Doctor, we will secure the quiet day if you will furnish the cheerful
+company,” said Mandy, beaming on him.
+
+“I have a very busy day before me, and as for cheerful company, with you
+two ladies he will have all the company that is good for him.”
+
+“CHEERFUL company, you said, Doctor. If you desert us how can we be
+cheerful?”
+
+“Exactly for that reason,” replied the doctor.
+
+“Say, Martin,” interposed Cameron, “take them out for a drive this
+afternoon and leave me in peace.”
+
+“A drive!” cried Mandy, “with one hundred and fifty miles behind me and
+another hundred and fifty miles before me!”
+
+“A ride then,” said Cameron. “Moira, you used to be fond of riding.”
+
+“And am still,” cried the girl, with sparkling eyes.
+
+“A ride!” cried Mandy. “Great! This is the country for riding. But have
+you a habit?”
+
+“My habit is in one of my boxes,” replied Moira.
+
+“I can get a habit,” said the doctor, “and two of them.”
+
+“That's settled, then,” cried Mandy. “I am not very keen. We shall do
+some shopping, Allan, you and I this afternoon and you two can go off
+to the hills. The hills! th--ink of that, Moira, for a highlander!” She
+glanced at Moira's face and read refusal there. “But I insist you must
+go. A whole week in an awful stuffy train. This is the very thing for
+you.”
+
+“Yes, the very thing, Moira,” cried her brother. “We will have a long
+talk this morning then in the afternoon we will do some business here,
+Mandy and I, and you can go up the Bow.”
+
+“The Bow?”
+
+“The Bow River. A glorious ride. Nothing like it even in Scotland, and
+that's saying a good deal,” said her brother with emphasis.
+
+This arrangement appeared to give complete satisfaction to all parties
+except those most immediately interested, but there seemed to be no very
+sufficient reason with either to decline, hence they agreed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE RIDE UP THE BOW
+
+
+Having once agreed to the proposal of a ride up the Bow, the doctor
+lost no time in making the necessary preparations. Half an hour later he
+found himself in the stable consulting with Billy. His mood was gloomy
+and his language reflected his mood. Gladly would he have escaped what
+to him, he felt, would be a trying and prolonged ordeal. But he could
+not do this without exciting the surprise of his friends and possibly
+wounding the sensitive girl whom he would gladly give his life to serve.
+He resolved that at all costs he would go through with the thing.
+
+“I'll give her a good time, by Jingo! if I bust something,” he muttered
+as he walked up and down the stable picking out his mounts. “But for a
+compound, double-opposed, self-adjusting jackass, I'm your choice. Lost
+my first chance. Threw it clean away and queered myself with her first
+shot. I say, Billy,” he called, “come here.”
+
+“What's up, Doc?” said Billy.
+
+“Kick me, Billy,” said the doctor solemnly.
+
+“Well now, Doc, I--”
+
+“Kick me, Billy, good and swift.”
+
+“Don't believe I could give no satisfaction, Doc. But there's that Hiram
+mule, he's a high class artist. You might back up to him.”
+
+“No use being kicked, Billy, by something that wouldn't appreciate it,”
+ said Martin.
+
+“Don't guess that way, Doc. He's an ornery cuss, he'd appreciate it all
+right, that old mule. But Doc, what's eatin' you?”
+
+“Oh, nothing, Billy, except that I'm an ass, an infernal ass.”
+
+“An ass, eh? Then I guess I couldn't give you no satisfaction. You
+better try that mule.”
+
+“Well, Billy, the horses at two,” said the doctor briskly, “the broncho
+and that dandy little pinto.”
+
+“All serene, Doc. Hope you'll have a good time. Brace up, Doc, it's
+comin' to you.” Billy's wink conveyed infinitely more than his words.
+
+“Look here, Billy, you cut that all out,” said the doctor.
+
+“All right, Doc, if that's the way you feel. You'll see no monkey-work
+on me. I'll make a preacher look like a sideshow.”
+
+And truly Billy's manner was irreproachable as he stood with the ponies
+at the hotel door and helped their riders to mount. There was an almost
+sad gravity in his demeanor that suggested a mind preoccupied with
+solemn and unworldly thoughts with which the doctor and his affairs had
+not even the remotest association.
+
+As Cameron who, with his wife, watched their departure from the balcony
+above, waved them farewell, he cried, “Keep your eyes skinned for an
+Indian, Martin. Bring him in if you find him.”
+
+“I've got no gun on me,” replied the doctor, “and if I get sight of him,
+you hear me, I'll make for the timber quick. No heroic captures for me
+this trip.”
+
+“What is all this about the Indian, Dr. Martin?” inquired the girl at
+his side as they cantered down the street.
+
+“Didn't your brother tell you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, I've done enough to you with that Indian already to-day.”
+
+“To me?”
+
+“Didn't I like a fool frighten you nearly to death with him?”
+
+“Well, I was startled. I was silly to show it. But an Indian to an Old
+Country person familiar with Fenimore Cooper, well--”
+
+“Oh, I was a proper idiot all round this morning,” grumbled the doctor.
+“I didn't know what I was doing.”
+
+The brown eyes were open wide upon him.
+
+“You see,” continued the doctor desperately, “I'd looked forward to
+meeting you for so long.” The brown eyes grew wider. “And then to think
+that I actually didn't know you.”
+
+“You didn't look at me,” cried Moira.
+
+“No, I was looking for the girl I saw that day, almost three years ago,
+in the Glen. I have never forgotten that day.”
+
+“No, nor I,” replied the girl softly. “That is how I knew you. It was
+a terrible day to us all in the Glen, my brother going to leave us and
+under that dreadful cloud, and you came with the letter that cleared it
+all away. Oh, it was like the coming of an angel from heaven, and I have
+often thought, Mr. Martin--Dr. Martin you are now, of course--that I
+never thanked you as I ought that day. I was thinking of Allan. I have
+often wished to do it. I should like to do it now.”
+
+“Get at it,” cried the doctor with great emphasis, “I need it. It might
+help me a bit. I behaved so stupidly this morning. The truth is, I was
+completely knocked out, flabbergasted.”
+
+“Was that it?” cried Moira with a bright smile. “I thought--” A faint
+color tinged her pale cheek and she paused a moment. “But tell me about
+the Indian. My brother just made little of it. It is his way with me. He
+thinks me just a little girl not to be trusted with things.”
+
+“He doesn't know you, then,” said the doctor.
+
+She laughed gayly. “And do you?”
+
+“I know you better than that, at least.”
+
+“What can you know about me?”
+
+“I know you are to be trusted with that or with anything else that calls
+for nerve. Besides, sooner or later you must know about this Indian.
+Wait till we cross the bridge and reach the top of the hill yonder, it
+will be better going.”
+
+The hillside gave them a stiff scramble, for the trail went straight up.
+But the sure-footed ponies, scrambling over stones and gravel, reached
+the top safely, with no worse result than an obvious disarrangement of
+the girl's hair, so that around the Scotch bonnet which she had pinned
+on her head the little brown curls were peeping in a way that quite
+shook the heart of Dr. Martin.
+
+“Now you look a little more like yourself,” he cried, his eyes fastened
+upon the curls with unmistakable admiration, “more like the girl I
+remember.”
+
+“Oh,” she said, “it is my bonnet. I put on this old thing for the ride.”
+
+“No,” said the doctor, “you wore no bonnet that day. It is your face,
+your hair, you are not quite--so--so proper.”
+
+“My hair!” Her hands went up to her head. “Oh, my silly curls, I
+suppose. They are my bane.” (“My joy,” the doctor nearly had said.) “But
+now for the Indian story.”
+
+Then the doctor grew grave.
+
+“It is not a pleasant thing to greet a guest with,” he said, “but you
+must know it and I may as well give it to you. And, mind you, this is
+altogether a new thing with us.”
+
+For the next half hour as they rode westward toward the big hills,
+steadily climbing as they went, the story of the disturbance in the
+north country, of the unrest among the Indians, of the part played in
+it by the Indian Copperhead, and of the appeal by the Superintendent to
+Cameron for assistance, furnished the topic for conversation. The girl
+listened with serious face, but there was no fear in the brown eyes, nor
+tremor in the quiet voice, as they talked it over.
+
+“Now let us forget it for a while,” cried the doctor. “The Police have
+rarely, if ever, failed to get their man. That is their boast. And they
+will get this chap, too. And as for the row on the Saskatchewan, I don't
+take much stock in that. Now we're coming to a view in a few minutes,
+one of the finest I have seen anywhere.”
+
+For half a mile farther they loped along the trail that led them to the
+top of a hill that stood a little higher than the others round about.
+Upon the hilltop they drew rein.
+
+“What do you think of that for a view?” said the doctor.
+
+Before them stretched the wide valley of the Bow for many miles,
+sweeping up toward the mountains, with rounded hills on either side, and
+far beyond the hills the majestic masses of the Rockies some fifty miles
+away, snow-capped, some of them, and here and there upon their faces
+the great glaciers that looked like patches of snow. Through this wide
+valley wound the swift flowing Bow, and up from it on either side the
+hills, rough with rocks and ragged masses of pine, climbed till they
+seemed to reach the very bases of the mountains beyond. Over all the
+blue arch of sky spanned the wide valley and seemed to rest upon the
+great ranges on either side, like the dome of a vast cathedral.
+
+Silent, with lips parted and eyes alight with wonder, Moira sat and
+gazed upon the glory of that splendid scene.
+
+“What do you think--” began the doctor.
+
+She put out her hand and touched his arm.
+
+“Please don't speak,” she breathed, “this is not for words, but for
+worship.”
+
+Long she continued to gaze in rapt silence upon the picture spread out
+before her. It was, indeed, a place for worship. She pointed to a hill
+some distance in front of them.
+
+“You have been beyond that?” she asked in a hushed voice.
+
+“Yes, I have been all through this country. I know it well. From the top
+of that hill we get a magnificent sweep toward the south.”
+
+“Let us go!” she cried.
+
+Down the hillside they scrambled, across a little valley and up the
+farther side, following the trail that wound along the hill but declined
+to make the top. As they rounded the shoulder of the little mountain
+Moira cried:
+
+“It would be a great view from the top there beyond the trees. Can we
+reach it?”
+
+“Are you good for a climb?” replied the doctor. “We could tie the
+horses.”
+
+For answer she flung herself from her pinto and, gathering up her habit,
+began eagerly to climb. By the time the doctor had tethered the ponies
+she was half way to the top. Putting forth all his energy he raced after
+her, and together they parted a screen of brushwood and stepped out on
+a clear rock that overhung the deep canyon that broadened into a great
+valley sweeping toward the south.
+
+“Beats Scotland, eh?” cried the doctor, as they stepped out together.
+
+She laid her hand upon his arm and drew him back into the bushes.
+
+“Hush,” she whispered. Surprised into silence, he stood gazing at her.
+Her face was white and her eyes gleaming. “An Indian down there,” she
+whispered.
+
+“An Indian? Where? Show me.”
+
+“He was looking up at us. Come this way. I think he heard us.”
+
+She led him by a little detour and on their hands and knees they crept
+through the brushwood. They reached the open rock and peered down
+through a screen of bushes into the canyon below.
+
+“There he is,” cried Moira.
+
+Across the little stream that flowed at the bottom of the canyon, and
+not more than a hundred yards away, stood an Indian, tall, straight and
+rigidly attent, obviously listening and gazing steadily at the point
+where they had first stood. For many minutes he stood thus rigid while
+they watched him. Then his attitude relaxed. He sat down upon the rocky
+ledge that sloped up from the stream toward a great overhanging crag
+behind him, laid his rifle beside him and, calmly filling his pipe,
+began to smoke. Intently they followed his every movement.
+
+“I do believe it is our Indian,” whispered the doctor.
+
+“Oh, if we could only get him!” replied the girl.
+
+The doctor glanced swiftly at her. Her face was pale but firm set with
+resolve. Quickly he revolved in his mind the possibilities.
+
+“If I only had a gun,” he said to himself, “I'd risk it.”
+
+“What is he going to do?”
+
+The Indian was breaking off some dead twigs from the standing pines
+about him.
+
+“He's going to light a fire,” replied the doctor, “perhaps camp for the
+night.”
+
+“Then,” cried the girl in an excited whisper, “we could get him.”
+
+The doctor smiled at her. The Indian soon had his fire going and,
+unrolling his blanket pack, he took thence what looked like a lump of
+meat, cut some strips from it and hung them from pointed sticks over the
+fire. He proceeded to gather some poles from the dead wood lying about.
+
+“What now is he going to do?” inquired Moira.
+
+“Wait,” replied the doctor.
+
+The Indian proceeded to place the poles in order against the rock,
+keeping his eye on the toasting meat the while and now and again turning
+it before the fire. Then he began to cut branches of spruce and balsam.
+
+“By the living Jingo!” cried the doctor, greatly excited, “I declare
+he's going to camp.”
+
+“To sleep?” said Moira.
+
+“Yes,” replied the doctor. “He had no sleep last night.”
+
+“Then,” cried the girl, “we can get him.”
+
+The doctor gazed at her in admiration.
+
+“You are a brick,” he said. “How can we get him? He'd double me up like
+a jack-knife. Remember I only played quarter,” he added.
+
+“No, no,” she cried quickly, “you stay here to watch him. Let me go back
+for the Police.”
+
+“I say,” cried the doctor, “you are a wonder. There's something in
+that.” He thought rapidly, then said, “No, it won't do. I can't allow
+you to risk it.”
+
+“Risk? Risk what?”
+
+A year ago the doctor would not have hesitated a moment to allow her
+to go, but now he thought of the roving bands of Indians and the
+possibility of the girl falling into their hands.
+
+“No, Miss Cameron, it will not do.”
+
+“But think,” she cried, “we might get him and save Allan all the trouble
+and perhaps his life. You must not stop me. You cannot stop me. I am
+going. You wait and watch. Don't move. I can find my way.”
+
+He seized her by the arm.
+
+“Wait,” he said, “let me think.”
+
+“What danger can there be?” she pleaded. “It is broad daylight. The road
+is good. I cannot possibly lose my way. I am used to riding alone among
+the hills at home.”
+
+“Ah, yes, at home,” said the doctor gloomily.
+
+“But there is no danger,” she persisted. “I am not afraid. Besides, you
+cannot keep me.” She stood up among the bushes looking down at him with
+a face so fiercely resolved that he was constrained to say, “By Jove! I
+don't believe I could. But I can go with you.”
+
+“You would not do that,” she cried, stamping her foot, “if I forbade
+you. It is your duty to stay here and watch that Indian. It is mine to
+go and get the Police. Good-by.”
+
+He rose to follow her.
+
+“No,” she said, “I forbid you to come. You are not doing right. You are
+to stay. We will save my brother.”
+
+She glided through the bushes from his sight and was gone.
+
+“Am I a fool or what?” said the doctor to himself. “She is taking a
+chance, but after all it is worth while.”
+
+It was now the middle of the afternoon and it would take Moira an hour
+and a half over that rocky winding trail to make the ten miles that
+lay before her. Ten minutes more would see the Police started on their
+return. The doctor settled himself down to his three hours' wait,
+keeping his eye fixed upon the Indian. The latter was now busy with his
+meal, which he ate ravenously.
+
+“The beggar has me tied up tight,” muttered the doctor ruefully. “My
+grub is on my saddle, and I guess I dare not smoke till he lights up
+himself.”
+
+A hand touched his arm. Instantly he was on his feet. It was Moira.
+
+“Great Caesar, you scared me! Thought it was the whole Blackfoot tribe.”
+
+“You will be the better for something to eat,” she said simply, handing
+him the lunch basket. “Good-by.”
+
+“Hold up!” he cried. But she was gone.
+
+“Say, she's a regular--” He paused and thought for a moment. “She's an
+angel, that's what--and a mighty sight better than most of them. She's
+a--” He turned back to his watch, leaving his thought unspoken. In the
+presence of the greater passions words are woefully inadequate.
+
+The Indian was still eating as ravenously as ever.
+
+“He's filling up, I guess. He ought to be full soon at that rate. Wish
+he'd get his pipe agoing.”
+
+In due time the Indian finished eating, rolled up the fragments
+carefully in a rag, and then proceeded to construct with the poles and
+brush which he had cut, a penthouse against the rock. At one end his
+little shelter thus constructed ran into a spruce tree whose thick
+branches reached right to the ground. When he had completed this shelter
+to his satisfaction he sat down again on the rock beside his smoldering
+fire and pulled out his pipe.
+
+“Thanks be!” said the doctor to himself fervently. “Go on, old boy, hit
+her up.”
+
+A pipe and then another the Indian smoked, then, taking his gun, blanket
+and pack, he crawled into his brush wigwam out of sight.
+
+“There, you old beggar!” said the doctor with a sigh of relief. “You are
+safe for an hour or two, thank goodness. You had no sleep last night and
+you've got to make up for it now. Sleep tight, old boy. We'll give you a
+call.” The doctor hugged himself with supreme satisfaction and continued
+to smoke with his eye fixed upon the hole into which the Indian had
+disappeared.
+
+Through the long hours he sat and smoked while he formulated the plan
+of attack which he proposed to develop when his reinforcements should
+arrive.
+
+“We will work up behind him from away down the valley, a couple of us
+will cover him from the front and the others go right in.”
+
+He continued with great care to make and revise his plans, and while
+in the midst of his final revision a movement in the bushes behind
+him startled him to his feet. The bushes parted and the face of Moira
+appeared with that of her brother over her shoulder.
+
+“Is he still there?” she whispered eagerly.
+
+“Asleep, snug as a bug. Never moved,” said the doctor exultantly, and
+proceeded to explain his plan of attack. “How many have you?” he asked
+Cameron.
+
+“Crisp and a constable.”
+
+“Just two?” said the doctor.
+
+“Two,” replied Cameron briefly. “That's plenty. Here they are.” He
+stepped back through the bushes and brought forward Crisp and the
+constable. “Now, then, here's our plan,” he said. “You, Crisp, will go
+down the canyon, cross the stream and work up on the other side right to
+that rock. When you arrive at the rock the constable and I will go in.
+The doctor will cover him from this side.”
+
+“Fine!” said the doctor. “Fine, except that I propose to go in myself
+with you. He's a devil to fight. I could see that last night.”
+
+Cameron hesitated.
+
+“There's really no use, you know, Doctor. The constable and I can handle
+him.”
+
+Moira stood looking eagerly from one to the other.
+
+“All right,” said the doctor, “'nuff said. Only I'm going in. If you
+want to come along, suit yourself.”
+
+“Oh, do be careful,” said Moira, clasping her hands. “Oh, I'm afraid.”
+
+“Afraid?” said the doctor, looking at her quickly. “You? Not much fear
+in you, I guess.”
+
+“Come on, then,” said Cameron. “Moira, you stay here and keep your eye
+on him. You are safe enough here.”
+
+She pressed her lips tight together till they made a thin red line in
+her white face.
+
+“Can you let me have a gun?” she asked.
+
+“A gun?” exclaimed the doctor.
+
+“Oh, she can shoot--rabbits, at least,” said her brother with a smile.
+“I shall bring you one, Moira, but remember, handle it carefully.”
+
+With a gun across her knees Moira sat and watched the development of the
+attack. For many minutes there was no sign or sound, till she began to
+wonder if a change had been made in the plan. At length some distance
+down the canyon and on the other side Sergeant Crisp was seen working
+his way with painful care step by step toward the rock of rendezvous.
+There was no sign of her brother or Dr. Martin. It was for them she
+watched with an intensity of anxiety which she could not explain to
+herself. At length Sergeant Crisp reached the crag against whose base
+the penthouse leaned in which the sleeping Indian lay. Immediately she
+saw her brother, quickly followed by Dr. Martin, leap the little stream,
+run lightly up the sloping rock and join Crisp at the crag. Still there
+was no sign from the Indian. She saw her brother motion the Sergeant
+round to the farther corner of the penthouse where it ran into the
+spruce tree, while he himself, with a revolver in each hand, dropped on
+one knee and peered under the leaning poles. With a loud exclamation he
+sprang to his feet.
+
+“He's gone!” he shouted. “Stand where you are!” Like a hound on a scent
+he ran to the back of the spruce tree and on his knees examined the
+earth there. In a few moments his search was rewarded. He struck the
+trail and followed it round the rock and through the woods till he
+came to the hard beaten track. Then he came back, pale with rage and
+disappointment. “He's gone!” he said.
+
+“I swear he never came out of that hole!” said Dr. Martin. “I kept my
+eye on it every minute of the last three hours.”
+
+“There's another hole,” said Crisp, “under the tree here.”
+
+Cameron said not a word. His disappointment was too keen. Together they
+retraced their steps across the little stream. On the farther bank they
+found Moira, who had raced down to meet them.
+
+“He's gone?” she cried.
+
+“Gone!” echoed her brother. “Gone for this time--but--some day--some
+day,” he added below his breath.
+
+But many things were to happen before that day came.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RAVEN TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+Overhead the stars were still twinkling far in the western sky.
+The crescent moon still shone serene, marshaling her attendant
+constellations. Eastward the prairie still lay in deep shadow, its long
+rolls outlined by the deeper shadows lying in the hollows between. Over
+the Bow and the Elbow mists hung like white veils swathing the faces
+of the rampart hills north and south. In the little town a stillness
+reigned as of death, for at length Calgary was asleep, and sound asleep
+would remain for hours to come.
+
+Not so the world about. Through the dead stillness of the waning night
+the liquid note of the adventurous meadow lark fell like the dropping
+of a silver stream into the pool below. Brave little heart, roused from
+slumber perchance by domestic care, perchance by the first burdening
+presage of the long fall flight waiting her sturdy careless brood,
+perchance stirred by the first thrill of the Event approaching from
+the east. For already in the east the long round tops of the prairie
+undulations are shining gray above the dark hollows and faint bars of
+light are shooting to the zenith, fearless forerunners of the dawn,
+menacing the retreating stars still bravely shining their pale defiance
+to the oncoming of their ancient foe. Far toward the west dark masses
+still lie invincible upon the horizon, but high above in the clear
+heavens white shapes, indefinite and unattached, show where stand the
+snow-capped mountain peaks. Thus the swift and silent moments mark the
+fortunes of this age-long conflict. But sudden all heaven and all earth
+thrill tremulous in eager expectancy of the daily miracle when, all
+unaware, the gray light in the eastern horizon over the roll of the
+prairie has grown to silver, and through the silver a streamer of palest
+rose has flashed up into the sky, the gay and gallant 'avant courier' of
+an advancing host, then another and another, then by tens and hundreds,
+till, radiating from a center yet unseen, ten thousand times ten
+thousand flaming flaunting banners flash into orderly array and possess
+the utmost limits of the heavens, sweeping before them the ever paling
+stars, that indomitable rearguard of the flying night, proclaiming
+to all heaven and all earth the King is come, the Monarch of the Day.
+Flushed in the new radiance of the morning, the long flowing waves of
+the prairie, the tumbling hills, the mighty rocky peaks stand surprised,
+as if caught all unprepared by the swift advance, trembling and blushing
+in the presence of the triumphant King, waiting the royal proclamation
+that it is time to wake and work, for the day is come.
+
+All oblivious of this wondrous miracle stands Billy, his powers of mind
+and body concentrated upon a single task, that namely of holding down
+to earth the game little bronchos, Mustard and Pepper, till the party
+should appear. Nearby another broncho, saddled and with the knotted
+reins hanging down from his bridle, stood viewing with all too obvious
+contempt the youthful frolics of the colts. Well he knew that life would
+cure them of all this foolish waste of spirit and of energy. Meantime
+on his part he was content to wait till his master--Dr. Martin, to
+wit--should give the order to move. His master meantime was busily
+engaged with clever sinewy fingers packing in the last parcels that
+represented the shopping activities of Cameron and his wife during the
+past two days. There was a whole living and sleeping outfit for the
+family to gather together. Already a heavily laden wagon had gone on
+before them. The building material for the new house was to follow,
+for it was near the end of September and a tent dwelling, while quite
+endurable, does not lend itself to comfort through a late fall in the
+foothill country. Besides, there was upon Cameron, and still more upon
+his wife, the ever deepening sense of a duty to be done that could not
+wait, and for the doing of that duty due preparation must be made. Hence
+the new house must be built and its simple appointments and furnishings
+set in order without delay, and hence the laden wagon gone before and
+the numerous packages in the democrat, covered with a new tent and roped
+securely into place.
+
+This packing and roping the doctor made his peculiar care, for he was
+a true Canadian, born and bred in the atmosphere of pioneer days in
+old Ontario, and the packing and roping could be trusted to no amateur
+hands, for there were hills to go up and hills to go down, sleughs to
+cross and rivers to ford with all their perilous contingencies before
+they should arrive at the place where they would be.
+
+“All secure, Martin?” said Cameron, coming out from the hotel with hand
+bags and valises.
+
+“They'll stay, I think,” replied the doctor, “unless those bronchos of
+yours get away from you.”
+
+“Aren't they dears, Billy?” cried Moira, coming out at the moment and
+dancing over to the bronchos' heads.
+
+“Well, miss,” said Billy with judicial care, “I don't know about that.
+They're ornery little cusses and mean-actin.' They'll go straight enough
+if everything is all right, but let anythin' go wrong, a trace or a
+line, and they'll put it to you good and hard.”
+
+“I do not think I would be afraid of them,” replied the girl, reaching
+out her hand to stroke Pepper's nose, a movement which surprised that
+broncho so completely that he flew back violently upon the whiffle-tree,
+carrying Billy with him.
+
+“Come up here, you beast!” said Billy, giving him a fierce yank.
+
+“Oh, Billy!” expostulated Moira.
+
+“Oh, he ain't no lady's maid, miss. You would, eh, you young
+devil,”--this to Pepper, whose intention to walk over Billy was only
+too obvious--“Get back there, will you! Now then, take that, and stand
+still!” Billy evidently did not rely solely upon the law of love in
+handling his broncho.
+
+Moira abandoned him and climbed to her place in the democrat between
+Cameron and his wife.
+
+By a most singular and fortunate coincidence Dr. Martin had learned that
+a patient of his at Big River was in urgent need of a call, so, to the
+open delight of the others and to the subdued delight of the doctor, he
+was to ride with them thus far on their journey.
+
+“All set, Billy?” cried Cameron. “Let them go.”
+
+“Good-by, Billy,” cried both ladies, to which Billy replied with a wave
+of his Stetson.
+
+Away plunged the bronchos on a dead gallop, as if determined to end the
+journey during the next half hour at most, and away with them went the
+doctor upon his steady broncho, the latter much annoyed at being thus
+ignominiously outdistanced by these silly colts and so induced to strike
+a somewhat more rapid pace than he considered wise at the beginning of
+an all-day journey. Away down the street between the silent shacks and
+stores and out among the straggling residences that lined the trail.
+Away past the Indian encampment and the Police Barracks. Away across the
+echoing bridge, whose planks resounded like the rattle of rifles
+under the flying hoofs. Away up the long stony hill, scrambling and
+scrabbling, but never ceasing till they reached the level prairie at the
+top. Away upon the smooth resilient trail winding like a black ribbon
+over the green bed of the prairie. Away down long, long slopes to low,
+wide valleys, and up long, long slopes to the next higher prairie level.
+Away across the plain skirting sleughs where ducks of various kinds, and
+in hundreds, quacked and plunged and fought joyously and all unheeding.
+Away with the morning air, rare and wondrously exhilarating, rushing
+at them and past them and filling their hearts with the keen zest of
+living. Away beyond sight and sound of the great world, past little
+shacks, the brave vanguard of civilization, whose solitary loneliness
+only served to emphasize their remoteness from the civilization which
+they heralded. Away from the haunts of men and through the haunts
+of wild things where the shy coyote, his head thrown back over his
+shoulder, loped laughing at them and their futile noisy speed. Away
+through the wide rich pasture lands where feeding herds of cattle
+and bands of horses made up the wealth of the solitary rancher, whose
+low-built wandering ranch house proclaimed at once his faith and his
+courage. Away and ever away, the shining morning hours and the fleeting
+miles racing with them, till by noon-day, all wet but still unweary, the
+bronchos drew up at the Big River Stopping Place, forty miles from the
+point of their departure.
+
+Close behind the democrat rode Dr. Martin, the steady pace of his wise
+old broncho making up upon the dashing but somewhat erratic gait of the
+colts.
+
+While the ladies passed into the primitive Stopping Place, the men
+unhitched the ponies, stripped off their harness and proceeded to rub
+them down from head to heel, wash out their mouths and remove from them
+as far as they could by these attentions the travel marks of the last
+six hours.
+
+Big River could hardly be called even by the generous estimate of the
+optimistic westerner a town. It consisted of a blacksmith's shop, with
+which was combined the Post Office, a little school, which did for
+church--the farthest outpost of civilization--and a manse, simple, neat
+and tiny, but with a wondrous air of comfort about it, and very like the
+little Nova Scotian woman inside, who made it a very vestibule of heaven
+for many a cowboy and rancher in the district, and last, the Stopping
+Place run by a man who had won the distinction of being well known to
+the Mounted Police and who bore the suggestive name of Hell Gleeson,
+which appeared, however, in the old English Registry as Hellmuth Raymond
+Gleeson. The Mounted Police thought it worth while often to run in upon
+Hell at unexpected times, and more than once they had found it necessary
+to invite him to contribute to Her Majesty's revenue as compensation for
+Hell's objectionable habit of having in possession and of retailing to
+his friends bad whisky without attending to the little formality of a
+permit.
+
+The Stopping Place was a rambling shack, or rather a series of shacks,
+loosely joined together, whose ramifications were found by Hell and his
+friends to be useful in an emergency. The largest room in the building
+was the bar, as it was called. Behind the counter, however, instead of
+the array of bottles and glasses usually found in rooms bearing this
+name, the shelf was filled with patent medicines, chiefly various
+brands of pain-killer. Off the bar was the dining-room, and behind the
+dining-room another and smaller room, while the room most retired in the
+collection of shacks constituting the Stopping Place was known in
+the neighborhood as the “snake room,” a room devoted to those unhappy
+wretches who, under the influence of prolonged indulgence in Hell's bad
+whisky, were reduced to such a mental and nervous condition that the
+landscape of their dreams became alive with snakes of various sizes,
+shapes and hues.
+
+To Mandy familiarity had hardened her sensibilities to endurance of all
+the grimy uncleanness of the place, but to Moira the appearance of
+the house and especially of the dining-room filled her with loathing
+unspeakable.
+
+“Oh, Mandy,” she groaned, “can we not eat outside somewhere? This is
+terrible.”
+
+Mandy thought for a moment.
+
+“No,” she cried, “but we will do better. I know Mrs. Macintyre in the
+manse. I nursed her once last spring. We will go and see her.”
+
+“Oh, that would not do,” said Moira, her Scotch shy independence
+shrinking from such an intrusion.
+
+“And why not?”
+
+“She doesn't know me--and there are four of us.”
+
+“Oh, nonsense, you don't know this country. You don't know what our
+visit will mean to the little woman, what a joy it will be to her to see
+a new face, and I declare when she hears you are new out from Scotland
+she will simply revel in you. We are about to confer a great favor upon
+Mrs. Macintyre.”
+
+If Moira had any lingering doubts as to the soundness of her
+sister-in-law's opinion they vanished before the welcome she had from
+the minister's wife.
+
+“Mr. Cameron's sister?” she cried, with both hands extended, “and just
+out from Scotland? And where from? From near Braemar? And our folk came
+from near Inverness. Mhail Gaelic heaibh?”
+
+“Go dearbh ha.”
+
+And on they went for some minutes in what Mrs. Macintyre called “the
+dear old speech,” till Mrs. Macintyre, remembering herself, said to
+Mandy:
+
+“But you do not understand the Gaelic? Well, well, you will forgive us.
+And to think that in this far land I should find a young lady like this
+to speak it to me! Do you know, I am forgetting it out here.” All the
+while she was speaking she was laying the cloth and setting the table.
+“And you have come all the way from Calgary this morning? What a drive
+for the young lady! You must be tired out. Would you lie down upon the
+bed for an hour? Then come away in to the bedroom and fresh yourselves
+up a bit. Come away in. I'll get Mr. Cameron over.”
+
+“We are a big party,” said Mandy, “for your wee house. We have a friend
+with us--Dr. Martin.”
+
+“Dr. Martin? Indeed I know him well, and a fine man he is and that kind
+and clever. I'll get him too.”
+
+“Let me go for them,” said Mandy.
+
+“Very well, go then. I'll just hurry the dinner.”
+
+“But are you quite sure,” asked Mandy, “you can--you have everything
+handy? You know, Mrs. Macintyre, I know just how hard it is to keep a
+stock of everything on hand.”
+
+“Well, we have bread and molasses--our butter is run out, it is hard to
+get--and some bacon and potatoes and tea. Will that do?”
+
+“Oh, that will do fine. And we have some things with us, if you don't
+mind.”
+
+“Mind? Not a bit, my dear. You can just suit yourself.”
+
+The dinner was a glorious success. The clean linen, the shining dishes,
+the silver--for Mrs. Macintyre brought out her wedding presents--gave
+the table a brilliantly festive appearance in the eyes of those who had
+lived for some years in the western country.
+
+“You don't appreciate the true significance of a table napkin, I venture
+to say, Miss Cameron,” said the doctor, “until you have lived a year in
+this country at least, or how much an unspotted table cloth means, or
+shining cutlery and crockery.”
+
+“Well, I have been two days at the Royal Hotel, whatever,” replied
+Moira.
+
+“The Royal Hotel!” exclaimed the doctor aghast. “Our most palatial
+Western hostelry--all the comforts and conveniences of civilization!”
+
+“Anyway, I like this better,” said Moira. “It is like home.”
+
+“Is it, indeed, my dear?” said the minister's wife greatly delighted.
+“You have paid me a very fine tribute.”
+
+The hour lengthened into two, for when a departure was suggested the
+doctor grew eloquent in urging delay. The horses would be all the better
+for the rest. It would be fine driving in the evening. They could easily
+make the Black Dog Ford before dark. After that the trail was good for
+twenty miles, where they would camp. But like all happy hours these
+hours fled past, and all too swiftly, and soon the travelers were ready
+to depart.
+
+Before the Stopping Place door Hell was holding down the bronchos, while
+Cameron was packing in the valises and making all secure again. Near the
+wagon stood the doctor waiting their departure.
+
+“You are going back from here, Dr. Martin?” said Moira.
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor, “I am going back.”
+
+“It has been good to see you,” she said. “I hope next time you will know
+me.”
+
+“Ah, now, Miss Cameron, don't rub it in. You see--but what's the use?”
+ continued the doctor. “You had changed. My picture of the girl I had
+seen in the Highlands that day never changed and never will change.” The
+doctor's keen gray eyes burned into hers for a moment. A slight flush
+came to her cheek and she found herself embarrassed for want of words.
+Her embarrassment was relieved by the sound of hoofs pounding down the
+trail.
+
+“Hello, who's this?” said the doctor, as they stood watching the
+horseman approaching at a rapid pace and accompanied by a cloud of dust.
+Nearer and nearer he came, still on the gallop till within a few yards
+of the group.
+
+“My!” cried Moira. “Whoever he is he will run us down!” and she sprang
+into her place in the democrat.
+
+Without slackening rein the rider came up to the Stopping Place door
+at a full gallop, then at a single word his horse planted his four feet
+solidly on the trail, and, plowing up the dirt, came to a standstill;
+then, throwing up his magnificent head, he gave a loud snort and stood,
+a perfect picture of equine beauty.
+
+“Oh, what a horse!” breathed Moira. “How perfectly splendid! And what a
+rider!” she added. “Do you know him?”
+
+“I do not,” said the doctor, conscious of a feeling of hostility to
+the stranger, and all the more because he was forced to acknowledge to
+himself that the rider and his horse made a very striking picture. The
+man was tall and sinewy, with dark, clean-cut face, thin lips, firm chin
+and deep-set, brown-gray eyes that glittered like steel, and with that
+unmistakable something in his bearing that suggested the breeding of a
+gentleman. His horse was as distinguished as its rider. His coal black
+skin shone like silk, his flat legs, sloping hips, well-ribbed barrel,
+small head, large, flashing eyes, all proclaimed his high breeding.
+
+“What a beauty! What a beauty!” breathed Moira again to the doctor.
+
+As if in answer to her praise the stranger, raising his Stetson, swept
+her an elaborate bow, and, touching his horse, moved nearer to the door
+of the Stopping Place and swung himself to the ground.
+
+“Ah, Cameron, it's you, sure enough. I can hardly believe my good
+fortune.”
+
+“Hello, Raven, that you?” said Cameron indifferently. “Hope you are
+fit?” But he made no motion to offer his hand nor did he introduce him
+to the company. At the sound of his name Dr. Martin started and swept
+his keen eyes over the stranger's face. He had heard that name before.
+
+“Fit?” inquired the stranger whom Cameron had saluted as Raven. “Fit
+as ever,” a hard smile curling his lips as he noted Cameron's omission.
+“Hello, Hell!” he continued, his eyes falling upon that individual, who
+was struggling with the restive ponies, “how goes it with your noble
+self?”
+
+Hastily Hell, leaving the bronchos for the moment, responded, “Hello,
+Mr. Raven, mighty glad to see you!”
+
+Meantime the bronchos, freed from Hell's supervision, and apparently
+interested in the strange horse who was viewing them with lordly
+disdain, turned their heads and took the liberty of sniffing at the
+newcomer. Instantly, with mouth wide open and ears flat on his head, the
+black horse rushed at the bronchos. With a single bound they were off,
+the lines trailing in the dust. Together Hell, Cameron and the doctor
+sprang for the wagon, but before they could touch it it was whisked from
+underneath their fingers as the bronchos dashed in a mad gallop down the
+trail, Moira meantime clinging desperately to the seat of the pitching
+wagon. After them darted Cameron and for some moments it seemed as if
+he could overtake the flying ponies, but gradually they drew away and he
+gave up the chase. After him followed the whole company, his wife, the
+doctor, Hell, all in a blind horror of helplessness.
+
+“My God! My God!” cried Cameron, his breath coming in sobbing gasps.
+“The cut bank!”
+
+Hardly were the words out of his mouth when Raven came up at an easy
+canter.
+
+“Don't worry,” he said quietly to Mandy, who was wringing her hands in
+despair, “I'll get them.”
+
+Like a swallow for swiftness and for grace, the black stallion sped
+away, flattening his body to the trail as he gathered speed. The
+bronchos had a hundred yards of a start, but they had not run another
+hundred until the agonized group of watchers could see that the stallion
+was gaining rapidly upon them.
+
+“He'll get 'em,” cried Hell, “he'll get 'em, by gum!”
+
+“But can he turn them from the bank?” groaned Mandy.
+
+“If anything in horse-flesh or man-flesh can do it,” said Hell, “it'll
+be done.”
+
+But a tail-race is a long race and a hundred yards' start is a serious
+handicap in a quarter of a mile. Down the sloping trail the bronchos
+were running savagely, their noses close to earth, their feet on the
+hard ground like the roar of a kettledrum, their harness and trappings
+fluttering over their backs, the wagon pitching like a ship in a gale,
+the girl clinging to its high seat as a sailor to a swaying mast.
+Behind, and swiftly drawing level with the flying bronchos, sped the
+black horse, still with that smooth grace of a skimming swallow and
+with such ease of motion as made it seem as if he could readily have
+increased his speed had he so chosen.
+
+“My God! why doesn't he send the brute along?” cried Dr. Martin, his
+stark face and staring eyes proclaiming his agony.
+
+“He is up! He is up!” cried Cameron.
+
+The agonized watchers saw the rider lean far over the bronchos and seize
+one line, then gradually begin to turn the flying ponies away from the
+cut bank and steer them in a wide circle across the prairie.
+
+“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, thank God!” cried the doctor brokenly, wiping
+the sweat from his face.
+
+“Let us go to head them off,” said Cameron, setting off at a run,
+leaving the doctor and his wife to follow.
+
+As they watched with staring eyes the racing horses they saw Raven bring
+back the line to the girl clinging to the wagon seat, then the black
+stallion, shooting in front of the ponies, began to slow down upon them,
+hampering their running till they were brought to an easy canter, and,
+under the more active discipline of teeth and hoofs, were forced to a
+trot and finally brought to a standstill, and so held till Cameron and
+the doctor came up to them.
+
+“Raven,” gasped Cameron, fighting for his breath and coming forward with
+hand outstretched, “you have--done--a great thing--to-day--for me. I
+shall not--forget it.”
+
+“Tut tut, Cameron, simple thing. I fancy you are still a few points
+ahead,” said Raven, taking his hand in a strong grip. “After all, it was
+Night Hawk did it.”
+
+“You saved--my sister's life,” continued Cameron, still struggling for
+breath.
+
+“Perhaps, perhaps, but I don't forget,” and here Raven leaned over his
+saddle and spoke in a lower voice, “I don't forget the day you saved
+mine, my boy.”
+
+“Come,” said Cameron, “let me present you to my sister.”
+
+Instantly Raven swung himself from his horse.
+
+“Stand, Night Hawk!” he commanded, and the horse stood like a soldier on
+guard.
+
+“Moira,” said Cameron, still panting hard, “this is--my friend--Mr.
+Raven.”
+
+Raven stood bowing before her with his hat in his hand, but the girl
+leaned far down from her seat with both hands outstretched.
+
+“I thank you, Mr. Raven,” she said in a quiet voice, but her brown eyes
+were shining like stars in her white face. “You are a wonderful rider.”
+
+“I could not have done it, Miss Cameron,” said Raven, a wonderfully
+sweet smile lighting up his hard face, “I could not have done it had you
+ever lost your nerve.”
+
+“I had no fear after I saw your face,” said the girl simply. “I knew you
+could do it.”
+
+“Ah, and how did you know that?” His gray-brown eyes searched her face
+more keenly.
+
+“I cannot tell. I just knew.”
+
+“Let me introduce my friend, Dr. Martin,” said Cameron as the doctor
+came up.
+
+“I--too--want to thank you--Mr. Raven,” said the doctor, seizing him
+with both hands. “I never can--we never can forget it--or repay you.”
+
+“Oh,” said Raven, with a careless laugh, “what else could I do? After
+all it was Night Hawk did the trick.” He lifted his hat again to Moira,
+bowed with a beautiful grace, threw himself on his horse and stood till
+the two men, after carefully examining the harness and securing the
+reins, had climbed to their places on the wagon seat.
