The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail | Page 2

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