I nodded; I remembered Mr. Feltz very well indeed, for the well-merited killing of one of his hired assassins was the main cause of my hasty departure from Texas.

"Well, it came to a head, one day, in Fort Worth. They shot each other up terribly, and a week or so later Feltz died. His people in the East got it into their heads that it was a case of murder. They stirred up the county authorities till every one was taking sides. Of course, dad was cleared; but that seemed to be the beginning of a steady run of bad luck. The trial cost an awful lot of money, and made enemies, too. Feltz had plenty of friends of his own calibre—you know that to your sorrow, don't you, Sarge?—and they started trouble on the range. It was simply terrible for a while. Dad can supply the details when he comes." ("when he comes"—I tell you, that jarred me.) "Finally things got to such a pass that dad had to quit. And what with a deal in some Mexican cattle that didn't turn out well, and some other business troubles that I never quite understood, we were just about finished when we closed out."

She let her eyes meet mine for an instant, and they were smiling, making light of it all. Most women, I thought, would have had a good cry, or at least pulled a long face, over a hard-luck story like that. But she was really more of a woman than I had thought her, and I thanked the Lord she was game when I remembered what I had to tell her before I was through.

"Dad and Hans Rutter, as you know, weren't the sort of men to sit around and mourn over anything like that," she laughed. "I don't know where they got the idea of going to Peace River. But dad settled me and Mammy Thomas in a little cottage in Austin, and they started. I wanted to go along, but dad wouldn't hear of it. They've been gone a little over two years. I'd get word from them about every three months, and early this spring dad wrote that they had made a good stake and were coming home. He said I could come as far as Benton to meet them, and we would take the boat from there down to St. Louis. So I looked up the lay of the country, and sent him word I would come as far as Walsh. He had said they would come out by way of this place. And then I rounded up Mammy Thomas and struck out. I've rather enjoyed the trip, too. They should be here any day, now."

My conscience importuned me to tell her bluntly that they would only come into Walsh feet first. But I dodged the unpleasant opening. There was another matter I wanted to touch upon first.

"Look here, Lyn," I said—rather dubiously, it must be confessed, for I didn't know how she would take it, "I'm going to tell you something on my own responsibility, and you mustn't get the idea that I'm trying to mix into your personal affairs without a warrant. But I have a hunch that you're laboring under a mistaken impression, right now; that is, if you care anything about an old friend like MacRae."

"I can't really say that I do, though," she assured me quickly, but she colored in a way that convinced me that her feeling toward MacRae was of the sort she would never admit to any one but himself.

"Well," I continued, "I imagined you would think it queer that he should pass you up as he did a while ago. But here at Fort Walsh we're among a class of people that are a heap different from Texas cow-punchers. These redcoats move along social lines that don't look like much to a cowman; but once in the Force you must abide by them. It was consideration for you that forbade MacRae to stop. Any woman in the company of an officer is taboo to an enlisted man, according——"

"I know all that," she interrupted impatiently. "Probably they'd cut me, and all that sort of thing. I understand their point of view, exactly, but I'm not here to play the social game, and I shall talk to whom it pleases me. Do you or Gordon MacRae honestly believe I care a snap for their petty conventions?"

"No, I know you better than that," I responded. "All the same, this is a pretty rough country for a woman, and if you've made friends among the people on top, they may come in handy. For that matter," I concluded, "you won't get a chance to have the cold shoulder turned to you for associating with MacRae; not for some time, anyway."

"What do you mean?" she demanded, in that answer-me-at-once way I knew of old.

"MacRae has gotten into a bad hole," I told her plainly. "Major Lessard, who happens to be the big chief in this neck of the woods, seems to have developed a sudden grouch against him. There was a hold-up night before last—in fact, I was the victim. I was separated from a big bunch of money that belongs to the outfit I'm working for. Mac was with me at the time. He had to come in here and report it, for it happened in his district, and the major raked him over the coals in a way that was hard to stand. You know MacRae, Lyn; it's mighty poor business for any man to tread on his toes, much less go walking rough-shod all over him. Lessard went the length of accusing him of being in with these hold-up men, because he did a little investigating on his own account before coming in to report. Mac took that pretty hard, and came mighty near making the major eat his words with gunpowder sauce on the side. So, for having the nerve to declare himself, he has lost his sergeant's stripes and has likewise gone to the guardhouse to meditate over the foolishness of taking issue with his superiors. If you don't see him for the next thirty days, you'll have the consolation of knowing that he isn't avoiding you purposely."

It was a rather flippant way to talk, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. The last three days hadn't been exactly favorable to a normal state of mind, or well-considered speech.

But—who was the wise mortal that said: "No man knoweth the mind of a maid"?—she sat there quite unmoved, her hands resting quietly in her lap. "We all seem to be more or less under a cloud, Sarge," she said slowly. "Maybe when dad comes he can furnish a silver lining for it. I sometimes—what makes you look that way? You look as if you were thinking it my fault that Gordon is in trouble."