+
+Then he trotted on before toward the Stopping Place, where the
+minister's wife and indeed the whole company of villagers awaited them.
+
+“Oh, isn't he wonderful!” cried Moira, with her eyes upon the rider in
+front of them. “And he did it so easily.” But the men sat silent. “Who
+is he, Allan? You know him.”
+
+“Yes--he is--he is a chap I met when I was on the Force.”
+
+“A Policeman?”
+
+“No, no,” replied her brother hastily.
+
+“What then? Does he live here?”
+
+“He lives somewhere south. Don't know exactly where he lives.”
+
+“What is he? A rancher?”
+
+“A rancher? Ah--yes, yes, he is a rancher I fancy. Don't know very well.
+That is--I have seen little of him--in fact--only a couple of times--or
+so.”
+
+“He seems to know you, Allan,” said his sister a little reproachfully.
+“Anyway,” she continued with a deep breath, “he is just splendid.” Dr.
+Martin glanced at her face glowing with enthusiasm and was shamefully
+conscious of a jealous pang at his heart. “He is just splendid,”
+ continued Moira, with growing enthusiasm, “and I mean to know more of
+him.”
+
+“What?” said her brother sharply, as if waking from a dream. “Nonsense,
+Moira! You do not know what you are talking about. You must not speak
+like that.”
+
+“And why, pray?” asked his sister in surprise.
+
+“Oh, never mind just now, Moira. In this country we don't take up with
+strangers.”
+
+“Strangers?” echoed the girl, pain mingling with her surprise. “And yet
+he saved my life!”
+
+“Yes, thank God, he saved your life,” cried her brother, “and we shall
+never cease to be grateful to him, but--but--oh, drop it just now
+please, Moira. You don't know and--here we are. How white Mandy is. What
+a terrible experience for us all!”
+
+“Terrible indeed,” echoed the doctor.
+
+“Terrible?” said Moira. “It might have been worse.”
+
+To this neither made reply, but there came a day when both doubted such
+a possibility.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+SMITH'S WORK
+
+
+The short September day was nearly gone. The sun still rode above the
+great peaks that outlined the western horizon. Already the shadows were
+beginning to creep up the eastern slope of the hills that clambered till
+they reached the bases of the great mountains. A purple haze hung over
+mountain, hill and rolling plain, softening the sharp outlines that
+ordinarily defined the features of the foothill landscape.
+
+With the approach of evening the fierce sun heat had ceased and a
+fresh cooling western breeze from the mountain passes brought welcome
+refreshment alike to the travelers and their beasts, wearied with their
+three days' drive.
+
+“That is the last hill, Moira,” cried her sister-in-law, pointing to a
+long slope before them. “The very last, I promise you. From the top
+we can see our home. Our home, alas, I had forgotten! There is no home
+there, only a black spot on the prairie.”
+
+Her husband grunted savagely and cut sharply at the bronchos.
+
+“But the tent will be fine, Mandy. I just long for the experience,” said
+Moira.
+
+“Yes, but just think of all my pretty things, and some of Allan's too,
+all gone.”
+
+“Were the pipes burned, Allan?” cried Moira with a sudden anxiety.
+
+“Were they, Mandy? I never thought,” said Cameron.
+
+“The pipes? Let me see. No--no--you remember, Allan, young--what's his
+name?--that young Highlander at the Fort wanted them.”
+
+“Sure enough--Macgregor,” said her husband in a tone of immense relief.
+
+“Yes, young Mr. Macgregor.”
+
+“My, but that is fine, Allan,” said his sister. “I should have grieved
+if we could not hear the pipes again among these hills. Oh, it is all so
+bonny; just look at the big Bens yonder.”
+
+It was, as she said, all bonny. Far toward their left the low hills
+rolled in soft swelling waves toward the level prairie, and far away to
+the right the hills climbed by sharper ascents, flecked here and
+there with dark patches of fir, and broken with jutting ledges of gray
+limestone, climbed till they reached the great Rockies, majestic in
+their massive serried ranges that pierced the western sky. And all that
+lay between, the hills, the hollows, the rolling prairie, was bathed
+in a multitudinous riot of color that made a scene of loveliness beyond
+power of speech to describe.
+
+“Oh, Allan, Allan,” cried his sister, “I never thought to see anything
+as lovely as the Cuagh Oir, but this is up to it I do believe.”
+
+“It must indeed be lovely, then,” said her brother with a smile, “if
+you can say that. And I am glad you like it. I was afraid that you might
+not.”
+
+“Here we are, just at the top,” cried Mandy. “In a minute beyond the
+shoulder there we shall see the Big Horn Valley and the place where our
+home used to be. There, wait Allan.”
+
+The ponies came to a stand. Exclamations of amazement burst from Cameron
+and his wife.
+
+“Why, Allan? What? Is this the trail?”
+
+“It is the trail all right,” said her husband in a low voice, “but what
+in thunder does this mean?”
+
+“It is a house, Allan, a new house.”
+
+“It looks like it--but--”
+
+“And there are people all about!”
+
+For some breathless moments they gazed upon the scene. A wide valley,
+flanked by hills and threaded by a gleaming river, lay before them and
+in a bend of the river against the gold and yellow of a poplar bluff
+stood a log house of comfortable size gleaming in all its newness fresh
+from the ax and saw.
+
+“What does it all mean, Allan?” inquired his wife.
+
+“Blest if I know!”
+
+“Look at the people. I know now, Allan. It's a 'raising bee.' A raising
+bee!” she cried with growing enthusiasm. “You remember them in Ontario.
+It's a bee, sure enough. Oh, hurry, let's go!”
+
+The bronchos seemed to catch her excitement, their weariness
+disappeared, and, pulling hard on the bit, they tore down the winding
+trail as if at the beginning rather than at the end of their hundred and
+fifty mile drive.
+
+“What a size!” cried Mandy.
+
+“And a cook house, too!”
+
+“And a verandah!”
+
+“And a shingled roof!”
+
+“And all the people! Where in the world can they have come from?”
+
+“There's the Inspector, anyway,” said Cameron. “He is at the bottom of
+this, I'll bet you.”
+
+“And Mr. Cochrane! And that young Englishman, Mr. Newsome!”
+
+“And old Thatcher!”
+
+“And Mrs. Cochrane, and Mr. Dent, and, oh, there's my friend Smith! You
+remember he helped me put out the fire.”
+
+Soon they were at the gate of the corral where a group of men and women
+stood awaiting them. Inspector Dickson was first:
+
+“Hello, Cameron! Got back, eh? Welcome home, Mrs. Cameron,” he said as
+he helped her to alight.
+
+Smith stood at the bronchos' heads.
+
+“Now, Inspector,” said Cameron, holding him by hand and collar, “now
+what does this business mean?”
+
+“Mean?” cried the Inspector with a laugh. “Means just what you see. But
+won't you introduce us all?”
+
+After all had been presented to his sister Cameron pursued his question.
+“What does it mean, Inspector?”
+
+“Mean? Ask Cochrane.”
+
+“Mr. Cochrane, tell me,” cried Mandy, “who began this?”
+
+“Ask Mr. Thatcher there,” replied Mr. Cochrane.
+
+“Who is responsible for this, Mr. Thatcher?” cried Mandy.
+
+“Don't rightly know how the thing started. First thing I knowed they was
+all at it.”
+
+“See here, Thatcher, you might as well own up. I am going to know
+anyway. Where did the logs come from, for instance?” said Cameron in a
+determined voice.
+
+“Logs? Guess Bracken knows,” replied Cochrane, turning to a tall, lanky
+rancher who was standing at a little distance.
+
+“Bracken,” cried Cameron, striding to him with hand outstretched, “what
+about the logs for the house? Where did they come from?”
+
+“Well, I dunno. Smith was sayin' somethin' about a bee and gettin' green
+logs.”
+
+“Smith?” cried Cameron, glancing at that individual now busy unhitching
+the bronchos.
+
+“And of course,” continued Bracken, “green logs ain't any use for a real
+good house, so--and then--well, I happened to have a bunch of logs up
+the Big Horn. I guess the boys floated 'em down.”
+
+“Come away, Mrs. Cameron, and inspect your house,” cried a stout,
+red-faced matron. “I said they ought to await your coming to get your
+plans, but Mr. Smith said he knew a little about building and that they
+might as well go on with it. It was getting late in the season, and so
+they went at it. Come away, we're having a great time over it. Indeed, I
+think we've enjoyed it more than ever you will.”
+
+“But you haven't told us yet who started it,” cried Mandy.
+
+“Where did you get the lumber?” said Cameron.
+
+“Well, the lumber,” replied Cochrane, “came from the Fort, I guess.
+Didn't it, Inspector?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the Inspector. “We had no immediate use for it, and Smith
+told us just how much it would take.”
+
+“Smith?” said Cameron again. “Hello, Smith!” But Smith was already
+leading the bronchos away to the stable.
+
+“Yes,” continued the Inspector, “and Smith was wondering how a notice
+could be sent up to the Spruce Creek boys and to Loon Lake, so I sent a
+man with the word and they brought down the lumber without any trouble.
+But,” continued the Inspector, “come along, Cameron, let us follow the
+ladies.”
+
+“But this is growing more and more mysterious,” protested Cameron. “Can
+no one tell me how the thing originated? The sash and doors now, where
+did they come from?”
+
+“Oh, that's easy,” said Cochrane. “I was at the Post Office, and,
+hearin' Smith talkin' 'bout this raisin' bee and how they were stuck for
+sash and door, so seein' I wasn't goin' to build this fall I told him he
+might as well have the use of these. My team was laid up and Smith got
+Jim Bracken to haul 'em down.”
+
+“Well, this gets me,” said Cameron. “It appears no one started this
+thing. Everything just happened. Now the shingles, I suppose they just
+tumbled up into their place there.”
+
+“The shingles?” said Cochrane. “I dunno 'bout them. Didn't know there
+were any in the country.”
+
+“Oh, they just got up into place there of themselves I have no doubt,”
+ said Cameron.
+
+“The shingles? Ah, bay Jove! Rawthah! Funny thing, don't-che-naow,”
+ chimed in a young fellow attired in rather emphasized cow-boy style,
+“funny thing! A Johnnie--quite a strangah to me, don't-che-naow, was
+riding pawst my place lawst week and mentioned about this--ah--raisin'
+bee he called it I think, and in fact abaout the blawsted Indian, and
+the fire, don't-che-naow, and all the rest of it, and how the chaps were
+all chipping in as he said, logs and lumbah and so fowth. And then, bay
+Jove, he happened to mention that they were rathah stumped for shingles,
+don't-che-naow, and, funny thing, there chawnced to be behind my
+stable a few bunches, and I was awfully glad to tu'n them ovah, and
+this--eh--pehson--most extraordinary chap I assuah you--got 'em down
+somehow.”
+
+“Who was it inquired?” asked Cameron.
+
+“Don't naow him in the least. But it's the chap that seems to be bossing
+the job.”
+
+“Oh, that's Smith,” said Cochrane.
+
+“Smith!” said Cameron, in great surprise. “I don't even know the man. He
+was good enough to help my wife to beat back the fire. I don't believe I
+even spoke to him. Who is he anyway?”
+
+“Oh, he's Thatcher's man.”
+
+“Yes, but--”
+
+“Come away, Mr. Cameron,” cried Mrs. Cochrane from the door of the new
+house. “Come away in and look at the result of our bee.”
+
+“This beats me,” said Cameron, obeying the invitation, “but, say,
+Dickson, it is mighty good of all these men. I have no claim--”
+
+“Claim?” said Mr. Cochrane. “It might have been any of us. We must stand
+together in this country, and especially these days, eh, Inspector?
+Things are gettin' serious.”
+
+The Inspector nodded his head gravely.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “But, Mr. Cochrane,” he added in a low voice, “it is
+very necessary that as little as possible should be said about these
+things just now. No occasion for any excitement or fuss. The quieter
+things are kept the better.”
+
+“All right, Inspector, I understand, but--”
+
+“What do you think of your new house, Mr. Cameron?” cried Mrs. Cochrane.
+“Come in. Now what do you think of this for three days' work?”
+
+“Oh, Allan, I have been all through it and it's perfectly wonderful,”
+ said his wife.
+
+“Oh nothing very wonderful, Mrs. Cameron,” said Cochrane, “but it will
+do for a while.”
+
+“Perfectly wonderful in its whole plan, and beautifully complete,”
+ insisted Mandy. “See, a living-room, a lovely large one, two bedrooms
+off it, and, look here, cupboards and closets, and a pantry, and--” here
+she opened the door in the corner--“a perfectly lovely up-stairs! Not to
+speak of the cook-house out at the back.”
+
+“Wonderful is the word,” said Cameron, “for why in all the world should
+these people--?”
+
+“And look, Allan, at Moira! She's just lost in rapture over that
+fireplace.”
+
+“And I don't wonder,” said her husband. “It is really fine. Whose idea
+was it?” he continued, moving toward Moira's side, who was standing
+before a large fireplace of beautiful masonry set in between the two
+doors that led to the bedrooms at the far end of the living-room.
+
+“It was Andy Hepburn from Loon Lake that built it,” said Mr. Cochrane.
+
+“I wish I could thank him,” said Moira fervently.
+
+“Well, there he is outside the window, Miss Moira,” said a young fellow
+who was supposed to be busy putting up a molding round the wainscoting,
+but who was in reality devoting himself to the young lady at the present
+moment with open admiration. “Here, Andy,” he cried through the window,
+“you're wanted. Hurry up.”
+
+“Oh, don't, Mr. Dent. What will he think?”
+
+A hairy little man, with a face dour and unmistakably Scotch, came in.
+
+“What's want-it, then?” he asked, with a deliberate sort of gruffness.
+
+“It's yourself, Andy, me boy,” said young Dent, who, though Canadian
+born, needed no announcement of his Irish ancestry. “It is yourself,
+Andy, and this young lady, Miss Moira Cameron--Mr. Hepburn--” Andy made
+reluctant acknowledgment of her smile and bow--“wants to thank you for
+this fireplace.”
+
+“It is very beautiful indeed, Mr. Hepburn, and very thankful I am to you
+for building it.”
+
+“Aw, it's no that bad,” admitted Andy. “But ye need not thank me.”
+
+“But you built it?”
+
+“Aye did I. But no o' ma ain wull. A fireplace is a feckless thing in
+this country an' I think little o't.”
+
+“Whose idea was it then?”
+
+“It was yon Smith buddie. He juist keepit dingin' awa' till A promised
+if he got the lime--A kent o' nane in the country--A wud build the
+thing.”
+
+“And he got the lime, eh, Andy?” said Dent.
+
+“Aye, he got it,” said Andy sourly. “Diel kens whaur.”
+
+“But I am sure you did it beautifully, Mr. Hepburn,” said Moira, moving
+closer to him, “and it will be making me think of home.” Her soft
+Highland accent and the quaint Highland phrasing seemed to reach a soft
+spot in the little Scot.
+
+“Hame? An' whaur's that?” he inquired, manifesting a grudging interest.
+
+“Where? Where but in the best of all lands, in Scotland,” said Moira.
+“Near Braemar.”
+
+“Braemar?”
+
+“Aye, Braemar. I have only come four days ago.”
+
+“Aye, an' did ye say, lassie!” said Andy, with a faint accession of
+interest. “It's a bonny country ye've left behind, and far enough frae
+here.”
+
+“Far indeed,” said Moira, letting her shining brown eyes rest upon his
+face. “And it is myself that knows it. But when the fire burns yonder,”
+ she added, pointing to the fireplace, “I will be seeing the hills and
+the glens and the moors.”
+
+“'Deed, then, lassie,” said Andy in a low hurried voice, moving toward
+the door, “A'm gled that Smith buddie gar't me build it.”
+
+“Wait, Mr. Hepburn,” said Moira, shyly holding out her hand, “don't you
+think that Scotties in this far land should be friends?”
+
+“An' prood I'd be, Miss Cameron,” replied Andy, and, seizing her hand,
+he gave it a violent shake, flung it from him and fled through the door.
+
+“He's a cure, now, isn't he!” said Dent.
+
+“I think he is fine,” said Moira with enthusiasm. “It takes a Scot to
+understand a Scot, you see, and I am glad I know him. Do you know, he
+is a little like the fireplace himself,” she said, “rugged, a wee bit
+rough, but fine.”
+
+“The real stuff, eh?” said Dent. “The pure quill.”
+
+“Yes, that is it. Solid and steadfast, with no pretense.”
+
+Meanwhile the work of inspecting the new house was going on. Everywhere
+appeared fresh cause for delighted wonder, but still the origin of the
+raising bee remained a mystery.
+
+Balked by the men, Cameron turned in his search to the women and
+proceeded to the tent where preparations were being made for the supper.
+
+“Tut tut, Mr. Cameron,” said Mrs. Cochrane, her broad good-natured face
+beaming with health and good humor, “what difference does it make?
+Your neighbors are only too glad of a chance to show their goodwill for
+yourself, and more for your wife.”
+
+“I am sure you are right there,” said Cameron.
+
+“And it is the way of the country. We must stick together, John says.
+It's your turn to-day, it may be ours to-morrow and that's all there
+is to it. So clear out of this tent and make yourself busy. By the way,
+where's the pipes? The folk will soon be asking for a tune.”
+
+“But I want to know, Mrs. Cochrane,” persisted Cameron.
+
+“Where's the pipes, I'm saying. John,” she cried, lifting her voice, to
+her husband, who was standing at the other side of the house. “Where's
+the pipes? They're not burned, I hope,” she continued, turning to
+Cameron. “The whole settlement would feel that a loss.”
+
+“Fortunately no. Young Macgregor at the Fort has them.”
+
+“Then I wonder if they are here. John, find out from the Inspector
+yonder where the pipes are. We will be wanting them this evening.”
+
+To her husband's inquiry the Inspector replied that if Macgregor ever
+had the pipes it was a moral certainty that he had carried them with him
+to the raising, “for it is my firm belief,” he added, “that he sleeps
+with them.”
+
+“Do go and see now, like a dear man,” said Mrs. Cochrane to Cameron.
+
+From group to group of the workers Cameron went, exchanging greetings,
+but persistently seeking to discover the originator of the raising
+bee. But all in vain, and in despair he came back to his wife with the
+question “Who is this Smith, anyway?”
+
+“Mr. Smith,” she said with deliberate emphasis, “is my friend, my
+particular friend. I found him a friend when I needed one badly.”
+
+“Yes, but who is he?” inquired Moira, who, with Mr. Dent in attendance,
+had sauntered up. “Who is he, Mr. Dent? Do you know?”
+
+“No, not from Adam's mule. He's old Thatcher's man. That's all I know
+about him.”
+
+“He is Mr. Thatcher's man? Oh!” said Moira, “Mr. Thatcher's servant.” A
+subtle note of disappointment sounded in her voice.
+
+“Servant, Moira?” said Allan in a shocked tone. “Wipe out the thought.
+There is no such thing as servant west of the Great Lakes in this
+country. A man may help me with my work for a consideration, but he is
+no servant of mine as you understand the term, for he considers himself
+just as good as I am and he may be considerably better.”
+
+“Oh, Allan,” protested his sister with flushing face, “I know. I know
+all that, but you know what I mean.”
+
+“Yes, I know perfectly,” said her brother, “for I had the same notion.
+For instance, for six months I was a 'servant' in Mandy's home, eh,
+Mandy?”
+
+“Nonsense!” cried Mandy indignantly. “You were our hired man and just
+like the rest of us.”
+
+“Do you get that distinction, Moira? There is no such thing as servant
+in this country,” continued Cameron. “We are all the same socially and
+stand to help each other. Rather a fine idea that.”
+
+“Yes, fine,” cried Moira, “but--” and she paused, her face still
+flushed.
+
+“Who's Smith? is the great question,” interjected Dent. “Well, then,
+Miss Cameron, between you and me we don't ask that question in this
+country. Smith is Smith and Jones is Jones and that's the first and last
+of it. We all let it go at that.”
+
+But now the last row of shingles was in place, the last door hung, the
+last door-knob set. The whole house stood complete, inside and out, top
+and bottom, when a tattoo beat upon a dish pan gave the summons to the
+supper table. The table was spread in all its luxurious variety and
+abundance beneath the poplar trees. There the people gathered all upon
+the basis of pure democratic equality, “Duke's son and cook's son,” each
+estimated at such worth as could be demonstrated was in him. Fictitious
+standards of values were ignored. Every man was given his fair
+opportunity to show his stuff and according to his showing was his place
+in the community. A generous good fellowship and friendly good-will
+toward the new-comer pervaded the company, but with all this a kind of
+reserve marked the intercourse of these men with each other. Men were
+taken on trial at face value and no questions asked.
+
+This evening, however, the dominant note was one of generous and
+enthusiastic sympathy with the young rancher and his wife, who had come
+so lately among them and who had been made the unfortunate victim of
+a sinister and threatening foe, hitherto, it is true, regarded with
+indifference or with friendly pity but lately assuming an ominous
+importance. There was underneath the gay hilarity of the gathering an
+undertone of apprehension until the Inspector made his speech. It was
+short and went straight at the mark. There was danger, he acknowledged.
+It would be idle to ignore that there were ugly rumors flying. There was
+need for watchfulness, but there was no need for alarm. The Police Force
+was charged with the responsibility of protecting the lives and property
+of the people. They assumed to the full this responsibility, though they
+were very short-handed at present, but if they ever felt they needed
+assistance they knew they could rely upon the steady courage of the men
+of the district such as he saw before him.
+
+There was need of no further words and the Inspector's speech passed
+with no response. It was not after the manner of these men to make
+demonstration either of their loyalty or of their courage.
+
+Cameron's speech at the last came haltingly. On the one hand his
+Highland pride made it difficult for him to accept gifts from any source
+whatever. On the other hand his Highland courtesy forbade his giving
+offense to those who were at once his hosts and his guests, but none
+suspected the reason for the halting in his speech. As Western men they
+rather approved than otherwise the hesitation and reserve that marked
+his words.
+
+Before they rose from the supper table, however, there were calls for
+Mrs. Cameron, calls so insistent and clamorous that, overcoming her
+embarrassment, she made reply. “We have not yet found out who was
+responsible for the originating of this great kindness. But no matter.
+We forgive him, for otherwise my husband and I would never have come to
+know how rich we are in true friends and kind neighbors, and now that
+you have built this house let me say that henceforth by day or by night
+you are welcome to it, for it is yours.”
+
+After the storm of applause had died down, a voice was heard gruffly and
+somewhat anxiously protesting, “But not all at one time.”
+
+“Who was that?” asked Mandy of young Dent as the supper party broke up.
+
+“That's Smith,” said Dent, “and he's a queer one.”
+
+“Smith?” said Cameron. “The chap meets us everywhere. I must look him
+up.”
+
+But there was a universal and insistent demand for “the pipes.”
+
+“You look him up, Mandy,” cried her husband as he departed in response
+to the call.
+
+“I shall find him, and all about him,” said Mandy with determination.
+
+The next two hours were spent in dancing to Cameron's reels, in which
+all, with more or less grace, took part till the piper declared he was
+clean done.
+
+“Let Macgregor have the pipes, Cameron,” cried the Inspector. “He is
+longing for a chance, I am sure, and you give us the Highland Fling.”
+
+“Come Moira,” cried Cameron gaily, handing the pipes to Macgregor and,
+taking his sister by the hand, he led her out into the intricacies of
+the Highland Reel, while the sides of the living-room, the doors and
+the windows, were thronged with admiring onlookers. Even Andy Hepburn's
+rugged face lost something of its dourness; and as the brother and
+sister together did that most famous of all the ancient dances of
+Scotland, the Highland Fling, his face relaxed into a broad smile.
+
+“There's Smith,” said young Dent to Mandy in a low voice as the reel was
+drawing to a close.
+
+“Where?” she cried. “I have been looking for him everywhere.”
+
+“There, at the window, outside.”
+
+Even in the dim light of the lanterns and candles hung here and there
+upon the walls and stuck on the window sills, Smith's face, pale, stern,
+sad, shone like a specter out of the darkness behind.
+
+“What's the matter with the man?” cried Mandy. “I must find out.”
+
+Suddenly the reel came to an end and Cameron, taking the pipes from
+young Macgregor, cried, “Now, Moira, we will give them our way of it,”
+ and, tuning the pipes anew, he played over once and again their own Glen
+March, known only to the piper of the Cuagh Oir. Then with cunning
+skill making atmosphere, he dropped into a wild and weird lament, Moira
+standing the while like one seeing a vision. With a swift change the
+pipes shrilled into the true Highland version of the ancient reel,
+enriched with grace notes and variations all his own. For a few moments
+the girl stood as if unwilling to yield herself to the invitation of the
+pipes. Suddenly, as if moved by another spirit than her own, she stepped
+into the circle and whirled away into the mazes of the ancient style of
+the Highland Fling, such as is mastered by comparatively few even of the
+Highland folk. With wonderful grace and supple strength she passed from
+figure to figure and from step to step, responding to the wild mad music
+as to a master spirit.
+
+In the midst of the dance Mandy made her way out of the house and round
+to the window where Smith stood gazing in upon the dancer. She quietly
+approached him from behind and for a few moments stood at his side. He
+was breathing heavily like a man in pain.
+
+“What is it, Mr. Smith?” she said, touching him gently on the shoulder.
+
+He sprang from her touch as from a stab and darted back from the crowd
+about the window.
+
+“What is it, Mr. Smith?” she said again, following him. “You are not
+well. You are in pain.”
+
+He stood a moment or two gazing at her with staring eyes and parted
+lips, pain, grief and even rage distorting his pale face.
+
+“It is wicked,” at length he panted. “It is just terrible wicked--a
+young girl like that.”
+
+“Wicked? Who? What?”
+
+“That--that girl--dancing like that.”
+
+“Dancing? That kind of dancing?” cried Mandy, astonished. “I was brought
+up a Methodist myself,” she continued, “but that kind of dancing--why, I
+love it.”
+
+“It is of the devil. I am a Methodist--a preacher--but I could not
+preach, so I quit. But that is of the world, the flesh, and the devil
+and--and I have not the courage to denounce it. She is--God help
+me--so--so wonderful--so wonderful.”
+
+“But, Mr. Smith,” said Mandy, laying her hand upon his arm, and seeking
+to sooth his passion, “surely this dancing is--”
+
+Loud cheers and clapping of hands from the house interrupted her. The
+man put his hands over his eyes as if to shut out a horrid vision,
+shuddered violently, and with a weird sound broke from her touch and
+fled into the bluff behind the house just as the party came streaming
+from the house preparatory to departing. It seemed to Mandy as if she
+had caught a glimpse of the inner chambers of a soul and had seen things
+too sacred to be uttered.
+
+Among the last to leave were young Dent and the Inspector.
+
+“We have found out the culprit,” cried Dent, as he was saying
+good-night.
+
+“The culprit?” said Mandy. “What do you mean?”
+
+“The fellow who has engineered this whole business.”
+
+“Who is it?” said Cameron.
+
+“Why, listen,” said Dent. “Who got the logs from Bracken? Smith. Who
+got the Inspector to send men through the settlement? Smith. Who got the
+lumber out of the same Inspector? Smith. And the sash and doors out of
+Cochrane? Smith. And wiggled the shingles out of Newsome? And euchred
+old Scotty Hepburn into building the fireplace? And planned and bossed
+the whole job? Who? Smith. This whole business is Smith's work.”
+
+“And where is Smith? Have you seen him, Mandy? We have not thanked him,”
+ said Cameron.
+
+“He is gone, I think,” said Mandy. “He left some time ago. We shall
+thank him later. But I am sure we owe a great deal to you, Inspector
+Dickson, to you, Mr. Dent, and indeed to all our friends,” she added, as
+she bade them good-night.
+
+For some moments they lingered in the moonlight.
+
+“To think that this is Smith's work!” said Cameron, waving his hand
+toward the house. “That queer chap! One thing I have learned, never to
+judge a man by his legs again.”
+
+“He is a fine fellow,” said Mandy indignantly, “and with a fine soul in
+spite of--”
+
+“His wobbly legs,” said her husband smiling.
+
+“It's a shame, Allan. What difference does it make what kind of legs a
+man has?”
+
+“Very true,” replied her husband smiling, “and if you knew your Bible
+better, Mandy, you would have found excellent authority for your
+position in the words of the psalmist, 'The Lord taketh no pleasure in
+the legs of a man.' But, say, it is a joke,” he added, “to think of this
+being Smith's work.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THE SUN DANCE CANYON
+
+
+But they were not yet done with Smith, for as they turned to pass into
+the house a series of shrill cries from the bluff behind pierced the
+stillness of the night.
+
+“Help! Help! Murder! Help! I've got him! Help! I've got him!”
+
+Shaking off the clutching hands of his wife and sister, Cameron darted
+into the bluff and found two figures frantically struggling upon the
+ground. The moonlight trickling through the branches revealed the man
+on top to be an Indian with a knife in his hand, but he was held in such
+close embrace that he could not strike.
+
+“Hold up!” cried Cameron, seizing the Indian by the wrist. “Stop that!
+Let him go!” he cried to the man below. “I've got him safe enough. Let
+him go! Let him go, I tell you! Now, then, get up! Get up, both of you!”
+
+The under man released his grip, allowed the Indian to rise and got
+himself to his feet.
+
+“Come out into the light!” said Cameron sharply, leading the Indian
+out of the bluff, followed by the other, still panting. Here they were
+joined by the ladies. “Now, then, what the deuce is all this row?”
+ inquired Cameron.
+
+“Why, it's Mr. Smith!” cried Mandy.
+
+“Smith again! More of Smith's work, eh? Well, this beats me,” said her
+husband. For some moments Cameron stood surveying the group, the Indian
+silent and immobile as one of the poplar trees beside him, the ladies
+with faces white, Smith disheveled in garb, pale and panting and
+evidently under great excitement. Cameron burst into a loud laugh.
+Smith's pale face flushed a swift red, visible even in the moonlight,
+then grew pale again, his excited panting ceased as he became quiet.
+
+“Now what is the row?” asked Cameron again. “What is it, Smith?”
+
+“I found this Indian in the bush here and I seized him. I thought--he
+might--do something.”
+
+“Do something?”
+
+“Yes--some mischief--to some of you.”
+
+“What? You found this Indian in the bluff here and you just jumped on
+him? You might better have jumped on a wild cat. Are you used to this
+sort of thing? Do you know the ways of these people?”
+
+“I never saw an Indian before.”
+
+“Good Heavens, man! He might have killed you. And he would have in two
+minutes more.”
+
+“He might have killed--some of you,” said Smith.
+
+Cameron laughed again.
+
+“Now what were you doing in the bluff?” he said sharply, turning to the
+Indian.
+
+“Chief Trotting Wolf,” said the Indian in the low undertone common to
+his people, “Chief Trotting Wolf want you' squaw--boy seeck bad--leg
+beeg beeg. Boy go die. Come.” He turned to Mandy and repeated
+“Come--queeek--queeek.”
+
+“Why didn't you come earlier?” said Cameron sharply. “It is too late
+now. We are going to sleep.”
+
+“Me come dis.” He lowered his hand toward the ground. “Too much mans--no
+like--Indian wait all go 'way--dis man much beeg fight--no good. Come
+queeek--boy go die.”
+
+Already Mandy had made up her mind.
+
+“Let us hurry, Allan,” she said.
+
+“You can't go to-night,” he replied. “You are dead tired. Wait till
+morning.”
+
+“No, no, we must go.” She turned into the house, followed by her
+husband, and began to rummage in her bag. “Lucky thing I got these
+supplies in town,” she said, hastily putting together her nurse's
+equipment and some simple remedies. “I wonder if that boy has fever.
+Bring that Indian in.”
+
+“Have you had the doctor?” she inquired, when he appeared.
+
+“Huh! Doctor want cut off leg--dis,” his action was sufficiently
+suggestive. “Boy say no.”
+
+“Has the boy any fever? Does he talk-talk-talk?” The Indian nodded his
+head vigorously.
+
+“Talk much--all day--all night.”
+
+“He is evidently in a high fever,” said Mandy to her husband. “We must
+try to check that. Now, my dear, you hurry and get the horses.”
+
+“But what shall we do with Moira?” said Cameron suddenly.
+
+“Why,” cried Moira, “let me go with you. I should love to go.”
+
+But this did not meet with Cameron's approval.
+
+“I can stay here,” suggested Smith hesitatingly, “or Miss Cameron can go
+over with me to the Thatchers'.”
+
+“That is better,” said Cameron shortly. “We can drop her at the
+Thatchers' as we pass.”
+
+In half an hour Cameron returned with the horses and the party proceeded
+on their way.
+
+At the Piegan Reserve they were met by Chief Trotting Wolf himself and,
+without more than a single word of greeting, were led to the tent in
+which the sick boy lay. Beside him sat the old squaw in a corner of the
+tent, crooning a weird song as she swayed to and fro. The sick boy lay
+on a couch of skins, his eyes shining with fever, his foot festering
+and in a state of indescribable filth and his whole condition one of
+unspeakable wretchedness. Cameron found his gorge rise at the sight of
+the gangrenous ankle.
+
+“This is a horrid business, Mandy,” he exclaimed. “This is not for you.
+Let us send for the doctor. That foot will surely have to come off.
+Don't mess with it. Let us have the doctor.”
+
+But his wife, from the moment of her first sight of the wounded foot,
+forgot all but her mission of help.
+
+“We must have a clean tent, Allan,” she said, “and plenty of hot water.
+Get the hot water first.”
+
+Cameron turned to the Chief and said, “Hot water, quick!”
+
+“Huh--good,” replied the Chief, and in a few moments returned with a
+small pail of luke-warm water.
+
+“Oh,” cried Mandy, “it must be hot and we must have lots of it.”
+
+“Hot,” cried Cameron to the Chief. “Big pail--hot--hot.”
+
+“Huh,” grunted the Chief a second time with growing intelligence, and
+in an incredibly short space returned with water sufficiently hot and in
+sufficient quantity.
+
+All unconscious of the admiring eyes that followed the swift and skilled
+movements of her capable hands, Mandy worked over the festering and
+fevered wound till, cleansed, soothed, wrapped in a cooling lotion, the
+limb rested easily upon a sling of birch bark and skins suggested and
+prepared by the Chief. Then for the first time the boy made a sound.
+
+“Huh,” he grunted feebly. “Doctor--no good. Squaw--heap good. Me two
+foot--live--one foot--” he held up one finger--“die.” His eyes were
+shining with something other than the fever that drove the blood racing
+through his veins. As a dog's eyes follow every movement of his master
+so the lad's eyes, eloquent with adoring gratitude, followed his nurse
+as she moved about the wigwam.
+
+“Now we must get that clean tent, Allan.”
+
+“All right,” said her husband. “It will be no easy job, but we shall do
+our best. Here, Chief,” he cried, “get some of your young men to pitch
+another tent in a clean place.”
+
+The Chief, eager though he was to assist, hesitated.
+
+“No young men,” he said. “Get squaw,” and departed abruptly.
+
+“No young men, eh?” said Cameron to his wife. “Where are they, then? I
+notice there are no bucks around.”
+
+And so while the squaws were pitching a tent in a spot somewhat removed
+from the encampment, Cameron poked about among the tents and wigwams of
+which the Indian encampment consisted, but found for the most part
+only squaws and children and old men. He came back to his wife greatly
+disturbed.
+
+“The young bucks are gone, Mandy. I must get after this thing quickly. I
+wish I had Jerry here. Let's see? You ask for a messenger to be sent
+to the fort for the doctor and medicine. I shall enclose a note to the
+Inspector. We want the doctor here as soon as possible and we want Jerry
+here at the earliest possible moment.”
+
+With a great show of urgency a messenger was requisitioned and
+dispatched, carrying a note from Cameron to the Commissioner requesting
+the presence of the doctor with his medicine bag, but also requesting
+that Jerry, the redoubtable half-breed interpreter and scout, with
+a couple of constables, should accompany the doctor, the constables,
+however, to wait outside the camp until summoned.
+
+During the hours that must elapse before any answer could be had from
+the fort, Cameron prepared a couch in a corner of the sick boy's tent
+for his wife, and, rolling himself in his blanket, he laid himself
+down at the door outside where, wearied with the long day and its many
+exciting events, he slept without turning, till shortly after daybreak
+he was awakened by a chorus of yelping curs which heralded the arrival
+of the doctor from the fort with the interpreter Jerry in attendance.
+
+After breakfast, prepared by Jerry with dispatch and skill, the product
+of long experience, there was a thorough examination of the sick boy's
+condition through the interpreter, upon the conclusion of which a long
+consultation followed between the doctor, Cameron and Mandy. It was
+finally decided that the doctor should remain with Mandy in the Indian
+camp until a change should become apparent in the condition of the boy,
+and that Cameron with the interpreter should pick up the two constables
+and follow in the trail of the young Piegan braves. In order to allay
+suspicion Cameron and his companion left the camp by the trail which led
+toward the fort. For four miles or so they rode smartly until the trail
+passed into a thick timber of spruce mixed with poplar. Here Cameron
+paused, and, making a slight sign in the direction from which they had
+come, he said:
+
+“Drop back, Jerry, and see if any Indian is following.”
+
+“Good,” grunted Jerry. “Go slow one mile,” and, slipping from his
+pony, he handed the reins to Cameron and faded like a shadow into the
+brushwood.
+
+For a mile Cameron rode, pausing now and then to listen for the sound of
+anyone following, then drew rein and waited for his companion. After a
+few minutes of eager listening he suddenly sat back in his saddle and
+felt for his pipe.
+
+“All right, Jerry,” he said softly, “come out.”
+
+Grinning somewhat shamefacedly Jerry parted a bunch of spruce boughs and
+stood at Cameron's side.
+
+“Good ears,” he said, glancing up into Cameron's face.
+
+“No, Jerry,” replied Cameron, “I saw the blue-jay.”
+
+“Huh,” grunted Jerry, “dat fool bird tell everyt'ing.”
+
+“Any Indian following?”
+
+Jerry held up two fingers.
+
+“Two Indian run tree mile--find notting--go back.”
+
+“Good! Where are our men?”
+
+“Down Coulee Swampy Creek.”
+
+“All right, Jerry. Any news at the fort last two or three days?”
+
+“Beeg meetin' St. Laurent. Much half-breed. Some Indian too. Louis Riel
+mak beeg spik--beeg noise--blood! blood! blood! Much beeg fool.”
+ Jerry's tone indicated the completeness of his contempt for the whole
+proceedings at St. Laurent.
+
+“Something doing, eh, Jerry?”
+
+“Bah!” grunted Jerry contemptuously.
+
+“Well, there's something doing here,” continued Cameron. “Trotting
+Wolf's young men have left the reserve and Trotting Wolf is very
+anxious that we should not know it. I want you to go back, find out what
+direction they have taken, how far ahead they are, how many. We camp
+to-night at the Big Rock at the entrance to the Sun Dance Canyon. You
+remember?”
+
+Jerry nodded.
+
+“There's something doing, Jerry, or I am much mistaken. Got any grub?”
+
+“Grub?” asked Jerry. “Me--here--t'ree day,” tapping his rolled blanket
+at the back of his saddle. “Odder fellers--grub--Jakes--t'ree men--t'ree
+day. Come Beeg Rock to-night--mebbe to-morrow.” So saying, Jerry climbed
+on to his pony and took the back trail, while Cameron went forward to
+meet his men at the Swampy Creek Coulee.
+
+Making a somewhat wide detour to avoid the approaches to the Indian
+encampment, Cameron and his two men rode for the Big Rock at the
+entrance to the Sun Dance Canyon. They gave themselves no concern about
+Trotting Wolf's band of young men. They knew well that what Jerry could
+not discover would not be worth finding out. A year's close association
+with Jerry had taught Cameron something of the marvelous powers of
+observation, of the tenacity and courage possessed by the little
+half-breed that made him the keenest scout in the North West Mounted
+Police.
+
+At the Big Rock they arrived late in the afternoon and there waited
+for Jerry's appearing; but night had fallen and had broken into morning
+before the scout came into camp with a single word of report:
+
+“Notting.”
+
+“No Piegans?” exclaimed Cameron.
+
+“No--not dis side Blood Reserve.”
+
+“Eat something, Jerry, then we will talk,” said Cameron.
+
+Jerry had already broken his fast, but was ready for more. After the
+meal was finished he made his report. His report was clear and concise.
+On leaving Cameron in the morning he had taken the most likely direction
+to discover traces of the Piegan band, namely that suggested by Cameron,
+and, fetching a wide circle, had ridden toward the mountains, but he
+had come upon no sign. Then he had penetrated into the canyon and ridden
+down toward the entrance, but still had found no trace. He had then
+ridden backward toward the Piegan Reserve and, picking up a trail of one
+or two ponies, had followed it till he found it broaden into that of a
+considerable band making eastward. Then he knew he had found the trail
+he wanted.
+
+“How many, Jerry?” asked Cameron.
+
+The half-breed held up both hands three times.
+
+“Mebbe more.”
+
+“Thirty or forty?” exclaimed Cameron. “Any Squaws?
+
+“No.”
+
+“Hunting-expedition?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Where were they going?”
+
+“Blood Reserve t'ink--dunno.”
+
+Cameron sat smoking in silence. He was completely at a loss.
+
+“Why go to the Bloods?” he asked of Jerry.
+
+“Dunno.”
+
+Jerry was not strong in his constructive faculty. His powers were those
+of observation.
+
+“There is no sense in them going to the Blood Reserve, Jerry,” said
+Cameron impatiently. “The Bloods are a pack of thieves, we know, but our
+people are keeping a close watch on them.”
+
+Jerry grunted acquiescence.
+
+“There is no big Indian camping ground on the Blood Reserve. You
+wouldn't get the Blackfeet to go to any pow-wow there.”
+
+Again Jerry grunted.
+
+“How far did you follow their trail, Jerry?”
+
+“Two--t'ree mile.”
+
+Cameron sat long and smoked. The thing was extremely puzzling. It seemed
+unlikely that if the Piegan band were going to a rendezvous of Indians
+they should select a district so closely under the inspection of the
+Police. Furthermore there was no great prestige attaching to the Bloods
+to make their reserve a place of meeting.
