Raw Gold | Page 6

squatted in the grass to eat.
When we'd finished, one of the hunters rounded up the horses and we
caught our nags and saddled them. MacRae was going back to his post
that night, and I also was in haste to be traveling--that ten thousand
dollars of another man's money was a responsibility I wanted to be rid
of without the least possible delay. Pend d' Oreille was twenty-five or
thirty miles south of us--a long afternoon's ride, but MacRae and I were
glad of each other's company, and it was worth while straining a point
to have even one night's shelter at a Police camp in that semi-hostile
country. There were no road-agents to speak of, for sums of money
large enough to tempt gentry of that ilk seldom passed over those
isolated trails; but here and there stray parties of Stonies and Blackfeet,
young bucks in war-paint and breech-clout, hot on the trail of their first
medicine, skulked warily among the coulée-scarred ridges, keeping in
touch with the drifting buffalo-herds and alert for a chance to ambush a
straggling white man and lift his hair. They weren't particularly
dangerous, except to a lone man, still there was always the chance of
running slap into them, in which case they usually made a more or less
vigorous attempt to wipe you out. A red coat, however, was a passport
to safety; even so early in the game the copper-colored brother had
learned that the Mounted Police were a hard combination--an enemy
who never turned back when he took the war-trail.
When we were mounted Mac leaned over and muttered an admonitory
word for Piegan's ear alone. "Better lay low, Smith," he said, "and let
the boot-leggers go it on their own hook for a while. We are watching
for you. It's only a matter of time till somebody takes you in, because
your whisky is making lots of nasty work for us these days, and we've
got orders from the big chief to nail you if there's a show. I'm passing
up this little affair to-day. That doesn't count. But the next time you
cross the river with a four-horse load of it I'll be on you like a wolf. If I
don't, some other fellow will. Sabe? Think it over."
Smith bit off a huge chew of tobacco, while he digested MacRae's
warning. Then he looked up with a smile that broadened to a grin.

"You're all right," he said cheerfully. "I like your style. If I get the
worst of the deal, I won't holler. So-long!"
CHAPTER III.
BIRDS OF PREY.
Once clear of the buffalo-hunters' camp, MacRae and I paired off and
speedily began to compare notes, where we had been, what we had
done, how the world had used us in the five years since we had seen
each other last. And although we gabbled freely enough, MacRae
avoided all mention of the persons of whom I most wished to hear. I
didn't press him, for I knew that something out of the common must
have happened, else he would not have been wearing the Queen's
scarlet, and I didn't care to bring up a subject that might prove a sore
one with him. But men we had known and trails we had followed
furnished us plenty of grist for the conversational mill. Our talk ranged
from the Panhandle to the Canada line, while our horses jogged steadily
southward.
Dark came down on the four of us as we topped Manyberries Ridge,
and seven or eight miles of rolling prairie still lay between us and Pend
d' Oreille. If Mac had been alone he would have made the post by
sundown, for the Mounted Police rode picked horses, the best money
could buy. But it was a long jaunt to Benton, and the rest of us were
inclined to an easier pace, that we might husband the full strength of
our grass-fed mounts for any emergency that should arise on the way.
With the coming of night a pall of clouds blew out of the west,
blanketing the stars and shutting off their hazy light completely, and
when the sky was banked full from horizon to horizon, the dark
enveloped us like a black sea-mist. Once or twice we startled a little
bunch of buffalo, and listened to the thud of their hoofs as they fled
through the sultry, velvet gloom; but for the most our ride was attended
by no sounds save the night song of frogs in the upland sloughs and the
hollow clank of steel bits keeping time to the creak of saddle-leather.
Halfway down the long slope MacRae and I, riding in the lead, pulled

up to make a cigarette on the brink of a straight-walled coulée that we
could sense but not