"You're wrong there," I protested, truthfully enough.

"But you have that air," she declared. "And I'm not to blame. If he hadn't been so—so—I'm sure he'd get out of the Mounted Police fast enough if he didn't like it. I can't imagine him doing anything against his will. I never knew him"—with a faint smile—"to stay anywhere or do anything that didn't suit him." She took to staring out across the grounds again, and one hand drew up slowly till it was doubled into a tight-shut little fist.

"Well, he's in that very fix right now. And he's likely to continue so, unless some one buys his release from the service and makes him a present of it. You might play the good angel," I suggested, half in earnest. "It only costs about five hundred dollars"—Mac had told me that—"and I'm sure he'd be properly grateful."

The red flag waved in her cheeks again. "I don't particularly like the idea," she said, rather crossly, still keeping her face turned away from me, "and I'm very sure he wouldn't care to have me. But dad thinks a lot of him; he might do something of the kind when he gets here. Dear, I wish they'd hurry along."

She had me at the end of my rope at last, and I felt like breaking away right there; any one not utterly calloused would, I think, have felt the same squeamishness with that sort of a tale crowding close. If she had been expecting bad news of any kind it wouldn't have been so hard to go on; but I couldn't beat about the bush any longer, so I made the plunge with what grace I could.

"Lyn, I've got something to tell you about your father and old Hans, and I'm afraid it's going to hurt," I prefaced gently, and went on before she could interrupt. "The fellows who held MacRae and me up had someway got wind of the gold they were packing out. They tried to get it. So far as I know, they haven't succeeded yet. Rutter tried to tell us where it was cached. There was a fight over it, you see, and he was shot. Mac and I came across him—but not soon enough." I stopped and got out cigarette material in an absent sort of way. My lips, I remember, were almighty dry just then.

"And dad?" Lyn was looking at me intently, and her voice was steady; that squeezed kind of steadiness that is almost worse than tears.

"He wasn't with Rutter." I drew a long breath and hurried on, slurring over the worst of it. "They had got separated. Hans was about done when we found him—he died in a few minutes—but he told us where to go. Then we went to look for your father. We found him; too late to do any good. We buried him—both of them—and came on here."

I felt like a beast, as if I had struck her with my fist, but at any rate, it was all told; all that she need ever know. I sat still and watched her, wondering nervously what she would do.

It was a strain to sit there silent, for Lyn neither did or said anything at first. Perhaps she cried afterward, when she got by herself, but not then; just looked at me, through me, almost, her face white and drawn into pained lines, and those purple-blue eyes perfectly black. I got up at last, and put one hand on her shoulder.

"It's hell, little girl, I know." I said this hardly realizing that I swore. "We can't bring the old man back to life, but we can surely run down the cold-blooded devils that killed him. I have a crow to pick with them myself; but that doesn't matter; I'd be in the game anyway. We'll get them somehow, when Mac gets out and can play his hand again. It was finding your father and giving him decent burial that kept us out so long. I don't understand, yet, why Lessard should pitch into MacRae so hard for doing that much. You know Mac, Lyn, and you know me—we'll do what we can."

She didn't move for a minute, and the shocked, stricken look in her eyes grew more intense. Then she dropped her head in the palms of her hands with a little sobbing cry. "Sarge, I—I wish you'd go, now," she whispered. "I want to—to be all by myself, for a while. I'll be all right by and by."

I stood irresolute for a second. It may have been my fancy, but I seemed to hear her whisper, "Oh, Gordon, Gordon!" Then I hesitated no longer, but turned away and left her alone with her grief; it was not for me to comfort her. And when I had walked a hundred yards or more, I looked back. She was still sitting as I had left her, head bowed on her hands, and the afternoon sun playing hide-and-seek in the heavy coils of her tawny-gold hair.



CHAPTER IX.

AN IDLE AFTERNOON.

For the next hour or two I poked aimlessly around the post buildings, chafing at the forced inaction and wondering what I would better do after I'd gone with the squad of redcoats to those graves and helped bring the bodies in. Even if I had a pack-horse and a grub-stake, it would be on a par with chasing a rainbow for me to start on a lone hunt for Hank Rowan's cache. I didn't know the Writing-Stone country, and a man had no business wandering up and down those somber ridges alone, away from the big freight-trails, unless he was anxious to be among the "reported missing"—which he sure would be if a bunch of non-treaty Indians ever got within gunshot of him. I damned Major Lessard earnestly for what I considered his injustice to MacRae, and wondered if he would send his troopers out to look for that hypothetical gold-dust. I didn't see how he could avoid making a bluff at doing so, even if he secretly classed Rutter's story as a fairy-tale, and I promised myself to find out what he was going to do before I started in the morning.

While I was sitting with my back against the shaded wall of troop G's barrack, turning this over in my mind, a Policeman with the insignia of a sergeant on his sleeve came sauntering leisurely by. He took me in with an appraising glance, and stopped.