+
+“Jerry,” said Cameron at length, “I believe they are up this Sun Dance
+Canyon somewhere.”
+
+“No,” said Jerry decisively. “No sign--come down mesef.” His tone was
+that of finality.
+
+“I believe, Jerry, they doubled back and came in from the north end
+after you had left. I feel sure they are up there now and we will go and
+find them.”
+
+Jerry sat silent, smoking thoughtfully. Finally he took his pipe from
+his mouth, pressed the tobacco hard down with his horny middle finger
+and stuck it in his pocket.
+
+“Mebbe so,” he said slowly, a slight grin distorting his wizened little
+face, “mebbe so, but t'ink not--me.”
+
+“Well, Jerry, where could they have gone? They might ride straight
+to Crowfoot's Reserve, but I think that is extremely unlikely. They
+certainly would not go to the Bloods, therefore they must be up this
+canyon. We will go up, Jerry, for ten miles or so and see what we can
+see.”
+
+“Good,” said Jerry with a grunt, his tone conveying his conviction that
+where the chief scout of the North West Mounted Police had said it was
+useless to search, any other man searching would have nothing but his
+folly for his pains.
+
+“Have a sleep first, Jerry. We need not start for a couple of hours.”
+
+Jerry grunted his usual reply, rolled himself in his blanket and, lying
+down at the back of a rock, was asleep in a minute's time.
+
+In two hours to the minute he stood beside his pony waiting for Cameron,
+who had been explaining his plan to the two constables and giving them
+his final orders.
+
+The orders were very brief and simple. They were to wait where they were
+till noon. If any of the band of Piegans appeared one of the men was
+to ride up the canyon with the information, the other was to follow
+the band till they camped and then ride back till he should meet his
+comrades. They divided up the grub into two parts and Cameron and the
+interpreter took their way up the canyon.
+
+The canyon consisted of a deep cleft across a series of ranges of hills
+or low mountains. Through it ran a rough breakneck trail once used by
+the Indians and trappers but now abandoned since the building of the
+Canadian Pacific Railway through the Kicking Horse Pass and the opening
+of the Government trail through the Crow's Nest. From this which had
+once been the main trail other trails led westward into the Kootenays
+and eastward into the Foothill country. At times the canyon widened into
+a valley, rich in grazing and in streams of water, again it narrowed
+into a gorge, deep and black, with rugged sides above which only the
+blue sky was visible, and from which led cavernous passages that wound
+into the heart of the mountains, some of them large enough to hold a
+hundred men or more without crowding. These caverns had been and
+still were found to be most convenient and useful for the purpose of
+whisky-runners and of cattle-rustlers, affording safe hiding-places for
+themselves and their spoil. With this trail and all its ramifications
+Jerry was thoroughly familiar. The only other man in the Force who
+knew it better than Jerry was Cameron himself. For many months he had
+patroled the main trail and all its cross leaders, lived in its caves
+and explored its caverns in pursuit of those interesting gentlemen whose
+activities more than anything else had rendered necessary the existence
+of the North West Mounted Police. In ancient times the caves along the
+Sun Dance Trail had been used by the Indian Medicine-Men for their pagan
+rites, and hence in the eyes of the Indians to these caves attached a
+dreadful reverence that made them places to be avoided in recent years
+by the various tribes now gathered on the reserves. But during these
+last months of unrest it was suspected by the Police that the ancient
+uses of these caves had been revived and that the rites long since
+fallen into desuetude were once more being practised.
+
+For the first few miles of the canyon the trail offered good footing
+and easy going, but as the gorge deepened and narrowed the difficulties
+increased until riding became impossible, and only by the most strenuous
+efforts on the part of both men and beasts could any advance be made.
+And so through the day and into the late evening they toiled on, ever
+alert for sight or sound of the Piegan band. At length Cameron broke the
+silence.
+
+“We must camp, Jerry,” he said. “We are making no time and we may spoil
+things. I know a good camp-ground near by.”
+
+“Me too,” grunted Jerry, who was as tired as his wiry frame ever allowed
+him to become.
+
+They took a trail leading eastward, which to all eyes but those familiar
+with it would have been invisible, for a hundred yards or so and came
+to the bed of a dry stream which issued from between two great rocks.
+Behind one of these rocks there opened out a grassy plot a few yards
+square, and beyond the grass a little lifted platform of rock against a
+sheer cliff. Here they camped, picketing their horses on the grass and
+cooking their supper upon the platform of rock over a tiny fire of dry
+twigs, for the wind was blowing down the canyon and they knew that they
+could cook their meal and have their smoke without fear of detection.
+For some time after supper they sat smoking in that absolute silence
+which is the characteristic of the true man of the woods. The gentle
+breeze blowing down the canyon brought to their ears the rustling of
+the dry poplar-leaves and the faint murmur of the stream which, tumbling
+down the canyon, accompanied the main trail a hundred yards away.
+
+Suddenly Cameron's hand fell upon the knee of the half-breed with a
+swift grip.
+
+“Listen!” he said, bending forward.
+
+With mouths slightly open and with hands to their ears they both sat
+motionless, breathless, every nerve on strain. Gradually the dead
+silence seemed to resolve itself into rhythmic waves of motion rather
+than of sound--“TUM-ta-ta-TUM. TUM-ta-ta-TUM. TUM-ta-ta-TUM.” It was
+the throb of the Indian medicine-drum, which once heard can never be
+forgotten or mistaken. Without a word to each other they rose, doused
+their fire, cached their saddles, blankets and grub, and, taking only
+their revolvers, set off up the canyon. Before they had gone many yards
+Cameron halted.
+
+“What do you think, Jerry?” he said. “I take it they have come in the
+back way over the old Porcupine Trail.”
+
+Jerry grunted approval of the suggestion.
+
+“Then we can go in from the canyon. It is hard going, but there is less
+fear of detection. They are sure to be in the Big Wigwam.”
+
+Jerry shook his head, with a puzzled look on his face.
+
+“Dunno me.”
+
+“That is where they are,” said Cameron. “Come on! Only two miles from
+here.”
+
+Steadily the throb of the medicine-drum grew more distinct as they moved
+slowly up the canyon, rising and falling upon the breeze that came down
+through the darkness to meet them. The trail, which was bad enough in
+the light, became exceedingly dangerous and difficult in the blackness
+of the night. On they struggled painfully, now clinging to the sides of
+the gorge, now mounting up over a hill and again descending to the level
+of the foaming stream.
+
+“Will they have sentries out, I wonder?” whispered Cameron in Jerry's
+ear.
+
+“No--beeg medicine going on--no sentry.”
+
+“All right, then, we will walk straight in on them.”
+
+“What you do?” inquired Jerry.
+
+“We will see what they are doing and send them about their business,”
+ said Cameron shortly.
+
+“No,” said Jerry firmly. “S'pose Indian mak beeg medicine--bes' leave
+him go till morning.”
+
+“Well, Jerry, we will take a look at them at any rate,” said Cameron.
+“But if they are fooling around with any rebellion nonsense I am going
+to step in and stop it.”
+
+“No,” said Jerry again very gravely. “Beeg medicine mak' Indian man
+crazy--fool--dance--sing--mak' brave--then keel--queeck!”
+
+“Come along, then, Jerry,” said Cameron impatiently. And on they went.
+The throb of the drum grew clearer until it seemed that the next turn in
+the trail should reveal the camp, while with the drum throb they began
+to catch, at first faintly and then more clearly, the monotonous chant
+“Hai-yai-kai-yai, Hai-yai-kai-yai,” that ever accompanies the Indian
+dance. Suddenly the drums ceased altogether and with it the chanting,
+and then there arose upon the night silence a low moaning cry that
+gradually rose into a long-drawn penetrating wail, almost a scream, made
+by a single voice.
+
+Jerry's hand caught Cameron's arm with a convulsive grip.
+
+“What the deuce is that?” asked Cameron.
+
+“Sioux Indian--he mak' dat when he go keel.”
+
+Once more the long weird wailing scream pierced the night and, echoing
+down the canyon, was repeated a hundred times by the black rocky sides.
+Cameron could feel Jerry's hand still quivering on his arm.
+
+“What's up with you, Jerry?” said Cameron impatiently.
+
+“Me hear dat when A'm small boy--me.”
+
+Then Cameron remembered that it was Sioux blood that colored the
+life-stream in Jerry's veins.
+
+“Oh, pshaw!” said Cameron with gruff impatience. “Come on!” But he was
+more shaken than he cared to acknowledge by that weird unearthly cry
+and by its all too obvious effect upon the iron nerves of that little
+half-breed at his side.
+
+“Dey mak' dat cry when dey go meet Custer long 'go,” said Jerry, making
+no motion to go forward.
+
+“What are you waiting for?” said Cameron harshly. “Come along, unless
+you want to go back.”
+
+His words stung the half-breed into action. Cameron could feel him in
+the dark jerk his hand away and hear him grit his teeth.
+
+“Bah! You go hell!” he muttered between his clenched teeth.
+
+“That is better,” said Cameron cheerfully. “Now we will look in upon
+these fire-eaters.”
+
+Sharp to the right they turned behind a cliff, and then back almost upon
+their trail, still to the right, through a screen of spruce and poplar,
+and found themselves in a hole of a rock that lengthened into a tunnel
+blacker than the night outside. Pursuing this tunnel some little
+distance they became aware of a light that grew as they moved toward
+it into a fire set in the middle of a wide cavern. The cavern was of
+irregular shape, with high-vaulted roof, open to the sky at the apex and
+hung with glistening stalactites. The floor of this cavern lay slightly
+below them, and from their position they could command a full view of
+its interior.
+
+The sides of the cavern round about were crowded with tawny faces of
+Indians arranged rank upon rank, the first row seated upon the ground,
+those behind crouching upon their haunches, those still farther back
+standing. In the center of the cavern and with his face lit by the fire
+stood the Sioux Chief, Onawata.
+
+“Copperhead! By all that's holy!” cried Cameron.
+
+“Onawata!” exclaimed the half-breed. “What he mak' here?”
+
+“What is he saying, Jerry? Tell me everything--quick!” commanded Cameron
+sharply.
+
+Jerry was listening with eager face.
+
+“He mak' beeg spik,” he said.
+
+“Go on!”
+
+“He say Indian long tam' 'go have all country when his fadder small boy.
+Dem day good hunting--plenty beaver, mink, moose, buffalo like leaf on
+tree, plenty hit (eat), warm wigwam, Indian no seeck, notting wrong. Dem
+day Indian lak' deer go every place. Dem day Indian man lak' bear 'fraid
+notting. Good tam', happy, hunt deer, keel buffalo, hit all day. Ah-h-h!
+ah-h-h!” The half-breed's voice faded in two long gasps.
+
+The Sioux's chanting voice rose and fell through the vaulted cavern like
+a mighty instrument of music. His audience of crowding Indians gazed
+in solemn rapt awe upon him. A spell held them fixed. The whole circle
+swayed in unison with his swaying form as he chanted the departed
+glories of those happy days when the red man roamed free those plains
+and woods, lord of his destiny and subject only to his own will. The
+mystic magic power of that rich resonant voice, its rhythmic cadence
+emphasized by the soft throbbing of the drum, the uplifted face glowing
+as with prophetic fire, the tall swaying form instinct with exalted
+emotion, swept the souls of his hearers with surging tides of passion.
+Cameron, though he caught but little of its meaning, felt himself
+irresistibly borne along upon the torrent of the flowing words. He
+glanced at Jerry beside him and was startled by the intense emotion
+showing upon his little wizened face.
+
+Suddenly there was a swift change of motif, and with it a change of
+tone and movement and color. The marching, vibrant, triumphant chant
+of freedom and of conquest subsided again into the long-drawn wail of
+defeat, gloom and despair. Cameron needed no interpreter. He knew the
+singer was telling the pathetic story of the passing of the day of the
+Indian's glory and the advent of the day of his humiliation. With sharp
+rising inflections, with staccato phrasing and with fierce passionate
+intonation, the Sioux wrung the hearts of his hearers. Again Cameron
+glanced at the half-breed at his side and again he was startled to note
+the transformation in his face. Where there had been glowing pride there
+was now bitter savage hate. For that hour at least the half-breed was
+all Sioux. His father's blood was the water in his veins, the red was
+only his Indian mother's. With face drawn tense and lips bared into
+a snarl, with eyes gleaming, he gazed fascinated upon the face of the
+singer. In imagination, in instinct, in the deepest emotions of his soul
+Jerry was harking back again to the savage in him, and the savage in him
+thirsting for revenge upon the white man who had wrought this ruin upon
+him and his Indian race. With a fine dramatic instinct the Sioux reached
+his climax and abruptly ceased. A low moaning murmur ran round the
+circle and swelled into a sobbing cry, then ceased as suddenly as there
+stepped into the circle a stranger, evidently a half-breed, who began to
+speak. He was a French Cree, he announced, and delivered his message in
+the speech, half Cree, half French, affected by his race.
+
+He had come fresh from the North country, from the disturbed district,
+and bore, as it appeared, news of the very first importance from those
+who were the leaders of his people in the unrest. At his very first
+word Jerry drew a long deep breath and by his face appeared to drop from
+heaven to earth. As the half-breed proceeded with his tale his speech
+increased in rapidity.
+
+“What is he saying, Jerry?” said Cameron after they had listened for
+some minutes.
+
+“Oh he beeg damfool!” said Jerry, whose vocabulary had been learned
+mostly by association with freighters and the Police. “He tell 'bout
+beeg meeting, beeg man Louis Riel mak' beeg noise. Bah! Beeg damfool!”
+ The whole scene had lost for Jerry its mystic impressiveness and had
+become contemptibly commonplace. But not so to Cameron. This was the
+part that held meaning for him. So he pulled up the half-breed with a
+quick, sharp command.
+
+“Listen close,” he said, “and let me know what he says.”
+
+And as Jerry interpreted in his broken English the half-breed's speech
+it appeared that there was something worth learning. At this big
+meeting held in Batoche it seemed a petition of rights, to the Dominion
+Parliament no less, had been drawn up, and besides this many plans had
+been formed and many promises made of reward for all those who dared to
+stand for their rights under the leadership of the great Riel, while
+for the Indians very special arrangements had been made and the most
+alluring prospects held out. For they were assured that, when in the far
+North country the new Government was set up, the old free independent
+life of which they had been hearing was to be restored, all hampering
+restrictions imposed by the white man were to be removed, and the
+good old days were to be brought back. The effect upon the Indians was
+plainly evident. With solemn faces they listened, nodding now and
+then grave approval, and Cameron felt that the whole situation held
+possibilities of horror unspeakable in the revival of that ancient
+savage spirit which had been so very materially softened and tamed
+by years of kindly, patient and firm control on the part of those
+who represented among them British law and civilization. His original
+intention had been to stride in among these Indians, to put a stop to
+their savage nonsense and order them back to their reserves with never a
+thought of anything but obedience on their part. But as he glanced about
+upon the circle of faces he hesitated. This was no petty outbreak of
+ill temper on the part of a number of Indians dissatisfied with their
+rations or chafing under some new Police regulation. As his eye traveled
+round the circle he noted that for the most part they were young men.
+A few of the councilors of the various tribes represented were present.
+Many of them he knew, but many others he could not distinguish in the
+dim light of the fire.
+
+“Who are those Indians, Jerry?” he asked.
+
+And as Jerry ran over the names he began to realize how widely
+representative of the various tribes in the western country the
+gathering was. Practically every reserve in the West was represented:
+Bloods, Piegans and Blackfeet from the foothill country, Plain Crees and
+Wood Crees from the North. Even a few of the Stonies, who were supposed
+to have done with all pagan rites and to have become largely civilized,
+were present. Nor were these rank and file men only. They were the
+picked braves of the tribes, and with them a large number of the younger
+chiefs.
+
+At length the half-breed Cree finished his tale, and in a few brief
+fierce sentences he called the Indians of the West to join their
+half-breed and Indian brothers of the North in one great effort to
+regain their lost rights and to establish themselves for all time in
+independence and freedom.
+
+Then followed grave discussion carried on with deliberation and courtesy
+by those sitting about the fire, and though gravity and courtesy marked
+every utterance there thrilled through every speech an ever deepening
+intensity of feeling. The fiery spirit of the red man, long subdued by
+those powers that represented the civilization of the white man, was
+burning fiercely within them. The insatiable lust for glory formerly won
+in war or in the chase, but now no longer possible to them, burned in
+their hearts like a consuming fire. The life of monotonous struggle for
+a mere existence to which they were condemned had from the first been
+intolerable to them. The prowess of their fathers, whether in the
+slaughter of foes or in the excitement of the chase, was the theme of
+song and story round every Indian camp-fire and at every sun dance.
+For the young braves, life, once vivid with color and thrilling with
+tingling emotions, had faded into the somber-hued monotony of a dull and
+spiritless existence, eked out by the charity of the race who had robbed
+them of their hunting-grounds and deprived them of their rights as free
+men. The lust for revenge, the fury of hate, the yearning for the return
+of the days of the red man's independence raged through their speeches
+like fire in an open forest; and, ever fanning yet ever controlling the
+flame, old Copperhead presided till the moment should be ripe for such
+action as he desired. Back and forward the question was deliberated.
+Should they there and then pledge themselves to their Northern brothers
+and commit themselves to this great approaching adventure?
+
+Quietly and with an air of judicial deliberation the Sioux put the
+question to them. There was something to be lost and something to be
+gained. But the loss, how insignificant it seemed! And the gain, how
+immeasurable! And after all success was almost certain. What could
+prevent it? A few scattered settlers with no arms nor ammunition, with
+no means of communication, what could they effect? A Government nearly
+three thousand miles away, with the nearest base of military operations
+a thousand miles distant, what could they do? The only real difficulty
+was the North West Mounted Police. But even as the Sioux uttered the
+words a chill silence fell upon the excited throng. The North West
+Mounted Police, who for a dozen years had guarded them and cared for
+them and ruled them without favor and without fear! Five hundred red
+coats of the Great White Mother across the sea, men who had never been
+known to turn their backs upon a foe, who laughed at noisy threats and
+whose simple word their greatest chief was accustomed unhesitatingly to
+obey! Small wonder that the mere mention of the name of those gallant
+“Riders of the Plains” should fall like a chill upon their fevered
+imaginations. The Sioux was conscious of that chill and set himself to
+counteract it.
+
+“The Police!” he cried with unspeakable scorn, “the Police! They will
+flee before the Indian braves like leaves before the autumn wind.”
+
+“What says he?” cried Cameron eagerly. And Jerry swiftly interpreted.
+
+Without a moment's hesitation Cameron sprang to his feet and, standing
+in the dim light at the entrance to the cave, with arm outstretched and
+finger pointed at the speaker, he cried:
+
+“Listen!” With a sudden start every face was turned in his direction.
+“Listen!” he repeated. “The Sioux dog lies. He speaks with double
+tongue. Never have the Indians seen a Policeman's back turned in
+flight.”
+
+His unexpected appearance, his voice ringing like the blare of a trumpet
+through the cavern, his tall figure with the outstretched accusing arm
+and finger, the sharp challenge of the Sioux's lie with what they all
+knew to be the truth, produced an effect utterly indescribable. For
+some brief seconds they gazed upon him stricken into silence as with a
+physical blow, then with a fierce exclamation the Sioux snatched a rifle
+from the cave side and quicker than words can tell fired straight at
+the upright accusing figure. But quicker yet was Jerry's panther-spring.
+With a backhand he knocked Cameron flat, out of range. Cameron dropped
+to the floor as if dead.
+
+“What the deuce do you mean, Jerry?” he cried. “You nearly knocked the
+wind out of me!”
+
+“Beeg fool you!” grunted Jerry fiercely, dragging him back into the
+tunnel out of the light.
+
+“Let me go, Jerry!” cried Cameron in a rage, struggling to free himself
+from the grip of the wiry half-breed.
+
+“Mak' still!” hissed Jerry, laying his hand over Cameron's mouth.
+“Indian mad--crazy--tak' scalp sure queeck.”
+
+“Let me go, Jerry, you little fool!” said Cameron. “I'll kill you if you
+don't! I want that Sioux, and, by the eternal God, I am going to have
+him!” He shook himself free of the half-breed's grasp and sprang to his
+feet. “I am going to get him!” he repeated.
+
+“No!” cried Jerry again, flinging himself upon him and winding his
+arms about him. “Wait! Nodder tam'. Indian mad crazy--keel quick--no
+talk--now.”
+
+Up and down the tunnel Cameron dragged him about as a mastiff might
+a terrier, striving to free himself from those gripping arms. Even as
+Jerry spoke, through the dim light the figure of an Indian could be seen
+passing and repassing the entrance to the cave.
+
+“We get him soon,” said Jerry in an imploring whisper. “Come back
+now--queeck--beeg hole close by.”
+
+With a great effort Cameron regained his self-control.
+
+“By Jove, you are right, Jerry,” he said quietly. “We certainly can't
+take him now. But we must not lose him. Now listen to me quick. This
+passage opens on to the canyon about fifty yards farther down. Follow,
+and keep your eye on the Sioux. I shall watch here. Go!”
+
+Without an instant's hesitation Jerry obeyed, well aware that his master
+had come to himself and again was in command.
+
+Cameron meantime groped to the mouth of the tunnel by which he had
+entered and peered out into the dim light. Close to his hand stood an
+Indian in the cavern. Beyond him there was a confused mingling of forms
+as if in bewilderment. The Council was evidently broken up for the time.
+The Indians were greatly shaken by the vision that had broken in upon
+them. That it was no form of flesh and blood was very obvious to them,
+for the Sioux's bullet had passed through it and spattered against the
+wall leaving no trail of blood behind it. There was no holding them
+together, and almost before he was aware of it Cameron saw the cavern
+empty of every living soul. Quickly but warily he followed, searching
+each nook as he went, but the dim light of the dying fire showed him
+nothing but the black walls and gloomy recesses of the great cave. At
+the farther entrance he found Jerry awaiting him.
+
+“Where are they gone?” he asked.
+
+“Beeg camp close by,” replied Jerry. “Beeg camp--much Indian. Some
+talk-talk, then go sleep. Chief Onawata he mak' more talk--talk all
+night--then go sleep. We get him morning.”
+
+Cameron thought swiftly.
+
+“I think you are right, Jerry. Now you get back quick for the men
+and come to me here in the morning. We must not spoil the chance of
+capturing this old devil. He will have these Indians worked up into
+rebellion before we know where we are.”
+
+So saying, Cameron set forward that he might with his own eyes look upon
+the camp and might the better plan his further course. Upon two things
+he was firmly resolved. First, that he should break up this council
+which held such possibilities of danger to the peace of the country. And
+secondly, and chiefly, he must lay hold of this Sioux plotter, not only
+because of the possibilities of mischief that lay in him, but because of
+the injury he had done him and his.
+
+Forward, then, he went and soon came upon the camp, and after observing
+the lay of it, noting especially the tent in which the Sioux Chief had
+disposed himself, he groped back to his cave, in a nook of which--for
+he was nearly done out with weariness, and because much yet lay before
+him--he laid himself down and slept soundly till the morning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+IN THE BIG WIGWAM
+
+
+Long before the return of the half-breed and his men Cameron was astir
+and to some purpose. A scouting expedition around the Indian camp
+rewarded him with a significant and useful discovery. In a bluff some
+distance away he found the skins and heads of four steers, and by
+examination of the brands upon the skins discovered two of them to be
+from his own herd.
+
+“All right, my braves,” he muttered. “There will be a reckoning for this
+some day not so far away. Meantime this will help this day's work.”
+
+A night's sleep and an hour's quiet consideration had shown him the
+folly of a straight frontal attack upon the Indians gathered for
+conspiracy. They were too deeply stirred for anything like the usual
+brusque manner of the Police to be effective. A slight indiscretion,
+indeed, might kindle such a conflagration as would sweep the whole
+country with the devastating horror of an Indian war. He recalled the
+very grave manner of Inspector Dickson and resolved upon an entirely
+new plan of action. At all costs he must allay suspicion that the Police
+were at all anxious about the situation in the North. Further, he must
+break the influence of the Sioux Chief over these Indians. Lastly, he
+was determined that this arch-plotter should not escape him again.
+
+The sun was just visible over the lowest of the broken foothills when
+Jerry and the two constables made their appearance, bringing, with them
+Cameron's horse. After explaining to them fully his plan and emphasizing
+the gravity of the situation and the importance of a quiet, cool and
+resolute demeanor, they set off toward the Indian encampment.
+
+“I have no intention of stirring these chaps up,” laid Cameron, “but I
+am determined to arrest old Copperhead, and at the right moment we must
+act boldly and promptly. He is too dangerous and much too clever to be
+allowed his freedom among these Indians of ours at this particular time.
+Now, then, Jerry and I will ride in looking for cattle and prepared to
+charge these Indians with cattle-stealing. This will put them on the
+defensive. Then the arrest will follow. You two will remain within sound
+of whistle, but failing specific direction let each man act on his own
+initiative.”
+
+Jerry listened with delight. His Chief was himself again. Before the
+day was over he was to see him in an entirely new role. Nothing in life
+afforded Jerry such keen delight as a bit of cool daring successfully
+carried through. Hence with joyous heart he followed Cameron into the
+Indian camp.
+
+The morning hour is the hour of coolest reason. The fires of emotion and
+imagination have not yet begun to burn. The reactions from anything
+like rash action previously committed under the stimulus of a heated
+imagination are caution and timidity, and upon these reactions Cameron
+counted when he rode boldly into the Indian camp.
+
+With one swift glance his eye swept the camp and lighted upon the Sioux
+Chief in the center of a group of younger men, his tall commanding
+figure and haughty carriage giving him an outstanding distinction over
+those about him. At his side stood a young Piegan Chief, Eagle Feather
+by name, whom Cameron knew of old as a restless, talkative Indian, an
+ambitious aspirant for leadership without the qualities necessary to
+such a position. Straight to this group Cameron rode.
+
+“Good morning!” he said, saluting the group. “Ah, good morning, Eagle
+Feather!”
+
+Eagle Feather grunted an indistinct reply.
+
+“Big Hunt, eh? Are you in command of this party, Eagle Feather? No? Who
+then is?”
+
+The Piegan turned and pointed to a short thick set man standing by
+another fire, whose large well shaped head and penetrating eye indicated
+both force and discretion.
+
+“Ah, Running Stream,” cried Cameron. “Come over here, Running Stream. I
+am glad to see you, for I wish to talk to a man of wisdom.”
+
+Slowly and with dignified, almost unwilling step Running Stream
+approached. As he began to move, but not before, Cameron went to meet
+him.
+
+“I wish to talk with you,” said Cameron in a quiet firm tone.
+
+“Huh,” grunted Running Stream.
+
+“I have a matter of importance to speak to you about,” continued
+Cameron.
+
+Running Stream's keen glance searched his face somewhat anxiously.
+
+“I find, Running Stream, that your young men are breaking faith with
+their friends, the Police.”
+
+Again the Chief searched Cameron's face with that keen swift glance, but
+he said not a word, only waited.
+
+“They are breaking the law as well, and I want to tell you they will be
+punished. Where did they get the meat for these kettles?”
+
+A look of relief gleamed for one brief instant across the Indian's face,
+not unnoticed, however, by Cameron.
+
+“Why do your young men steal my cattle?”
+
+The Indian evinced indifference.
+
+“Dunno--deer--mebbe--sheep.”
+
+“My brother speaks like a child,” said Cameron quietly. “Do deer and
+sheep have steers' heads and hides with brands on? Four heads I find
+in the bluff. The Commissioner will ask you to explain these hides and
+heads, and let me tell you, Running Stream, that the thieves will spend
+some months in jail. They will then have plenty of time to think of
+their folly and their wickedness.”
+
+An ugly glance shot from the Chief's eyes.
+
+“Dunno,” he grunted again, then began speaking volubly in the Indian
+tongue.
+
+“Speak English, Running Stream!” commanded Cameron. “I know you can
+speak English well enough.”
+
+But Running Stream shook his head and continued his speech in Indian,
+pointing to a bluff near by.
+
+Cameron looked toward Jerry, who interpreted:
+
+“He say young men tak' deer and sheep and bear. He show you skins in
+bluff.”
+
+“Come,” said Running Stream, supplementing Jerry's interpretation and
+making toward the bluff. Cameron followed him and came upon the skins of
+three jumping deer, of two mountain sheep and of two bear. They turned
+back again to the fire.
+
+“My young men no take cattle,” said the Chief with haughty pride.
+
+“Maybe so,” said Cameron, “but some of your party have, Running Stream,
+and the Commissioner will look to you. You are in command here. He will
+give you a chance to clear yourself.”
+
+The Indian shrugged his shoulders and stood silent.
+
+“My brother is not doing well,” continued Cameron. “The Government feed
+you if you are hungry. The Government protect you if you are wronged.”
+
+It was an unfortunate word of Cameron's. A sudden cloud of anger
+darkened the Indian's face.
+
+“No!” he cried aloud. “My children--my squaw and my people go hungry--go
+cold in winter--no skin--no meat.”
+
+“My brother knows--” replied Cameron with patient firmness--“You
+translate this, Jerry”--and Jerry proceeded to translate with eloquence
+and force--“the Government never refuse you meat. Last winter your
+people would have starved but for the Government.”
+
+“No,” cried the Indian again in harsh quick reply, the rage in his
+face growing deeper, “my children cry--Indian cannot sleep--my white
+brother's ears are closed. He hear only the wind--the storm--he sound
+sleep. For me no sleep--my children cry too loud.”
+
+“My brother knows,” replied Cameron, “that the Government is far away,
+that it takes a long time for answer to come back to the Indian cry.
+But the answer came and the Indian received flour and bacon and tea and
+sugar, and this winter will receive them again. But how can my brother
+expect the Government to care for his people if the Indians break the
+law? That is not good. These Indians are bad Indians and the Police will
+punish the thieves. A thief is a bad man and ought to be punished.”
+
+Suddenly a new voice broke in abruptly upon the discourse.
+
+“Who steal the Indian's hunting-ground? Who drive away the buffalo?” The
+voice rang with sharp defiance. It was the voice of Onawata, the Sioux
+Chief.
+
+Cameron paid no heed to the ringing voice. He kept his back turned upon
+the Sioux.
+
+“My brother knows,” he continued, addressing himself to Running Stream,
+“that the Indian's best friend is the Government, and the Police are the
+Government's ears and eyes and hands and are ready always to help the
+Indians, to protect them from fraud, to keep away the whisky-peddlers,
+to be to them as friends and brothers. But my brother has been listening
+to a snake that comes from another country and that speaks with a forked
+tongue. Our Government bought the land by treaty. Running Stream knows
+this to be no lie, but the truth. Nor did the Government drive away the
+buffalo from the Indians. The buffalo were driven away by the Sioux from
+the country of the snake with the forked tongue. My brother remembers
+that only a few years ago when the people to which this lying snake
+belongs came over to this country and tried to drive away from their
+hunting-grounds the Indians of this country, the Police protected the
+Indians and drove back the hungry thieving Sioux to their own land. And
+now a little bird has been telling me that this lying snake has been
+speaking into the ears of our Indian brothers and trying to persuade
+them to dig up the hatchet against their white brothers, their friends.
+The Police know all about this and laugh at it. The Police know about
+the foolish man at Batoche, the traitor Louis Riel. They know he is
+a liar and a coward. He leads brave men astray and then runs away and
+leaves them to suffer. This thing he did many years ago.” And Cameron
+proceeded to give a brief sketch of the fantastic and futile rebellion
+of 1870 and of the ignoble part played by the vain and empty-headed
+Riel.
+
+The effect of Cameron's words upon the Indians was an amazement even to
+himself. They forgot their breakfast and gathered close to the speaker,
+their eager faces and gleaming eyes showing how deeply stirred were
+their hearts.
+
+Cameron was putting into his story an intensity of emotion and passion
+that not only surprised himself, but amazed his interpreter. Indeed so
+amazed was the little half-breed at Cameron's quite unusual display of
+oratorical power that his own imagination took fire and his own tongue
+was loosened to such an extent that by voice, look, tone and gesture he
+poured into his officer's harangue a force and fervor all his own.
+
+“And now,” continued Cameron, “this vain and foolish Frenchman seeks
+again to lead you astray, to lead you into war that will bring ruin
+to you and to your children; and this lying snake from your ancient
+enemies, the Sioux, thinking you are foolish children, seeks to make
+you fight against the great White Mother across the seas. He has been
+talking like a babbling old man, from whom the years have taken wisdom,
+when he says that the half-breeds and Indians can drive the white man
+from these plains. Has he told you how many are the children of the
+White Mother, how many are the soldiers in her army? Listen to me, and
+look! Get me many branches from the trees,” he commanded sharply to some
+young Indians standing near.
+
+So completely were the Indians under the thrall of his speech that a
+dozen of them sprang at once to get branches from the poplar trees near
+by.
+
+“I will show you,” said Cameron, “how many are the White Mother's
+soldiers. See,”--he held up both hands and then stuck up a small twig in
+the sand to indicate the number ten. Ten of these small twigs he set in
+a row and by a larger stick indicated a hundred, and so on till he had
+set forth in the sandy soil a diagrammatic representation of a hundred
+thousand men, the Indians following closely his every movement. “And all
+these men,” he continued, “are armed with rifles and with great big guns
+that speak like thunder. And these are only a few of the White Mother's
+soldiers. How many Indians and half-breeds do you think there are with
+rifles?” He set in a row sticks to represent a thousand men. “See,” he
+cried, “so many.” Then he added another similar row. “Perhaps, if all
+the Indians gathered, so many with rifles. No more. Now look,” he said,
+“no big guns, only a few bullets, a little powder, a little food. Ha,
+ha!” he laughed contemptuously. “The Sioux snake is a fool. His tongue
+must be stopped. My Indian brothers here will not listen to him, but
+there are others whose hearts are like the hearts of little children who
+may listen to his lying words. The Sioux snake must be caught and put in
+a cage, and this I do now.”
+
+As he uttered the words Cameron sprang for the Sioux, but quicker than
+his leap the Sioux darted through the crowding Indians who, perceiving
+Cameron's intent, thrust themselves in his path and enabled the Sioux to
+get away into the brush behind.
+
+“Head him off, Jerry,” yelled Cameron, whistling sharply at the same
+time for his men, while he darted for his horse and threw himself upon
+it. The whole camp was in a seething uproar.
+
+“Back!” yelled Cameron, drawing his gun. The Indians fell away from him
+like waves from a speeding vessel. On the other side of the little bluff
+he caught sight of a mounted Indian flying toward the mountains and with
+a cry he started in pursuit. It took only a few minutes for Cameron to
+discover that he was gaining rapidly upon his man. But the rough rocky
+country was not far away in front of them, and here was abundant chance
+for hiding. Closer and closer he drew to his flying enemy--a hundred
+yards--seventy-five yards--fifty yards only separated them.
+
+“Halt!” cried Cameron, “or I shoot.”
+
+But the Indian, throwing himself on the far side of his pony, urged him
+to his topmost speed.
+
+Cameron steadied himself for a moment, took careful aim and fired. The
+flying pony stumbled, recovered himself, stumbled again and fell. But
+even before he reached the earth his rider had leaped free, and, still
+some thirty yards in advance, sped onward. Half a dozen strides and
+Cameron's horse was upon him, and, giving him the shoulder, hurled the
+Indian senseless to earth. In a flash Cameron was at his side, turned
+him over and discovered not the Sioux Chief but another Indian quite
+unknown to him.
+
+His rage and disappointment were almost beyond his control. For an
+instant he held his gun poised as if to strike, but the blow did not
+fall. His self command came back. He put up his gun, turned quickly
+away from the prostrate Indian, flung himself upon his horse and set off
+swiftly for the camp. It was but a mile distant, but in the brief
+time consumed in reaching it he had made up his mind as to his line of
+action. Unless his men had captured the Sioux it was almost certain that
+he had made his escape to the canyon, and once in the canyon there was
+little hope of his being taken. It was of the first importance that he
+should not appear too deeply concerned over his failure to take his man.
+
+With this thought in his mind Cameron loped easily into the Indian camp.
+He found the young braves in a state of feverish excitement. Armed with
+guns and clubs, they gathered about their Chiefs clamoring to be allowed
+to wipe out these representatives of the Police who had dared to attempt
+an arrest of this distinguished guest of theirs. As Cameron appeared
+the uproar quieted somewhat and the Indians gathered about him, eagerly
+waiting his next move.
+
+Cameron cantered up to Running Stream and, looking round upon the
+crowding and excited braves, he said, with a smile of cool indifference:
+
+“The Sioux snake has slid away in the grass. He has missed his
+breakfast. My brother was about to eat. After he has eaten we will have
+some quiet talk.”
+
+So saying, he swung himself from his saddle, drew the reins over his
+horse's ears and, throwing himself down beside a camp fire, he pulled
+out his pipe and proceeded to light it as calmly as if sitting in a
+council-lodge.
+
+The Indians were completely nonplussed. Nothing appeals more strongly
+to the Indian than an exhibition of steady nerve. For some moments they
+stood regarding Cameron with looks of mingled curiosity and admiration
+with a strong admixture of impatience, for they had thought of being
+done out of their great powwow with its attendant joys of dance and
+feast, and if this Policeman should choose to remain with them all day
+there could certainly be neither dancing nor feasting for them. In the
+meantime, however, there was nothing for it but to accept the situation
+created for them. This cool-headed Mounted Policeman had planted himself
+by their camp-fire. They could not very well drive him from their camp,
+nor could they converse with him till he was ready.
+
+As they were thus standing about in uncertainty of mind and temper
+Jerry, the interpreter, came in and, with a grunt of recognition, threw
+himself down by Cameron beside the fire. After some further hesitation
+the Indians began to busy themselves once more with their breakfast. In
+the group about the campfire beside which Cameron had placed himself was
+the Chief, Running Stream. The presence of the Policeman beside his fire
+was most embarrassing to the Chief, for no man living has a keener sense
+of the obligations of hospitality than has the Indian. But the Indian
+hates to eat in the presence of a white man unless the white man shares
+his meal. Hence Running Stream approached Cameron with a courteous
+request that he would eat with them.
+
+“Thanks, Running Stream, I have eaten, but I am sure Jerry here will
+be glad of some breakfast,” said Cameron cordially, who had no desire
+whatever to dip out of the very doubtful mess in the pot which had been
+set down on the ground in the midst of the group around the fire.
+Jerry, however, had no scruples in the matter and, like every Indian
+and half-breed, was always ready for a meal. Having thus been offered
+hospitality and having by proxy accepted it, Cameron was in position to
+discuss with the Chief in a judicial if not friendly spirit the matter
+he had in hand.
+
+Breakfast over, Cameron offered his tobacco-pouch to the Chief, who,
+gravely helping himself to a pipeful, passed it on to his neighbor who,
+having done likewise, passed it in turn to the man next him till the
+tobacco was finished and the empty pouch returned with due gravity to
+the owner.
+
+Relations of friendly diplomacy being thus established, the whole party
+sat smoking in solemn silence until the pipes were smoked out. Then
+Cameron, knocking the ashes from his pipe, opened up the matter in hand,
+with Jerry interpreting.
+
+“The Sioux snake,” he began quietly, “will be hungry for his breakfast.
+Honest men do not run away before breakfast.”
+
+“Huh,” grunted Running Stream, non-committal.
+
+“The Police will get him in due time,” continued Cameron in a tone of
+quiet indifference. “He will cease to trouble our Indian brothers with
+foolish lies. The prison gates are strong and will soon close upon this
+stranger with the forked tongue.”
+
+Again the Chief grunted, still non-committal.
+
+“It would be a pity if any of your young men should give heed to these
+silly tales. None of your wise men have done so. In the Sioux country
+there is frequent war between the soldiers and the Indians because bad
+men wish to wrong the Indians and the Indians grow angry and fight, but
+in this country white men are punished who do wrong to Indians. This
+Running Stream knows to be true.”
+
+“Huh,” grunted Running Stream acquiescing.
+
+“When Indians do wrong to white men it is just that the Indians should
+be punished as well. The Police do justly between the white man and the
+Indian. My brother knows this to be true.”
+
+“Huh,” again grunted Running Stream with an uneasy look on his face.
+
+“Therefore when young and foolish braves steal and kill cattle they must
+be punished. They must be taught to keep the law.” Here Cameron's voice
+grew gentle as a child's, but there was in its tone something that made
+the Chief glance quickly at his face.
+
+“Huh, my young men no steal cattle,” he said sullenly.
+
+“No? I am glad to hear that. I believe that is true, and that is why I
+smoke with my brother beside his camp fire. But some young men in this
+band have stolen cattle, and I want my brother to find them that I might
+take them with me to the Commissioner.”
+
+“Not know any Indian take cattle,” said Running Stream in surly
+defiance.
+
+“There are four skins and four heads lying in the bluff up yonder,
+Running Stream. I am going to take those with me to the Commissioner and
+I am sure he would like to see you about those skins.” Cameron's manner
+continued to be mild but there ran through his speech an undertone of
+stern resolution that made the Indian squirm a bit.
+
+“Not know any Indian take cattle,” repeated Running Stream, but with
+less defiance.
+
+“Then it would be well for my brother to find out the thieves, for,” and
+here Cameron paused and looked the Chief steadily in the face for a few
+moments, “for we are to take them back with us or we will ask the Chief
+to come and explain to the Commissioner why he does not know what his
+young men are doing.”
+
+“No Blackfeet Indian take cattle,” said the Chief once more.
+
+“Good,” said Cameron. “Then it must be the Bloods, or the Piegans or the
+Stonies. We will call their Chiefs together.”
+
+There was no hurry in Cameron's manner. He had determined to spend
+the day if necessary in running down these thieves. At his suggestion
+Running Stream called together the Chiefs of the various bands of
+Indians represented. From his supplies Cameron drew forth some more
+tobacco and, passing it round the circle of Chiefs, calmly waited until
+all had smoked their pipes out, after which he proceeded to lay the case
+before them.
+
+“My brothers are not thieves. The Police believe them to be honest
+men, but unfortunately among them there have crept in some who are not
+honest. In the bluff yonder are four hides and four heads of steers, two
+of them from my own herd. Some bad Indians have stolen and killed these
+steers and they are here in this camp to-day, and I am going to take
+them with me to the Commissioner. Running Stream is a great Chief and
+speaks no lies and he tells me that none of his young men have taken
+these cattle. Will the Chief of the Stonies, the Chief of the Bloods,
+the Chief of the Piegans say the same for their young men?”
