Raw Gold | Page 6

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 see. As I waited for Mac to strike a match my eyes roved about, seeking to pierce the unnatural blackness that wrapped itself about us, and while my gaze was for an instant fixed on the night-enshrouded canyon, a red tongue of flame flashed out for a moment in the inky shadow below. MacRae saw it also, and held the match unstruck.
"Must be somebody camped down there," I hazarded.
"A camp-fire would hardly flash and die out like that, Sarge," he answered thoughtfully. "At least, not an ordinary one. There are some folk in this country, you know, who manifest a very retiring disposition