"How d'ye do," he greeted, with a friendly nod. "You're the man that came in with MacRae, aren't you?"

I laconically admitted that I was.

"The k. o. has detailed me to bring in the bodies of the two men who were killed," he informed me. "He said that you were going along, and so I thought I'd hunt you up and tell you that we'll start about seven in the morning."

"I'll be ready," I assured him.

"Come on over to the bull-pen," he invited cordially. "Sorry we haven't a canteen in connection, but it's more comfortable over there. Good place to lop about, y' know; a decent place to sit, and a few books and cards and that sort of thing. Come along."

I rather liked the man's style, and as he seemed to be really anxious to make things pleasant for me, I shuffled off the pessimistic mood I was drifting into, and fell in with his proposal. The "bull-pen" proved to be a combination reading and lounging-room for the troopers not on duty. My self-appointed host, whose name was Goodell, waved me to a chair, and took one opposite. With his feet cocked up on a window-sill, and a cigarette going, he leaned back in his chair, and our conversation slackened so that I had a chance to observe my surroundings. It was a big place, probably fifty feet by a hundred, and quite a number of redcoats were sprinkled about, some reading, some writing letters, and two or three groups playing cards. None of them paid any attention to me, beyond an occasional disinterested glance, until my roving eyes reached a point directly behind me. Then I became aware that one of a bunch of four poker-players a few feet distant was regarding me with an expression that puzzled me. I had turned my head rather quickly and caught him staring straight at me. It was an odd look, sort of amused, and speculative; at least, that was the way I read it. Twice in the next ten minutes I glanced around quickly and caught him sizing me up, as it were; and then I hitched my chair sidewise, and deliberately began studying the gentleman to see if I could discover the source of his interest in me.

I failed in that, but I stopped his confounded quizzical stare. He wasn't the style of man that I'd care to stir up trouble with, judging from his size and the shape of his head. He was about my height, but half as broad again across the shoulders, and his thick, heavy-boned wrists showed hairy as an ape's when he stretched his arms to deal the cards. Aside from his physical proportions, there was nothing about the man to set him apart from his fellows. Half a dozen men in that room had the same shade of hair and mustache, and the same ordinary blue eyes. I turned back to the window again, thinking that I was getting nervous as an old maid, to let a curious look from a stranger stir me like that.

In a few minutes the trooper opposite my friend of the poker-game drew out, and one of the players called loudly on Goodell to take his place. Goodell lighted another cigarette and nonchalantly seated himself in the vacant chair. Then I observed for the first time that the game was for blood rather than pastime, for Goodell paid for his little pile of white beans in good, gold coin of the realm. Next to playing a little "draw" myself, I like to watch the game, and so I moved over where I could see the bets made and the hands exhibited. And there I stuck till "stables" sounded, watching the affable sergeant outgeneral his opponents, and noting with some amusement the sulky look that grew more intensified on the heavy face of Hicks (as they called the man who had favored me with that peculiar stare) when Goodell finessed him out of two or three generous-sized pots.

On my way to attend to my horse, Bat Perkins overtook me.

"Say, old-timer, is it right about Mac losing his stripes and getting thirty days in the cooler?" he asked in lowered tone.

"It sure is," I answered emphatically.

"What in thunder for?" he inquired resentfully. And because I was aching to express my candid opinion of Major Lessard and all his works to some one who would understand my point of view, I told Bat all about it—omitting any mention of the gold-dust. Only four men, Dobson the fathead, Lessard, MacRae and myself, knew what little was known of that, and I felt that I had no license to spread the knowledge further.

"Oh, they sure do hand it to a man if he makes the least break," Bat sympathized. "Mac's one uh the best men they've got in the Force, an' they know it, too. Darned if that don't sound queer t' me; what else could he do? But Lessard's a overbearin' son-of-a-gun all round, and he's always breakin' out in a new place. Say, you might as well come over an' stay with me while you're round here. I don't reckon you'll enjoy herdin' with these rough-necks."

Bat's offer was not one to be overlooked by a man in my circumstances, so after supper found me sitting in his kitchen making gloomy forecasts of the future, between cigarettes. Shortly before the moon-faced clock nailed on the wall struck the hour of nine with a great internal whirring, some one tapped lightly on the door. Bat himself answered the knock. His body shut off sight of whoever stood outside. I could just catch the murmur of a subdued voice. After a few seconds of listening Bat nodded vigorously, and closed the door. He came back to his chair grinning pleasantly, and handed me a little package. I tore it open and found, wrapped tightly about three twenty-dollar gold pieces, an unsigned note from MacRae. It ran:

"Get after Lessard and see if he won't send an escort with you to Writing-Stone. If he does, and you find anything, I needn't warn you to be careful. I don't think he believed our yarn, at all. If he refuses to act, stay here till I get out. This money will hold you for a while. It's all I could rustle. If you need more, maybe Bat can stake you—he will if he can."

That was all. Not a word about Lyn. The stiff-necked devil!