+
+“The Stonies take no cattle,” answered an Indian whom Cameron recognized
+as the leading representative of that tribe present.
+
+“How many Stonies here?”
+
+The Indian held up six fingers.
+
+“Ha, only six. What about the Bloods and the Piegans?” demanded Cameron.
+“It is not for me,” he continued, when there was no reply, “to discover
+the cattle-thieves. It is for the Big Chief of this camp, it is for you,
+Running Stream, and when you have found the thieves I shall arrest them
+and bring them to the Commissioner, for I will not return without them.
+Meantime I go to bring here the skins.”
+
+So saying, Cameron rode leisurely away, leaving Jerry to keep an eye
+upon the camp. For more than an hour they talked among themselves, but
+without result. Finally they came to Jerry, who, during his years
+with the Police, had to a singular degree gained the confidence of the
+Indians. But Jerry gave them little help. There had been much stealing
+of cattle by some of the tribes, not by all. The Police had been
+patient, but they had become weary. They had their suspicions as to the
+thieves.
+
+Eagle Feather was anxious to know what Indians were suspected.
+
+“Not the Stonies and not the Blackfeet,” replied Jerry quietly. It was
+a pity, he continued, that innocent men should suffer for the guilty. He
+knew Running Stream was no thief, but Running Stream must find out the
+thieves in the band under his control. How would Running Stream like to
+have the great Chief of the Blackfeet, Crowfoot, know that he could not
+control the young men under his command and did not know what they were
+doing?
+
+This suggestion of Jerry had a mighty effect upon the Blackfeet Chief,
+for old Crowfoot was indeed a great Chief and a mighty power with his
+band, and to fall into disfavor with him would be a serious matter for
+any junior Chief in the tribe.
+
+Again they withdrew for further discussion and soon it became evident
+that Jerry's cunning suggestions had sown seeds of discord among them.
+The dispute waxed hot and fierce, not as to the guilty parties, who were
+apparently acknowledged to be the Piegans, but as to the course to be
+pursued. Running Stream had no intention that his people and himself
+should become involved in the consequences of the crimes of other
+tribes whom the Blackfeet counted their inferiors. Eagle Feather and his
+Piegans must bear the consequences of their own misdeeds. On the other
+hand Eagle Feather pleaded hard that they should stand together in this
+matter, that the guilty parties could not be disclosed. The Police could
+not punish them all, and all the more necessary was it that they should
+hold together because of the larger enterprise into which they were
+about to enter.
+
+The absence of the Sioux Chief Onawata, however, weakened the bond of
+unity which he more than any other had created and damped the ardor of
+the less eager of the conspirators. It was likewise a serious blow to
+their hopes of success that the Police knew all their plans. Running
+Stream finally gave forth his decision, which was that the thieves
+should be given up, and that they all should join in a humble petition
+to the Police for leniency, pleading the necessity of hunger on their
+hunting-trip, and, as for the larger enterprise, that they should
+apparently abandon it until suspicion had been allayed and until the
+plans of their brothers in the North were more nearly matured. The time
+for striking had not yet come.
+
+In this decision all but the Piegans agreed. In vain Eagle Feather
+contended that they should stand together and defy the Police to prove
+any of them guilty. In vain he sought to point out that if in this
+crisis they surrendered the Piegans to the Police never again could they
+count upon the Piegans to support them in any enterprise. But Running
+Stream and the others were resolved. The thieves must be given up.
+
+At the very moment in which this decision had been reached Cameron rode
+in, carrying with him the incriminating hides.
+
+“Here, Jerry,” he said. “You take charge of these and bring them to the
+Commissioner.”
+
+“All right,” said Jerry, taking the hides from Cameron's horse.
+
+“What is up, Jerry?” said Cameron in a low voice as the half-breed was
+untying the bundle.
+
+“Beeg row,” whispered Jerry. “Eagle Feather t'ief.”
+
+“All right, keep close.”
+
+Quietly Cameron walked over to the group of excited Indians. As he
+approached they opened their circle to receive him.
+
+“My brother has discovered the thief,” he said. “And after all a thief
+is easily found among honest men.”
+
+Slowly and deliberately his eye traveled round the circle of faces,
+keenly scrutinizing each in turn. When he came to Eagle Feather he
+paused, gazed fixedly at him, took a single step in his direction, and,
+suddenly leveling an accusing finger at him, cried in a loud voice:
+
+“I have found him. This man is the thief.”
+
+Slowly he walked up to the Indian, who remained stoically motionless,
+laid his hand upon his wrist and said in a clear ringing voice heard
+over the encampment:
+
+“Eagle Feather, I arrest you in the name of the Queen!” And before
+another word could be spoken or a movement made Eagle Feather stood
+handcuffed, a prisoner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+“GOOD MAN--GOOD SQUAW”
+
+
+“That boy is worse, Mrs. Cameron, decidedly worse, and I wash my hands
+of all responsibility.” The old army surgeon was clearly annoyed.
+
+Mandy sat silent, weary with watching and weary with the conflict that
+had gone on intermittently during the past three days. The doctor
+was determined to have the gangrenous foot off. That was the simplest
+solution of the problem before him and the foot would have come off days
+ago if he had had his way. But the Indian boy had vehemently opposed
+this proposal. “One foot--me go die,” was his ultimatum, and through
+all the fever and delirium this was his continuous refrain. In this
+determination his nurse supported him, for she could not bring herself
+to the conviction that amputation was absolutely necessary, and,
+besides, of all the melancholy and useless driftwood that drives hither
+and thither with the ebb and flow of human life, she could imagine none
+more melancholy and more useless than an Indian crippled of a foot.
+Hence she supported the boy in his ultimatum, “One foot--me go die.”
+
+“That foot ought to come off,” repeated the doctor, beginning the
+controversy anew. “Otherwise the boy will die.”
+
+“But, doctor,” said Mandy wearily, “just think how pitiable, how
+helpless that boy will be. Death is better. And, besides, I have not
+quite given up hope that--”
+
+The doctor snorted his contempt for her opinion; and only his respect
+for her as Cameron's wife and for the truly extraordinary powers and
+gifts in her profession which she had displayed during the past three
+days held back the wrathful words that were at his lips. It was late in
+the afternoon and the doctor had given many hours to this case, riding
+back and forward from the fort every day, but all this he would not have
+grudged could he have had his way with his patient.
+
+“Well, I have done my best,” he said, “and now I must go back to my
+work.”
+
+“I know, doctor, I know,” pleaded Mandy. “You have been most kind and
+I thank you from my heart.” She rose and offered him her hand. “Don't
+think me too awfully obstinate, and please forgive me if you do.”
+
+The doctor took the outstretched hand grudgingly.
+
+“Obstinate!” he exclaimed. “Of all the obstinate creatures--”
+
+“Oh, I am afraid I am. But I don't want to be unreasonable. You see, the
+boy is so splendidly plucky and such a fine chap.”
+
+The doctor grunted.
+
+“He is a fine chap, doctor, and I can't bear to have him crippled,
+and--” She paused abruptly, her lips beginning to quiver. She was near
+the limit of her endurance.
+
+“You would rather have him dead, eh? All right, if that suits you better
+it makes no difference to me,” said the doctor gruffly, picking up his
+bag. “Good-by.”
+
+“Doctor, you will come back again to-morrow?”
+
+“To-morrow? Why should I come back to-morrow? I can do no more--unless
+you agree to amputation. There is no use coming back to-morrow. I have
+other cases waiting on me. I can't give all my time to this Indian.” The
+contempt in the doctor's voice for a mere Indian stung her like a whip.
+On Mandy's cheek, pale with her long vigil, a red flush appeared and
+in her eye a light that would have warned the doctor had he known her
+better.
+
+“Is not this Indian a human being?” she asked quietly.
+
+But the doctor was very impatient and anxious to be gone.
+
+“A human being? Yes, of course, a human being, but there are human
+beings and human beings. But if you mean an Indian is as good as a white
+man, frankly I don't agree with you.”
+
+“You have given a great deal of your time, doctor,” said Mandy with
+quiet deliberation, “and I am most grateful. I can ask no more for THIS
+INDIAN. I only regret that I have been forced to ask so much of your
+time. Good-by.” There was a ring as of steel in her voice. The doctor
+became at once apologetic.
+
+“What--eh?--I beg your pardon,” he stammered.
+
+“It is not at all necessary. Thank you again for all your service.
+Good-by.”
+
+“Eh? I don't quite--”
+
+“Good-by, doctor, and again thank you.”
+
+“Well, you know quite well I can't do any more,” said the old doctor
+crossly.
+
+“No, I don't think you can.”
+
+“Eh--what? Well, good-by.” And awkwardly the doctor walked away,
+rather uncertain as to her meaning but with a feeling that he had been
+dismissed.
+
+“Most impossible person!” he muttered as he left the tent door,
+indignant with himself that no fitting reply would come to his lips. And
+not until he had mounted his horse and taken the trail was he able to
+give full and adequate expression to his feelings, and even then it
+took him some considerable time to do full justice to himself and to the
+situation.
+
+Meantime the nurse had turned back to her watch, weary and despairing.
+In a way that she could not herself understand the Indian boy had
+awakened her interest and even her affection. His fine stoical courage,
+his warm and impulsive gratitude excited her admiration and touched her
+heart. Again arose to her lips a cry that had been like a refrain in her
+heart for the past three days, “Oh, if only Dr. Martin were here!” Her
+experience and training under Dr. Martin had made it only too apparent
+that the old army surgeon was archaic in his practice and method.
+
+“I know something could be done!” she said aloud, as she bent over her
+patient. “If only Dr. Martin were here! Poor boy! Oh! I wish he were
+here!”
+
+As if in answer to her cry there was outside a sound of galloping
+horses. She ran to the tent door and before her astonished eyes there
+drew up at her tent Dr. Martin, her sister-in-law and the ever-faithful
+Smith.
+
+“Oh, oh, Dr. Martin!” she cried, running to him with both hands
+outstretched, and could say no more.
+
+“Hello, what's up? Say, what the deuce have they been doing to you?” The
+doctor was quite wrathful.
+
+“Oh, I am glad, that's all.”
+
+“Glad? Well, you show your joy in a mighty queer way.”
+
+“She's done out, Doctor,” cried Moira, springing from her horse and
+running to her sister-in-law. “I ought to have come before to relieve
+her,” she continued penitently, with her arms round Mandy, “but I knew
+so little, and besides I thought the doctor was here.”
+
+“He was here,” said Mandy, recovering herself. “He has just gone, and
+oh, I am glad. He wanted to cut his foot off.”
+
+“Cut his foot off? Whose foot off? His own?” said Dr. Martin.
+
+“But I am glad! How did you get here in all the world?”
+
+“Your telegram came when I was away,” said the doctor. “I did not get it
+for a day, then I came at once.”
+
+“My telegram?”
+
+“Yes, your telegram. I have it here--no, I've left it somewhere--but I
+certainly got a telegram from you.”
+
+“From me? I never sent a telegram.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cameron. I understood you to desire Dr.
+Martin's presence, and--I ventured to send a wire in your name. I hope
+you will forgive the liberty,” said Smith, red to his hair-roots and
+looking over his horse's neck with a most apologetic air.
+
+“Forgive the liberty?” cried Mandy. “Why, bless you, Mr. Smith, you are
+my guardian angel,” running to him and shaking him warmly by the hand.
+
+“And he brought, us here, too,” cried Moira. “He has been awfully good
+to me these days. I do not know what I should have done without him.”
+
+Meantime Smith was standing first on one foot and then on the other in a
+most unhappy state of mind.
+
+“Guess I will be going back,” he said in an agony of awkwardness and
+confusion. “It is getting kind of late.”
+
+“What? Going right away?” exclaimed Mandy.
+
+“I've got some chores to look after, and I guess none of you are coming
+back now anyway.”
+
+“Well, hold on a bit,” said the doctor. “We'll see what's doing inside.
+Let's get the lie of things.”
+
+“Guess you don't need me any more,” continued Smith. “Good-by.” And he
+climbed on to his horse. “I have got to get back. So long.”
+
+No one appeared to have any good reason why Smith should remain, and so
+he rode away.
+
+“Good-by, Mr. Smith,” called out Mandy impulsively. “You have really
+saved my life, I assure you. I was in utter despair.”
+
+“Good-by, Mr. Smith,” cried Moira, waving her hand with a bright smile.
+“You have saved me too from dying many a time these three days.”
+
+With an awkward wave Smith answered these farewells and rode down the
+trail.
+
+“He is really a fine fellow,” said Mandy. “Always doing something for
+people.”
+
+“That is just it,” cried Moira. “He has spent his whole time these three
+days doing things for me.”
+
+“Ah, no wonder,” said the doctor. “A most useful chap. But what's the
+trouble here? Let's get at the business.”
+
+Mandy gave him a detailed history of the case, the doctor meanwhile
+making an examination of the patient's general condition.
+
+“And the doctor would have his foot off, but I would not stand for
+that,” cried Mandy indignantly as she closed her history.
+
+“H'm! Looks bad enough to come off, I should say. I wish I had been here
+a couple of days ago. It may have to come off all right.”
+
+“Oh, Dr. Martin!”
+
+“But not just to-night.”
+
+“Oh, I knew it.”
+
+“Not to-night,” I said. “I don't know what the outcome may be, but it
+looks as bad as it well can.”
+
+“Oh, that's all right,” cried Mandy cheerfully. Her burden of
+responsibility was lifted. Her care was gone. “I knew it would be all
+right.”
+
+“Well, whether it will or not I cannot say. But one thing I do know,
+you've got to trot off to sleep. Show me the ropes and then off you go.
+Who runs this camp anyway?”
+
+“Oh, the Chief does, Chief Trotting Wolf. I will call him,” cried Mandy.
+“He has been very good to me. I will get him.” And she ran from the tent
+to find the Chief.
+
+“Isn't she wonderful?” said Moira.
+
+“Wonderful? I should say so. But she is played right out I can see,”
+ replied the doctor. “I must get comfortable quarters for you both.”
+
+“But do you not want some one?” said Moira. “Do you not want me?”
+
+“Do I want you?” echoed the doctor, looking at her as she stood in the
+glow of the westering sun shining through the canvas tent. “Do I want
+you?” he repeated with deliberate emphasis. “Well, you can just bet that
+is just what I do want.”
+
+A slight flush appeared on the girl's face.
+
+“I mean,” she said hurriedly, “cannot I be of some help?”
+
+“Most certainly, most certainly,” said the doctor, noting the flush.
+“Your help will be invaluable after a bit. But first you must get Mrs.
+Cameron to sleep. She has been on this job, I understand, for three
+days. She is quite played out. And you, too, need sleep.”
+
+“Oh, I am quite fit. I do not need sleep. I am quite ready to take my
+sister-in-law's place, that is, as far as I can. And you will surely
+need some one--to help you I mean.” The doctor's eyes were upon her
+face. Under his gaze her voice faltered. The glow of the sunset through
+the tent walls illumined her face with a wonderful radiance.
+
+“Miss Moira,” said the doctor with abrupt vehemence, “I wish I had the
+nerve to tell you just how much--”
+
+“Hush!” cried the girl, her glowing face suddenly pale, “they are
+coming.”
+
+“Here is the Chief, Dr. Martin,” cried Mandy, ushering in that stately
+individual. The doctor saluted the Chief in due form and said:
+
+“Could we have another tent, Chief, for these ladies? Just beside this
+tent here, so that they can have a little sleep.”
+
+The Chief grunted a doubtful acquiescence, but in due time a tent very
+much dilapidated was pitched upon the clean dry ground close beside
+that in which the sick boy lay. While this was being done the doctor was
+making a further examination of his patient. With admiring eyes,
+Moira followed the swift movements of his deft fingers. There was no
+hesitation. There was no fumbling. There was the sure indication
+of accurate knowledge, the obvious self-confidence of experience in
+everything he did. Even to her untutored eyes the doctor seemed to be
+walking with a very firm tread.
+
+At length, after an hour's work, he turned to Mandy who was assisting
+him and said:
+
+“Now you can both go to sleep. I shall need you no more till morning. I
+shall keep an eye on him. Off you go. Good-night.”
+
+“You will be sure to call me if I can be of service,” said Mandy.
+
+“I shall do no such thing. I expect you to sleep. I shall look after
+this end of the job.”
+
+“He is very sure of himself, is he not?” said Moira in a low tone to her
+sister-in-law as they passed out of the tent.
+
+“He has a right to be,” said Mandy proudly. “He knows his work, and now
+I feel as if I can sleep in peace. What a blessed thing sleep is,” she
+added, as, without undressing, she tumbled on to the couch prepared for
+her.
+
+“Is Dr. Martin very clever? I mean, is he an educated man?”
+
+“What?” cried Mandy. “Dr. Martin what?”
+
+“Is he very clever? Is he--an educated man?”
+
+“Eh, what?” she repeated, yawning desperately. “Oh, I was asleep.”
+
+“Is he clever?”
+
+“Clever? Well, rather--” Her voice was trailing off again into slumber.
+
+“And is he an educated man?”
+
+“Educated? Knows his work if that's what you mean. Oh-h--but I'm
+sleepy.”
+
+“Is he a gentleman?”
+
+“Eh? What?” Mandy sat up straight. “A gentleman? I should say so! That
+is, he is a man all through right to his toe-tips. And gentle--more
+gentle than any woman I ever saw. Will that do? Good-night.” And before
+Moira could make reply she was sound asleep.
+
+Before the night was over the opportunity was given the doctor to
+prove his manhood, and in a truly spectacular manner. For shortly
+after midnight Moira found herself sitting bolt upright, wide-awake and
+clutching her sister-in-law in wild terror. Outside their tent the night
+was hideous with discordant noises, yells, whoops, cries, mingled with
+the beating of tom-toms. Terrified and trembling, the two girls sprang
+to the door, and, lifting the flap, peered out. It was the party of
+braves returning from the great powwow so rudely interrupted by Cameron.
+They were returning in an evil mood, too, for they were enraged at the
+arrest of Eagle Feather and three accomplices in his crime, disappointed
+in the interruption of their sun dance and its attendant joys of feast
+and song, and furious at what appeared to them to be the overthrow of
+the great adventure for which they had been preparing and planning for
+the past two months. This was indeed the chief cause of their rage, for
+it seemed as if all further attempts at united effort among the Western
+tribes had been frustrated by the discovery of their plans, by the
+flight of their leader, and by the treachery of the Blackfeet Chief,
+Running Stream, in surrendering their fellow-tribesmen to the Police.
+To them that treachery rendered impossible any coalition between the
+Piegans and the Blackfeet. Furthermore, before their powwow had been
+broken up there had been distributed among them a few bottles of
+whisky provided beforehand by the astute Sioux as a stimulus to their
+enthusiasm against a moment of crisis when such stimulus should be
+necessary. These bottles, in the absence of their great leader, were
+distributed among the tribes by Running Stream as a peace-offering, but
+for obvious reason not until the moment came for their parting from each
+other.
+
+Filled with rage and disappointment, and maddened with the bad whisky
+they had taken, they poured into the encampment with wild shouting
+accompanied by the discharge of guns and the beating of drums. In terror
+the girls clung to each other, gazing out upon the horrid scene.
+
+“Whatever is this, Mandy?” cried Moira.
+
+But her sister-in-law could give her little explanation. The moonlight,
+glowing bright as day, revealed a truly terrifying spectacle. A band
+of Indians, almost naked and hideously painted, were leaping, shouting,
+beating drums and firing guns. Out from the tents poured the rest of the
+band to meet them, eagerly inquiring into the cause of their excitement.
+Soon fires were lighted and kettles put on, for the Indian's happiness
+is never complete unless associated with feasting, and the whole band
+prepared itself for a time of revelry.
+
+As the girls stood peering out upon this terrible scene they became
+aware of the doctor standing at their side.
+
+“Say, they seem to be cutting up rather rough, don't they?” he said
+coolly. “I think as a precautionary measure you had better step over
+into the other tent.”
+
+Hastily gathering their belongings, they ran across with the doctor to
+his tent, from which they continued to gaze upon the weird spectacle
+before them.
+
+About the largest fire in the center of the camp the crowd gathered,
+Chief Trotting Wolf in the midst, and were harangued by one of
+the returning braves who was evidently reciting the story of their
+experiences and whose tale was received with the deepest interest and
+was punctuated by mad cries and whoops. The one English word that could
+be heard was the word “Police,” and it needed no interpreter to
+explain to the watchers that the chief object of fury to the crowding,
+gesticulating Indians about the fire was the Policeman who had been the
+cause of their humiliation and disappointment. In a pause of the uproar
+a loud exclamation from an Indian arrested the attention of the band.
+Once more he uttered his exclamation and pointed to the tent lately
+occupied by the ladies. Quickly the whole band about the fire appeared
+to bunch together preparatory to rush in the direction indicated, but
+before they could spring forward Trotting Wolf, speaking rapidly and
+with violent gesticulation, stood in their path. But his voice was
+unheeded. He was thrust aside and the whole band came rushing madly
+toward the tent lately occupied by the ladies.
+
+“Get back from the door,” said the doctor, speaking rapidly. “These
+chaps seem to be somewhat excited. I wish I had my gun,” he continued,
+looking about the tent for a weapon of some sort. “This will do,” he
+said, picking up a stout poplar pole that had been used for driving the
+tent pegs. “Stay inside here. Don't move till I tell you.”
+
+“But they will kill you,” cried Moira, laying her hand upon his arm.
+“You must not go out.”
+
+“Nonsense!” said the doctor almost roughly. “Kill me? Not much. I'll
+knock some of their blocks off first.” So saying, he lifted the flap of
+the tent and passed out just as the rush of maddened Indians came.
+
+Upon the ladies' tent they fell, kicked the tent poles down, and,
+seizing the canvas ripped it clear from its pegs. Some moments they
+spent searching the empty bed, then turned with renewed cries toward the
+other tent before which stood the doctor, waiting, grim, silent, savage.
+For a single moment they paused, arrested by the silent figure, then
+with a whoop a drink-maddened brave sprang toward the tent, his rifle
+clubbed to strike. Before he could deliver his blow the doctor, stepping
+swiftly to one side, swung his poplar club hard upon the uplifted arms,
+sent the rifle crashing to the ground and with a backward swing caught
+the astonished brave on the exposed head and dropped him to the earth as
+if dead.
+
+“Take that, you dog!” he cried savagely. “Come on, who's next?” he
+shouted, swinging his club as a player might a baseball bat.
+
+Before the next rush, however, help came in an unexpected form. The tent
+flap was pushed back and at the doctor's side stood an apparition that
+checked the Indians' advance and stilled their cries. It was the Indian
+boy, clad in a white night robe of Mandy's providing, his rifle in his
+hand, his face ghastly in the moonlight and his eyes burning like flames
+of light. One cry he uttered, weird, fierce, unearthly, but it seemed
+to pierce like a knife through the stillness that had fallen. Awed,
+sobered, paralyzed, the Indians stood motionless. Then from their ranks
+ran Chief Trotting Wolf, picked up the rifle of the Indian who still lay
+insensible on the ground, and took his place beside the boy.
+
+A few words he spoke in a voice that rang out fiercely imperious. Still
+the Indians stood motionless. Again the Chief spoke in short, sharp
+words of command, and, as they still hesitated, took one swift stride
+toward the man that stood nearest, swinging his rifle over his head.
+Forward sprang the doctor to his side, his poplar club likewise swung up
+to strike. Back fell the Indians a pace or two, the Chief following them
+with a torrential flow of vehement invective. Slowly, sullenly the crowd
+gave back, cowed but still wrathful, and beginning to mutter in angry
+undertones. Once more the tent flap was pushed aside and there issued
+two figures who ran to the side of the Indian boy, now swaying weakly
+upon his rifle.
+
+“My poor boy!” cried Mandy, throwing her arms round about him, and,
+steadying him as he let his rifle fall, let him sink slowly to the
+ground.
+
+“You cowards!” cried Moira, seizing the rifle that the boy had dropped
+and springing to the doctor's side. “Look at what you have done!” She
+turned and pointed indignantly to the swooning boy.
+
+With an exclamation of wrath the doctor stepped back to Mandy's aid,
+forgetful of the threatening Indians and mindful only of his patient.
+Quickly he sprang into the tent, returning with a stimulating remedy,
+bent over the boy and worked with him till he came back again to life.
+
+Once more the Chief, who with the Indians had been gazing upon this
+scene, turned and spoke to his band, this time in tones of quiet
+dignity, pointing to the little group behind him. Silent and subdued the
+Indians listened, their quick impulses like those of children stirred
+to sympathy for the lad and for those who would aid him. Gradually the
+crowd drew off, separating into groups and gathering about the various
+fires. For the time the danger was over.
+
+Between them Dr. Martin and the Chief carried the boy into the tent and
+laid him on his bed.
+
+“What sort of beasts have you got out there anyway?” said the doctor,
+facing the Chief abruptly.
+
+“Him drink bad whisky,” answered the Chief, tipping up his hand. “Him
+crazee,” touching his head with his forefinger.
+
+“Crazy! Well, I should say. What they want is a few ounces of lead.”
+
+The Chief made no reply, but stood with his eyes turned admiringly upon
+Moira's face.
+
+“Squaw--him good,” he said, pointing to the girl. “No 'fraid--much
+brave--good.”
+
+“You are right enough there, Chief,” replied the doctor heartily.
+
+“Him you squaw?” inquired the Chief, pointing to Moira.
+
+“Well--eh? No, not exactly,” replied the doctor, much confused, “that
+is--not yet I mean--”
+
+“Huh! Him good squaw. Him good man,” replied the Chief, pointing first
+to Moira, then to the doctor.
+
+Moira hurried to the tent door.
+
+“They are all gone,” she exclaimed. “Thank God! How awful they are!”
+
+“Huh!” replied the Chief, moving out past her. “Him drink, him
+crazee--no drink, no crazee.” At the door he paused, and, looking back,
+said once more with increased emphasis, “Huh! Him good squaw,” and
+finally disappeared.
+
+“By Jove!” said the doctor with a delighted chuckle. “The old boy is a
+man of some discernment I can see. But the kid and you saved the day,
+Miss Moira.”
+
+“Oh, what nonsense you are talking. It was truly awful, and how
+splendidly you--you--”
+
+“Well, I caught him rather a neat one, I confess. I wonder if the brute
+is sleeping yet. But you did the trick finally, Miss Moira.”
+
+“Huh,” grunted Mandy derisively, “Good man--good squaw, eh?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE OUTLAW
+
+
+The bitter weather following an autumn of unusual mildness had set in
+with the New Year and had continued without a break for fifteen days. A
+heavy fall of snow with a blizzard blowing sixty miles an hour had made
+the trails almost impassable, indeed quite so to any but to those bent
+on desperate business or to Her Majesty's North West Mounted Police. To
+these gallant riders all trails stood open at all seasons of the year,
+no matter what snow might fall or blizzard blow, so long as duty called
+them forth.
+
+The trail from the fort to the Big Horn Ranch, however, was so
+wind-swept that the snow was blown away, which made the going fairly
+easy, and the Superintendent, Inspector Dickson and Jerry trotted along
+freely enough in the face of a keen southwester that cut to the bone.
+It was surely some desperate business indeed that sent them out into
+the face of that cutting wind which made even these hardy riders, burned
+hard and dry by scorching suns and biting blizzards, wince and shelter
+their faces with their gauntleted hands.
+
+“Deuce of a wind, this!” said the Superintendent.
+
+“It is the raw southwester that gets to the bone,” replied Inspector
+Dickson. “This will blow up a chinook before night.”
+
+“I wonder if he has got into shelter,” said the Superintendent. “This
+has been an unusually hard fortnight, and I am afraid he went rather
+light.”
+
+“Oh, he's sure to be all right,” replied the Inspector quickly. “He was
+riding, but he took his snowshoes with him for timber work. He's hardly
+the man to get caught and he won't quit easily.”
+
+“No, he won't quit, but there are times when human endurance fails. Not
+that I fear anything like that for Cameron,” added the Superintendent
+hastily.
+
+“Oh, he's not the man to fall down,” replied the Inspector. “He goes the
+limit, but he keeps his head. He's no reckless fool.”
+
+“Well, you ought to know him,” said the Superintendent. “You have been
+through some things together, but this last week has been about the
+worst that I have known. This fortnight will be remembered in the annals
+of this country. And it came so unexpectedly. What do you think about
+it, Jerry?” continued the Superintendent, turning to the half-breed.
+
+“He good man--cold ver' bad--ver' long. S'pose catch heem on
+plains--ver' bad.”
+
+The Inspector touched his horse to a canter. The vision that floated
+before his mind's eye while the half-breed was speaking he hated to
+contemplate.
+
+“He's all right. He has come through too many tight places to fail
+here,” said the Inspector in a tone almost of defiance, and refused to
+talk further upon the subject. But he kept urging the pace till they
+drew up at the stables of the Big Horn Ranch.
+
+The Inspector's first glance upon opening the stable door swept the
+stall where Ginger was wont to conduct his melancholy ruminations. It
+gave him a start to see the stall empty.
+
+“Hello, Smith!” he cried as that individual appeared with a bundle of
+hay from the stack in the yard outside. “Boss home?”
+
+“Has Mr. Cameron returned?” inquired the Superintendent in the same
+breath, and in spite of himself a note of anxiety had crept into his
+voice. The three men stood waiting, their tense attitude expressing the
+anxiety they would not put into words. The deliberate Smith, who had
+transferred his services from old Thatcher to Cameron and who had taken
+the ranch and all persons and things belonging to it into his immediate
+charge, disposed of his bundle in a stall, and then facing them said
+slowly:
+
+“Guess he's all right.”
+
+“Is he home?” asked the Inspector sharply.
+
+“Oh, he's home all right. Gone to bed, I think,” answered Smith with
+maddening calmness.
+
+The Inspector cursed him between his teeth and turned away from the
+others till his eyes should be clear again.
+
+“We will just look in on Mrs. Cameron for a few minutes,” said the
+Superintendent. “We won't disturb him.”
+
+Leaving Jerry to put up their horses, they went into the ranch-house and
+found the ladies in a state of suppressed excitement. Mandy met them at
+the door with an eager welcome, holding out to them trembling hands.
+
+“Oh, I am so glad you have come!” she cried. “It was all I could do
+to hold him back from going to you even as he was. He was quite set on
+going and only lay down on promise that I should wake him in an hour.
+Sit down here by the fire. An hour, mind you,” she continued, talking
+rapidly and under obvious excitement, “and him so blind and exhausted
+that--” She paused abruptly, unable to command her voice.
+
+“He ought to sleep twelve hours straight,” said the Superintendent with
+emphasis, “and twenty-four would be better, with suitable breaks for
+refreshment,” he added in a lighter tone, glancing at Mandy's face.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” she replied, “for he has had little enough to eat the
+last three days. And that reminds me--” she hurried to the pantry and
+returned with the teapot--“you must be cold, Superintendent. Ah, this
+terrible cold! A hot cup of tea will be just the thing. It will take
+only five minutes--and it is better than punch, though perhaps you men
+do not think so.” She laughed somewhat wildly.
+
+“Why, Mrs. Cameron,” said the Superintendent in a shocked, bantering
+voice, “how can you imagine we should be guilty of such heresy--in this
+prohibition country, too?”
+
+“Oh, I know you men,” replied Mandy. “We keep some Scotch in the
+house--beside the laudanum. Some people can't take tea, you know,” she
+added with an uncertain smile, struggling to regain control of herself.
+“But all the same, I am a nurse, and I know that after exposure tea is
+better.”
+
+“Ah, well,” replied the Superintendent, “I bow to your experience,”
+ making a brave attempt to meet her mood and declining to note her
+unusual excitement.
+
+In the specified five minutes the tea was ready.
+
+“I could quite accept your tea-drinking theory, Mrs. Cameron,” said
+Inspector Dickson, “if--if, mark you--I should always get such tea as
+this. But I don't believe Jerry here would agree.”
+
+Jerry, who had just entered, stood waiting explanation.
+
+“Mrs. Cameron has just been upholding the virtue of a good cup of tea,
+Jerry, over a hot Scotch after a cold ride. Now what's your unbiased
+opinion?”
+
+A slight grin wrinkled the cracks in Jerry's leather-skin face.
+
+“Hot whisky--good for fun--for cold no good. Whisky good for sleep--for
+long trail no good.”
+
+“Thank you, Jerry,” cried Mandy enthusiastically.
+
+“Oh, that's all right, Jerry,” said the Inspector, joining in the
+general laugh that followed, “but I don't think Miss Moira here would
+agree with you in regard to the merits of her national beverage.”
+
+“Oh, I am not so sure,” cried the young lady, entering into the mood
+of the others. “Of course, I am Scotch and naturally stand up for my
+country and for its customs, but, to be strictly honest, I remember
+hearing my brother say that Scotch was bad training for football.”
+
+“Good again!” cried Mandy. “You see, when anything serious is on, the
+wisest people cut out the Scotch, as the boys say.”
+
+“You are quite right, Mrs. Cameron,” said the Superintendent, becoming
+grave. “On the long trail and in the bitter cold we drop the Scotch and
+bank on tea. As for whisky, the Lord knows it gives the Police enough
+trouble in this country. If it were not for the whisky half our work
+would be cut out. But tell me, how is Mr. Cameron?” he added, as he
+handed back his cup for another supply of tea.
+
+“Done up, or more nearly done up than ever I have seen him, or than I
+ever want to see him again.” Mandy paused abruptly, handed him his
+cup of tea, passed into the pantry and for some moments did not appear
+again.
+
+“Oh, it was terrible to see him,” said Moira, clasping her hands and
+speaking in an eager, excited voice. “He came, poor boy, stumbling
+toward the door. He had to leave his horse, you know, some miles away.
+Through the window we saw him coming along--and we did not know him--he
+staggered as if--as if--actually as if he were drunk.” Her laugh was
+almost hysterical. “And he could not find the latch--and when we opened
+the door his eyes were--oh!--so terrible!--wild--and bloodshot--and
+blind! Oh, I cannot tell you about it!” she exclaimed, her voice
+breaking and her tears falling fast. “And he could hardly speak to us.
+We had to cut off his snow-shoes--and his gauntlets and his clothes
+were like iron. He could not sit down--he just--just--lay on the
+floor--till--my sister--” Here the girl's sobs interrupted her story.
+
+“Great Heavens!” cried the Superintendent. “What a mercy he reached
+home!”
+
+The Inspector had risen and came round to Moira's side.
+
+“Don't try to tell me any more,” he said in a husky voice, patting her
+gently on the shoulder. “He is here with us, safe, poor chap. My God!”
+ he cried in an undertone, “what he must have gone through!”
+
+At this point Mandy returned and took her place again quietly by the
+fire.
+
+“It was this sudden spell of cold that nearly killed him,” she said in a
+quiet voice. “He was not fully prepared for it, and it caught him at
+the end of his trip, too, when he was nearly played out. You see, he was
+five weeks away and he had only expected to be three.”
+
+“Yes, I know, Mrs. Cameron,” said the Inspector.
+
+“An unexpected emergency seems to have arisen.”
+
+“I don't know what it was,” replied Mandy. “He could tell me little, but
+he was determined to go on to the fort.”
+
+“I know something about his plans,” said the Inspector. “He had proposed
+a tour of the reserves, beginning with the Piegans and ending with the
+Bloods.”
+
+“And we know something of his work, too, Mrs. Cameron,” said the
+Superintendent. “Superintendent Strong has sent us a very fine report
+indeed of your husband's work. We do not talk about these things,
+you know, in the Police, but we can appreciate them all the same.
+Superintendent Strong's letter is one you would like to keep. I shall
+send it to you. Knowing Superintendent Strong as I do--”
+
+“I know him too,” said Mandy with a little laugh.
+
+“Well, then, you will be able to appreciate all the more any word of
+commendation he would utter. He practically attributes the present state
+of quiet and the apparent collapse of this conspiracy business to
+your husband's efforts. This, of course, is no compensation for his
+sufferings or yours, but I think it right that you should know the
+facts.” The Superintendent had risen to his feet and had delivered his
+little speech in his very finest manner.
+
+“Thank you,” said Mandy simply.
+
+“We had expected him back a week ago,” said the Inspector. “We know he
+must have had some serious cause for delay.”
+
+“I do not know about that,” replied Mandy, “but I do know he was most
+anxious to go on to the fort. He had some information to give, he said,
+which was of the first importance. And I am glad you are here. He will
+be saved that trip, which would really be dangerous in his present
+condition. And I don't believe I could have stopped him, but I should
+have gone with him. His hour will soon be up.”
+
+“Don't think of waking him,” said the Superintendent. “We can wait two
+hours, or three hours, or more if necessary. Let him sleep.”
+
+“He would waken himself if he were not so fearfully done up. He has a
+trick of waking at any hour he sets,” said Mandy.
+
+A few minutes later Cameron justified her remarks by appearing from
+the inner room. The men, accustomed as they were to the ravages of
+the winter trail upon their comrades, started to their feet in horror.
+Blindly Cameron felt his way to them, shading his blood-shot eyes from
+the light. His face was blistered and peeled as if he had come through a
+fire, his lips swollen and distorted, his hands trembling and showing
+on every finger the marks of frost bite, and his feet dragging as he
+shuffled across the floor.
+
+“My dear fellow, my dear fellow,” cried the Inspector, springing up to
+meet him and grasping him by both arms to lead him to a chair. “You ran
+it too close that time. Here is the Superintendent to lecture you. Sit
+down, old man, sit down right here.” The Inspector deposited him in the
+chair, and, striding hurriedly to the window, stood there looking out
+upon the bleak winter snow.
+
+“Hello, Cameron,” said the Superintendent, shaking him by the hand with
+hearty cheerfulness. “Glad, awfully glad to see you. Fine bit of work,
+very fine bit of work. Very complimentary report about you.”
+
+“I don't know what you refer to, sir,” said Cameron, speaking thickly,
+“but I am glad you are here, for I have an important communication to
+make.”
+
+“Oh, that's all right,” said the Superintendent. “Don't worry about
+that. And take your own time. First of all, how are you feeling?
+Snow-blind, I see,” he continued, critically examining him, “and
+generally used up.”
+
+“Rather knocked up,” replied Cameron, his tongue refusing to move with
+its accustomed ease. “But shall be fit in a day or two. Beastly sleepy,
+but cannot sleep somehow. Shall feel better when my mind is at rest. I
+cannot report fully just now.”
+
+“Oh, let the report rest. We know something already.”
+
+“How is that?”
+
+“Superintendent Strong has sent us in a report, and a very creditable
+report, too.”
+
+“Oh,” replied Cameron indifferently. “Well, the thing I want to say is
+that though all looks quiet--there is less horse stealing this month,
+and less moving about from the reserves--yet I believe a serious
+outbreak is impending.”
+
+The Inspector, who had come around and taken a seat beside him, touched
+his knee at this point with an admonishing pressure.
+
+“Eh?” said Cameron, turning toward him. “Oh, my people here know. You
+need not have any fear about them.” A little smile distorted his face as
+he laid his hand upon his wife's shoulder. “But--where was I? I cannot
+get the hang of things.” He was as a man feeling his way through a maze.
+
+“Oh, let it go,” said the Inspector. “Wait till you have had some
+sleep.”
+
+“No, I must--I must get this out. Well, anyway, the principal thing
+is that Big Bear, Beardy, Poundmaker--though I am not sure about
+Poundmaker--have runners on every reserve and they are arranging for
+a big meeting in the spring, to which every tribe North and West is to
+send representatives. That Frenchman--what's his name?--I'll forget my
+own next--”
+
+“Riel?” suggested the Inspector.
+
+“Yes, Riel. That Frenchman is planning a big coup in the spring. You
+know they presented him with a house the other day, ready furnished, at
+Batoche, to keep him in the country. Oh, the half-breeds are very keen
+on this. And what is worse, I believe a lot of whites are in with them
+too. A chap named Jackson, and another named Scott, and Isbister and
+some others. These names are spoken of on every one of our reserves.
+I tell you, sir,” he said, turning his blind eyes toward the
+Superintendent, “I consider it very serious indeed. And worst of all,
+the biggest villain of the lot, Little Pine, Cree Chief you know, our
+bitterest enemy--except Little Thunder, who fortunately is cleared out
+of the country--you remember, sir, that chap Raven saw about that.”
+
+The Superintendent nodded.
+
+“Well--where was I?--Oh, yes, Little Pine, the biggest villain of them
+all, is somewhere about here. I got word of him when I was at the
+Blood Reserve on my way home some ten days ago. I heard he was with
+the Blackfeet, but I found no sign of him there. But he is in the
+neighborhood, and he is specially bound to see old Crowfoot. I
+understand he is a particularly successful pleader, and unusually
+cunning, and I am afraid of Crowfoot. I saw the old Chief. He was very
+cordial and is apparently loyal enough as yet, but you know, sir, how
+much that may mean. I think that is all,” said Cameron, putting his hand
+up to his head. “I have a great deal more to tell you, but it will not
+come back to me now. Little Pine must be attended to, and for a day or
+two I am sorry I am hardly fit--awfully sorry.” His voice sank into a
+kind of undertone.
+
+“Sorry?” cried the Superintendent, deeply stirred at the sight of
+his obvious collapse. “Sorry? Don't you use that word again. You have
+nothing to be sorry for, but everything to be proud of. You have done a
+great service to your country, and we will not forget it. In a few days
+you will be fit and we shall show our gratitude by calling upon you to
+do something more. Hello, who's that?” A horseman had ridden past the
+window toward the stables. Moira ran to look out.
+
+“Oh!” she cried, “it is that Mr. Raven. I would know his splendid horse
+anywhere.”
+
+“Raven!” said Cameron sharply and wide awake.
+
+“Raven, by Jove!” muttered the Inspector.
+
+“Raven! Well, I call that cool!” said the Superintendent, a hard look
+upon his face.
+
+But the laws of hospitality are nowhere so imperative as on the western
+plains. Cameron rose from his chair muttering, “Must look after his
+horse.”
+
+“You sit down,” said Mandy firmly. “You are not going out.”
+
+“Well, hardly,” said the Inspector. “Here, Jerry, go and show him where
+to get things, and--” He hesitated.