"You know what this is, don't you?" I said to Bat. "How the dickens did he manage it?"

Bat's grin became even more expansive. "There ain't a buck trooper on the job," he replied, "that wouldn't help Mac if he got half a show; he's a white man. It's easy for a prisoner t' slip a note to a friend that happens t' be mountin' guard. He sent it t' me because I'd be apt t' know where yuh was. Sabe?"

I did. Mac's suggestion was right in line with my own idea. Lessard could scarcely refuse to do that much, I thought; and it would be rather unhealthy for those prairie pirates to match themselves against a bunch of Mounted Policemen who were on their guard—provided we found anything that was worth fighting over.

A little later Bat spread a bed for me on the kitchen floor, and I turned in. But my sleep resolved itself into a series of cat-naps. When the first sunbeam gleamed through the window of Bat's tiny kitchen, I arose, pulled on my boots and went to feed my horse. And when we had eaten breakfast I headed straight for Lessard's private quarters. I expected he would object to talking business out of business hours, but I didn't care; I wanted to know what he was going to do, before I started on that three-day trip. Fortunately Lessard was an early bird, like myself. I met him striding toward the building that seemed to be a clearing house for the official contingent.

"Good-morning, major," I said, mustering up a semblance of heartiness that was far from being the genuine article—I didn't like the man and it galled me to ask anything of him. "I want to ask you something before I leave. Have you talked this affair over with Miss Rowan?"

"Yes. Why?" He was maddeningly curt, but I pocketed my feelings and persisted.

"Then you must know beyond a doubt that there was some truth in Rutter's story," I declared. "Hank Rowan was my friend. I'd go out of my way any time to help his daughter. Will you send four or five of your men with me to the Writing-Stone to look for that stuff?" I asked him point-blank.

He looked me up and down curiously, and did not answer for a minute. "How do you know where to look?" he suddenly demanded. "Writing-Stone ridge is ten miles long. What chance would you have of finding anything in a territory of that extent?" His cold eyes rested on me in a disagreeable way. "I thought Rutter died before giving you the exact location."

As a matter of fact, MacRae, in detailing the lurid happenings of that night, did not repeat the words Rutter had gasped out with his last breath. He simply said that Hans died after telling us that they had been attacked, and that the gold was hidden at Writing-Stone. And Lessard, as I said before, had passed up the gold episode at the time; all his concern seemed to be for the robbers' apprehension, which was natural enough since a crime had undoubtedly been committed and he bore the responsibility of catching and punishing the perpetrators. The restoration of stolen goods was probably dwarfed in his mind by the importance of capturing the stealers.

I was vastly interested in that phase of it, too, for I realized that a speedy gathering in of those men of the mask was my only chance to lay hold of La Pere's ten thousand; and I had a theory that they were hardly the sort to be content with that sum, and that Hank Rowan's cached gold would be an excellent bait for them, if it could be uncovered. Those steadily reiterated phrases, "raw gold—on the rock" might have some understandable meaning if one were on the spot, but MacRae had kept that to himself—and I wasn't running a bureau of information for Lessard's benefit. The Canadian government might trust him, but I wouldn't—not if he took oath on a stack of Bibles, and gave a cast-iron bond to play fair. I couldn't give any sound reason for feeling that way, beyond the shabby treatment he'd given MacRae. But somehow the man's personality grated on me. Lessard was of the type, rare enough, that can't be overlooked if one comes in contact with it; a big, dominant, magnetic brute type that rouses either admiration or resentment in other ordinary mortals; the kind of a man that women become fascinated with, and other men invariably hate—and sometimes fear. I didn't stop to analyze my feeling toward him, just then; but I had the impulse to keep what little I knew to myself, and I obeyed the promptings of the sixth sense.

"He did," I answered. "But we can take a chance. Send men that know the country. Lyn Rowan's kinfolk are few and far between, now; that gold means a good deal to her, in her present circumstances."

"H—m-m." He mused a few seconds. Then: "If I think there's any possibility of finding it—well, I'll see what can be done, after those bodies are brought in. You, I suppose, are ready to start?"

I nodded.

"Sergeant Goodell is in charge of the detail. You'll probably find him about to go. That's all."

It was like being dismissed from parade; a right-about-face, march! command straight from the shoulder. Again I was overwhelmed with thankfulness that the N. W. M. P. had no string on me; I never took orders from anybody in that tone of voice, and I wanted to shake a defiant fist under the autocratic major's nose and tell him so. I had sense enough to see that the time and place was unpropitious for starting an argument of that sort, so I kept an unperturbed front and went about my business.



CHAPTER X.

THE VANISHING ACT, AND THE FRUITS THEREOF.

Being aware that it was near the time Goodell had named for starting, I returned to the stables, and, getting my horse, rode to the commissary. There I found Goodell engineering the final preparations. Four men, besides myself, made up the party: the sergeant, Hicks the hairy-wristed, another private, and a half-breed scout. They were lashing an allowance of food and blankets on a pack-horse, and two other horses with bare aparejos on their backs were tied to the horn of the breed's saddle—for what purpose I could easily guess.

While I sat on my caballo waiting for them to tie the last hitch a rattle of wheels and the thud of hoofs drew near, and presently a blue wagon, drawn by four big mules and flanked by half a dozen Mounted Policemen, passed by the commissary building. The little cavalcade struck a swinging trot as it cleared the barracks, swung down into the bed of Battle Creek, up the farther bank, and away to the west. And a little later we, too, left the post, following in the dusty wake of the paymaster's wagon and its mounted escort.

For ten or twelve miles we kept to the MacLeod trail at an easy pace, never more than a mile behind the "transient treasury," as Goodell facetiously termed it. He was a pretty bright sort, that same Goodell, quick-witted, nimble of tongue above the average Englishman. I don't know that he was English; for that matter, none of the three carried the stamp of his nationality on his face or in his speech. They were men of white blood, but they might have been English, Irish, Scotch or Dutch for all I could tell to the contrary. But each of them was broke to the frontier; that showed in the way they sat their horses, the way they bore themselves toward one another when clear of the post and its atmosphere of rigidly enforced discipline. The breed I didn't take much notice of at the time, except that when he spoke, which was seldom, he was given to using better language than lots of white men I have known.

At a point where the trail seemed to bear north a few degrees, Goodell angled away from the beaten track and headed straight across country for Pend d' Oreille. At noon we camped, and cooked a bite of dinner while the horses grazed; ate it, and went on again.

About three o'clock, as nearly as I could tell, we dipped into a wooded creek bottom some two hundred yards in width. The creek itself went brawling along in a deep-worn channel, and when my horse got knee deep in the water he promptly stopped and plunged his muzzle into the stream. I gave him slack rein, and let him drink his fill. The others kept on, climbed the short, steep bank, and passed from sight over its rim. I swung down from my horse on the brink of the creek, cinched the saddle afresh, and rolled a cigarette. If I thought about them getting the start of me at all, it was to reflect that they couldn't get a lead of more than two or three hundred yards, at the gait they traveled. Judge then of my surprise when I rode up out of the water-washed gully and found them nowhere in sight. I pulled up and glanced about, but the clumps of scrubby timber were just plentiful enough to cut off a clear view of the flat. So I fell back on the simple methods of the plainsman and Indian and jogged along on their trail.

Not for many days did I learn truly how I came to miss them, how and why they had vanished from the face of the earth so completely in the few minutes I lingered in the gulch. The print of steel-rimmed hoofs showed in the soft loam as plainly as a moccasin-track in virgin snow. Around a grove of quaking-aspens, eternally shivering in the deadest of calms, their trail led through the long grass that carpeted the bottom, and suddenly ended in a strip of gravelly land that ran out from the bed of the creek. I could follow it no farther. If there was other mark of their passing, it was hidden from me.

Wondering, and a bit exasperated, I spurred straight up the bank, and when I had reached the high benchland loped to a point that overlooked the little valley a full mile up and down. Cottonwood and willow, cut-bank and crooning water, lay green and brown and silver-white before, but no riders, no thing that moved in the shape of men came within the scope of my eyes. But I wasn't done yet. I turned away from the bank and raced up a long slope to a saw-backed ridge that promised largely of unobstructed view. Dirty gray lather stood out in spumy rolls around the edge of the saddle-blanket, and the wet flanks of my horse heaved like the shoulders of a sobbing woman when I checked him on top of a bald sandstone peak—and though as much of the Northwest as one man's eye may hope to cover lay bared on every hand, yet the quartet that rode with me from Fort Walsh occupied no part of the landscape. I could look away to the horizon in every direction, and, except for one little herd of buffalo feeding peacefully on the westward slant of the ridge, I could see nothing but rolling prairie, a vast undulating spread of grassland threaded here and there with darker lines that stood for creeks and coulees, and off to the north the blue bulk of the Cypress Hills.

I got off and sat me down upon a rock, rolled another cigarette, and waited. The way to Pend d' Oreille led over the ridge, a half mile on either side of me, as the spirit moved a traveler who followed an approximately straight line. Whatever road they had taken, they could not be more than three or four miles from that sentinel peak—for there is a well-defined limit to the distance a mounted man may cover in a given length of time. And from my roost I could note the passing of anything bigger than a buffalo yearling, within a radius of at least six miles. Therefore, I smoked my cigarette without misgiving, and kept close watch for bobbing black dots against the far-flung green.

I might as well have laid down and gone to sleep on that pinnacle for all the good my waiting and eye-straining did me. One hour slipped by and then another, and still I did not abandon hope of their appearance. Naturally, I argued with myself, they would turn back when I failed to overtake them—especially if they had thoughtlessly followed some depression in the prairie where I could not easily see them. And while I lingered, loath to believe that they were hammering unconcernedly on their way, the sun slid down its path in the western sky—slid down till its lower edge rested on the rim of the world and long black shadows began to creep mysteriously out of the low places, while buttes and ridges gleamed with cloth of gold, the benediction of a dying day. Only then did I own that by hook or by crook—and mostly by crook, I was forced to suspect—they had purposely given me the slip.