+
+“Bring him in,” cried Mandy heartily. The men stood silent, looking at
+Cameron.
+
+“Certainly, bring him in,” he said firmly, “a day like this,” he added,
+as if in apology.
+
+“Why, of course,” cried Mandy, looking from one to the other in
+surprise. “Why not? He is a perfectly splendid man.”
+
+“Oh, he is really splendid!” replied Moira, her cheeks burning and her
+eyes flashing. “You remember,” she cried, addressing the Inspector, “how
+he saved my life the day I arrived at this ranch.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” replied the Inspector briefly, “I believe I did hear that.”
+ But there was little enthusiasm in his voice.
+
+“Well, I think he is splendid,” repeated Moira. “Do not you think so?”
+
+The Inspector had an awkward moment.
+
+“Eh?--well--I can't say I know him very well.”
+
+“And his horse! What a beauty it is!” continued the girl.
+
+“Ah, yes, a most beautiful animal, quite remarkable horse, splendid
+horse; in fact one of the finest, if not the very finest, in this whole
+country. And that is saying a good deal, too, Miss Moira. You see, this
+country breeds good horses.” And the Inspector went on to discourse in
+full detail and with elaborate illustration upon the various breeds of
+horses the country could produce, and to classify the wonderful black
+stallion ridden by Raven, and all with such diligence and enthusiasm
+that no other of the party had an opportunity to take part in the
+conversation till Raven, in the convoy of Jerry, was seen approaching
+the house. Then the Superintendent rose.
+
+“Well, Mrs. Cameron, I fear we must take our departure. These are rather
+crowded days with us.”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Mandy. “Within an hour of dinner? We can hardly allow
+that, you know. Besides, Mr. Cameron wants to have a great deal more
+talk with you.”
+
+The Superintendent attempted to set forth various other reasons for a
+hasty departure, but they all seemed to lack sincerity, and after a few
+more ineffective trials he surrendered and sat down again in silence.
+
+The next moment the door opened and Raven, followed by Jerry, stepped
+into the room. As his eye fell upon the Superintendent, instinctively he
+dropped his hands to his hips and made an involuntary movement backward,
+but only for an instant. Immediately he came forward and greeted Mandy
+with fine, old-fashioned courtesy.
+
+“So delighted to meet you again, Mrs. Cameron, and also to meet your
+charming sister.” He shook hands with both the ladies very warmly.
+“Ah, Superintendent,” he continued, “delighted to see you. And you,
+Inspector,” he said, giving them a nod as he laid off his outer leather
+riding coat. “Hope I see you flourishing,” he continued. His debonair
+manner had in it a quizzical touch of humor. “Ah, Cameron, home again I
+see. I came across your tracks the other day.”
+
+The men, who had risen to their feet upon his entrance, stood regarding
+him stiffly and made no other sign of recognition than a curt nod and a
+single word of greeting.
+
+“You have had quite a trip,” he continued, addressing himself to
+Cameron, and taking the chair offered by Mandy. “I followed you part
+way, but you travel too fast for me. Much too strenuous work I found
+it. Why,” he continued, looking narrowly at Cameron, “you are badly
+punished. When did you get in?”
+
+“Two hours ago, Mr. Raven,” said Mandy quickly, for her husband sat
+gazing stupidly into the fire. “And he is quite done up.”
+
+“Two hours ago?” exclaimed Raven in utter surprise. “Do you mean to say
+that you have been traveling these last three days?”
+
+Cameron nodded.
+
+“Why, my dear sir, not even the Indians face such cold. Only the Mounted
+Police venture out in weather like this--and those who want to get away
+from them. Ha! ha! Eh? Inspector? Ha! ha!” His gay, careless laugh rang
+out in the most cheery fashion. But only the ladies joined. The men
+stood grimly silent.
+
+Mandy could not understand their grim and gloomy silence. By her
+cordiality she sought to cover up and atone for the studied and almost
+insulting indifference of her husband and her other guests. In these
+attempts she was loyally supported by her sister-in-law, whose anger was
+roused by the all too obvious efforts on the part of her brother and
+his friends to ignore this stranger, if not to treat him with contempt.
+There was nothing in Raven's manner to indicate that he observed
+anything amiss in the bearing of the male members of the company about
+the fire. He met the attempt of the ladies at conversation with a
+brilliancy of effort that quite captivated them, and, in spite of
+themselves, drew the Superintendent and the Inspector into the flow of
+talk.
+
+As the hour of the midday meal approached Mandy rose from her place by
+the fire and said:
+
+“You will stay with us to dinner, Mr. Raven? We dine at midday. It is
+not often we have such a distinguished and interesting company.”
+
+“Thank you, no,” said Raven. “I merely looked in to give your husband
+a bit of interesting information. And, by the way, I have a bit of
+information that might interest the Superintendent as well.”
+
+“Well,” said Mandy, “we are to have the pleasure of the Superintendent
+and the Inspector to dinner with us to-day, and you can give them all
+the information you think necessary while you are waiting.”
+
+Raven hesitated while he glanced at the faces of the men beside him.
+What he read there drew from him a little hard smile of amused contempt.
+
+“Please do not ask me again, Mrs. Cameron,” he said. “You know not how
+you strain my powers of resistance when I really dare not--may not,” he
+corrected himself with a quick glance at the Superintendent, “stay in
+this most interesting company and enjoy your most grateful hospitality
+any longer. And now my information is soon given. First of all for you,
+Cameron--I shall not apologize to you, Mrs. Cameron, for delivering
+it in your presence. I do you the honor to believe that you ought to
+know--briefly my information is this. Little Pine, in whose movements
+you are all interested, I understand, is at this present moment lodging
+with the Sarcee Indians, and next week will move on to visit old
+Crowfoot. The Sarcee visit amounts to little, but the visit to old
+Crowfoot--well, I need say no more to you, Cameron. Probably you know
+more about the inside workings of old Crowfoot's mind than I do.”
+
+“Visiting Crowfoot?” exclaimed Cameron. “Then I was there too soon.”
+
+“That is his present intention, and I have no doubt the program will
+be carried out,” said Raven. “My information is from the inside. Of
+course,” he continued, “I know you have run across the trail of the
+North Cree and Salteaux runners from Big Bear and Beardy. They are
+not to be despised. But Little Pine is a different person from these
+gentlemen. The big game is scheduled for the early spring, will probably
+come off in about six weeks. And now,” he said, rising from his chair,
+“I must be off.”
+
+At this point Smith came in and quietly took a seat beside Jerry near
+the door.
+
+“And what's your information for me, Mr. Raven?” inquired the
+Superintendent. “You are not going to deprive me of my bit of news?”
+
+“Ah, yes--news,” replied Raven, sitting down again. “Briefly this.
+Little Thunder has yielded to some powerful pressure and has again
+found it necessary to visit this country, I need hardly add, against my
+desire.”
+
+“Little Thunder?” exclaimed the Superintendent, and his tone indicated
+something more than surprise. “Then there will be something doing.
+And where does this--ah--this--ah--friend of yours propose to locate
+himself?”
+
+“This friend of mine,” replied Raven, with a hard gleam in his eye and
+a bitter smile curling his lips, “who would gladly adorn his person with
+my scalp if he might, will not ask my opinion as to his location, and
+probably not yours either, Mr. Superintendent.” As Raven ceased speaking
+he once more rose from his chair, put on his leather riding coat and
+took up his cap and gauntlets. “Farewell, Mrs. Cameron,” he said,
+offering her his hand. “Believe me, it has been a rare treat to see you
+and to sit by your fireside for one brief half-hour.”
+
+“Oh, but Mr. Raven, you are not to think of leaving us before dinner.
+Why this haste?”
+
+“The trail I take,” said Raven in a grave voice, “is full of pitfalls
+and I must take it when I can. The Superintendent knows,” he added.
+But his smile awoke no response in the Superintendent, who sat rigidly
+silent.
+
+“It's a mighty cold day outside,” interjected Smith, “and blowing up
+something I think.”
+
+“Oh, hang it, Raven!” blurted out Cameron, who sat stupidly gazing into
+the fire, “Stay and eat. This is no kind of day to go out hungry. It is
+too beastly cold.”
+
+“Thanks, Cameron, it IS a cold day, too cold to stay.”
+
+“Do stay, Mr. Raven,” pleaded Moira.
+
+He turned swiftly and looked into her soft brown eyes now filled with
+warm kindly light.
+
+“Alas, Miss Cameron,” he replied in a low voice, turning his back upon
+the others, his voice and his attitude seeming to isolate the girl from
+the rest of the company, “believe me, if I do not stay it is not because
+I do not want to, but because I cannot.”
+
+“You cannot?” echoed Moira in an equally low tone.
+
+“I cannot,” he replied. Then, raising his voice, “Ask the
+Superintendent. He knows that I cannot.”
+
+“Do you know?” said Moira, turning upon the Superintendent, “What does
+he mean?”
+
+The Superintendent rose angrily.
+
+“Mr. Raven chooses to be mysterious,” he said. “If he cannot remain here
+he knows why without appealing to me.”
+
+“Ah, my dear Superintendent, how unfeeling! You hardly do yourself
+justice,” said Raven, proceeding to draw on his gloves. His drawling
+voice seemed to irritate the Superintendent beyond control.
+
+“Justice?” he exclaimed sharply. “Justice is a word you should hesitate
+to use.”
+
+“You see, Miss Cameron,” said Raven with an injured air, “why I cannot
+remain.”
+
+“No, I do not!” cried Moira in hot indignation. “I do not see,” she
+repeated, “and if the Superintendent does I think he should explain.”
+ Her voice rang out sharp and clear. It wakened her brother as if from a
+daze.
+
+“Tut, tut, Moira!” he exclaimed. “Do not interfere where you do not
+understand.”
+
+“Then why make insinuations that cannot be explained?” cried his sister,
+standing up very straight and looking the Superintendent fair in the
+face.
+
+“Explained?” echoed the Superintendent in a cool, almost contemptuous,
+voice. “There are certain things best not explained, but believe me if
+Mr. Raven desires explanation he can have it.”
+
+The men were all on their feet. Quickly Moira turned to Raven with a
+gesture of appeal and a look of loyal confidence in her eyes. For a
+moment the hard, cynical face was illumined with a smile of rare beauty,
+but only for a moment. The gleam passed and the old, hard, cynical face
+turned in challenge to the Superintendent.
+
+“Explain!” he said bitterly, defiantly. “Go on if you can.”
+
+The Superintendent stood silent.
+
+“Ah!” breathed Moira, a thrill of triumphant relief in her voice, “he
+cannot explain.”
+
+With dramatic swiftness the explanation came. It was from Jerry.
+
+“H'explain?” cried the little half-breed, quivering with rage.
+“H'explain? What for he can no h'explain? Dem horse he steal de
+night-tam'--dat whiskee he trade on de Indian. Bah! He no good--he one
+beeg tief. Me--I put him one sure place he no steal no more!”
+
+A few moments of tense silence held the group rigid. In the center stood
+Raven, his face pale, hard, but smiling, before him Moira, waiting,
+eager, with lips parted and eyes aglow with successive passions,
+indignation, doubt, fear, horror, grief. Again that swift and subtle
+change touched Raven's face as his eyes rested upon the face of the girl
+before him.
+
+“Now you know why I cannot stay,” he said gently, almost sadly.
+
+“It is not true,” murmured Moira, piteous appeal in voice and eyes. A
+spasm crossed the pale face upon which her eyes rested, then the old
+cynical look returned.
+
+“Once more, thank you, Mrs. Cameron,” he said with a bow to Mandy, “for
+a happy half-hour by your fireside, and farewell.”
+
+“Good-by,” said Mandy sadly.
+
+He turned to Moira.
+
+“Oh, good-by, good-by,” cried the girl impulsively, reaching out her
+hand.
+
+“Good-by,” he said simply. “I shall not forget that you were kind to
+me.” He bent low before her, but did not touch her outstretched hand. As
+he turned toward the door Jerry slipped in before him.
+
+“You let him go?” he cried excitedly, looking at the Superintendent; but
+before the latter could answer a hand caught him by the coat collar
+and with a swift jerk landed him on the floor. It was Smith, his face
+furiously red. Before Jerry could recover himself Raven had opened the
+door and passed out.
+
+“Oh, how awful!” said Mandy in a hushed, broken voice.
+
+Moira stood for a moment as if dazed, then suddenly turned to Smith and
+said:
+
+“Thank you. That was well done.”
+
+And Smith, red to his hair roots, murmured, “You wanted him to go?”
+
+“Yes,” said Moira, “I wanted him to go.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WAR
+
+
+Commissioner Irvine sat in his office at headquarters in the little town
+of Regina, the capital of the North West Territories of the Dominion. A
+number of telegrams lay before him on the table. A look of grave anxiety
+was on his face. The cause of his anxiety was to be found in the news
+contained in the telegrams. An orderly stood behind his chair.
+
+“Send Inspector Sanders to me!” commanded the Commissioner.
+
+The orderly saluted and retired.
+
+In a few moments Inspector Sanders made his appearance, a tall,
+soldierlike man, trim in appearance, prompt in movement and somewhat
+formal in speech.
+
+“Well, the thing has come,” said the Commissioner, handing Inspector
+Sanders one of the telegrams before him. Inspector Sanders took the
+wire, read it and stood very erect.
+
+“Looks like it, sir,” he replied. “You always said it would.”
+
+“It is just eight months since I first warned the government that
+trouble would come. Superintendent Crozier knows the situation
+thoroughly and would not have sent this wire if outbreak were not
+imminent. Then here is one from Superintendent Gagnon at Carlton. He
+also is a careful man.”
+
+Inspector Sanders gravely read the second telegram.
+
+“We ought to have five hundred men on the spot this minute,” he said.
+
+“I have asked that a hundred men be sent up at once,” said the
+Commissioner, “but I am doubtful if we can get the Government to agree.
+It seems almost impossible to make the authorities feel the gravity
+of the situation. They cannot realize, for one thing, the enormous
+distances that separate points that look comparatively near together
+upon the map.” He spread a map out upon the table. “And yet,” he
+continued, “they have these maps before them, and the figures, but
+somehow the facts do not impress them. Look at this vast area lying
+between these four posts that form an almost perfect quadrilateral.
+Here is the north line running from Edmonton at the northwest corner
+to Prince Albert at the northeast, nearly four hundred miles away;
+then here is the south line running from Macleod at the southwest four
+hundred and fifty miles to Regina at the southeast; while the sides of
+this quadrilateral are nearly three hundred miles long. Thus the four
+posts forming our quadrilateral are four hundred miles apart one way by
+three hundred another, and, if we run the lines down to the boundary and
+to the limit of the territory which we patrol, the disturbed area may
+come to be about five hundred miles by six hundred; and we have some
+five hundred men available.”
+
+“It is a good thing we have established the new post at Carlton,”
+ suggested Inspector Sanders.
+
+“Ah, yes, there is Carlton. It is true we have strengthened up that
+district recently with two hundred men distributed between Battleford,
+Prince Albert, Fort Pitt and Fort Carlton. But Carlton is naturally a
+very weak post and is practically of little use to us. True, it guards
+us against those Willow Crees and acts as a check upon old Beardy.”
+
+“A troublesome man, that Kah-me-yes-too-waegs--old Beardy, I mean. It
+took me some time to master that one,” said Inspector Sanders, “but then
+I have studied German. He always has been a nuisance,” continued the
+Inspector. “He was a groucher when the treaty was made in '76 and he has
+been a groucher ever since.”
+
+“If we only had the men, just another five hundred,” replied the
+Commissioner, tapping the map before him with his finger, “we should
+hold this country safe. But what with these restless half-breeds led by
+this crack-brained Riel, and these ten thousand Indians--”
+
+“Not to speak of a couple of thousand non-treaty Indians roaming the
+country and stirring up trouble,” interjected the Inspector.
+
+“True enough,” replied the Commissioner, “but I would have no fear
+of the Indians were it not for these half-breeds. They have real
+grievances, remember, Sanders, real grievances, and that gives force to
+their quarrel and cohesion to the movement. Men who have a conviction
+that they are suffering injustice are not easily turned aside. And
+these men can fight. They ride hard and shoot straight and are afraid of
+nothing. I confess frankly it looks very serious to me.”
+
+“For my part,” said Inspector Sanders, “it is the Indians I fear most.”
+
+“The Indians?” said the Commissioner. “Yes, if once they rise. Really,
+one wonders at the docility of the Indians, and their response to fair
+and decent treatment. Why, just think of it! Twenty years ago, no,
+fifteen years ago, less than fifteen years ago, these Indians whom we
+have been holding in our hand so quietly were roaming these plains,
+living like lords on the buffalo and fighting like fiends with each
+other, free from all control. Little wonder if, now feeling the pinch of
+famine, fretting under the monotony of pastoral life, and being
+incited to war by the hot-blooded half-breeds, they should break out
+in rebellion. And what is there to hold them back? Just this, a feeling
+that they have been justly treated, fairly and justly dealt with by the
+Government, and a wholesome respect for Her Majesty's North West Mounted
+Police, if I do say it myself. But the thing is on, and we must be
+ready.”
+
+“What is to be done, sir?” inquired Sanders.
+
+“Well, thank God, there is not much to be done in the way of
+preparation,” replied the Commissioner. “Our fellows are ready to a man.
+For the past six months we have been on the alert for this emergency,
+but we must strike promptly. When I think of these settlers about Prince
+Albert and Battleford at the mercy of Beardy and that restless and
+treacherous Salteaux, Big Bear, I confess to a terrible anxiety.”
+
+“Then there is the West, sir, as well,” said Sanders, “the Blackfeet and
+the Bloods.”
+
+“Ah, yes, Sanders! You know them well. So do I. It is a great matter
+that Crowfoot is well disposed toward us, that he has confidence in our
+officers and that he is a shrewd old party as well. But Crowfoot is an
+Indian and the head of a great tribe with warlike traditions and with
+ambitions, and he will find it difficult to maintain his own loyalty,
+and much more that of his young men, in the face of any conspicuous
+successes by his Indian rivals, the Crees. But,” added the Commissioner,
+rolling up the map, “I called you in principally to say that I wish you
+to have every available man and gun ready for a march at a day's notice.
+Further, I wish you to wire Superintendent Herchmer at Calgary to
+send at the earliest possible moment twenty-five men at least, fully
+equipped. We shall need every man we can spare from every post in the
+West to send North.”
+
+“Very good, sir. They will be ready,” said Inspector Sanders, and,
+saluting, he left the room.
+
+Two days later, on the 18th of March, long before the break of day, the
+Commissioner set out on his famous march to Prince Albert, nearly three
+hundred miles away. And the great game was on. They were but a small
+company of ninety men, but every man was thoroughly fit for the part
+he was expected to play in the momentous struggle before him; brave, of
+course, trained in prompt initiative, skilled in plaincraft, inured to
+hardship, oblivious of danger, quick of eye, sure of hand and rejoicing
+in fight. Commissioner Irvine knew he could depend upon them to see
+through to a finish, to their last ounce of strength and their last
+blood-drop, any bit of work given them to do. Past Pie-a-pot's Reserve
+and down the Qu'Appelle Valley to Misquopetong's, through the Touchwood
+Hills and across the great Salt Plain, where he had word by wire from
+Crozier of the first blow being struck at the south branch of the
+Saskatchewan where some of Beardy's men gave promise of their future
+conduct by looting a store, Irvine pressed his march. Onward along the
+Saskatchewan, he avoided the trap laid by four hundred half-breeds at
+Batoche's Crossing, and, making the crossing at Agnew's, further down,
+arrived at Prince Albert all fit and sound on the eve of the 24th,
+completing his two hundred and ninety-one miles in just seven days; and
+that in the teeth of the bitter weather of a rejuvenated winter, without
+loss of man or horse, a feat worthy of the traditions of the Force of
+which he was the head, and of the Empire whose most northern frontier it
+was his task to guard.
+
+Twenty-four hours to sharpen their horses' calks and tighten up their
+cinches, and Irvine was on the trail again en route for Fort Carlton,
+where he learned serious disturbances were threatening. Arrived at Fort
+Carlton in the afternoon of the same day, the Commissioner found there a
+company of men, sad, grim and gloomy. In the fort a dozen of the gallant
+volunteers from Prince Albert and Crozier's Mounted Police lay groaning,
+some of them dying, with wounds. Others lay with their faces covered,
+quiet enough; while far down on the Duck Lake trail still others lay
+with the white snow red about them. The story was told the Commissioner
+with soldierlike brevity by Superintendent Crozier. The previous day a
+storekeeper from Duck Lake, Mitchell by name, had ridden in to report
+that his stock of provisions and ammunition was about to be seized by
+the rebels. Immediately early next morning a Sergeant of the Police with
+some seventeen constables had driven off to prevent these provisions and
+ammunition falling into the hands of the enemy. At ten o'clock a scout
+came pounding down the trail with the announcement that Sergeant Stewart
+was in trouble and that a hundred rebels had disputed his advance.
+Hard upon the heels of the scout came the Sergeant himself with his
+constables to tell their tale to a body of men whose wrath grew as
+they listened. More and more furious waxed their rage as they heard
+the constables tell of the threats and insults heaped upon them by the
+half-breeds and Indians. The Prince Albert volunteers more especially
+were filled with indignant rage. To think that half-breeds and
+Indians--Indians, mark you!--whom they had been accustomed to regard
+with contempt, should have dared to turn back upon the open trail a
+company of men wearing the Queen's uniform! The insult was intolerable.
+
+The Police officers received the news with philosophic calm. It was
+merely an incident in the day's work to them. Sooner or later they would
+bring these bullying half-breeds and yelling Indians to task for their
+temerity.
+
+But the volunteers were undisciplined in the business of receiving
+insults. Hence they were for an immediate attack. The Superintendent
+pointed out that the Commissioner was within touch bringing
+reinforcements. It might be wise to delay matters a few hours till his
+arrival. But meantime the provisions and ammunition would be looted
+and distributed among the enemy, and that was a serious matter. The
+impetuous spirit of the volunteers prevailed. Within an hour a hundred
+men with a seven-pr. gun, eager to exact punishment for the insults
+they had suffered, took the Duck Lake trail. Ambushed by a foe who,
+regardless of the conventions of war, made treacherous use of the white
+flag, overwhelmed by more than twice their number, hampered in their
+evolutions by the deep crusted snow, the little company, after a
+half-hour's sharp engagement with the strongly posted enemy, were forced
+to retire, bearing their wounded and some of their dead with them,
+leaving others of their dead lying in the snow behind them.
+
+And now the question was what was to be done? The events of the day
+had taught them their lesson, a lesson that experience has taught all
+soldiers, the lesson, namely, that it is never safe to despise a foe.
+A few miles away from them were between three hundred and four hundred
+half-breeds and Indians who, having tasted blood, were eager for more.
+The fort at Carlton was almost impossible of defense. The whole South
+country was in the hands of rebels. Companies of half-breeds breathing
+blood and fire, bands of Indians, marauding and terrorizing, were
+roaming the country, wrecking homesteads, looting stores, threatening
+destruction to all loyal settlers and direst vengeance upon all who
+should dare to oppose them. The situation called for quick thought and
+quick action. Every hour added to the number of the enemy. Whole tribes
+of Indians were wavering in their allegiance. Another victory such as
+Duck Lake and they would swing to the side of the rebels. The strategic
+center of the English settlements in all this country was undoubtedly
+Prince Albert. Fort Carlton stood close to the border of the half-breed
+section and was difficult of defense.
+
+After a short council of war it was decided to abandon Fort Carlton.
+Thereupon Irvine led his troops, together with the gallant survivors of
+the bloody fight at Duck Lake, bearing their dead and wounded with
+them, to Prince Albert, there to hold that post with its hundreds of
+defenseless women and children gathered in from the country round about,
+against hostile half-breeds without and treacherous half-breeds within
+the stockade, and against swarming bands of Indians hungry for loot and
+thirsting for blood. And there Irvine, chafing against inactivity, eager
+for the joyous privilege of attack, spent the weary anxious days of the
+next six weeks, held at his post by the orders of his superior officer
+and by the stern necessities of the case, and meantime finding some
+slight satisfaction in scouting and scouring the country for miles on
+every side, thus preventing any massing of the enemy's forces.
+
+The affair at Duck Lake put an end to all parley. Riel had been
+clamoring for “blood! blood! blood!” At Duck Lake he received his first
+taste, but before many days were over he was to find that for every drop
+of blood that reddened the crusted snow at Duck Lake a thousand Canadian
+voices would indignantly demand vengeance. The rifle-shots that rang out
+that winter day from the bluffs that lined the Duck Lake trail echoed
+throughout Canada from ocean to ocean, and everywhere men sprang to
+offer themselves in defense of their country. But echoes of these
+rifle-shots rang, too, in the teepees on the Western plains where the
+Piegans, the Bloods and the Blackfeet lay crouching and listening.
+By some mysterious system of telegraphy known only to themselves old
+Crowfoot and his braves heard them almost as soon as the Superintendent
+at Fort Macleod. Instantly every teepee was pulsing with the fever of
+war. The young braves dug up their rifles from their bedding, gathered
+together their ammunition, sharpened their knives and tomahawks in eager
+anticipation of the call that would set them on the war-path against the
+white man who had robbed them of their ancient patrimony and who held
+them in such close leash. The great day had come, the day they had been
+dreaming of in their hearts, talking over at their council-fires and
+singing about in their sun dances during the past year, the day promised
+by the many runners from their brother Crees of the North, the day
+foretold by the great Sioux orator and leader, Onawata. The war of
+extermination had begun and the first blood had gone to the Indian and
+to his brother half-breed.
+
+Two days after Duck Lake came the word that Fort Carlton had been
+abandoned and Battleford sacked. Five days later the news of the bloody
+massacre of Frog Lake cast over every English settlement the shadow of
+a horrible fear. From the Crow's Nest to the Blackfoot Crossing bands of
+braves broke loose from the reserves and began to “drive cattle” for the
+making of pemmican in preparation for the coming campaign.
+
+It was a day of testing for all Canadians, but especially a day of
+testing for the gallant little force of six or seven hundred riders who,
+distributed in small groups over a vast area of over two hundred and
+fifty thousand square miles, were entrusted with the responsibility of
+guarding the lives and property of Her Majesty's subjects scattered in
+lonely and distant settlements over these wide plains.
+
+And the testing found them ready. For while the Ottawa authorities with
+late but frantic haste were hustling their regiments from all parts of
+Canada to the scene of war, the Mounted Police had gripped the situation
+with a grip so stern that the Indian allies of the half-breed rebels
+paused in their leap, took a second thought and decided to wait till
+events should indicate the path of discretion.
+
+And, to the blood-lusting Riel, Irvine's swift thrust Northward to
+Prince Albert suggested caution, while his resolute stand at that
+distant fort drove hard down in the North country a post of Empire that
+stuck fast and sure while all else seemed to be sliding to destruction.
+
+Inspector Dickens, too, another of that fearless band of Police
+officers, holding with his heroic little company of twenty-two
+constables Fort Pitt in the far North, stayed the panic consequent upon
+the Frog Lake massacre and furnished food for serious thought to the
+cunning Chief, Little Pine, and his four hundred and fifty Crees, as
+well as to the sullen Salteaux, Big Bear, with his three hundred braves.
+And to the lasting credit of Inspector Dickens it stands that he brought
+his little company of twenty-two safe through a hostile country
+overrun with excited Indians and half-breeds to the post of Battleford,
+ninety-eight miles away.
+
+At Battleford, also, after the sacking of the town, Inspector Morris
+with two hundred constables behind his hastily-constructed barricade
+kept guard over four hundred women and children and held at bay a horde
+of savages yelling for loot and blood.
+
+Griesbach, in like manner, with his little handful, at Fort
+Saskatchewan, held the trail to Edmonton, and materially helped to bar
+the way against Big Bear and his marauding band.
+
+And similarly at other points the promptness, resource, wisdom and
+dauntless resolution of the gallant officers of the Mounted Police
+and of the men they commanded saved Western Canada from the complete
+subversion of law and order in the whole Northern part of the
+territories and from the unspeakable horrors of a general Indian
+uprising.
+
+But while in the Northern and Eastern part of the Territories the Police
+officers rendered such signal service in the face of open rebellion, it
+was in the foothill country in the far West that perhaps even greater
+service was rendered to Canada and the Empire in this time of peril by
+the officers and men of the Mounted Police.
+
+It was due to the influence of such men as the Superintendents and
+Inspectors of the Police in charge of the various posts throughout
+the foothill country more than to anything else that the Chiefs of
+the “great, warlike, intelligent and untractable tribes” of Blackfeet,
+Blood, Piegan, Sarcee and Stony Indians were prevented from breaking
+their treaties and joining with the rebel Crees, Salteaux and
+Assiniboines of the North and East. For fifteen years the Chiefs of
+these tribes had lived under the firm and just rule of the Police, had
+been protected from the rapacity of unscrupulous traders and saved from
+the ravages of whisky-runners. It was the proud boast of a Blood Chief
+that the Police never broke a promise to the Indian and never failed to
+exact justice either for his punishment or for his protection.
+
+Hence when the reserves were being overrun by emissaries from the
+turbulent Crees and from the plotting half-breeds, in the face of the
+impetuous demands of their own young men and of their minor Chiefs to
+join in the Great Adventure, the great Chiefs, Red Crow and Rainy Chief
+of the Bloods, Bull's Head of the Sarcees, Trotting Wolf of the Piegans,
+and more than all, Crowfoot, the able, astute, wise old head of
+the entire Blackfeet confederacy, held these young braves back from
+rebellion and thus gave time and opportunity to Her Majesty's Forces
+operating in the East and North to deal with the rebels.
+
+And during those days of strain, strain beyond the estimate of all
+not immediately involved, it was the record of such men as the
+Superintendents and Inspectors in charge at Fort Macleod, at Fort
+Calgary and on the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway construction
+in the mountains, and their steady bearing that more than anything else
+weighed with the great Chiefs and determined for them their attitude.
+For with calm, cool courage the Police patrols rode in and out of the
+reserves, quietly reasoning with the big Chiefs, smiling indulgently
+upon the turbulent minor Chiefs, checking up with swift, firm, but
+tactful justice the many outbreaks against law and order, presenting
+even in their most desperate moments such a front of resolute
+self-confidence to the Indians, and refusing to give any sign by look
+or word or act of the terrific anxiety they carried beneath their gay
+scarlet coats. And the big Chiefs, reading the faces of these cool,
+careless, resolute, smiling men who had a trick of appearing at
+unexpected times in their camps and refused to be hurried or worried,
+finally decided to wait a little longer. And they waited till the fatal
+moment of danger was past and the time for striking--and in the heart
+of every Chief of them the desire to strike for larger freedom and
+independence lay deep--was gone. To these guardians of Empire who fought
+no fight, who endured no siege, who witnessed no massacre, the Dominion
+and the Empire owe more than none but the most observing will ever know.
+
+Paralleling these prompt measures of the North West Mounted Police, the
+Government dispatched from both East and West of Canada regiments of
+militia to relieve the beleaguered posts held by the Police, to prevent
+the spread of rebellion and to hold the great tribes of the Indians of
+the far West true to their allegiance.
+
+Already on the 27th of March, before Irvine had decided to abandon Fort
+Carlton and to make his stand at Prince Albert, General Middleton had
+passed through Winnipeg on his way to take command of the Canadian
+Forces operating in the West; and before two weeks more had gone the
+General was in command of a considerable body of troops at Qu'Appelle,
+his temporary headquarters. From all parts of Canada these men gathered,
+from Quebec and Montreal, from the midland counties of Ontario, from
+the city of Toronto and from the city of Winnipeg, till some five or six
+thousand citizen-soldiers were under arms. They were needed, too, every
+man, not so much because of the possible weight of numbers of the enemy
+opposing them, nor because of the tactical skill of those leading the
+hostile forces, but because of the enemy's advantage of position, owing
+to the nature of the country which formed the scene of the Rebellion,
+and because of the character of the warfare adopted by their cunning
+foe.
+
+The record of the brief six weeks' campaign constitutes a creditable
+page in Canadian history, a page which no Canadian need blush to read
+aloud in the presence of any company of men who know how to estimate at
+their highest value those qualities of courage and endurance that are
+the characteristics of the British soldier the world over.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+TO ARMS!
+
+
+Superintendent Strong was in a pleasant mood, and the reason was not far
+to seek. The distracting period of inaction, of doubt, of hesitation was
+past, and now at last something would be done. His term of service along
+the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway construction had been far from
+congenial to him. There had been too much of the work of the ordinary
+patrol-officer about it. True, he did his duty faithfully and
+thoroughly, so faithfully, indeed, as to move the great men of the
+railway company to outspoken praise, a somewhat unusual circumstance.
+But now he was called back to the work that more properly belonged to an
+officer of Her Majesty's North West Mounted Police and his soul glowed
+with the satisfaction of those who, having been found faithful in
+uncongenial duty, are rewarded with an opportunity to do a bit of work
+which they particularly delight to do.
+
+With his twenty-five men, whom for the past year he had been polishing
+to a high state of efficiency in the trying work of police-duty in the
+railway construction-camp, he arrived in Calgary on the evening of the
+tenth of April, to find that post throbbing with military ardor and
+thrilling with rumors of massacres and sieges, of marching columns and
+contending forces. Small wonder that Superintendent Strong's face took
+on an appearance of grim pleasure. Straight to the Police headquarters
+he went, but there was no Superintendent there to welcome him. That
+gentleman had gone East to meet the troops and was by now under
+appointment as Chief of Staff to that dashing soldier, Colonel Otter.
+
+But meantime, though the Calgary Police Post was bare of men, there were
+other men as keen and as daring, if not so thoroughly disciplined for
+war, thronging the streets of the little town and asking only a leader
+whom they could follow.
+
+It was late evening, but Calgary was an “all night” town, and every
+minute was precious, for minutes might mean lives of women and children.
+So down the street rode Superintendent Strong toward the Royal Hotel. At
+the hitching post of that hostelry a sad-looking broncho was tied, whose
+calm, absorbed and detached appearance struck a note of discord with his
+environment; for everywhere about him men and horses seemed to be in
+a turmoil of excitement. Everywhere men in cow-boy garb were careering
+about the streets or grouped in small crowds about the saloon doors.
+There were few loud voices, but the words of those who were doing the
+speaking came more rapidly than usual.
+
+Such a group was gathered in the rear of the sad-looking broncho before
+the door of the Royal Hotel. As the Superintendent loped up upon his
+big brown horse the group broke apart and, like birds disturbed at their
+feeding, circled about and closed again.
+
+“Hello, here's Superintendent Strong,” said a voice. “He'll know.”
+
+“Know what?” inquired the Superintendent.
+
+“Why, what's doing?”
+
+“Where are the troops?”
+
+“Is Prince Albert down?”
+
+“Where's Middleton?”
+
+“What's to be done here?”
+
+There were many voices, all eager, and in them just a touch of anxiety.
+
+“Not a thing do I know,” said Superintendent Strong somewhat gravely.
+“I have been up in the mountains and have heard little. I know that the
+Commissioner has gone north to Prince Albert.”
+
+“Have you heard about Duck Lake?” inquired a voice.
+
+“Yes, I heard we had a reverse there, and I know that General Middleton
+has arrived at Qu'Appelle and has either set out for the north or is
+about to set out.”
+
+“Heard about Frog Lake?”
+
+“Frog Lake? No. That is up near Fort Pitt. What about it?”
+
+For a moment there was silence, then a deep voice replied:
+
+“A ghastly massacre, women and children and priests.”
+
+Then another period of silence.
+
+“Indians?” murmured the Superintendent in a low voice.
+
+“Yes, half-breeds and Indians,” replied the deep voice. And again there
+was silence. The men waited for Superintendent Strong to speak.
+
+The Superintendent sat on his big horse looking at them quietly, then he
+said sharply:
+
+“Men, there are some five or six thousand Indians in this district.”
+ They were all thinking the same thing. “I have twenty-five men with me.
+Superintendent Cotton at Macleod has less than a hundred.”
+
+The men sat their horses in silence looking at him. One could hear their
+deep breathing and see the quiver of the horses under the gripping knees
+of their riders. Their minds were working swiftly. Ever since the news
+of the Frog Lake massacre had spread like a fire across the country
+these men had been carrying in their minds--rather, in their
+hearts--pictures that started them up in their beds at night broad awake
+and all in a cold sweat.
+
+The Superintendent lowered his voice. The men leaned forward to listen.
+He had only a single word to say, a short sharp word it was--
+
+“Who will join me?”
+
+It was as if his question had released a spring drawn to its limit. From
+twenty different throats in twenty different tones, but with a single
+throbbing impulse, came the response, swift, full-throated, savage,
+“Me!” “I!” “Here you are!” “You bet!” “Count me!” “Rather!” and in three
+minutes Superintendent Strong had secured the nucleus of his famous
+scouts.
+
+“To-morrow at nine at the Barracks!” said this grim and laconic
+Superintendent, and was about turning away when a man came out from the
+door of the Royal Hotel, drawn forth by that sudden savage yell.
+
+“Hello, Cameron!” said the Superintendent, as the man moved toward the
+sad-appearing broncho, “I want you.”
+
+“All right, sir. I am with you,” was the reply as Cameron swung on to
+his horse. “Wake up, Ginger!” he said to his horse, touching him with
+his heel. Ginger woke up with an indignant snort and forthwith fell into
+line with the Superintendent's big brown horse.
+
+The Superintendent was silent till the Barracks were gained, then,
+giving the horses into the care of an orderly, he led Cameron into the
+office and after they had settled themselves before the fire he began
+without preliminaries.
+
+“Cameron, I am more anxious than I can say about the situation here in
+this part of the country. I have been away from the center of things for
+some months and I have lost touch. I want you to let me know just what
+is doing from our side.”
+
+“I do not know much, sir,” replied Cameron. “I, too, have just come in
+from a long parley with Crowfoot and his Chiefs.”
+
+“Ah, by the way, how is the old boy?” inquired the Superintendent. “Will
+he stick by us?”
+
+“At present he is very loyal, sir,--too loyal almost,” said Cameron in
+a doubtful tone. “Duck Lake sent some of his young men off their heads a
+bit, and Frog Lake even more. The Sarcees went wild over Frog Lake, you
+know.”
+
+“Oh, I don't worry about the Sarcees so much. What of Crowfoot?”
+
+“Well, he has managed to hold down his younger Chiefs so far. He made
+light of the Frog Lake affair, but he was most anxious to get from
+me the fullest particulars of the Duck Lake fight. He made careful
+inquiries as to just how many Police were in the fight. I could see that
+it gave him a shock to learn that the Police had to retire. This was a
+new experience for him. He was intensely anxious to learn also--though
+he would not allow himself to appear so--just what the Government was
+doing.”
+
+“And what are the last reports from headquarters? You see I have not
+been kept fully in touch. I know that the Commissioner has gone north to
+Prince Albert and that General Middleton has taken command of the forces
+in the West and has gone North with them from Qu'Appelle, but what
+troops he has I have not heard.”
+
+“I understand,” replied Cameron, “that he has three regiments of
+infantry from Toronto and three from Winnipeg, with the Winnipeg Field
+Battery. A regiment from Quebec has arrived and one from Montreal and
+there are more to follow. The plan of campaign I know nothing about.”
+
+“Ah, well,” replied the Superintendent, “I know something about the
+plan, I believe. There are three objective points, Prince Albert and
+Battleford, both of which are now closely besieged, and Edmonton,
+which is threatened with a great body of rebel Crees and Salteaux under
+leadership of Little Pine and Big Bear. The Police at these points can
+hardly be expected to hold out long against the overwhelming numbers
+that are besieging them, and I expect that relief columns will be
+immediately dispatched. Now, in regard to this district here, do you
+know what is being done?”
+
+“Well, General Strange has come in from his ranch and has offered his
+services in raising a local force.”
+
+“Yes, I was glad to hear that his offer had been accepted and that he
+has been appointed to lead an expeditionary force from here to Edmonton.
+He is an experienced officer and I am sure will do us fine service.
+I hope to see him to-morrow. Now, about the South,” continued the
+Superintendent, “what about Fort Macleod?”
+
+“The Superintendent there has offered himself and his whole force for
+service in the North, but General Middleton, I understand, has asked him
+to remain where he is and keep guard in this part of the country.”
+
+“Good! I am glad of that. In my judgment this country holds the key. The
+Crees I do not fear so much. They are more restless and uncertain, but
+God help us if the Blackfeet and the Bloods rise! That is why I called
+for volunteers to-night. We cannot afford to be without a strong force
+here a single day.”
+
+“I gathered that you got some volunteers to-night. I hope, sir,” said
+Cameron, “you will have a place for me in your troop?”
+
+“My dear fellow, nothing would please me better, I assure you,” said
+the Superintendent cordially. “And as proof of my confidence in you I am
+going to send you through the South country to recruit men for my troop.
+I can rely upon your judgment and tact. But as for you, you cannot leave
+your present beat. The Sun Dance Trail cannot be abandoned for one hour.
+From it you keep an eye upon the secret movements of all the tribes in
+this whole region and you can do much to counteract if not to wholly
+check any hostile movement that may arise. Indeed, you have already done
+more than any one will ever know to hold this country safe during these
+last months. And you must stay where you are. Remember, Cameron,” added
+the Superintendent impressively, “your work lies along the Sun Dance
+Trail. On no account and for no reason must you be persuaded to abandon
+that post. I shall get into touch with General Strange to-morrow and
+shall doubtless get something to do, but if possible I should like you
+to give me a day or two for this recruiting business before you take up
+again your patrol work along the Sun Dance.”
+
+“Very well, sir,” replied Cameron quietly, trying hard to keep the
+disappointment out of his voice. “I shall do my best.”
+
+“That is right,” said the Superintendent. “By the way, what are the
+Piegans doing?”
+
+“The Piegans,” replied Cameron, “are industriously stealing cattle and
+horses. I cannot quite make out just how they can manage to get away
+with them. Eagle Feather is apparently running the thing, but there is
+someone bigger than Eagle Feather in the game. An additional month or
+two in the guardroom would have done that gentleman no harm.”
+
+“Ah, has he been in the guard-room? How did he get there?”
+
+“Oh, I pulled him out of the Sun Dance, where I found he had been
+killing cattle, and the Superintendent at Macleod gave him two months to
+meditate upon his crimes.”