A seasoned cowpuncher hates to admit that any man, or bunch of men, can take him out into an open country and shake him off whenever it is desired; but if I had been a rank tenderfoot they couldn't have jarred me loose with greater ease. It was smooth work, and I couldn't guess the object, unless it was a Mounted Policeman's idea of an excellent practical joke on a supposedly capable citizen from over the line. Anyway, they had left me holding the sack in a mighty poor snipe country. Dark was close at hand, and I was a long way from shelter. So when the creeping shadows blanketed pinnacle and lowland alike, and all that remained of the sun was the flamboyant crimson-yellow on the gathering clouds, I was astride of my dun caballo and heading for Pend d' Oreille.

But speedily another unforeseen complication arose. Before I'd gone five miles the hoodoo that had been working overtime on my behalf got busy again. The clouds that were rolling up from the east at sundown piled thick and black overhead, and when dark was fairly upon me I was, for all practical purposes, like a blind man in an unfamiliar room. It didn't take me long to comprehend that I was merely wasting the strength of my horse in bootless wandering; with moonlight I could have made it, but in that murk I could not hope to find the post. So I had no choice but to make camp in the first coulee that offered, and an exceeding lean camp I found it—no grub, no fire, no rest, for though I hobbled my horse I didn't dare let his rope out of my hands.

About midnight the combination of sultry heat and banked clouds produced the usual results. Lightning first, lightning that ripped the sky open from top to bottom in great blazing slits, and thunder that cracked and boomed and rumbled in sharps and flats and naturals till a man could scarcely hear himself think; then rain in flat chunks, as if some malignant agency had yanked the bottom out of the sky and let the accumulated moisture of centuries drop on that particular portion of the Northwest. In fifteen minutes the only dry part of me was the crown of my head—thanks be to a good Stetson hat. And my arms ached from the strain of hanging onto my horse, for, hobbled as he was, he did his best to get up and quit Canada in a gallop when the fireworks began. To make it even more pleasant, when the clouds fell apart and the little stars came blinking out one by one, a chill wind whistled up on the heels of the storm, and I spent the rest of that night shivering forlornly in my clammy clothes.

Still a-shiver at dawn, I saddled up and loped for the crest of the nearest divide to get the benefit of the first sun-rays. But alas! the hoodoo was still plodding diligently on my trail. I topped a little rise, and almost rode plump into the hostile arms of a half-dozen breech-clout warriors coming up the other side. I think there were about half a dozen, but I wouldn't swear to it. I hadn't the time nor inclination to make an exact count. The general ensemble of war-paint and spotted ponies was enough for me; I didn't need to be told that it was my move. My spurs fairly lifted the dun horse, and we scuttled in the opposite direction like a scared antelope. The fact that the average Indian is not a master hand with a gun except at short range was my salvation. If they'd been white men I would probably have been curled in a neat heap within two hundred yards. As it was, they shot altogether too close for comfort, and the series of yells they turned loose in that peaceful atmosphere made me feel that I was due to be forcibly separated from the natural covering of my cranium if I lost any time in getting out of their sphere of influence.

The persistent beggars chased me a good ten miles before they drew up, concluding, I suppose, that I was too well mounted for them to overhaul. But it might have been a lot worse; I still had my scalp intact; the chase and its natural excitement had brought a comfortable warmth to my chilled body; and I had made good time in the direction I wished to go. On the whole, I felt that the red brother had done me rather a good turn. But I kept on high ground, thereafter, where I could see a mile or two, for I was very much alive to the fact that if another of those surprise-parties jumped me now that my horse was tired they would have a good deal of fun at my expense; and an Indian's idea of fun doesn't coincide with mine—not by a long shot!

I made some pointed remarks to my horse about Mr. Goodell and his companions, as I rode along. If Pend d' Oreille hadn't been the nearest place, I'd have turned back to Walsh and made that bunch of exhumers come back after me, if it were absolutely necessary that I should pilot them to the graves. Personally, I thought those two old plainsmen wouldn't thank Major Lessard or any one else for disturbing their last, long sleep; the wide, unpeopled prairies had always been their choice in life, and I felt that they would rather be laid away in some quiet coulee, than in any conventional "city of the dead" with prim headstones and iron fences to shut them in. A Western man likes lots of room; dead or alive, it irks him to be crowded.

I fully expected to find the four waiting for me at Pend d' Oreille, and I was prepared to hear a good deal of chaffing about getting lost. What of my waiting on the ridge that afternoon, and bearing more or less away from the proper direction at night, I did not reach the post till noon; and I was a bit puzzled to find only the men who were on duty there. I was digesting this along with the remains of the troopers' dinner, when Goodell and his satellites popped over the hill that looked down on Pend d' Oreille, and, a few minutes later, came riding nonchalantly up to the mess-house.

"Well, you beat us in," Goodell greeted airily. "Did you find a short cut?"

"Sure thing," I responded, with what irony I could command.

"Where the deuce did you go, anyway, after you stopped in that creek-bottom?" he asked, eying me with much curiosity. "We nearly played our horses out galloping around looking for you—after we'd gone a mile or so, and you didn't catch up."

"Then you must have kept damned close to the coulee-bottoms," I retorted ungraciously, "for I burnt the earth getting up on a pinnacle where you could see me, before you had time to go very far."

"Oh, well, it's easy to lose track of a lone man in a country as big as this," he returned suavely. "We all got here, so what's the odds? I guess we'll stick here till morning. We can't make the round trip this afternoon, and I'm not camping on the hills when it's avoidable."

It struck me that he was uncommonly philosophical about it, so I merely grunted and went on with my dinner.

That evening, when we went to the stable to fix up our horses for the night, I got a clearer insight into his reason for laying over that afternoon. They had been doing some tall riding, and their livestock was simply unfit to go farther. The four saddle-horses looked as if they had been dragged through a small-sized knothole; their gauntness, and the dispirited droop of their heads, spelled complete fatigue to any man who knew the symptoms of hard riding. By comparison, my sweat-grimed dun was fresh as a morning breeze.



CHAPTER XI.

THE GENTLEMAN WHO RODE IN THE LEAD.

It took us all of the next day to make the trip to Stony Crossing and back by way of the place where Rutter was buried. Goodell had no fancy, he said, for a night camp on the prairie when it could be avoided. He planned to make an early start from Pend d' Oreille, and thus reach Walsh by riding late the next night. So, well toward evening, we swung back to the river post. Goodell and his fellows were nowise troubled by the presence of dead men; they might have been packing so much merchandise, from their demeanor. But I was a long way from feeling cheerful. The ghastly burdens, borne none too willingly by the extra horses, put a damper on me, and I'm a pretty sanguine individual as a rule.

When we had unloaded the bodies from the uneasy horses, and laid them carefully in a lean-to at the stable-end, we led our mounts inside. Goodell paused in the doorway and emitted a whistle of surprise at sight of a horse in one of the stalls. I looked over his shoulder and recognized at a glance the rangy black MacRae had ridden.

"They must have given Mac's horse to another trooper," I hazarded.

"Not that you could notice," Goodell replied, going on in. "They don't switch mounts in the Force. If they have now, it's the first time to my knowledge. When a man's in clink, his nag gets nothing but mild exercise till his rightful rider gets out. And MacRae got thirty days. Well, we'll soon find out who rode him in."

I pulled the saddle off my horse, slapped it down on the dirt floor, and went stalking up to the long cabin. The first man my eyes lighted upon as I stepped inside was MacRae, humped disconsolately on the edge of a bunk. I was mighty glad to see him, but I hadn't time to more than say "hello" before Goodell and the others came in. Mac drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to Goodell.

He glanced quickly through it, then swept the rest of us with a quizzical smile. "By Jove! you must have a pull with the old man, Mac," he said to MacRae. "I suppose you know what's in this epistle?"

"Partly." Mac answered as though it were no particular concern of his.

"I'm to turn Hicks and Gregory over to you," he read the note again to be sure of his words, "see that you get a week's supply of grub here, and then leave you to your own devices. What's the excitement, now? Piegans on the war-path? Bull-train missing, or whisky-runners getting too fresh, or what? My word, the major has certainly established a precedent; you're the first man I've known that got thirty days in clink and didn't have to serve it to the last, least minute. How the deuce did you manage it? Put me on, like a good fellow—I might want to get a sentence suspended some day. Any of us are liable to get it, y'know." Goodell's tone was full of gentle raillery.

"The high and mighty sent me out to lead a forlorn hope," Mac dryly responded. "Does that look like a suspended sentence?" He turned his arm so that we could see the ripped stitching where his sergeant's stripes had been cut away.

"Tough—but most of us have been there, one time or another," Goodell observed sympathetically; and with that the subject rested.

Though I was burning to know things, we hadn't the least chance to talk that evening. Nine lusty-lunged adults in that one room prohibited confidential speech. Not till next morning, when we rode away from Pend d' Oreille with our backs to a sun that was lazily clearing the hill-tops, did MacRae and I have an opportunity to unburden our souls. When we were fairly under way in the direction of Writing-Stone, Hicks and Gregory—the breed scout—lagged fifty or sixty yards behind, and MacRae turned in his saddle and gave me a queer sort of look.

"I wasn't joking last night when I told Goodell that this was something of a forlorn hope," he said. "Are you ready to take a chance on getting your throat cut or being shot in the back, Sarge?"