+
+Superintendent Strong expressed his satisfaction.
+
+“But now he is at his old habits again,” continued Cameron. “But his
+is not the brain planning these raids. They are cleverly done and are
+getting serious. For instance, I must have lost a score or two of steers
+within the last three months.”
+
+“A score or two?” exclaimed the Superintendent. “What are they doing
+with them all?”
+
+“That is what I find difficult to explain. Either they are running them
+across the border--though the American Police know nothing of it--or
+they are making pemmican.”
+
+“Pemmican? Aha! that looks serious,” said the Superintendent gravely.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” said Cameron. “It makes me think that some one bigger
+than Eagle Feather is at the bottom of all this cattle-running.
+Sometimes I have thought that perhaps that chap Raven has a hand in it.”
+
+“Raven?” exclaimed the Superintendent. “He has brain enough and nerve in
+plenty for any dare-devil exploit.”
+
+“But,” continued Cameron in a hesitating voice, “I cannot bring myself
+to lay this upon him.”
+
+“Why not?” inquired the Superintendent sharply. “He is a cool hand and
+desperate. I know his work fairly well. He is a first-class villain.”
+
+“Yes, I know he is all that, and yet--well--in this rebellion, sir,
+I believe he is with us and against them.” In proof of this Cameron
+proceeded to relate the story of Raven's visit to the Big Horn Ranch.
+“So you see,” he concluded, “he would not care to work in connection
+with the Piegans just now.”
+
+“I don't know about that--I don't know about that,” replied the
+Superintendent. “Of course he would not work against us directly, but he
+might work for himself in this crisis. It would furnish him with a good
+opportunity, you see. It would give him plenty of cover.”
+
+“Yes, that is true, but still--I somehow cannot help liking the chap.”
+
+“Liking the chap?” echoed the Superintendent. “He is a cold-blooded
+villain and cattle-thief, a murderer, as you know. If ever I get my hand
+on him in this rumpus--Why, he's an outlaw pure and simple! I have
+no use for that kind of man at all. I should like to hang him!” The
+Superintendent was indignant at the suggestion that any but the severest
+measures should be meted out to a man of Raven's type. It was the
+instinct and training of the Police officer responsible for the
+enforcement of law and order in the land moving within him. “But,”
+ continued the Superintendent, “let us get back to our plans. There must
+be a strong force raised in this district immediately. We have the kind
+of men best suited for the work all about us in this ranching country,
+and I know that if you ride south throughout the ranges you can bring me
+back fifty men, and there would be no finer anywhere.”
+
+“I shall do what I can, sir,” replied Cameron, “but I am not sure about
+the fifty men.”
+
+Long they talked over the plans, till it was far past midnight, when
+Cameron took his leave and returned to his hotel. He put up his own
+horse, looking after his feeding and bedding.
+
+“You have some work to do, Ginger, for your Queen and country to-morrow,
+and you must be fit,” he said as he finished rubbing the horse down.
+
+And Ginger had work to do, but not that planned for him by his master,
+as it turned out. At the door of the Royal Hotel, Cameron found waiting
+him in the shadow a tall slim Indian youth.
+
+“Hello!” said Cameron. “Who are you and what do you want?”
+
+As the youth stepped into the light there came to Cameron a dim
+suggestion of something familiar about the lad, not so much in his face
+as in his figure and bearing.
+
+“Who are you?” said Cameron again somewhat impatiently.
+
+The young man pulled up his trouser leg and showed a scarred ankle.
+
+“Ah! Now I get you. You are the young Piegan?”
+
+“Not” said the youth, throwing back his head with a haughty movement.
+“No Piegan.”
+
+“Ah, no, of course. Onawata's son, eh?”
+
+The lad grunted.
+
+“What do you want?” inquired Cameron.
+
+The young man stood silent, evidently finding speech difficult.
+
+“Eagle Feather,” at length he said, “Little Thunder--plenty Piegan--run
+much cattle.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm to indicate the
+extent of the cattle raid proposed.
+
+“They do, eh? Come in, my boy.”
+
+The boy shook his head and drew back. He shared with all wild things the
+fear of inclosed places.
+
+“Are you hungry?”
+
+The boy nodded his head.
+
+“Come with me.”
+
+Together they walked down the street and came to a restaurant.
+
+“Come in and eat. It is all right,” said Cameron, offering his hand.
+
+The Indian took the offered hand, laid it upon his heart, then for a
+full five seconds with his fierce black eye he searched Cameron's face.
+Satisfied, he motioned Cameron to enter and followed close on his heel.
+Never before had the lad been within four walls.
+
+“Eat,” said Cameron when the ordered meal was placed before them. The
+lad was obviously ravenous and needed no further urging.
+
+“How long since you left the reserve?” inquired Cameron.
+
+The youth held up three fingers.
+
+“Good going,” said Cameron, letting his eye run down the lines of the
+Indian's lithe figure.
+
+“Smoke?” inquired Cameron when the meal was finished.
+
+The lad's eye gleamed, but he shook his head.
+
+“No pipe, eh?” said Cameron. “Come, we will mend that. Here, John,”
+ he said to the Chinese waiter, “bring me a pipe. There,” said Cameron,
+passing the Indian the pipe after filling it, “smoke away.”
+
+After another swift and searching look the lad took the pipe from
+Cameron's hand and with solemn gravity began to smoke. It was to him
+far more than a mere luxurious addendum to his meal. It was a solemn
+ceremonial sealing a compact of amity between them.
+
+“Now, tell me,” said Cameron, when the smoke had gone on for some time.
+
+Slowly and with painful difficulty the youth told his story in terse,
+brief sentences.
+
+“T'ree day,” he began, holding up three fingers, “me hear Eagle
+Feather--many Piegans--talk--talk--talk. Go fight--keel--keel--keel all
+white man, squaw, papoose.”
+
+“When?” inquired Cameron, keeping his face steady.
+
+“Come Cree runner--soon.”
+
+“You mean they are waiting for a runner from the North?” inquired
+Cameron. “If the Crees win the fight then the Piegans will rise? Is that
+it?”
+
+The Indian nodded. “Come Cree Indian--then Piegan fight.”
+
+“They will not rise until the runner comes, eh?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Cameron breathed more easily.
+
+“Is that all?” he inquired carelessly.
+
+“This day Eagle Feather run much cattle--beeg--beeg run.” The young man
+again swept the room with his arm.
+
+“Bah! Eagle Feather is no good. He is an old squaw,” said Cameron.
+
+“Huh!” agreed the Indian quickly. “Little Thunder go too.”
+
+“Little Thunder, eh?” said Cameron, controlling his voice with an
+effort.
+
+The lad nodded, his piercing eye upon Cameron's face.
+
+For some minutes Cameron smoked quietly.
+
+“And Onawata?” With startling suddenness he shot out the question.
+
+Not a line of the Indian's face moved. He ignored the question, smoking
+steadily and looking before him.
+
+“Ah, it is a strange way for Onawata to repay the white man's kindness
+to his son,” said Cameron. The contemptuous voice pierced the Indian's
+armor of impassivity. Cameron caught the swift quiver in the face
+that told that his stab had reached the quick. There is nothing in the
+Indian's catalogue of crimes so base as the sin of ingratitude.
+
+“Onawata beeg Chief--beeg Chief,” at length the boy said proudly. “He do
+beeg--beeg t'ing.”
+
+“Yes, he steals my cattle,” said Cameron with stinging scorn.
+
+“No!” replied the Indian sharply. “Little Thunder--Eagle Feather steal
+cattle--Onawata no steal.”
+
+“I am glad to hear it, then,” said Cameron. “This is a big run of
+cattle, eh?”
+
+“Yes--beeg--beeg run.” Again the Indian's arm swept the room.
+
+“What will they do with all those cattle?” inquired Cameron.
+
+But again the Indian ignored his question and remained silently smoking.
+
+“Why does the son of Onawata come to me?” inquired Cameron.
+
+A soft and subtle change transformed the boy's face. He pulled up his
+trouser leg and, pointing to the scarred ankle, said:
+
+“You' squaw good--me two leg--me come tell you take squaw 'way far--no
+keel. Take cattle 'way--no steal.” He rose suddenly to his feet. “Me go
+now,” he said, and passed out.
+
+“Hold on!” cried Cameron, following him out to the door. “Where are you
+going to sleep to-night?”
+
+The boy waved his hand toward the hills surrounding the little town.
+
+“Here,” said Cameron, emptying his tobacco pouch into the boy's hand.
+“I will tell my squaw that Onawata's son is not ungrateful, that he
+remembered her kindness and has paid it back to me.”
+
+For the first time a smile broke on the grave face of the Indian. He
+took Cameron's hand, laid it upon his own heart, and then on Cameron's.
+
+“You' squaw good--good--much good.” He appeared to struggle to find
+other words, but failing, and with a smile still lingering upon his
+handsome face, he turned abruptly away and glided silent as a shadow
+into the starlit night. Cameron watched him out of sight.
+
+“Not a bad sort,” he said to himself as he walked toward the hotel.
+“Pretty tough thing for him to come here and give away his dad's scheme
+like that--and I bet you he is keen on it himself too.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+AN OUTLAW, BUT A MAN
+
+
+The news brought by the Indian lad changed for Cameron all his plans.
+This cattle-raid was evidently a part of and preparation for the bigger
+thing, a general uprising and war of extermination on the part of the
+Indians. From his recent visit to the reserves he was convinced that the
+loyalty of even the great Chiefs was becoming somewhat brittle and would
+not bear any sudden strain put upon it. A successful raid of cattle such
+as was being proposed escaping the notice of the Police, or in the teeth
+of the Police, would have a disastrous effect upon the prestige of the
+whole Force, already shaken by the Duck Lake reverse. The effect of
+that skirmish was beyond belief. The victory of the half-breeds was
+exaggerated in the wildest degree. He must act and act quickly. His home
+and his family and those of his neighbors were in danger of the most
+horrible fate that could befall any human being. If the cattle-raid were
+carried through by the Piegan Indians its sweep would certainly include
+the Big Horn Ranch, and there was every likelihood that his home might
+be destroyed, for he was an object of special hate to Eagle Feather and
+to Little Thunder; and if Copperhead were in the business he had even
+greater cause for anxiety.
+
+But what was to be done? The Indian boy had taken three days to bring
+the news. It would take a day and a night of hard riding to reach his
+home. Quickly he made his plans. He passed into the hotel, found the
+room of Billy the hostler and roused him up.
+
+“Billy,” he said, “get my horse out quick and hitch him up to the
+post where I can get him. And Billy, if you love me,” he implored, “be
+quick!”
+
+Billy sprang from his bed.
+
+“Don't know what's eatin' you, boss,” he said, “but quick's the word.”
+
+In another minute Cameron was pounding at Dr. Martin's door upstairs.
+Happily the doctor was in.
+
+“Martin, old man,” cried Cameron, gripping him hard by the shoulder.
+“Wake up and listen hard! That Indian boy you and Mandy pulled through
+has just come all the way from the Piegan Reserve to tell me of a
+proposed cattle-raid and a possible uprising of the Piegans in that
+South country. The cattle-raid is coming on at once. The uprising
+depends upon news from the Crees. Listen! I have promised Superintendent
+Strong to spend the next two days recruiting for his new troop. Explain
+to him why I cannot do this. He will understand. Then ride like blazes
+to Macleod and tell the Inspector all that I have told you and get him
+to send what men he can spare along with you. You can't get a man here.
+The raid starts from the Piegan Reserve. It will likely finish where the
+old Porcupine Trail joins the Sun Dance. At least so I judge. Ride by
+the ranch and get some of them there to show you the shortest trail.
+Both Mandy and Moira know it well.”
+
+“Hold on, Cameron! Let me get this clear,” cried the doctor, holding him
+fast by the arm. “Two things I have gathered,” said the doctor, speaking
+rapidly, “first, a cattle-raid, then a general uprising, the uprising
+dependent upon the news from the North. You want to block the
+cattle-raid? Is that right?”
+
+“Right,” said Cameron.
+
+“Then you want me to settle with Superintendent Storm, ride to Macleod
+for men, then by your ranch and have them show me the shortest trail to
+the junction of the Porcupine and the Sun Dance?”
+
+“You are right, Martin, old boy. It is a great thing to have a head like
+yours. I shall meet you somewhere at that point. I have been thinking
+this thing over and I believe they mean to make pemmican in preparation
+for their uprising, and if so they will make it somewhere on the Sun
+Dance Trail. Now I am off. Let me go, Martin.”
+
+“Tell me your own movements now.”
+
+“First, the ranch,” said Cameron. “Then straight for the Sun Dance.”
+
+“All right, old boy. By-by and good-luck!”
+
+Cameron found Billy waiting with Ginger at the door of the hotel.
+
+“Thank you, Billy,” he said, fumbling in his pocket. “Hang it, I can't
+find my purse.”
+
+“You go hang yourself!” said Billy. “Never mind your purse.”
+
+“All right, then,” said Cameron, giving him his hand. “Good-by. You are
+a trump, Billy.” He caught Ginger by the mane and threw himself on the
+saddle.
+
+“Now, then, Ginger, you must not fail me this trip, if it is your last.
+A hundred and twenty miles, old boy, and you are none too fresh either.
+But, Ginger, we must beat them this time. A hundred and twenty miles
+to the Big Horn and twenty miles farther to the Sun Dance, that makes
+a hundred and forty, Ginger, and you are just in from a hard two days'
+ride. Steady, boy! Not too hard at the first.” For Ginger was showing
+signs of eagerness beyond his wont. “At all costs this raid must be
+stopped,” continued Cameron, speaking, after his manner, to his horse,
+“not for the sake of a few cattle--we could all stand that loss--but to
+balk at its beginning this scheme of old Copperhead's, for I believe
+in my soul he is at the bottom of it. Steady, old boy! We need every
+minute, but we cannot afford to make any miscalculations. The last
+quarter of an hour is likely to be the worst.”
+
+So on they went through the starry night. Steadily Ginger pounded the
+trail, knocking off the miles hour after hour. There was no pause for
+rest or for food. A few mouthfuls of water in the fording of a running
+stream, a pause to recover breath before plunging into an icy river, or
+on the taking of a steep coulee side, but no more. Hour after hour they
+pressed forward toward the Big Horn Ranch. The night passed into morning
+and the morning into the day, but still they pressed the trail.
+
+Toward the close of the day Cameron found himself within an hour's ride
+of his own ranch with Ginger showing every sign of leg weariness and
+almost of collapse.
+
+“Good old chap!” cried Cameron, leaning over him and patting his neck.
+“We must make it. We cannot let up, you know. Stick to it, old boy, a
+little longer.”
+
+A little snort and a little extra spurt of speed was the gallant
+Ginger's reply, but soon he was forced to sink back again into his
+stumbling stride.
+
+“One hour more, Ginger, that is all--one hour only.”
+
+As he spoke he leapt from his saddle to ease his horse in climbing a
+long and lofty hill. As he surmounted the hill he stopped and swiftly
+backed his horse down the hill. Upon the distant skyline his eye had
+detected what he judged to be a horseman. His horse safely disposed of,
+he once more crawled to the top of the hill.
+
+“An Indian, by Jove!” he cried. “I wonder if he has seen me.”
+
+Carefully his eye swept the intervening valley and the hillside beyond,
+but only this solitary figure could he see. As his eye rested on him the
+Indian began to move toward the west. Cameron lay watching him for some
+minutes. From his movements it was evident that the Indian's pace was
+being determined by some one on the other side of the hill, for he
+advanced now swiftly, now slowly. At times he halted and turned back
+upon his track, then went forward again.
+
+“What the deuce is he doing?” said Cameron to himself. “By Jove! I have
+got it! The drive is begun. I am too late.”
+
+Swiftly he considered the whole situation. He was too late now to be of
+any service at his ranch. The raid had already swept past it. He wrung
+his hands in agony to think of what might have happened. He was torn
+with anxiety for his family--and yet here was the raid passing onward
+before his eyes. One hour would bring him to the ranch, but if this were
+the outside edge of the big cattle raid the loss of an hour would mean
+the loss of everything.
+
+“Oh, my God! What shall I do?” he cried.
+
+With his eyes still upon the Indian he forced himself to think more
+quietly. The secrecy with which the raid was planned made it altogether
+likely that the homes of the settlers would not at this time be
+interfered with. This consideration finally determined him. At all costs
+he must do what he could to head off the raid or to break the herd
+in some way. But that meant in the first place a ride of twenty or
+twenty-five miles over rough country. Could Ginger do it?
+
+He crawled back to his horse and found him with his head close to the
+ground and trembling in every limb.
+
+“If he goes this twenty miles,” he said, “he will go no more. But it
+looks like our only hope, old boy. We must make for our old beat, the
+Sun Dance Trail.”
+
+He mounted his horse and set off toward the west, taking care never to
+appear above the skyline and riding as rapidly as the uncertain footing
+of the untrodden prairie would allow. At short intervals he would
+dismount and crawl to the top of the hill in order to keep in touch
+with the Indian, who was heading in pretty much the same direction as
+himself. A little further on his screening hill began to flatten
+itself out and finally it ran down into a wide valley which crossed
+his direction at right angles. He made his horse lie down, still in the
+shelter of the hill, and with most painful care he crawled on hands and
+knees out to the open and secured a point of vantage from which he could
+command the valley which ran southward for some miles till it, in turn,
+was shut in by a further range of hills.
+
+He was rewarded for his patience and care. Far down before him at the
+bottom of the valley a line of cattle was visible and hurrying them
+along a couple of Indian horsemen. As he lay watching these Indians he
+observed that a little farther on this line was augmented by a similar
+line from the east driven by the Indian he had first observed, and by
+two others who emerged from a cross valley still further on. Prone upon
+his face he lay, with his eyes on that double line of cattle and its
+hustling drivers. The raid was surely on. What could one man do to check
+it? Similar lines of cattle were coming down the different valleys and
+would all mass upon the old Porcupine Trail and finally pour into the
+Sun Dance with its many caves and canyons. There was much that was
+mysterious in this movement still to Cameron. What could these Indians
+do with this herd of cattle? The mere killing of them was in itself a
+vast undertaking. He was perfectly familiar with the Indian's method of
+turning buffalo meat, and later beef, into pemmican, but the killing,
+and the dressing, and the rendering of the fat, and the preparing of the
+bags, all this was an elaborate and laborious process. But one thing
+was clear to his mind. At all costs he must get around the head of these
+converging lines.
+
+He waited there till the valley was clear of cattle and Indians, then,
+mounting his horse, he pushed hard across the valley and struck a
+parallel trail upon the farther side of the hills. Pursuing this trail
+for some miles, he crossed still another range of hills farther to the
+west and so proceeded till he came within touch of the broken country
+that marks the division between the Foothills and the Mountains. He had
+not many miles before him now, but his horse was failing fast and he
+himself was half dazed with weariness and exhaustion. Night, too, was
+falling and the going was rough and even dangerous; for now hillsides
+suddenly broke off into sharp cut-banks, twenty, thirty, forty feet
+high.
+
+It was one of these cut-banks that was his undoing, for in the dim
+light he failed to note that the sheep track he was following ended thus
+abruptly till it was too late. Had his horse been fresh he could easily
+have recovered himself, but, spent as he was, Ginger stumbled, slid and
+finally rolled headlong down the steep hillside and over the bank on
+to the rocks below. Cameron had just strength to throw himself from the
+saddle and, scrambling on his knees, to keep himself from following his
+horse. Around the cut-bank he painfully made his way to where his horse
+lay with his leg broken, groaning like a human being in his pain.
+
+“Poor old boy! You are done at last,” he said.
+
+But there was no time to indulge regrets. Those lines of cattle were
+swiftly and steadily converging upon the Sun Dance. He had before him an
+almost impossible achievement. Well he knew that a man on foot could do
+little with the wild range cattle. They would speedily trample him into
+the ground. But he must go on. He must make the attempt.
+
+But first there was a task that it wrung his heart to perform. His
+horse must be put out of pain. He took off his coat, rolled it over his
+horse's head, inserted his gun under its folds to deaden the sound and
+to hide those luminous eyes turned so entreatingly upon him.
+
+“Old boy, you have done your duty, and so must I. Good-by, old chap!” He
+pulled the fatal trigger and Ginger's work was done.
+
+He took up his coat and set off once more upon the winding sheep trail
+that he guessed would bring him to the Sun Dance. Dazed, half asleep,
+numbed with weariness and faint with hunger, he stumbled on, while the
+stars came out overhead and with their mild radiance lit up his rugged
+way.
+
+Suddenly he found himself vividly awake. Diagonally across the face of
+the hill in front of him, a few score yards away and moving nearer, a
+horse came cantering. Quickly Cameron dropped behind a jutting rock.
+Easily, daintily, with never a slip or slide came the horse till he
+became clearly visible in the starlight. There was no mistaking that
+horse or that rider. No other horse in all the territories could take
+that slippery, slithery hill with a tread so light and sure, and no
+other rider in the Western country could handle his horse with such
+easy, steady grace among the rugged rocks of that treacherous hillside.
+It was Nighthawk and his master.
+
+“Raven!” breathed Cameron to himself. “Raven! Is it possible? By Jove!
+I would not have believed it. The Superintendent was right after all. He
+is a villain, a black-hearted villain too. So, HE is the brains behind
+this thing. I ought to have known it. Fool that I was! He pulled the
+wool over my eyes all right.”
+
+The rage that surged up through his heart stimulated his dormant
+energies into new life. With a deep oath Cameron pulled out both his
+guns and set off up the hill on the trail of the disappearing horseman.
+His weariness fell from him like a coat, the spring came back to his
+muscles, clearness to his brain. He was ready for his best fight and he
+knew it lay before him. Swiftly, lightly he ran up the hillside. At the
+top he paused amazed. Before him lay a large Indian encampment with rows
+upon rows of tents and camp fires with kettles swinging, and everywhere
+Indians and squaws moving about. Skirting the camp and still keeping
+to the side of the hill, he came upon a stout new-built fence that ran
+straight down an incline to a steep cut-bank with a sheer drop of thirty
+feet or more. Like a flash the meaning of it came upon him. This was to
+be the end of the drive. Here the cattle were to meet their death. Here
+it was that the pemmican was to be made. On the hillside opposite there
+was doubtless a similar fence and these two would constitute the fatal
+funnel down which the cattle were to be stampeded over the cut-bank to
+their destruction. This was the nefarious scheme planned by Raven and
+his treacherous allies.
+
+Swiftly Cameron turned and followed the fence up the incline some three
+or four hundred yards from the cut-bank. At its upper end the fence
+curved outward for some distance upon a wide upland valley, then ceased
+altogether. Such was the slope of the hill that no living man could turn
+a herd of cattle once entered upon that steep incline.
+
+Down the hill, across the valley and up the other side ran Cameron,
+keeping low and carefully picking his way among the loose stones till he
+came to the other fence which, curving similarly outward, made with its
+fellow a perfectly completed funnel. Once between the curving lips of
+this funnel nothing could save the rushing, crowding cattle from the
+deadly cut-bank below.
+
+“Oh, if I only had my horse,” groaned Cameron, “I might have a chance to
+turn them off just here.”
+
+At the point at which he stood the slope of the hillside fell somewhat
+toward the left and away slightly from the mouth of the funnel. A
+skilled cowboy with sufficient nerve, on a first-class horse, might turn
+the herd away from the cut-bank into the little coulee that led down
+from the end of the fence, but for a man on foot the thing was quite
+impossible. He determined, however, to make the effort. No man can
+certainly tell how cattle will behave when excited and at night.
+
+As he stood there rapidly planning how to divert the rush of cattle from
+that deadly funnel, there rose on the still night air a soft rumbling
+sound like low and distant thunder. That sound Cameron knew only too
+well. It was the pounding of two hundred steers upon the resounding
+prairie. He rushed back again to the right side of the fenced runway,
+and then forward to meet the coming herd. A half moon rising over the
+round top of the hill revealed the black surging mass of steers, their
+hoofs pounding like distant artillery, their horns rattling like a
+continuous crash of riflery. Before them at a distance of a hundred
+yards or more a mounted Indian rode toward the farther side of the
+funnel and took his stand at the very spot at which there was some hope
+of diverting the rushing herd from the cut-bank down the side coulee to
+safety.
+
+“That man has got to go,” said Cameron to himself, drawing his gun. But
+before he could level it there shot out from the dim light behind the
+Indian a man on horseback. Like a lion on its prey the horse leaped with
+a wicked scream at the Indian pony. Before that furious leap both man
+and pony went down and rolled over and over in front of the pounding
+herd. Over the prostrate pony leaped the horse and up the hillside fair
+in the face of that rushing mass of maddened steers. Straight across
+their face sped the horse and his rider, galloping lightly, with never
+a swerve or hesitation, then swiftly wheeling as the steers drew almost
+level with him he darted furiously on their flank and rode close at
+their noses. “Crack! Crack!” rang the rider's revolver, and two steers
+in the far flank dropped to the earth while over them surged the
+following herd. Again the revolver rang out, once, twice, thrice, and
+at each crack a leader on the flank farthest away plunged down and was
+submerged by the rushing tide behind. For an instant the column faltered
+on its left and slowly began to swerve in that direction. Then upon the
+leaders of the right flank the black horse charged furiously, biting,
+kicking, plunging like a thing possessed of ten thousand devils.
+Steadily, surely the line continued to swerve.
+
+“My God!” cried Cameron, unable to believe his eyes. “They are turning!
+They are turned!”
+
+With wild cries and discharging his revolver fair in the face of the
+leaders, Cameron rushed out into the open and crossed the mouth of the
+funnel.
+
+“Go back, you fool! Go back!” yelled the man on horseback. “Go back! I
+have them!” He was right. Cameron's sudden appearance gave the final and
+necessary touch to the swerving movement. Across the mouth of the funnel
+with its yawning deadly cut-bank, and down the side coulee, carrying
+part of the fence with them, the herd crashed onward, with the black
+horse hanging on their flank still biting and kicking with a kind of
+joyous fury.
+
+“Raven! Raven!” cried Cameron in glad accents. “It is Raven! Thank God,
+he is straight after all!” A great tide of gratitude and admiration
+for the outlaw was welling up in his heart. But even as he ran there
+thundered past him an Indian on horseback, the reins flying loose and a
+rifle in his hands. As he flashed past a gleam of moonlight caught his
+face, the face of a demon.
+
+“Little Thunder!” cried Cameron, whipping out his gun and firing, but
+with no apparent effect, at the flying figure.
+
+With his gun still in his hand, Cameron ran on down the coulee in the
+wake of Little Thunder. Far away could be heard the roar of the rushing
+herd, but nothing could be seen of Raven. Running as he had never run in
+his life, Cameron followed hard upon the Indian's track, who was by this
+time some hundred yards in advance. Suddenly in the moonlight, and far
+down the coulee, Raven could be seen upon his black horse cantering
+easily up the slope and toward the swiftly approaching Indian.
+
+“Raven! Raven!” shouted Cameron, firing his gun. “On guard! On guard!”
+
+Raven heard, looked up and saw the Indian bearing down upon him. His
+horse, too, saw the approaching foe and, gathering himself, in two short
+leaps rushed like a whirlwind at him, but, swerving aside, the Indian
+avoided the charging stallion. Cameron saw his rifle go up to his
+shoulder, a shot reverberated through the coulee, Raven swayed in his
+saddle. A second shot and the black horse was fair upon the Indian pony,
+hurling him to the ground and falling himself upon him. As the Indian
+sprang to his feet Raven was upon him. He gripped him by the throat and
+shook him as a dog shakes a rat. Once, twice, his pistol fell upon the
+snarling face and the Indian crumpled up and lay still, battered to
+death.
+
+“Thank God!” cried Cameron, as he came up, struggling with his sobbing
+breath. “You have got the beast.”
+
+“Yes, I have got him,” said Raven, with his hand to his side, “but I
+guess he has got me too. And--” he paused. His eye fell upon his horse
+lying upon his side and feebly kicking--“ah, I fear he has got you as
+well, Nighthawk, old boy.” As he staggered over toward his horse the
+sound of galloping hoofs was heard coming down the coulee.
+
+“Here are some more of them!” cried Cameron, drawing out his guns.
+
+“All right, Cameron, my boy, just back up here beside me,” said Raven,
+as he coolly loaded his empty revolver. “We can send a few more of these
+devils to hell. You are a good sport, old chap, and I want to go out in
+no better company.”
+
+“Hold up!” cried Cameron. “There is a woman. Why, there is a Policeman.
+They are friends, Raven. It is the doctor and Moira. Hurrah! Here you
+are, Martin. Quick! Quick! Oh, my God! He is dying!”
+
+Raven had sunk to his knees beside his horse. They gathered round him, a
+Mounted Police patrol picked up on the way by Dr. Martin, Moira who had
+come to show them the trail, and Smith.
+
+“Nighthawk, old boy,” they heard Raven say, his hand patting the
+shoulder of the noble animal, “he has done for you, I fear.” His voice
+came in broken sobs. The great horse lifted his beautiful head and
+looked round toward his master. “Ah, my boy, we have done many a journey
+together!” cried Raven as he threw his arm around the glossy neck, “and
+on this last one too we shall not be far apart.” The horse gave a slight
+whinny, nosed into his master's hand and laid his head down again. A
+slight quiver of the limbs and he was still for ever. “Ah, he has gone!”
+ cried Raven, “my best, my only friend.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Cameron, “you are with friends now, Raven, old man.” He
+offered his hand. Raven took it wonderingly.
+
+“You mean it, Cameron?”
+
+“Yes, with all my heart. You are a true man, if God ever made one, and
+you have shown it to-night.”
+
+“Ah!” said Raven, with a kind of sigh as he sank back and leaned up
+against his horse. “That is good to hear. It is long since I have had a
+friend.”
+
+“Quick, Martin!” said Cameron. “He is wounded.”
+
+“What? Where?” said the doctor, kneeling down beside him and tearing
+open his coat and vest. “Oh, my God!” cried the doctor. “He is--” The
+doctor paused abruptly.
+
+“What do you say? Oh, Dr. Martin, he is not badly wounded?” Moira threw
+herself on her knees beside the wounded man and caught his hand. “Oh, it
+is cold, cold,” she cried through rushing tears. “Can you not help him?
+Oh, you must not let him die.”
+
+“Surely he is not dying?” said Cameron.
+
+The doctor was silently and swiftly working with his syringe.
+
+“How long, Doctor?” inquired Raven in a quiet voice.
+
+“Half an hour, perhaps less,” said the doctor brokenly. “Have you any
+pain?”
+
+“No, very little. It is quite easy. Cameron,” he said, his voice
+beginning to fail, “I want you to send a letter which you will find in
+my pocket addressed to my brother. Tell no one the name. And add this,
+that I forgive him. It was really not worth while,” he added wearily,
+“to hate him so. And say to the Superintendent I was on the straight
+with him, with you all, with my country in this rebellion business. I
+heard about this raid; and I fancy I have rather spoiled their pemmican.
+I have run some cattle in my time, but you know, Cameron, a fellow who
+has worn the uniform could not mix in with these beastly breeds against
+the Queen, God bless her!”
+
+“Oh, Dr. Martin,” cried the girl piteously, shaking him by the arm, “do
+not tell me you can do nothing. Try--try something.” She began again to
+chafe the cold hand, her tears falling upon it.
+
+Raven looked up quickly at her.
+
+“You are weeping for me, Miss Moira?” he said, surprise and wonder in
+his face. “For me? A horse-thief, an outlaw, for me? I thank you. And
+forgive me--may I kiss your hand?” He tried feebly to lift her hand to
+his lips.
+
+“No, no,” cried the girl. “Not my hand!” and leaning over him she kissed
+him on the brow. His eyes were still upon her.
+
+“Thank you,” he said feebly, a rare, beautiful smile lighting up the
+white face. “You make me believe in God's mercy.”
+
+There was a quick movement in the group and Smith was kneeling beside
+the dying man.
+
+“God's mercy, Mr. Raven,” he said in an eager voice, “is infinite. Why
+should you not believe in it?”
+
+Raven looked at him curiously.
+
+“Oh, yes,” he said with a quaintly humorous smile, “you are the chap
+that chucked Jerry away from the door?”
+
+Smith nodded, then said earnestly:
+
+“Mr. Raven, you must believe in God's mercy.”
+
+“God's mercy,” said the dying man slowly. “Yes, God's mercy. What is it
+again? 'God--be--merciful--to me--a sinner.'” Once more he opened his
+eyes and let them rest upon the face of the girl bending over him.
+“Yes,” he said, “you helped me to believe in God's mercy.” With a sigh
+as of content he settled himself quietly against the shoulders of his
+dead horse.
+
+“Good old comrade,” he said, “good-by!” He closed his eyes and drew a
+deep breath. They waited for another, but there was no more.
+
+“He is gone,” said the doctor.
+
+“Gone?” cried Moira. “Gone? Ochone, but he was the gallant gentleman!”
+ she wailed, lapsing into her Highland speech. “Oh, but he had the brave
+heart and the true heart. Ochone! Ochone!” She swayed back and forth
+upon her knees with hands clasped and tears running down her cheeks,
+bending over the white face that lay so still in the moonlight and
+touched with the majesty of death.
+
+“Come, Moira! Come, Moira!” said her brother surprised at her unwonted
+display of emotion. “You must control yourself.”
+
+“Leave her alone. Let her cry. She is in a hard spot,” said Dr. Martin
+in a sharp voice in which grief and despair were mingled.
+
+Cameron glanced at his friend's face. It was the face of a haggard old
+man.
+
+“You are used up, old boy,” he said kindly, putting his hand on the
+doctor's arm. “You need rest.”
+
+“Rest?” said the doctor. “Rest? Not I. But you do. And you too, Miss
+Moira,” he added gently. “Come,” giving her his hand, “you must get
+home.” There was in his voice a tone of command that made the girl look
+up quickly and obey.
+
+“And you?” she said. “You must be done.”
+
+“Done? Yes, but what matter? Take her home, Cameron.”
+
+“And what about you?” inquired Cameron.
+
+“Smith, the constable and I will look after--him--and the horse. Send a
+wagon to-morrow morning.”
+
+Without further word the brother and sister mounted their horses.
+
+“Good-by, old man. See you to-morrow,” said Cameron.
+
+“Good-night,” said the doctor shortly.
+
+The girl gave him her hand.
+
+“Good-night,” she said simply, her eyes full of a dumb pain.
+
+“Good-by, Miss Moira,” said the doctor, who held her hand for just a
+moment as if to speak again, then abruptly he turned his back on her
+without further word and so stood with never a glance more after her.
+It was for him a final farewell to hopes that had lived with him and had
+warmed his heart for the past three years. Now they were dead, dead as
+the dead man upon whose white still face he stood looking down.
+
+“Thief, murderer, outlaw,” he muttered to himself. “Sure enough--sure
+enough. And yet you could not help it, nor could she.” But he was not
+thinking of the dead man's record in the books of the Mounted Police.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE GREAT CHIEF
+
+
+On the rampart of hills overlooking the Piegan encampment the sun
+was shining pleasantly. The winter, after its final savage kick, had
+vanished and summer, crowding hard upon spring, was wooing the bluffs
+and hillsides on their southern exposures to don their summer robes of
+green. Not yet had the bluffs and hillsides quite yielded to the wooing,
+not yet had they donned the bright green apparel of summer, but there
+was the promise of summer's color gleaming through the neutral browns
+and grays of the poplar bluffs and the sunny hillsides. The crocuses
+with reckless abandon had sprung forth at the first warm kiss of the
+summer sun and stood bravely, gaily dancing in their purple and gray,
+till whole hillsides blushed for them. And the poplars, hesitating with
+dainty reserve, shivered in shy anticipation and waited for a surer
+call, still wearing their neutral tints, except where they stood
+sheltered by the thick spruces from the surly north wind. There they
+had boldly cast aside all prudery and were flirting in all their gallant
+trappings with the ardent summer.
+
+Seeing none of all this, but dimly conscious of the good of it, Cameron
+and his faithful attendant Jerry lay grimly watching through the
+poplars. Three days had passed since the raid, and as yet there was no
+sign at the Piegan camp of the returning raiders. Not for one hour
+had the camp remained unwatched. Just long enough to bury his new-made
+friend, the dead outlaw, did Cameron himself quit the post, leaving
+Jerry on guard meantime, and now he was back again, with his glasses
+searching every corner of the Piegan camp and watching every movement.
+There was upon his face a look that filled with joy his watchful
+companion, a look that proclaimed his set resolve that when Eagle
+Feather and his young men should appear in camp there would speedily be
+swift and decisive action. For three days his keen eyes had looked forth
+through the delicate green-brown screen of poplar upon the doings of the
+Piegans, the Mounted Police meantime ostentatiously beating up the Blood
+Reserve with unwonted threats of vengeance for the raiders, the bruit of
+which had spread through all the reserves.
+
+“Don't do anything rash,” the Superintendent had admonished, as Cameron
+appeared demanding three troopers and Jerry, with whom to execute
+vengeance upon those who had brought death to a gallant gentleman and
+his gallant steed, for both of whom there had sprung up in Cameron's
+heart a great and admiring affection.
+
+“No, sir,” Cameron had replied, “nothing rash; we will do a little
+justice, that is all,” but with so stern a face that the Superintendent
+had watched him away with some anxiety and had privately ordered a
+strong patrol to keep the Piegan camp under surveillance till Cameron
+had done his work. But there was no call for aid from any patrol, as it
+turned out; and before this bright summer morning had half passed away
+Cameron shut up his glasses, ready for action.
+
+“I think they are all in now, Jerry,” he said. “We will go down. Go and
+bring in the men. There is that devil Eagle Feather just riding in.”
+ Cameron's teeth went hard together on the name of the Chief, in whom
+the leniency of Police administration of justice had bred only a deeper
+treachery.
+
+Within half an hour Cameron with his three troopers and Jerry rode
+jingling into the Piegan camp and disposed themselves at suitable
+points of vantage. Straight to the Chief's tent Cameron rode, and found
+Trotting Wolf standing at its door.
+
+“I want that cattle-thief, Eagle Feather,” he announced in a clear, firm
+voice that rang through the encampment from end to end.
+
+“Eagle Feather not here,” was Trotting Wolf's sullen but disturbed
+reply.
+
+“Trotting Wolf, I will waste no time on you,” said Cameron, drawing his
+gun. “I take Eagle Feather or you. Make your choice and quick about
+it!” There was in Cameron's voice a ring of such compelling command that
+Trotting Wolf weakened visibly.
+
+“I know not where Eagle Feather--”
+
+“Halt there!” cried Cameron to an Indian who was seen to be slinking
+away from the rear of the line of tents.
+
+The Indian broke into a run. Like a whirlwind Cameron was on his trail
+and before he had gained the cover of the woods had overtaken him.
+
+“Halt!” cried Cameron again as he reached the Indian's side. The Indian
+stopped and drew a knife. “You would, eh? Take that, will you?” Leaning
+down over his horse's neck Cameron struck the Indian with the butt of
+his gun. Before he could rise the three constables in a converging rush
+were upon him and had him handcuffed.
+
+“Now then, where is Eagle Feather?” cried Cameron in a furious voice,
+riding his horse into the crowd that had gathered thick about him. “Ah,
+I see you,” he cried, touching his horse with his heel as on the farther
+edge of the crowd he caught sight of his man. With a single bound his
+horse was within touch of the shrinking Indian. “Stand where you are!”
+ cried Cameron, springing from his horse and striding to the Chief. “Put
+up your hands!” he said, covering him with his gun. “Quick, you dog!” he
+added, as Eagle Feather stood irresolute before him. Upon the uplifted
+hands Cameron slipped the handcuffs. “Come with me, you cattle-thief,”
+ he said, seizing him by the gaudy handkerchief that adorned his neck,
+and giving him a quick jerk.
+
+“Trotting Wolf,” said Cameron in a terrible voice, wheeling furiously
+upon the Chief, “this cattle-thieving of your band must stop. I want the
+six men who were in that cattle-raid, or you come with me. Speak quick!”
+ he added.
+
+“By Gar!” said Jerry, hugging himself in his delight, to the trooper who
+was in charge of the first Indian. “Look lak' he tak' de whole camp.”
+
+“By Jove, Jerry, it looks so to me, too! He has got the fear of death on
+these chappies. Look at his face. He looks like the very devil.”
+
+It was true. Cameron's face was gray, with purple blotches, and
+distorted with passion, his eyes were blazing with fury, his manner one
+of reckless savage abandon. There was but little delay. The rumors
+of vengeance stored up for the raiders, the paralyzing effect of the
+failure of the raid, the condemnation of a guilty conscience, but
+above all else the overmastering rage of Cameron, made anything like
+resistance simply impossible. In a very few minutes Cameron had his
+prisoners in line and was riding to the Fort, where he handed them over
+to the Superintendent for justice.
+
+That business done, he found his patrol-work pressing upon him with a
+greater insistence than ever, for the runners from the half-breeds and
+the Northern Indians were daily arriving at the reserves bearing
+reports of rebel victories of startling magnitude. But even without
+any exaggeration tales grave enough were being carried from lip to lip
+throughout the Indian tribes. Small wonder that the irresponsible young
+Chiefs, chafing under the rule of the white man and thirsting for the
+mad rapture of fight, were straining almost to the breaking point the
+authority of the cooler older heads, so that even that subtle redskin
+statesman, Crowfoot, began to fear for his own position in the Blackfeet
+confederacy.
+
+As the days went on the Superintendent at Macleod, whose duty it was to
+hold in statu quo that difficult country running up into the mountains
+and down to the American boundary-line, found his task one that would
+have broken a less cool-headed and stout-hearted officer.
+
+The situation in which he found himself seemed almost to invite
+destruction. On the eighteenth of March he had sent the best of his men,
+some twenty-five of them, with his Inspector, to join the Alberta Field
+Force at Calgary, whence they made that famous march to Edmonton of over
+two hundred miles in four and a half marching days. From Calgary, too,
+had gone a picked body of Police with Superintendent Strong and his
+scouts as part of the Alberta Field Force under General Strange. Thus
+it came that by the end of April the Superintendent at Fort Macleod had
+under his command only a handful of his trained Police, supported by two
+or three companies of Militia--who, with all their ardor, were unskilled
+in plain-craft, strange to the country, new to war, ignorant of the
+habits and customs and temper of the Indians with whom they were
+supposed to deal--to hold the vast extent of territory under his charge,
+with its little scattered hamlets of settlers, safe in the presence of
+the largest and most warlike of the Indian tribes in Western Canada.
+
+Every day the strain became more intense. A crisis appeared to be
+reached when the news came that on the twenty-fourth of April General
+Middleton had met a check at Fish Creek, which, though not specially
+serious in itself, revealed the possibilities of the rebel strategy and
+gave heart to the enemy immediately engaged.
+
+And, though Fish Creek was no great fight, the rumor of it ran through
+the Western reserves like red fire through prairie-grass, blowing almost
+into flame the war-spirit of the young braves of the Bloods, Piegans
+and Sarcees and even of the more stable Blackfeet. Three days after that
+check, the news of it was humming through every tepee in the West,
+and for a week or more it took all the cool courage and steady nerve
+characteristic of the Mounted Police to enable them to ride without
+flurry or hurry their daily patrols through the reserves.
+
+At this crisis it was that the Superintendent at Macleod gathered
+together such of his officers and non-commissioned officers as he could
+in council at Fort Calgary, to discuss the situation and to plan for all
+possible emergencies. The full details of the Fish Creek affair had just
+come in. They were disquieting enough, although the Superintendent made
+light of them. On the wall of the barrack-room where the council was
+gathered there hung a large map of the Territories. The Superintendent,
+a man of small oratorical powers, undertook to set forth the disposition
+of the various forces now operating in the West.
+
+“Here you observe the main line running west from Regina to the
+mountains, some five hundred and fifty miles,” he said. “And here,
+roughly, two hundred and fifty miles north, is the northern boundary
+line of our settlements, Prince Albert at the east, Battleford at the
+center, Edmonton at the west, each of these points the center of a
+country ravaged by half-breeds and bands of Indians. To each of these
+points relief-expeditions have been sent.
+
+“This line represents the march of Commissioner Irvine from Regina to
+Prince Albert--a most remarkable march that was too, gentlemen, nearly
+three hundred miles over snow-bound country in about seven days. That
+march will be remembered, I venture to say. The Commissioner still holds
+Prince Albert, and we may rely upon it will continue to hold it safe
+against any odds. Meantime he is scouting the country round about,
+preventing Indians from reinforcing the enemy in any large numbers.
+
+“Next, to the west is Battleford, which holds the central position and
+is the storm-center of the rebellion at present. This line shows the
+march of Colonel Otter with Superintendent Herchmer from Swift Current
+to that point. We have just heard that Colonel Otter has arrived at
+Battleford and has raised the siege. But large bands of Indians are
+in the vicinity of Battleford and the situation there is extremely
+critical. I understand that old Oo-pee-too-korah-han-apee-wee-yin--” the
+Superintendent prided himself upon his mastery of Indian names and
+ran off this polysyllabic cognomen with the utmost facility--“the
+Pond-maker, or Pound-maker as he has come to be called, is in the
+neighborhood. He is not a bad fellow, but he is a man of unusual
+ability, far more able than of the Willow Crees, Beardy, as he is
+called, though not so savage, and he has a large and compact body of
+Indians under him.
+
+“Then here straight north from us some two hundred miles is Edmonton,
+the center of a very wide district sparsely settled, with a strong
+half-breed element in the immediate neighborhood and Big Bear and Little
+Pine commanding large bodies of Indians ravaging the country round
+about. Inspector Griesbach is in command of this district, located
+at Fort Saskatchewan, which is in close touch with Edmonton. General
+Strange, commanding the Alberta Field Force and several companies of
+Militia, together with our own men under Superintendent Strong and
+Inspector Dickson, are on the way to relieve this post. Inspector
+Dickson, I understand, has successfully made the crossing of the Red
+Deer with his nine pr. gun, a quite remarkable feat I assure you.
+
+“But, gentlemen, you see the position in which we are placed in
+this section of the country. From the Cypress Hills here away to the
+southeast, westward to the mountains and down to the boundary-line,
+you have a series of reserves almost completely denuded of Police
+supervision. True, we are fortunate in having at the Blackfoot Crossing,
+at Fort Calgary and at Fort Macleod, companies of Militia; but the very
+presence of these troops incites the Indians, and in some ways is a
+continual source of unrest among them.
+
+“Every day runners from the North and East come to our reserves with
+extraordinary tales of rebel victories. This Fish Creek business has had
+a tremendous influence upon the younger element. On every reserve there
+are scores of young braves eager to rise. What a general uprising would
+mean you know, or think you know. An Indian war of extermination is
+a horrible possibility. The question before us all is--what is to be
+done?”
+
+After a period of conversation the Superintendent summed up the results
+of the discussion in a few short sentences:
+
+“It seems, gentlemen, there is not much more to be done than what we
+are already doing. But first of all I need not say that we must keep our
+nerve. I do not believe any Indian will see any sign of doubt or fear in
+the face of any member of this Force. Our patrols must be regularly
+and carefully done. There are a lot of things which we must not see, a
+certain amount of lawbreaking which we must not notice. Avoid on every
+possible occasion pushing things to extremes; but where it is necessary
+to act we must act with promptitude and fearlessness, as Mr. Cameron
+here did at the Piegan Reserve a week or so ago. I mention this because
+I consider that action of Cameron's a typically fine piece of Police
+work. We must keep on good terms with the Chiefs, tell them what good
+news there is to tell. We must intercept every runner possible. Arrest
+them and bring them to the barracks. The situation is grave, but not
+hopeless. Great responsibilities rest upon us, gentlemen. I do not
+believe that we shall fail.”
+
+The little company broke up with resolute and grim determination stamped
+on every face. There would be no weakening at any spot where a Mounted
+Policeman was on duty.
+
+“Cameron, just a moment,” said the Superintendent as he was passing out.
+“Sit down. You were quite right in that Eagle Feather matter. You did
+the right thing in pushing that hard.”
+
+“I somehow felt I could do it, sir,” replied Cameron simply. “I had the
+feeling in my bones that we could have taken the whole camp that day.”
+
+The Superintendent nodded. “I understand. And that is the way we should
+feel. But don't do anything rash this week. This is a week of crisis.
+If any further reverse should happen to our troops it will be extremely
+difficult, if indeed possible, to hold back the younger braves. If there
+should be a rising--which may God forbid--my plan then would be to back
+right on to the Blackfeet Reserve. If old Crowfoot keeps steady--and
+with our presence to support him I believe he would--we could hold
+things safe for a while. But, Cameron, that Sioux devil Copperhead must
+be got rid of. It is he that is responsible for this restless spirit
+among the younger Chiefs. He has been in the East, you say, for the last
+three weeks, but he will soon be back. His runners are everywhere. His
+work lies here, and the only hope for the rebellion lies here, and he
+knows it. My scouts inform me that there is something big immediately
+on. A powwow is arranged somewhere before final action. I have reason to
+suspect that if we sustain another reverse and if the minor Chiefs from
+all the reserves come to an agreement, Crowfoot will yield. That is the
+game that the Sioux is working on now.”
+
+“I know that quite well, sir,” replied Cameron. “Copperhead has captured
+practically all the minor Chiefs.”
+
+“The checking of that big cattle-run, Cameron, was a mighty good stroke
+for us. You did that magnificently.”
+
+“No, sir,” replied Cameron firmly. “We owe that to Raven.”
+
+“Yes, yes, we do owe a good deal to--to--that--to Raven. Fine fellow
+gone wrong. Yes, we owe a lot to him, but we owe a lot to you as
+well, Cameron. I am not saying you will ever get any credit for it,
+but--well--who cares so long as the thing is done? But this Sioux must
+be got at all costs--at all costs, Cameron, remember. I have never
+asked you to push this thing to the limit, but now at all costs, dead or
+alive, that Sioux must be got rid of.”
+
+“I could have potted him several times,” replied Cameron, “but did not
+wish to push matters to extremes.”
+
+“Quite right. Quite right. That has been our policy hitherto, but now
+things have reached such a crisis that we can take no further chances.
+The Sioux must be eliminated.”
+
+“All right, sir,” said Cameron, and a new purpose shaped itself in his
+heart. At all costs he would get the Sioux, alive if possible, dead if
+not.
+
+Plainly the first thing was to uncover his tracks, and with this
+intention Cameron proceeded to the Blackfeet Reserve, riding with Jerry
+down the Bow River from Fort Calgary, until, as the sun was setting on
+an early May evening, he came in sight of the Blackfoot Crossing.
+
+Not wishing to visit the Militia camp at that point, and desiring
+to explore the approaches of the Blackfeet Reserve with as little
+ostentation as possible, he sent Jerry on with the horses, with
+instructions to meet him later on in the evening on the outside of the
+Blackfeet camp, and took a side trail on foot leading to the reserve
+through a coulee. Through the bottom of the coulee ran a little
+stream whose banks were packed tight with alders, willows and poplars.
+Following the trail to where it crossed the stream, Cameron left it for
+the purpose of quenching his thirst, and proceeded up-stream some little
+way from the usual crossing. Lying there prone upon his face he caught
+the sound of hoofs, and, peering through the alders, he saw a line
+of Indians riding down the opposite bank. Burying his head among the
+tangled alders and hardly breathing, he watched them one by one cross
+the stream not more than thirty yards away and clamber up the bank.
+
+“Something doing here, sure enough,” he said to himself as he noted
+their faces. Three of them he knew, Red Crow of the Bloods, Trotting
+Wolf of the Piegans, Running Stream of the Blackfeet, then came three
+others unknown to Cameron, and last in the line Cameron was startled to
+observe Copperhead himself, while close at his side could be seen the
+slim figure of his son. As the Sioux passed by Cameron's hiding-place
+he paused and looked steadily down into the alders for a moment or two,
+then rode on.
+
+“Saved yourself that time, old man,” said Cameron as the Sioux
+disappeared, following the others up the trail. “We will see just which
+trail you take,” he continued, following them at a safe distance and
+keeping himself hidden by the brush till they reached the open and
+disappeared over the hill. Swiftly Cameron ran to the top, and, lying
+prone among the prairie grass, watched them for some time as they took
+the trail that ran straight westward.
+
+“Sarcee Reserve more than likely,” he muttered to himself. “If Jerry
+were only here! But he is not, so I must let them go in the meantime.
+Later, however, we shall come up with you, gentlemen. And now for old
+Crowfoot and with no time to lose.”
+
+He had only a couple of miles to go and in a few minutes he had reached
+the main trail from the Militia camp at the Crossing. In the growing
+darkness he could not discern whether Jerry had passed with the horses
+or not, so he pushed on rapidly to the appointed place of meeting and
+there found Jerry waiting for him.
+
+“Listen, Jerry!” said he. “Copperhead is back. I have just seen him
+and his son with Red Crow, Trotting Wolf and Running Stream. There were
+three others--Sioux I think they are; at any rate I did not know them.
+They passed me in the coulee and took the Sarcee trail. Now what do you
+think is up?”
+
+Jerry pondered. “Come from Crowfoot, heh?”
+
+“From the reserve here anyway,” answered Cameron.
+
+“Trotting Wolf beeg Chief--Red Crow beeg Chief--ver' bad! ver' bad!
+Dunno me--look somet'ing--beeg powwow mebbe. Ver' bad! Ver' bad! Go
+Sarcee Reserve, heh?” Again Jerry pondered. “Come from h'east--by
+Blood--Piegan--den Blackfeet--go Sarcee. What dey do? Where go den?”
+
+“That is the question, Jerry,” said Cameron.
+
+“Sout' to Weegwam? No, nord to Ghost Reever--Manitou
+Rock--dunno--mebbe.”
+
+“By Jove, Jerry, I believe you may be right. I don't think they would go
+to the Wigwam--we caught them there once--nor to the canyon. What about
+this Ghost River? I don't know the trail. Where is it?”
+
+“Nord from Bow Reever by Kananaskis half day to Ghost Reever--bad
+trail--small leetle reever--ver' stony--ver' cold--beeg tree wit' long
+beard.”
+
+“Long beard?”
+
+“Yes--long, long gray moss lak' beard--ver' strange place dat--from
+Ghost Reever west one half day to beeg Manitou Rock--no trail. Beeg
+medicine-dance dere--see heem once long tam' 'go--leetle boy me--beeg
+medicine--Indian debbil stay dere--Indian much scare'--only go when mak'
+beeg tam'--beeg medicine.”
+
+“Let me see if I get you, Jerry. A bad trail leads half a day north from
+the Bow at Kananaskis to Ghost River, eh?”
+
+Jerry nodded.
+
+“Then up the Ghost River westward through the bearded trees half a day
+to the Manitou Rock? Is that right?”
+
+Again Jerry nodded.
+
+“How shall I know the rock?”
+
+“Beeg rock,” said Jerry. “Beeg dat tree,” pointing to a tall poplar,
+“and cut straight down lak some knife--beeg rock--black rock.”
+
+“All right,” said Cameron. “What I want to know just now is does
+Crowfoot know of this thing? I fancy he must. I am going in to see him.
+Copperhead has just come from the reserve. He has Running Stream with
+him. It is possible, just possible, that he may not have seen Crowfoot.
+This I shall find out. Now, Jerry, you must follow Copperhead, find out
+where he has gone and all you can about this business, and meet me
+where the trail reaches the Ghost River. Call in at Fort Calgary. Take a
+trooper with you to look after the horses. I shall follow you to-morrow.
+If you are not at the Ghost River I shall go right on--that is if I see
+any signs.”
+
+“Bon! Good!” said Jerry. And without further word he slipped on to his
+horse and disappeared into the darkness, taking the cross-trail through
+the coulee by which Cameron had come.
+
+Crowfoot's camp showed every sign of the organization and discipline of
+a master spirit. The tents and houses in which his Indians lived were
+extended along both sides of a long valley flanked at both ends by
+poplar-bluffs. At the bottom of the valley there was a series of
+“sleughs” or little lakes, affording good grazing and water for the
+herds of cattle and ponies that could be seen everywhere upon the
+hillsides. At a point farthest from the water and near to a poplar-bluff
+stood Crowfoot's house. At the first touch of summer, however,
+Crowfoot's household had moved out from their dwelling, after the manner
+of the Indians, and had taken up their lodging in a little group of
+tents set beside the house.
+
+Toward this little group of tents Cameron rode at an easy lope. He found
+Crowfoot alone beside his fire, except for the squaws that were cleaning
+up after the evening meal and the papooses and older children rolling
+about on the grass. As Cameron drew near, all vanished, except Crowfoot
+and a youth about seventeen years of age, whose strongly marked features
+and high, fearless bearing proclaimed him Crowfoot's son. Dismounting,
+Cameron dropped the reins over his horse's head and with a word of
+greeting to the Chief sat down by the fire. Crowfoot acknowledged his
+salutation with a suspicious look and grunt.
+
+“Nice night, Crowfoot,” said Cameron cheerfully. “Good weather for the
+grass, eh?”
+
+“Good,” said Crowfoot gruffly.
+
+Cameron pulled out his tobacco pouch and passed it to the Chief. With an
+air of indescribable condescension Crowfoot took the pouch, knocked the
+ashes from his pipe, filled it from the pouch and handed it back to the
+owner.
+
+“Boy smoke?” inquired Cameron, holding out the pouch toward the youth.
+
+“Huh!” grunted Crowfoot with a slight relaxing of his face. “Not
+yet--too small.”
+
+The lad stood like a statue, and, except for a slight stiffening of
+his tall lithe figure, remained absolutely motionless, after the Indian
+manner. For some time they smoked in silence.
+
+“Getting cold,” said Cameron at length, as he kicked the embers of the
+fire together.
+
+Crowfoot spoke to his son and the lad piled wood on the fire till it
+blazed high, then, at a sign from his father, he disappeared into the
+tent.
+
+“Ha! That is better,” said Cameron, stretching out his hands toward the
+fire and disposing himself so that the old Chief's face should be set
+clearly in its light.
+
+“The Police ride hard these days?” said Crowfoot in his own language,
+after a long silence.
+
+“Oh, sometimes,” replied Cameron carelessly, “when cattle-thieves ride
+too.”
+
+“Huh?” inquired Crowfoot innocently.
+
+“Yes, some Indians forget all that the Police have done for them,
+and like coyotes steal upon the cattle at night and drive them over
+cut-banks.”
+
+“Huh?” inquired Crowfoot again, apparently much interested.
+
+“Yes,” continued Cameron, fully aware that he was giving the old Chief
+no news, “Eagle Feather will be much wiser when he rides over the plains
+again.”
+
+“Huh!” ejaculated the Chief in agreement.
+
+“But Eagle Feather,” continued Cameron, “is not the worst Indian. He is
+no good, only a little boy who does what he is told.”
+
+“Huh?” inquired Crowfoot with childlike simplicity.
+
+“Yes, he is an old squaw serving his Chief.”
+
+“Huh?” again inquired Crowfoot, moving his pipe from his mouth in his
+apparent anxiety to learn the name of this unknown master of Eagle
+Feather.
+
+“Onawata, the Sioux, is a great Chief,” said Cameron.
+
+Crowfoot grunted his indifference.
+
+“He makes all the little Chiefs, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee, Blackfeet obey
+him,” said Cameron in a scornful voice, shading his face from the fire
+with his hand.
+
+This time Crowfoot made no reply.
+
+“But he has left this country for a while?” continued Cameron.
+
+Crowfoot grunted acquiescence.
+
+“My brother has not seen this Sioux for some weeks?” Again Cameron's
+hand shaded his face from the fire while his eyes searched the old
+Chief's impassive countenance.
+
+“No,” said Crowfoot. “Not for many days. Onawata bad man--make much
+trouble.”
+
+“The big war is going on good,” said Cameron, abruptly changing the
+subject.
+
+“Huh?” inquired Crowfoot, looking up quickly.
+
+“Yes,” said Cameron. “At Fish Creek the half-breeds and Indians had a
+good chance to wipe out General Middleton's column.” And he proceeded
+to give a graphic account of the rebels' opportunity at that unfortunate
+affair. “But,” he concluded, “the half-breeds and Indians have no
+Chief.”
+
+“No Chief,” agreed Crowfoot with emphasis, his old eyes gleaming in
+the firelight. “No Chief,” he repeated. “Where Big Bear--Little
+Pine--Kah-mee-yes-too-waegs and Oo-pee-too-korah-han-ap-ee-wee-yin?”
+
+“Oh,” said Cameron, “here, there, everywhere.”
+
+“Huh! No big Chief,” grunted Crowfoot in disgust. “One big Chief make
+all Indians one.”
+
+It seemed worth while to Cameron to take a full hour from his precious
+time to describe fully the operations of the troops and to make clear
+to the old warrior the steady advances which the various columns were
+making, the points they had relieved and the ultimate certainty of
+victory.
+
+“Six thousand men now in the West,” he concluded, “besides the Police.
+And ten thousand more waiting to come.”
+
+Old Crowfoot was evidently much impressed and was eager to learn more.
+
+“I must go now,” said Cameron, rising. “Where is Running Stream?” he
+asked, suddenly facing Crowfoot.
+
+“Huh! Running Stream he go hunt--t'ree day--not come back,” answered
+Crowfoot quickly.
+
+Cameron sat down again by the fire, poked up the embers till the blaze
+mounted high.
+
+“Crowfoot,” he said solemnly, “this day Onawata was in this camp and
+spoke with you. Wait!” he said, putting up his hand as the old Chief
+was about to speak. “This evening he rode away with Running Stream, Red
+Crow, Trotting Wolf. The Sioux for many days has been leading about your
+young men like dogs on a string. To-day he has put the string round the
+necks of Red Crow, Running Stream, Trotting Wolf. I did not think he
+could lead Crowfoot too like a little dog.
+
+“Wait!” he said again as Crowfoot rose to his feet in indignation.
+“Listen! The Police will get that Sioux. And the Police will take the
+Chiefs that he led round like little dogs and send them away. The Great
+Mother cannot have men as Chiefs whom she cannot trust. For many years
+the Police have protected the Indians. It was Crowfoot himself who once
+said when the treaty was being made--Crowfoot will remember--'If the
+Police had not come to the country where would we all be now? Bad men
+and whisky were killing us so fast that very few indeed of us would have
+been left to-day. The Police have protected us as the feathers of the
+bird protect it from the frosts of winter.' This is what Crowfoot said
+to the Great Mother's Councilor when he made a treaty with the Great
+Mother.”
+
+Here Cameron rose to his feet and stood facing the Chief.
+
+“Is Crowfoot a traitor? Does he give his hand and draw it back again?
+It is not good that, when trouble comes, the Indians should join the
+enemies of the Police and of the Great Mother across the sea. These
+enemies will be scattered like dust before the wind. Does Crowfoot think
+when the leaves have fallen from the trees this year there will be any
+enemies left? Bah! This Sioux dog does not know the Great Mother, nor
+her soldiers, nor her Police. Crowfoot knows. Why does he talk to the
+enemies of the Great Mother and of his friends the Police? What does
+Crowfoot say? I go to-night to take Onawata. Already my men are upon his
+trail. Where does Crowfoot stand? With Onawata and the little Chiefs
+he leads around or with the Great Mother and the Police? Speak! I am
+waiting.”
+
+The old Chief was deeply stirred. For some moments while Cameron was
+speaking he had been eagerly seeking an opportunity to reply, but
+Cameron's passionate torrent of words prevented him breaking in without
+discourtesy. When Cameron ceased, however, the old Chief stretched out
+his hand and in his own language began:
+
+“Many years ago the Police came to this country. My people then were
+poor--”
+
+At this point the sound of a galloping horse was heard, mingled with the
+loud cries of its rider. Crowfoot paused and stood intently listening.
+Cameron could get no meaning from the shouting. From every tent men came
+running forth and from the houses along the trail on every hand, till
+before the horse had gained Crowfoot's presence there had gathered about
+the Chief's fire a considerable crowd of Indians, whose numbers were
+momentarily augmented by men from the tents and houses up and down the
+trail.
+
+In calm and dignified silence the old Chief waited the rider's word. He
+was an Indian runner and he bore an important message.
+
+Dismounting, the runner stood, struggling to recover his breath and to
+regain sufficient calmness to deliver his message in proper form to the
+great Chief of the Blackfeet confederacy. While he stood thus struggling
+with himself Cameron took the opportunity to closely scrutinize his
+face.
+
+“A Sarcee,” he muttered. “I remember him--an impudent cur.” He moved
+quietly toward his horse, drew the reins up over his head, and, leading
+him back toward the fire, took his place beside Crowfoot again.
+
+The Sarcee had begun his tale, speaking under intense excitement which
+he vainly tried to control. He delivered his message. Such was the
+rapidity and incoherence of his speech, however, that Cameron could make
+nothing of it. The effect upon the crowd was immediate and astounding.
+On every side rose wild cries of fierce exultation, while at Cameron
+angry looks flashed from every eye. Old Crowfoot alone remained quiet,
+calm, impassive, except for the fierce gleaming of his steady eyes.
+
+When the runner had delivered his message he held up his hand and
+spoke but a single word. Immediately there was silence as of the grave.
+Nothing was heard, not even the breathing of the Indians close about
+him. In sharp, terse sentences the old Chief questioned the runner, who
+replied at first eagerly, then, as the questions proceeded, with some
+hesitation. Finally, with a wave of the hand Crowfoot dismissed him and
+stood silently pondering for some moments. Then he turned to his people
+and said with quiet and impressive dignity:
+
+“This is a matter for the Council. To-morrow we will discuss it.” Then
+turning to Cameron he said in a low voice and with grave courtesy, “It
+is wise that my brother should go while the trails are open.”
+
+“The trails are always open to the Great Mother's Mounted Police,” said
+Cameron, looking the old Chief full in the eye.
+
+Crowfoot stood silent, evidently thinking deeply.
+
+“It is right that my brother should know,” he said at length, “what the
+runner tells,” and in his deep guttural voice there was a ring of pride.
+
+“Good news is always welcome,” said Cameron, as he coolly pulled out his
+pipe and offered his pouch once more to Crowfoot, who, however, declined
+to see it.
+
+“The white soldiers have attacked the Indians and have been driven
+back,” said Crowfoot with a keen glance at Cameron's face.
+
+“Ah!” said Cameron, smiling. “What Indians? What white soldiers?”
+
+“The soldiers that marched to Battleford. They went against
+Oo-pee-too-korah-han-ap-ee-wee-yin and the Indians did not run away.” No
+words could describe the tone and attitude of exultant and haughty pride
+with which the old Chief delivered this information.
+
+“Crowfoot,” said Cameron with deliberate emphasis, “it was Colonel Otter
+and Superintendent Herchmer of the Mounted Police that went north
+to Battleford. You do not know Colonel Otter, but you do know
+Superintendent Herchmer. Tell me, would Superintendent Herchmer and the
+Police run away?”
+
+“The runner tells that the white soldiers ran away,” said Crowfoot
+stubbornly.
+
+“Then the runner lies!” Cameron's voice rang out loud and clear.
+
+Swift as a lightning flash the Sarcee sprang at Cameron, knife in hand,
+crying in the Blackfeet tongue that terrible cry so long dreaded by
+settlers in the Western States of America, “Death to the white man!”
+ Without apparently moving a muscle, still holding by the mane of his
+horse, Cameron met the attack with a swift and well-placed kick which
+caught the Indian's right wrist and flung his knife high in the air.
+Following up the kick, Cameron took a single step forward and met the
+murderous Sarcee with a straight left-hand blow on the jaw that landed
+the Indian across the fire and deposited him kicking amid the crowd.
+
+Immediately there was a quick rush toward the white man, but the rush
+halted before two little black barrels with two hard, steady, gray eyes
+gleaming behind them.
+
+“Crowfoot!” said Cameron sharply. “I hold ten dead Indians in my hands.”
+
+With a single stride Crowfoot was at Cameron's side. A single sharp
+stern word of command he uttered and the menacing Indians slunk back
+into the shadows, but growling like angry beasts.
+
+“Is it wise to anger my young men?” said Crowfoot in a low voice.
+
+“Is it wise,” replied Cameron sternly, “to allow mad dogs to run loose?
+We kill such mad dogs in my country.”
+
+“Huh,” grunted Crowfoot with a shrug of his shoulders. “Let him die!”
+ Then in a lower voice he added earnestly, “It would be good to take the
+trail before my young men can catch their horses.”
+
+“I was just going, Crowfoot,” said Cameron, stooping to light his
+pipe at the fire. “Good-night. Remember what I have said.” And Cameron
+cantered away with both hands low before him and guiding his broncho
+with his knees, and so rode easily till safely beyond the line of the
+reserve. Once out of the reserve he struck his spurs hard into his horse
+and sent him onward at headlong pace toward the Militia camp.
+
+Ten minutes after his arrival at the camp every soldier was in his place
+ready to strike, and so remained all night, with pickets thrown far out
+listening with ears attent for the soft pad of moccasined feet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE LAST PATROL
+
+
+It was still early morning when Cameron rode into the barrack-yard at
+Fort Calgary. To the Sergeant in charge, the Superintendent of Police
+having departed to Macleod, he reported the events of the preceding
+night.
+
+“What about that rumor, Sergeant?” he inquired after he had told his
+tale.
+
+“Well, I had the details yesterday,” replied the Sergeant. “Colonel
+Otter and a column of some three hundred men with three guns went out
+after Pound-maker. The Indians were apparently strongly posted and could
+not be dislodged, and I guess our men were glad to get out of the scrape
+as easily as they did.”
+
+“Great Heavens!” cried Cameron, more to himself than to the officer,
+“what will this mean to us here?”
+
+The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“The Lord only knows!” he said.
+
+“Well, my business presses all the more,” said Cameron. “I'm going after
+this Sioux. Jerry is already on his trail. I suppose you cannot let
+me have three or four men? There is liable to be trouble and we cannot
+afford to make a mess of this thing.”
+
+“Jerry came in last night asking for a man,” replied the Sergeant, “but
+I could not spare one. However, we will do our best and send you on the
+very first men that come in.”
+
+“Send on half a dozen to-morrow at the very latest,” replied Cameron. “I
+shall rely upon you. Let me give you my trail.”
+
+He left a plan of the Ghost River Trail with the Sergeant and rode to
+look up Dr. Martin. He found the doctor still in bed and wrathful at
+being disturbed.
+
+“I say, Cameron,” he growled, “what in thunder do you mean by roaming
+round this way at night and waking up Christian people out of their
+sleep?”
+
+“Sorry, old boy,” replied Cameron, “but my business is rather
+important.”
+
+And then while the doctor sat and shivered in his night clothes upon the
+side of the bed Cameron gave him in detail the history of the previous
+evening and outlined his plan for the capture of the Sioux.
+
+Dr. Martin listened intently, noting the various points and sketching an
+outline of the trail as Cameron described it.
+
+“I wanted you to know, Martin, in case anything happened. For, well, you
+know how it is with my wife just now. A shock might kill her.”
+
+The doctor growled an indistinct reply.
+
+“That is all, old chap. Good-by,” said Cameron, pressing his hand. “This
+I feel is my last go with old Copperhead.”
+
+“Your last go?”
+
+“Oh, don't be alarmed,” he replied lightly. “I am going to get him this
+time. There will be no trifling henceforth. Well, good-by, I am off.
+By the way, the Sergeant at the barracks has promised to send on half
+a dozen men to-morrow to back me up. You might just keep him in mind of
+that, for things are so pressing here that he might quite well imagine
+that he could not spare the men.”
+
+“Well, that is rather better,” said Martin. “The Sergeant will send
+those men all right, or I will know the reason why. Hope you get your
+game. Good-by, old man.”
+
+A day's ride brought Cameron to Kananaskis, where the Sun Dance Trail
+ends on one side of the Bow River and the Ghost River Trail begins on
+the other. There he found signs to indicate that Jerry was before him
+on his way to the Manitou Rock. As Cameron was preparing to camp for
+the night there came over him a strong but unaccountable presentiment
+of approaching evil, an irresistible feeling that he ought to press
+forward.
+
+“Pshaw! I will be seeing spooks next!” he said impatiently to himself.
+“I suppose it is the Highlander in me that is seeing visions and
+dreaming dreams. I must eat, however, no matter what is going to
+happen.”
+
+Leaving his horse saddled, but removing the bridle, he gave him his
+feed of oats, then he boiled his tea and made his own supper. As he was
+eating the feeling grew more strongly upon him that he should not camp
+but go forward at once. At the same time he made the discovery that the
+weariness that had almost overpowered him during the last half-hour
+of his ride had completely vanished. Hence, with the feeling of half
+contemptuous anger at himself for yielding to his presentiment, he
+packed up his kit again, bridled his horse, and rode on.
+
+The trail was indeed, as Jerry said, “no trail.” It was rugged with
+broken rocks and cumbered with fallen trees, and as it proceeded became
+more indistinct. His horse, too, from sheer weariness, for he had
+already done his full day's journey, was growing less sure footed and
+so went stumbling noisily along. Cameron began to regret his folly in
+yielding to a mere unreasoning imagination and he resolved to spend the
+night at the first camping-ground that should offer. The light of the
+long spring day was beginning to fade from the sky and in the forest the
+deep shadows were beginning to gather. Still no suitable camping-ground
+presented itself and Cameron stubbornly pressed forward through the
+forest that grew denser and more difficult at every step. After some
+hours of steady plodding the trees began to be sensibly larger, the
+birch and poplar gave place to spruce and pine and the underbrush almost
+entirely disappeared. The trail, too, became better, winding between
+the large trees which, with clean trunks, stood wide apart and arranged
+themselves in stately high-arched aisles and long corridors. From the
+lofty branches overhead the gray moss hung in long streamers, as Jerry
+had said, giving to the trees an ancient and weird appearance. Along
+these silent, solemn, gray-festooned aisles and corridors Cameron rode
+with an uncanny sensation that unseen eyes were peering out upon him
+from those dim and festooned corridors on either side. Impatiently he
+strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain. At length, forced by
+the growing darkness, he decided to camp, when through the shadowy and
+silent forest there came to his ears the welcome sound of running water.
+It was to Cameron like the sound of a human voice. He almost called
+aloud to the running stream as to a friend. It was the Ghost River.
+
+In a few minutes he had reached the water and after picketing his horse
+some little distance down the stream and away from the trail, he
+rolled himself in his blanket to sleep. The moon rising above the high
+tree-tops filled the forest aisles with a soft unearthly light. As his
+eye followed down the long dim aisles there grew once more upon him
+the feeling that he was being watched by unseen eyes. Vainly he cursed
+himself for his folly. He could not sleep. A twig broke near him. He
+lay still listening with every nerve taut. He fancied he could hear soft
+feet about him and stealing near. With his two guns in hand he sat bolt
+upright. Straight before him and not more than ten feet away the form of
+an Indian was plainly to be seen. A slight sound to his right drew his
+eyes in that direction. There, too, stood the silent form of an Indian,
+on his left also an Indian. Suddenly from behind him a deep, guttural
+voice spoke, “Look this way!” He turned sharply and found himself gazing
+into a rifle-barrel a few feet from his face. “Now look back!” said the
+voice. He glanced to right and left, only to find rifles leveled at him
+from every side.
+
+“White man put down his guns on ground!” said the same guttural voice.
+
+Cameron hesitated.
+
+“Indian speak no more,” said the voice in a deep growl.
+
+Cameron put his guns down.
+
+“Stand up!” said the voice.
+
+Cameron obeyed. Out from behind the Indian with the leveled rifle glided
+another Indian form. It was Copperhead. Two more Indians appeared with
+him. All thought of resistance passed from Cameron's mind. It would mean
+instant death, and, what to Cameron was worse than death, the certain
+failure of his plans. While he lived he still had hope. Besides, there
+would be the Police next day.
+
+With savage, cruel haste Copperhead bound his hands behind his back and
+as a further precaution threw a cord about his neck.
+
+“Come!” he said, giving the cord a quick jerk.
+
+“Copperhead,” said Cameron through his clenched teeth, “you will one day
+wish you had never done this thing.”
+
+“No speak!” said Copperhead gruffly, jerking the cord so heavily as
+almost to throw Cameron off his feet.
+
+Through the night Cameron stumbled on with his captors, Copperhead in
+front and the others following. Half dead with sleeplessness and blind
+with rage he walked on as if in a hideous nightmare, mechanically
+watching the feet of the Indian immediately in front of him and thus
+saving himself many a cruel fall and a more cruel jerking of the cord
+about his neck, for such was Copperhead's method of lifting him to his
+feet when he fell. It seemed to him as if the night would never pass or
+the journey end.
+
+At length the throbbing of the Indian drum fell upon his ears. It was to
+him a welcome sound. Nothing could be much more agonizing than what he
+was at present enduring. As they approached the Indian camp one of his
+captors raised a wild, wailing cry which resounded through the forest
+with an unearthly sound. Never had such a cry fallen upon Cameron's
+ears. It was the old-time cry of the Indian warriors announcing that
+they were returning in triumph bringing their captives with them.
+The drum-beat ceased. Again the cry was raised, when from the Indian
+encampment came in reply a chorus of similar cries followed by a rush
+of braves to meet the approaching warriors and to welcome them and their
+captives.
+
+With loud and discordant exultation straight into the circle of the
+firelight cast from many fires Copperhead and his companions marched
+their captive. On every side naked painted Indians to the number of
+several score crowded in tumultuous uproar. Not for many years had these
+Indians witnessed their ancient and joyous sport of baiting a prisoner.
+
+As Cameron came into the clear light of the fire instantly low murmurs
+ran round the crowd, for to many of them he was well known. Then silence
+fell upon them. His presence there was clearly a shock to many of
+them. To take prisoner one of the Mounted Police and to submit him to
+indignity stirred strange emotions in their hearts. The keen eye of
+Copperhead noted the sudden change of the mood of the Indians and
+immediately he gave orders to those who held Cameron in charge, with the
+result that they hurried him off and thrust him into a little low hut
+constructed of brush and open in front where, after tying his feet
+securely, they left him with an Indian on guard in front.
+
+For some moments Cameron lay stupid with weariness and pain till his
+weariness overpowered his pain and he sank into sleep. He was recalled
+to consciousness by the sensation of something digging into his ribs. As
+he sat up half asleep a low “hist!” startled him wide awake. His heart
+leaped as he heard out of the darkness a whispered word, “Jerry here.”
+ Cameron rolled over and came close against the little half-breed, bound
+as he was himself. Again came the “hist!”
+
+“Me all lak' youse'f,” said Jerry. “No spik any. Look out front.”
+
+The Indian on guard was eagerly looking and listening to what was going
+on before him beside the fire. At one side of the circle sat the Indians
+in council. Copperhead was standing and speaking to them.
+
+“What is he saying?” said Cameron, his mouth close to Jerry's ear.
+
+“He say dey keel us queeck. Indian no lak' keel. Dey scare Police get
+'em. Copperhead he ver' mad. Say he keel us heemse'f--queeck.”
+
+Again and again and with ever increasing vehemence Copperhead urged his
+views upon the hesitating Indians, well aware that by involving them in
+such a deed of blood he would irrevocably commit them to rebellion. But
+he was dealing with men well-nigh as subtle as himself, and for the very
+same reason as he pressed them to the deed they shrank back from it.
+They were not yet quite prepared to burn their bridges behind them.
+Indeed some of them suggested the wisdom of holding the prisoners as
+hostages in case of necessity arising in the future.
+
+“What Indians are here?” whispered Cameron.
+
+“Piegan, Sarcee, Blood,” breathed Jerry. “No Blackfeet come--not
+yet--Copperhead he look, look, look all yesterday for Blackfeet
+coming. Blackfeet come to-morrow mebbe--den Indian mak' beeg medicine.
+Copperhead he go meet Blackfeet dis day--he catch you--he go 'gain
+to-morrow mebbe--dunno.”
+
+Meantime the discussion in the council was drawing to a climax. With
+the astuteness of a true leader Copperhead ceased to urge his view, and,
+unable to secure the best, wisely determined to content himself with the
+second-best. His vehement tone gave place to one of persuasion. Finally
+an agreement appeared to be reached by all. With one consent the council
+rose and with hands uplifted they all appeared to take some solemn oath.
+
+“What are they saying?” whispered Cameron.
+
+“He say,” replied Jerry, “he go meet Blackfeet and when he bring 'em
+back den dey keel us sure t'ing. But,” added Jerry with a cheerful
+giggle, “he not keel 'em yet, by Gar!”
+
+For some minutes they waited in silence, then they saw Copperhead with
+his bodyguard of Sioux disappear from the circle of the firelight into
+the shadows of the forest.
+
+“Now you go sleep,” whispered Jerry. “Me keep watch.”
+
+Even before he had finished speaking Cameron had lain back upon the
+ground and in spite of the pain in his tightly bound limbs such was his
+utter exhaustion that he fell fast asleep.
+
+It seemed to him but a moment when he was again awakened by the touch
+of a hand stealing over his face. The hand reached his lips and rested
+there, when he started up wide-awake. A soft hiss from the back of the
+hut arrested him.
+
+“No noise,” said a soft guttural voice. Again the hand was thrust
+through the brush wall, this time bearing a knife. “Cut string,”
+ whispered the voice, while the hand kept feeling for the thongs that
+bound Cameron's hands. In a few moments Cameron was free from his bonds.
+
+“Give me the knife,” he whispered. It was placed in his hands.
+
+“Tell you squaw,” said the voice, “sick boy not forget.”
+
+“I will tell her,” replied Cameron. “She will never forget you.” The boy
+laid his hand on Cameron's lips and was gone.
+
+Soon Jerry too was free. Slowly they wormed their way through the flimsy
+brush wall at the back, and, crouching low, looked about them. The camp
+was deep in sleep. The fires were smoldering in their ashes. Not an
+Indian was moving. Lying across the front of their little hut the
+sleeping form of their guard could be seen. The forest was still black
+behind them, but already there was in the paling stars the faint promise
+of the dawn. Hardly daring to breathe, they rose and stood looking at
+each other.
+
+“No stir,” said Jerry with his lips at Cameron's ear. He dropped on his
+hands and knees and began carefully to remove every twig from his path
+so that his feet might rest only upon the deep leafy mold of the
+forest. Carefully Cameron followed his example, and, working slowly and
+painfully, they gained the cover of the dark forest away from the circle
+of the firelight.
+
+Scarcely had they reached that shelter when an Indian rose from beside
+a fire, raked the embers together, and threw some sticks upon it. As
+Cameron stood watching him, his heart-beat thumping in his ears, a
+rotten twig snapped under his feet. The Indian turned his face in their
+direction, and, bending forward, appeared to be listening intently.
+Instantly Jerry, stooping down, made a scrambling noise in the leaves,
+ending with a thump upon the ground. Immediately the Indian relaxed his
+listening attitude, satisfied that a rabbit was scurrying through the
+forest upon his own errand bent. Rigidly silent they stood, watching him
+till long after he had lain down again in his place, then once more they
+began their painful advance, clearing treacherous twigs from every place
+where their feet should rest. Fortunately for their going the forest
+here was largely free from underbrush. Working carefully and painfully
+for half an hour, and avoiding the trail by the Ghost River, they made
+their way out of hearing of the camp and then set off at such speed as
+their path allowed, Jerry in the lead and Cameron following.
+
+“Where are you going, Jerry?” inquired Cameron as the little half-breed,
+without halt or hesitation, went slipping through the forest.
+
+“Kananaskis,” said Jerry. “Strike trail near Bow Reever.”
+
+“Hold up for a moment, Jerry. I want to talk to you,” said Cameron.
+
+“No! Mak' speed now. Stop in brush.”
+
+“All right,” said Cameron, following close upon his heels.
+
+The morning broadened into day, but they made no pause till they had
+left behind them the open timber and gained the cover of the forest
+where the underbrush grew thick. Then Jerry, finding a dry and sheltered
+spot, threw himself down and stretched himself at full length waiting
+for Cameron's word.
+
+“Tired, Jerry?” said Cameron.
+
+“Non,” replied the little man scornfully. “When lie down tak' 'em easy.”
+
+“Good! Now listen! Copperhead is on his way to meet the Blackfeet, but
+I fancy he is going to be disappointed.” Then Cameron narrated to Jerry
+the story of his recent interview with Crowfoot. “So I don't think,” he
+concluded, “any Blackfeet will come. Copperhead and Running Stream are
+going to be sold this time. Besides that the Police are on their way to
+Kananaskis following our trail. They will reach Kananaskis to-night and
+start for Ghost River to-morrow. We ought to get Copperhead between us
+somewhere on the Ghost River trail and we must get him to-day. Where
+will he be now?”
+
+Jerry considered the matter, then, pointing straight eastward, he
+replied:
+
+“On trail Kananaskis not far from Ghost Reever.”
+
+“Will he be that far?” inquired Cameron. “He would have to sleep and
+eat, Jerry.”
+
+“Non! No sleep--hit sam' tam' he run.”
+
+“Then it is quite possible,” said Cameron, “that we may head him off.”
+
+“Mebbe--dunno how fas' he go,” said Jerry.
+
+“By the way, Jerry, when do we eat?” inquired Cameron.
+
+“Pull belt tight,” said Jerry with a grin. “Hit at cache on trail.”
+
+“Do you mean to say you had the good sense to cache some grub, Jerry, on
+your way down?”
+
+“Jerry lak' squirrel,” replied the half-breed. “Cache grub many
+place--sometam come good.”
+
+“Great head, Jerry. Now, where is the cache?”
+
+“Halfway Kananaskis to Ghost Reever.”
+
+“Then, Jerry, we must make that Ghost River trail and make it quick if
+we are to intercept Copperhead.”
+
+“Bon! We mus' mak' beeg speed for sure.” And “make big speed” they
+did, with the result that by midday they struck the trail not far from
+Jerry's cache. As they approached the trail they proceeded with extreme
+caution, for they knew that at any moment they might run upon Copperhead
+and his band or upon some of their Indian pursuers who would assuredly
+be following them hard. A careful scrutiny of the trail showed that
+neither Copperhead nor their pursuers had yet passed by.
+
+“Come now ver' soon,” said Jerry, as he left the trail, and, plunging
+into the brush, led the way with unerring precision to where he had made
+his cache. Quickly they secured the food and with it made their way back
+to a position from which they could command a view of the trail.
+
+“Go sleep now,” said Jerry, after they had done. “Me watch one hour.”
+
+Gladly Cameron availed himself of the opportunity to catch up his sleep,
+in which he was many hours behind. He stretched himself on the ground
+and in a moment's time lay as completely unconscious as if dead. But
+before half of his allotted time was gone he was awakened by Jerry's
+hand pressing steadily upon his arm.
+
+“Indian come,” whispered the half-breed. Instantly Cameron was
+wide-awake and fully alert.
+
+“How many, Jerry?” he asked, lying with his ear to the ground.
+
+“Dunno. T'ree--four mebbe.”
+
+They had not long to wait. Almost as Jerry was speaking the figure of an
+Indian came into view, running with that tireless trot that can wear out
+any wild animal that roams the woods.
+
+“Copperhead!” whispered Cameron, tightening his belt and making as if to
+rise.
+
+“Wait!” replied Jerry. “One more.”
+
+Following Copperhead, and running not close upon him but at some
+distance behind, came another Indian, then another, till three had
+passed their hiding-place.
+
+“Four against two, Jerry,” said Cameron. “That is all right. They have
+their knives, I see, but only one gun. We have no guns and only one
+knife. But Jerry, we can go in and kill them with our bare hands.”
+
+Jerry nodded carelessly. He had fought too often against much greater
+odds in Police battles to be unduly disturbed at the present odds.
+
+Silently and at a safe distance behind they fell into the wake of the
+running Indians, Jerry with his moccasined feet leading the way. Mile
+after mile they followed the trail, ever on the alert for the doubling
+back of those whom they were pursuing. Suddenly Cameron heard a sharp
+hiss from Jerry in front. Swiftly he flung himself into the brush and
+lay still. Within a minute he saw coming back upon the trail an Indian,
+silent as a shadow and listening at every step. The Indian passed his
+hiding-place and for some minutes Cameron lay watching until he saw him
+return in the same stealthy manner. After some minutes had elapsed a
+soft hiss from Jerry brought Cameron cautiously out upon the trail once
+more.
+
+“All right,” whispered Jerry. “All Indians pass on before.” And once
+more they went forward.
+
+A second time during the afternoon Jerry's warning hiss sent Cameron
+into the brush to allow an Indian to scout his back trail. It was clear
+that the presence of Cameron and the half-breed upon the Ghost River
+trail had awakened the suspicion in Copperhead's mind that the plan to
+hold a powwow at Manitou Rock was known to the Police and that they were
+on his trail. It became therefore increasingly evident to Cameron that
+any plan that involved the possibility of taking Copperhead unawares
+would have to be abandoned. He called Jerry back to him.
+
+“Jerry,” he said, “if that Indian doubles back on his track again I mean
+to get him. If we get him the other chaps will follow. If I only had a
+gun! But this knife is no use to me.”
+
+“Give heem to me,” said Jerry eagerly. “I find heem good.”
+
+It was toward the close of the afternoon when again Jerry's hiss warned
+Cameron that the Indian was returning upon his trail. Cameron stepped
+into the brush at the side, and, crouching low, prepared for the
+encounter, but as he was about to spring Jerry flashed past him, and,
+hurling himself upon the Indian's back, gripped him by the throat and
+bore him choking to earth, knocking the wind out of him and rendering
+him powerless. Jerry's knife descended once bright, once red, and the
+Indian with a horrible gasping cry lay still.
+
+“Quick!” cried Cameron, seizing the dead man by the shoulders. “Lift him
+up!”
+
+Jerry sprang to seize the legs, and, taking care not to break down the
+brush on either side of the trail, they lifted the body into the thick
+underwood and concealing themselves beside it awaited events. Hardly
+were they out of sight when they heard the soft pad of several feet
+running down the trail. Opposite them the feet stopped abruptly.
+
+“Huh!” grunted the Indian runner, and darted back by the way he had
+come.
+
+“Heem see blood,” whispered Jerry. “Go back tell Copperhead.”
+
+With every nerve strung to its highest tension they waited, crouching,
+Jerry tingling and quivering with the intensity of his excitement,
+Cameron quiet, cool, as if assured of the issue.
+
+“I am going to get that devil this time, Jerry,” he breathed. “He
+dragged me by the neck once. I will show him something.”
+
+Jerry laid his hand upon his arm. At a little distance from them there
+was a sound of creeping steps. A few moments they waited and at their
+side the brush began to quiver. A moment later beside Cameron's face
+a hand carrying a rifle parted the screen of spruce boughs. Quick as
+a flash Cameron seized the wrist, gripping it with both hands, and,
+putting his weight into the swing, flung himself backwards; at the same
+time catching the body with his knee, he heaved it clear over their
+heads and landed it hard against a tree. The rifle tumbled from the
+Indian's hand and he lay squirming on the ground. Immediately as Jerry
+sprang for the rifle a second Indian thrust his face through the screen,
+caught sight of Jerry with the rifle, darted back and disappeared with
+Jerry hard upon his trail. Scarcely had they vanished into the brush
+when Cameron, hearing a slight sound at his back, turned swiftly to
+see a tall Indian charging upon him with knife raised to strike. He had
+barely time to thrust up his arm and divert the blow from his neck to
+his shoulder when the Indian was upon him like a wild cat.
+
+“Ha! Copperhead!” cried Cameron with exultation, as he flung him off.
+“At last I have you! Your time has come!”
+
+The Sioux paused in his attack, looking scornfully at his antagonist.
+He was dressed in a highly embroidered tight-fitting deerskin coat and
+leggings.
+
+“Huh!” he grunted in a voice of quiet, concentrated fury. “The white dog
+will die.”
+
+“No, Copperhead,” replied Cameron quietly. “You have a knife, I have
+none, but I shall lead you like a dog into the Police guard-house.”
+
+The Sioux said nothing in reply, but kept circling lightly on his toes
+waiting his chance to spring. As the two men stood facing each other
+there was little to choose between them in physical strength and agility
+as well as in intelligent fighting qualities. There was this difference,
+however, that the Indian's fighting had ever been to kill, the white
+man's simply to win. But this difference to-day had ceased to exist.
+There was in Cameron's mind the determination to kill if need be. One
+immense advantage the Indian held in that he possessed a weapon in
+the use of which he was a master and by means of which he had already
+inflicted a serious wound upon his enemy, a wound which as yet was but
+slightly felt. To deprive the Indian of that knife was Cameron's first
+aim. That once achieved, the end could not long be delayed; for the
+Indian, though a skillful wrestler, knows little of the art of fighting
+with his hands.
+
+As Cameron stood on guard watching his enemy's movements, his mind
+recalled in swift review the various wrongs he had suffered at his
+hands, the fright and insult to his wife, the devastation of his home,
+the cattle-raid involving the death of Raven, and lastly he remembered
+with a deep rage his recent humiliation at the Indian's hands and how
+he had been hauled along by the neck and led like a dog into the Indian
+camp. At these recollections he became conscious of a burning desire to
+humiliate the redskin who had dared to do these things to him.
+
+With this in mind he waited the Indian's attack. The attack came swift
+as a serpent's dart, a feint to strike, a swift recoil, then like
+a flash of light a hard drive with the knife. But quick as was the
+Indian's drive Cameron was quicker. Catching the knife-hand at the wrist
+he drew it sharply down, meeting at the same time the Indian's chin with
+a short, hard uppercut that jarred his head so seriously that his grip
+on the knife relaxed and it fell from his hand. Cameron kicked it behind
+him into the brush while the Indian, with a mighty wrench, released
+himself from Cameron's grip and sprang back free. For some time the
+Indian kept away out of Cameron's reach as if uncertain of himself.
+Cameron taunted him.
+
+“Onawata has had enough! He cannot fight unless he has a knife! See! I
+will punish the great Sioux Chief like a little child.”
+
+So saying, Cameron stepped quickly toward him, made a few passes and
+once, twice, with his open hand slapped the Indian's face hard. In a mad
+fury of passion the Indian rushed upon him. Cameron met him with blows,
+one, two, three, the last one heavy enough to lay him on the ground
+insensible.
+
+“Oh, get up!” said Cameron contemptuously, kicking him as he might a
+dog. “Get up and be a man!”
+
+Slowly the Indian rose, wiping his bleeding lips, hate burning in his
+eyes, but in them also a new look, one of fear.
+
+“Ha! Onawata is a great fighter!” smiled Cameron, enjoying to the full
+the humiliation of his enemy.
+
+Slowly the Indian gathered himself together. He was no coward and he was
+by no means beaten as yet, but this kind of fighting was new to him. He
+apparently determined to avoid those hammering fists of the white man.
+With extraordinary agility he kept out of Cameron's reach, circling
+about him and dodging in and out among the trees. While thus pressing
+hard upon the Sioux Cameron suddenly became conscious of a sensation
+of weakness. The bloodletting of the knife wound was beginning to tell.
+Cameron began to dread that if ever this Indian made up his mind to run
+away he might yet escape. He began to regret his trifling with him and
+he resolved to end the fight as soon as possible with a knock-out blow.
+
+The quick eye of the Indian perceived that Cameron's breath was coming
+quicker, and, still keeping carefully out of his enemy's reach, he
+danced about more swiftly than ever. Cameron realized that he must bring
+the matter quickly to an end. Feigning a weakness greater than he felt,
+he induced the Indian to run in upon him, but this time the Indian
+avoided the smashing blow with which Cameron met him, and, locking his
+arms about his antagonist and gripping him by the wounded shoulder,
+began steadily to wear him to the ground. Sickened by the intensity
+of the pain in his wounded shoulder, Cameron felt his strength rapidly
+leaving him. Gradually the Indian shifted his hand up from the shoulder
+to the neck, the fingers working their way toward Cameron's face. Well
+did Cameron know the savage trick which the Indian had in mind. In a
+few minutes more those fingers would be in Cameron's eyes pressing the
+eyeballs from their sockets. It was now the Indian's turn to jibe.
+
+“Huh!” he exclaimed. “White man no good. Soon he see no more.”
+
+The taunt served to stimulate every ounce of Cameron's remaining
+strength. With a mighty effort he wrenched the Indian's hand from his
+face, and, tearing himself free, swung his clenched fist with all his
+weight upon the Indian's neck. The blow struck just beneath the jugular
+vein. The Indian's grip relaxed, he staggered back a pace, half stunned.
+Summoning all his force, Cameron followed up with one straight blow upon
+the chin. He needed no other. As if stricken by an axe the Indian
+fell to the earth and lay as if dead. Sinking on the ground beside him
+Cameron exerted all his will-power to keep himself from fainting. After
+a few minutes' fierce struggle with himself he was sufficiently revived
+to be able to bind the Indian's hands behind his back with his belt.
+Searching among the brushwood, he found the Indian's knife, and cut from
+his leather trousers sufficient thongs to bind his legs, working with
+fierce and concentrated energy while his strength lasted. At length as
+the hands were drawn tight darkness fell upon his eyes and he sank down
+unconscious beside his foe.
+
+
+
+“There, that's better! He has lost a lot of blood, but we have checked
+that flow and he will soon be right. Hello, old man! Just waking up,
+are you? Lie perfectly still. Come, you must lie still. What? Oh,
+Copperhead? Well, he is safe enough. What? No, never fear. We know the
+old snake and we have tied him fast. Jerry has a fine assortment of
+knots adorning his person. Now, no more talking for half a day. Your
+wound is clean enough. A mighty close shave it was, but by to-morrow you
+will be fairly fit. Copperhead? Oh, never mind Copperhead. I assure you
+he is safe enough. Hardly fit to travel yet. What happened to him? Looks
+as if a tree had fallen upon him.” To which chatter of Dr. Martin's
+Cameron could only make feeble answer, “For God's sake don't let him
+go!”
+
+After the capture of Copperhead the camp at Manitou Lake faded away, for
+when the Police Patrol under Jerry's guidance rode up the Ghost River
+Trail they found only the cold ashes of camp-fires and the debris that
+remains after a powwow.
+
+Three days later Cameron rode back into Fort Calgary, sore but content,
+for at his stirrup and bound to his saddle-horn rode the Sioux Chief,
+proud, untamed, but a prisoner. As he rode into the little town his
+quick eyes flashed scorn upon all the curious gazers, but in their
+depths beneath the scorn there looked forth an agony that only Cameron
+saw and understood. He had played for a great stake and had lost.
+
+As the patrol rode into Fort Calgary the little town was in an uproar of
+jubilation.
+
+“What's the row?” inquired the doctor, for Cameron felt too weary to
+inquire.
+
+“A great victory for the troops!” said a young chap dressed in cow-boy
+garb. “Middleton has smashed the half-breeds at Batoche. Riel is
+captured. The whole rebellion business is bust up.”
+
+Cameron threw a swift glance at the Sioux's face. A fierce anxiety
+looked out of the gleaming eyes.
+
+“Tell him, Jerry,” said Cameron to the half-breed who rode at his other
+side.
+
+As Jerry told the Indian of the total collapse of the rebellion and the
+capture of its leader the stern face grew eloquent with contempt.
+
+“Bah!” he said, spitting on the ground. “Riel he much fool--no good
+fight. Indian got no Chief--no Chief.” The look on his face all too
+clearly revealed that his soul was experiencing the bitterness of death.
+
+Cameron almost pitied him, but he spoke no word. There was nothing that
+one could say and besides he was far too weary for anything but rest.
+At the gate of the Barrack yard his old Superintendent from Fort Macleod
+met the party.
+
+“You are wounded, Cameron?” exclaimed the Superintendent, glancing in
+alarm at Cameron's wan face.
+
+“I have got him,” replied Cameron, loosing the lariat from the horn of
+his saddle and handing the end to an orderly. “But,” he added, “it seems
+hardly worth while now.”
+
+“Worth while! Worth while!” exclaimed the Superintendent with as much
+excitement as he ever allowed to appear in his tone. “Let me tell you,
+Cameron, that if any one thing has kept me from getting into a blue funk
+during these months it was the feeling that you were on patrol along the
+Sun Dance Trail.”
+
+“Funk?” exclaimed Cameron with a smile. “Funk?” But while he smiled he
+looked into the cold, gray eyes of his Chief, and, noting the unwonted
+glow in them, he felt that after all his work as the Patrol of the Sun
+Dance Trail was perhaps worth while.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+WHY THE DOCTOR STAYED
+
+
+The Big Horn River, fed by July suns burning upon glaciers high up
+between the mountain-peaks, was running full to its lips and gleaming
+like a broad ribbon of silver, where, after rushing hurriedly out of the
+rock-ribbed foothills, it settled down into a deep steady flow through
+the wide valley of its own name. On the tawny undulating hillsides,
+glorious in the splendid July sun, herds of cattle and horses were
+feeding, making with the tawny hillsides and the silver river a picture
+of luxurious ease and quiet security that fitted well with the mood of
+the two men sitting upon the shady side of the Big Horn Ranch House.
+
+Inspector Dickson was enjoying to the full his after-dinner pipe,
+and with him Dr. Martin, who was engaged in judiciously pumping
+the Inspector in regard to the happenings of the recent
+campaign--successfully, too, except where he touched those events in
+which the Inspector himself had played a part.
+
+The war was over. Batoche had practically settled the Rebellion. Riel
+was in his cell at Regina awaiting trial and execution. Pound-maker,
+Little Pine, Big Bear and some of their other Chiefs were similarly
+disposed of. Copperhead at Macleod was fretting his life out like an
+eagle in a cage. The various regiments of citizen soldiers had gone back
+to their homes to be received with vociferous welcome, except such of
+them as were received in reverent silence, to be laid away among the
+immortals with quiet falling tears. The Police were busily engaged in
+wiping up the debris of the Rebellion. The Commissioner, intent upon his
+duty, was riding the marches, bearing in grim silence the criticism of
+empty-headed and omniscient scribblers, because, forsooth, he had
+obeyed his Chief's orders, and, resisting the greatest provocation to
+do otherwise, had held steadfastly to his post, guarding with resolute
+courage what was committed to his trust. The Superintendents and
+Inspectors were back at their various posts, settling upon the reserves
+wandering bands of Indians, some of whom were just awakening to the
+fact that they had missed a great opportunity and were grudgingly
+surrendering to the inevitable, and, under the wise, firm, judicious
+handling of the Police, were slowly returning to their pre-rebellion
+status.
+
+The Western ranches were rejoicing in a sense of vast relief from the
+terrible pall that like a death-cloud had been hanging over them for six
+months and all Western Canada was thrilling with the expectation of a
+new era of prosperity consequent upon its being discovered by the big
+world outside.
+
+Upon the two men thus discussing, Mrs. Cameron, carrying in her arms her
+babe, bore down in magnificent and modest pride, wearing with matronly
+grace her new glory of a great achievement, the greatest open to
+womankind.
+
+“He has just waked up from a very fine sleep,” she exclaimed, “to make
+your acquaintance, Inspector. I hope you duly appreciate the honor done
+you.”
+
+The Inspector rose to his feet and saluted the new arrival with becoming
+respect.
+
+“Now,” said Mrs. Cameron, settling herself down with an air of
+determined resolve, “I want to hear all about it.”
+
+“Meaning?” said the Inspector.
+
+“Meaning, to begin with, that famous march of yours from Calgary to the
+far North land where you did so many heroic things.”
+
+But the Inspector's talk had a trick of fading away at the end of
+the third sentence and it was with difficulty that they could get him
+started again.
+
+“You are most provoking!” finally exclaimed Mrs. Cameron, giving up the
+struggle. “Isn't he, baby?”
+
+The latter turned upon the Inspector two steady blue eyes beaming with
+the intelligence of a two months' experience of men and things, and
+announced his grave disapproval of the Inspector's conduct in a distinct
+“goo!”
+
+“There!” exclaimed his mother triumphantly. “I told you so. What have
+you now to say for yourself?”
+
+The Inspector regarded the blue-eyed atom with reverent wonder.
+
+“Most remarkable young person I ever saw in my life, Mrs. Cameron,” he
+asserted positively.
+
+The proud mother beamed upon him.
+
+“Well, baby, he IS provoking, but we will forgive him since he is so
+clever at discovering your remarkable qualities.”
+
+“Pshaw!” said Dr. Martin. “That's nothing. Any one could see them. They
+stick right out of that baby.”
+
+“DEAR Dr. Martin,” explained the mother with affectionate emphasis,
+“what a way you have of putting things. But I wonder what keeps Allan?”
+ continued Mrs. Cameron. “He promised faithfully to be home before
+dinner.” She rose, and, going to the side of the house, looked long and
+anxiously up toward the foothills. Dr. Martin followed her and stood at
+her side gazing in the same direction.
+
+“What a glorious view it is!” she said. “I never tire of looking over
+the hills and up to the great mountains.”
+
+“What the deuce is the fellow doing?” exclaimed the doctor, disgust and
+rage mingling in his tone. “Great Heavens! She is kissing him!”
+
+“Who? What?” exclaimed Mandy. “Oh!” she cried, her eyes following the
+doctor's and lighting upon two figures that stood at the side of the
+poplar bluff in an attitude sufficiently compromising to justify the
+doctor's exclamation.
+
+“What? It's Moira--and--and--it's Smith! What does it mean?” The
+doctor's language appeared unequal to his emotions. “Mean?” he cried,
+after an exhausting interlude of expletives. “Mean? Oh, I don't
+know--and I don't care. It's pretty plain what it means. It makes no
+difference to me. I gave her up to that other fellow who saved her life
+and then picturesquely got himself killed. There now, forgive me, Mrs.
+Cameron. I know I am a brute. I should not have said that. Don't look
+at me so. Raven was a fine chap and I don't mind her losing her heart to
+him--but really this is too much. Smith! Of all men under heaven--Smith!
+Why, look at his legs!”
+
+“His legs? Dr. Martin, I am ashamed of you. I don't care what kind of
+legs he has. Smith is an honorable fellow and--and--so good he was to
+us. Why, when Allan and the rest of you were all away he was like a
+brother through all those terrible days. I can never forget his splendid
+kindness--but--”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cameron, I beg your pardon. Undoubtedly he is
+a fine fellow. I am an ass, a jealous ass--might as well own it. But,
+really, I cannot quite stand seeing her throw herself at Smith--Smith!
+Oh, I know, I know, he is all right. But oh--well--at any rate thank
+God I saw him at it. It will keep me from openly and uselessly abasing
+myself to her and making a fool of myself generally. But Smith! Great
+God! Smith! Well, it will help to cure me.”
+
+Mrs. Cameron stood by in miserable silence.
+
+“Oh, Dr. Martin,” at length she groaned tearfully, “I am
+so disappointed. I was so hoping, and I was sure it was all
+right--and--and--oh, what does it mean? Dear Dr. Martin, I cannot tell
+you how I feel.”
+
+“Oh, hang it, Mrs. Cameron, don't pity me. I'll get over it. A little
+surgical operation in the region of the pericardium is all, that is
+required.”
+
+“What are you talking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Cameron, vaguely listening
+to him and busy with her own thoughts the while.
+
+“Talking about, madam? Talking about? I am talking about that organ,
+the central organ of the vascular system of animals, a hollow muscular
+structure that propels the blood by alternate contractions and
+dilatations, which in the mammalian embryo first appears as two tubes
+lying under the head and immediately behind the first visceral arches,
+but gradually moves back and becomes lodged in the thorax.”
+
+“Oh, do stop! What nonsense are you talking now?” exclaimed Mrs.
+Cameron, waking up as from a dream. “No, don't go. You must not go.”
+
+“I am going, and I am going to leave this country,” said the doctor. “I
+am going East. No, this is no sudden resolve. I have thought of it for
+some time, and now I will go.”
+
+“Well, you must wait at least till Allan returns. You must say good-by
+to him.” She followed the doctor anxiously back to his seat beside the
+Inspector. “Here,” she cried, “hold baby a minute. There are some things
+I must attend to. I would give him to the Inspector, but he would not
+know how to handle him.”
+
+“God forbid!” ejaculated the Inspector firmly.
+
+“But I tell you I must get home,” said the doctor in helpless wrath.
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. “Look out! You are not holding him
+properly. There now, you have made him cry.”
+
+“Pinched him!” muttered the Inspector. “I call that most unfair. Mean
+advantage to take of the young person.”
+
+The doctor glowered at the Inspector and set himself with ready skill to
+remedy the wrong he had wrought in the young person's disposition while
+the mother, busying herself ostentatiously with her domestic duties,
+finally disappeared around the house, making for the bluff. As soon as
+she was out of earshot she raised her voice in song.
+
+“I must give the fools warning, I suppose,” she said to herself. In the
+pauses of her singing, “Oh, what does she mean? I could just shake her.
+I am so disappointed. Smith! Smith! Well, Smith is all right, but--oh, I
+must talk to her. And yet, I am so angry--yes, I am disgusted. I was
+so sure that everything was all right. Ah, there she is at last,
+and--well--thank goodness he is gone.
+
+“Oh-h-h-h-O, Moira!” she cried. “Now, I must keep my temper,” she added
+to herself. “But I am so cross about this. Oh-h-h-h-O, Moira!”
+
+“Oh-h-h-h-O!” called Moira in reply.
+
+“She looks positively happy. Ugh! Disgusting! And so lovely too.”
+
+“Did you want me, Mandy? I am so sorry I forgot all about the tea.”
+
+“So I should suppose,” snapped Mandy crossly. “I saw you were too deeply
+engaged to think.”
+
+“You saw?” exclaimed the girl, a startled dismay in her face.
+
+“Yes, and I would suggest that you select a less conspicuous stage for
+your next scene. Certainly I got quite a shock. If it had been Raven,
+Moira, I could have stood it.”
+
+“Raven! Raven! Oh, stop! Not a word, Mandy.” Her voice was hushed and
+there was a look of pain in her eyes.
+
+“But Smith!” went on Mandy relentlessly. “I was too disgusted.”
+
+“Well, what is wrong with Mr. Smith?” inquired Moira, her chin rising.
+
+“Oh, there is nothing wrong with Smith,” replied her sister-in-law
+crossly, “but--well--kissing him, you know.”
+
+“Kissing him?” echoed Moira faintly. “Kissing him? I did not--”
+
+“It looked to me uncommonly like it at any rate,” said Mandy. “You
+surely don't deny that you were kissing him?”
+
+“I was not. I mean, it was Smith--perhaps--yes, I think Smith did--”
+
+“Well, it was a silly thing to do.”
+
+“Silly! If I want to kiss Mr. Smith, why is it anybody's business?”
+
+“That's just it,” said Mandy indignantly. “Why should you want to?”
+
+“Well, that is my affair,” said Moira in an angry tone, and with a high
+head and lofty air she appeared in the doctor's presence.
+
+But Dr. Martin was apparently oblivious of both her lofty air and the
+angle of her chin. He was struggling to suppress from observation a
+tumult of mingled passions of jealousy, rage and humiliation. That this
+girl whom for four years he had loved with the full strength of his
+intense nature should have given herself to another was grief enough;
+but the fact that this other should have been a man of Smith's caliber
+seemed to add insult to his grief. He felt that not only had she
+humiliated him but herself as well.
+
+“If she is the kind of girl that enjoys kissing Smith I don't want her,”
+ he said to himself savagely, and then cursed himself that he knew it was
+a lie. For no matter how she should affront him or humiliate herself
+he well knew he should take her gladly on his bended knees from Smith's
+hands. The cure somehow was not working, but he would allow no one to
+suspect it. His voice was even and his manner cheerful as ever. Only
+Mrs. Cameron, who held the key to his heart, suspected the agony through
+which he was passing during the tea-hour. And it was to secure respite
+for him that the tea was hurried and the doctor packed off to saddle
+Pepper and round up the cows for the milking.
+
+Pepper was by birth and breeding a cow-horse, and once set upon a trail
+after a bunch of cows he could be trusted to round them up with little
+or no aid from his rider. Hence once astride Pepper and Pepper with his
+nose pointed toward the ranging cows, the doctor could allow his heart
+to roam at will. And like a homing pigeon, his heart, after some faint
+struggles in the grip of its owner's will, made swift flight toward the
+far-away Highland glen across the sea, the Cuagh Oir.
+
+With deliberate purpose he set himself to live again the tender and
+ineffaceable memories of that eventful visit to the glen when first his
+eyes were filled with the vision of the girl with the sunny hair and the
+sunny eyes who that day seemed to fill the very glen and ever since that
+day his heart with glory.
+
+With deliberate purpose, too, he set himself to recall the glen itself,
+its lights and shadows, its purple hilltops, its emerald loch far down
+at the bottom, the little clachan on the hillside and up above it the
+old manor-house. But ever and again his heart would pause to catch anew
+some flitting glance of the brown eyes, some turn of the golden head,
+some cadence of the soft Highland voice, some fitful illusive sweetness
+of the smile upon the curving lips, pause and return upon its tracks to
+feel anew that subtle rapture of the first poignant thrill, lingering
+over each separate memory as a drunkard lingers regretful over his last
+sweet drops of wine.
+
+Meantime Pepper's intelligent diligence had sent every cow home to its
+milking, and so, making his way by a short cut that led along the Big
+Horn River and round the poplar bluff, the doctor, suddenly waking from
+his dream of the past, faced with a fresh and sharper stab the reality
+of the present. The suddenness and sharpness of the pain made him pull
+his horse up short.
+
+“I'll cut this country and go East,” he said aloud, coming to a
+conclusive decision upon a plan long considered, “I'll go in for
+specializing. I have done with all this nonsense.”
+
+He sat his horse looking eastward over the hills that rolled far away to
+the horizon. His eye wandered down the river gleaming now like gold in
+the sunset glow. He had learned to love this land of great sunlit spaces
+and fresh blowing winds, but this evening its very beauty appeared
+intolerable to him. Ever since the death of Raven upon that tragic
+night of the cattle-raid he had been fighting his bitter loss and
+disappointment; with indifferent success, it is true, but still not
+without the hope of attaining final peace of soul. This evening he knew
+that, while he lived in this land, peace would never come to him, for
+his heart-wound never would heal.
+
+“I will go,” he said again. “I will say good-by to-night. By Jove! I
+feel better already. Come along, Pepper! Wake up!”
+
+Pepper woke up to some purpose and at a smart canter carried the doctor
+on his way round the bluff toward a gate that opened into a lane leading
+to the stables. At the gate a figure started up suddenly from the shadow
+of a poplar. With a snort and in the midst of his stride Pepper swung on
+his heels with such amazing abruptness that his rider was flung from his
+saddle, fortunately upon his feet.
+
+“Confound you for a dumb-headed fool! What are you up to anyway?” he
+cried in a sudden rage, recognizing Smith, who stood beside the trail in
+an abjectly apologetic attitude.
+
+“Yes,” cried another voice from the shadow. “Is he not a fool? You would
+think he ought to know Mr. Smith by this time. But Pepper is really very
+stupid.”
+
+The doctor stood speechless, surprise, disgust and rage struggling for
+supremacy among his emotions. He stood gazing stupidly from one to the
+other, utterly at a loss for words.
+
+“You see, Mr. Smith,” began Moira somewhat lamely, “had something to say
+to me and so we--and so we came--along to the gate.”
+
+“So I see,” replied the doctor gruffly.
+
+“You see Mr. Smith has come to mean a great deal to me--to us--”
+
+“So I should imagine,” replied the doctor.
+
+“His self-sacrifice and courage during those terrible days we can never
+forget.”
+
+“Exactly so--quite right,” replied the doctor, standing stiffly beside
+his horse's head.
+
+“You do not know people all at once,” continued Moira.
+
+“Ah! Not all at once,” the doctor replied.
+
+“But in times of danger and trouble one gets to know them quickly.”
+
+“Sure thing,” said the doctor.
+
+“And it takes times of danger to bring out the hero in a man.”
+
+“I should imagine so,” replied the doctor with his eyes on Smith's
+childlike and beaming face.
+
+“And you see Mr. Smith was really our whole stay, and--and--we came
+to rely upon him and we found him so steadfast.” In the face of the
+doctor's stolid brevity Moira was finding conversation difficult.
+
+“Steadfast!” repeated the doctor. “Exactly so,” his eyes upon Smith's
+wobbly legs. “Mr. Smith I consider a very fortunate man. I congratulate
+him on--”
+
+“Oh, have you heard? I did not know that--”
+
+“Yes. I mean--not exactly.”
+
+“Who told you? Is it not splendid?” enthusiasm shining in her eyes.
+
+“Splendid! Yes--that is, for him,” replied the doctor without emotion.
+“I congratulate--”
+
+“But how did you hear?”
+
+“I did not exactly hear, but I had no difficulty in--ah--making the
+discovery.”
+
+“Discovery?”
+
+“Yes, discovery. It was fairly plain; I might say it was the feature of
+the view; in fact it stuck right out of the landscape--hit you in the
+eye, so to speak.”
+
+“The landscape? What can you mean?”
+
+“Mean? Simply that I am at a loss as to whether Mr. Smith is to be
+congratulated more upon his exquisite taste or upon his extraordinary
+good fortune.”
+
+“Good fortune, yes, is it not splendid?”
+
+“Splendid is the exact word,” said the doctor stiffly.
+
+“And I am so glad.”
+
+“Yes, you certainly look happy,” replied the doctor with a grim attempt
+at a smile, and feeling as if more enthusiasm were demanded from him.
+“Let me offer you my congratulations and say good-by. I am leaving.”
+
+“You will be back soon, though?”
+
+“Hardly. I am leaving the West.”
+
+“Leaving the West? Why? What? When?”
+
+“To-night. Now. I must say good-by.”
+
+“To-night? Now?” Her voice sank almost to a whisper. Her lips were white
+and quivering. “But do they know at the house? Surely this is sudden.”
+
+“Oh, no, not so sudden. I have thought of it for some time; indeed, I
+have made my plans.”
+
+“Oh--for some time? You have made your plans? But you never hinted such
+a thing to--to any of us.”
+
+“Oh, well, I don't tell my plans to all the world,” said the doctor with
+a careless laugh.
+
+The girl shrank from him as if he had cut her with his riding whip. But,
+swiftly recovering herself, she cried with gay reproach:
+
+“Why, Mr. Smith, we are losing all our friends at once. It is cruel of
+you and Dr. Martin to desert us at the same time. Mr. Smith, you
+know,” she continued, turning to the doctor with an air of exaggerated
+vivacity, “leaves for the East to-night too.”
+
+“Smith--leaving?” The doctor gazed stupidly at that person.
+
+“Yes, you know he has come into a big fortune and is going to be--”
+
+“A fortune?”
+
+“Yes, and he is going East to be married.”
+
+“Going EAST to be married?”
+
+“Yes, and I was--”
+
+“Going EAST?” exclaimed the doctor. “I don't understand. I thought
+you--”
+
+“Oh, yes, his young lady is awaiting him in the East. And he is going to
+spend his money in such a splendid way.”
+
+“Going EAST?” echoed the doctor, as if he could not fix the idea with
+sufficient firmness in his brain to grasp it fully.
+
+“Yes, I have just told you so,” replied the girl.
+
+“Married?” shouted the doctor, suddenly rushing at Smith and gripping
+him by both arms. “Smith, you shy dog--you lucky dog! Let me wish you
+joy, old man. By Jove! You deserve your luck, every bit of it. Say,
+that's fine. Ha! ha! Jeerupiter! Smith, you are a good one and a sly
+one. Shake again, old man. Say, by Jove! What a sell--I mean what a
+joke! Look here, Smith, old chap, would you mind taking Pepper home?
+I am rather tired--riding, I mean--beastly wild cows--no end of a run
+after them. See you down at the house later. No, no, don't wait, don't
+mind me. I am all right, fit as a fiddle--no, not a bit tired--I mean I
+am tired riding. Yes, rather stiff--about the knees, you know. Oh, it's
+all right. Up you get, old man--there you are! So, Smith, you are going
+to be married, eh? Lucky dog! Tell 'em I am--tell 'em we are coming. My
+horse? Oh, well, never mind my horse till I come myself. So long, old
+chap! Ha! ha! old man, good-by. Great Caesar! What a sell! Say, let's
+sit down, Moira,” he said, suddenly growing quiet and turning to the
+girl, “till I get my wind. Fine chap that Smith. Legs a bit wobbly, but
+don't care if he had a hundred of 'em and all wobbly. He's all right.
+Oh, my soul! What an ass! What an adjectival, hyphenated jackass! Don't
+look at me that way or I shall climb a tree and yell. I'm not mad, I
+assure you. I was on the verge of it a few moments ago, but it is gone.
+I am sane, sane as an old maid. Oh, my God!” He covered his face with
+his hands and sat utterly still for some moments.
+
+“Dr. Martin, what is the matter?” exclaimed the girl. “You terrify me.”
+
+“No wonder. I terrify myself. How could I have stood it.”
+
+“What is the matter? What is it?”
+
+“Why, Moira, I thought you were going to marry that idiot.”
+
+“Idiot?” exclaimed the girl, drawing herself up. “Idiot? Mr. Smith? I am
+not going to marry him, Dr. Martin, but he is an honorable fellow and a
+friend of mine, a dear friend of mine.”
+
+“So he is, so he is, a splendid fellow, the finest ever, but thank God
+you are not going to marry him!”
+
+“Why, what is wrong with--”
+
+“Why? Why? God help me! Why? Only because, Moira, I love you.” He threw
+himself upon his knees beside her. “Don't, don't for God's sake get
+away! Give me a chance to speak!” He caught her hand in both of his. “I
+have just been through hell. Don't send me there again. Let me tell you.
+Ever since that minute when I saw you in the glen I have loved you. In
+my thoughts by day and in my dreams by night you have been, and this day
+when I thought I had lost you I knew that I loved you ten thousand times
+more than ever.” He was kissing her hand passionately, while she sat
+with head turned away. “Tell me, Moira, if I may love you? And is it
+any use? And do you think you could love me even a little bit? I am not
+worthy to touch you. Tell me.” Still she sat silent. He waited a few
+moments, his face growing gray. “Tell me,” he said at length in a
+broken, husky voice. “I will try to bear it.”
+
+She turned her face toward him. The sunny eyes were full of tears.
+
+“And you were going away from me?” she breathed, leaning toward him.
+
+“Sweetheart!” he cried, putting his arms around her and drawing her to
+him, “tell me to stay.”
+
+“Stay,” she whispered, “or take me too.”
+
+The sun had long since disappeared behind the big purple mountains
+and even the warm afterglow in the eastern sky had faded into a pearly
+opalescent gray when the two reached the edge of the bluff nearest the
+house.
+
+“Oh! The milking!” cried Moira aghast, as she came in sight of the
+house.
+
+“Great Caesar! I was going to help,” exclaimed the doctor.
+
+“Too bad,” said the girl penitently. “But, of course, there's Smith.”
+
+“Why, certainly there's Smith. What a God-send that chap is. He is
+always on the spot. But Cameron is home. I see his horse. Let us go in
+and face the music.”
+
+They found an excited group standing in the kitchen, Mandy with a letter
+in her hand.
+
+“Oh, here you are at last!” she cried. “Where have you--” She glanced at
+Moira's face and then at the doctor's and stopped abruptly.
+
+“Hello, what's up?” cried the doctor.
+
+“We have got a letter--such a letter!” cried Mandy. “Read it. Read it
+aloud, Doctor.” She thrust the letter into his hand. The doctor cleared
+his throat, struck an attitude, and read aloud:
+
+
+“My dear Cameron:
+
+“It gives me great pleasure to say for the officers of the Police Force
+in the South West district and for myself that we greatly appreciate the
+distinguished services you rendered during the past six months in your
+patrol of the Sun Dance Trail. It was a work of difficulty and danger
+and one of the highest importance to the country. I feel sure it will
+gratify you to know that the attention of the Government has been
+specially called to the creditable manner in which you have performed
+your duty, and I have no doubt that the Government will suitably express
+its appreciation of your services in due time. But, as you are aware,
+in the Force to which we have the honor to belong, we do not look for
+recognition, preferring to find a sufficient reward in duty done.
+
+“Permit me also to say that we recognize and appreciate the spirit
+of devotion showed by Mrs. Cameron during these trying months in so
+cheerfully and loyally giving you up to this service.
+
+“May I add that in this rebellion to my mind the most critical factor
+was the attitude of the great Blackfeet Confederacy. Every possible
+effort was made by the half-breeds and Northern Indians to seduce
+Crowfoot and his people from their loyalty, and their most able and
+unscrupulous agent in this attempt was the Sioux Indian known among
+us as The Copperhead. That he failed utterly in his schemes and that
+Crowfoot remained loyal I believe is due to the splendid work of the
+officers and members of our Force in the South West district, but
+especially to your splendid services as the Patrol of the Sun Dance
+Trail.”
+
+
+“And signed by the big Chief himself, the Commissioner,” cried Dr.
+Martin. “What do you think of that, Baby?” he continued, catching the
+baby from its mother's arms. “What do you think of your daddy?” The
+doctor pirouetted round the room with the baby in his arms, that
+young person regarding the whole performance apparently with grave and
+profound satisfaction.
+
+“Your horse is ready,” said Smith, coming in at the door.
+
+“Your horse?” cried Cameron.
+
+“Oh--I forgot,” said the doctor. “Ah--I don't think I want him to-night,
+Smith.”
+
+“You are not going to-night, then?” inquired Mandy in delighted
+surprise.
+
+“No--I--in fact, I believe I have changed my mind about that. I have,
+been--ah--persuaded to remain.”
+
+“Oh, I see,” cried Mandy in supreme delight. Then turning swiftly upon
+her sister-in-law who stood beside the doctor, her face in a radiant
+glow, she added, “Then what did you mean by--by--what we saw this
+afternoon?”
+
+A deeper red dyed the girl's cheeks.
+
+“What are you talking about?” cried Dr. Martin. “Oh, that kissing Smith
+business.”
+
+“I couldn't just help it!” burst out Moira. “He was so happy.”
+
+“Going to be married, you know,” interjected the doctor.
+
+“And so--so--”
+
+“Just so,” cried the doctor. “Oh, pshaw! that's all right! I'd kiss
+Smith myself. I feel like doing it this blessed minute. Where is he?
+Smith! Where are you?” But Smith had escaped. “Smith's all right, I say,
+and so are we, eh, Moira?” He slipped his arm round the blushing girl.
+
+“Oh, I am so glad,” cried Mandy, beaming upon them. “And you are not
+going East after all?”
+
+“East? Not I! The West for me. I am going to stay right in it--with the
+Inspector here--and with you, Mrs. Cameron--and with my sweetheart--and
+yes, certainly with the Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail.”
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATROL OF THE SUN DANCE TRAIL ***
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