I stared at him a second. It was certainly an astounding question, coming from that source—more like the language of the villain in a howling melodrama than a cold-blooded inquiry that called for a serious answer. But he was looking at me soberly enough; and he wasn't in the habit of saying startling things, unless there was a fairly solid basis of truth in them. He was the last man in the world to accuse of saying or doing anything merely for the sake of effect.

"That depends," I returned. "Why?"

"Because if we find what we're going after that's the sort of formation we may have to buck against until we get that stuff to Walsh," he replied coolly. "Beautiful prospect, eh? I reckon you'll understand better if I tell you how it came about.

"The day you left, Lessard had me up on the carpet again. When he got through cross-questioning me, he considered a while, and finally said that under the circumstances he felt that losing my stripes would be punishment enough for the rank insubordination I'd been guilty of, and he would therefore revoke the thirty-day sentence. I pricked up my ears at that, I can tell you, because Lessard isn't built that way at all. When a man talks to any officer the way I did to him, he gets all that's coming, and then some for good measure. I began to see light pretty quick, though. He went on to say that he had spoken to Miss Rowan about her father, and had learned that without doubt those two old fellows were headed this way with between forty and fifty thousand dollars in gold-dust, that they'd washed on Peace River. Since I'd been on the spot when Rutter died, and knew the Writing-Stone country so well, he thought I would stand a better show of finding their cache than any one else he could send out. He wanted to recover that stuff for Miss Rowan, if it were possible. So he wrote that order to Goodell and started me out to join you—with a warning to keep our eyes open, for undoubtedly the men who killed Rutter and held you up would be watching for a chance at us if we found that gold."

"Very acute reasoning on his part, I'm sure," I interrupted. "We knew that without his telling. And if he thinks those fellows are hanging about waiting for a whack at that dust, why doesn't he get out with a bunch of his troopers and round them up?"

"That's what," Mac grinned. "But wait a minute. This was about three in the afternoon, and he ordered me to start at once so as to catch you fellows as soon as possible. I started a few minutes after three. You remember the paymaster's train left that morning. He had a mounted escort of six or seven besides his teamster. The MacLeod trail runs less than twenty miles north of here, you know. I followed it, knowing about where they'd camp for the night, thinking I'd make their outfit and get something to eat and a chance to sleep an hour or two; then I could come on here early in the morning. I got to the place where I had figured they would stop, about eleven o'clock, but they had made better time than usual and gone farther, so I quit the trail and struck across the hills, for I didn't want to ride too far out of my way. When I got on top of the first divide I ran onto a little spring and stopped to water my horse and let him pick a bit of grass; I'd been riding eight hours, and still had quite a jaunt to make. I must have been about three miles south of the trail then."

He stopped to light the cigarette he had rolled while he talked, and I kept still, wondering what would come next. MacRae wasn't the man to go into detail like that unless he had something important to bring out.

"I sat there about an hour, I reckon," he continued. "By that time it was darker than a stack of black cats, and fixing to storm. I thought I might as well be moving as sit there and get soaked to the hide. While I was tinkering with the cinch I thought I heard a couple of shots. Of course, I craned my neck to listen, and in a second a regular fusillade broke out—away off, you know; about like a stick of dry wood crackling in the stove when you're outside the cabin. I loped out of the hollow by the spring and looked down toward the trail. The red flashes were breaking out like a bunch of firecrackers, and with pretty much the same sound. It didn't last long—a minute or so, maybe. I listened for a while, but there was nothing to be seen and I heard no more shooting. Now, I knew the pay-wagon was somewhere on that road, and it struck me that the bunch that got Hans and Rowan and held us up might have tried the same game on it; and from the noise I judged it hadn't been a walkaway. It was a wild guess; but I thought I ought to go down and see, anyway. Single-handed, and in that dark you could almost feel, I knew I was able to sidestep the trouble, if it should be Indians or anything I didn't care to get mixed up in.

"I'd gone about a mile down the slope when the lightning began to tear the sky open. In five minutes the worst of it was right over me, and one flash came on top of the other so fast it was like a big eye winking through the clouds. One second the hills and coulees would show plain as day, and next you'd have to feel to find the ears of your horse. I pulled up, for I didn't care to go down there with all that lightning-play to make a shining mark of me, and while I sat there wondering how long it was going to last, a long, sizzling streak went zig-zagging up out of the north and another out of the east, and when they met overhead and the white glare spread over the clouds, it was like the sun breaking out over the whole country. It lit up every ridge and hollow for two or three seconds, and showed me four riders tearing up the slope at a high run. I don't think they saw me at all, for they passed me, in the dark that shut down after that flash of lightning, so close that I could hear the pat-a-pat of the hoofs. And when the next flash came they were out of sight.

"Right after that the rain hit me like a cloudburst. That was over quick, and by the time it had settled to a drizzle I was down in the paymaster's camp. Things were sure in an uproar there. Two men killed, two more crippled, and the paymaster raving like a maniac. I hadn't been far wide of the mark. The men that passed me on the ridge had held up the outfit—and looted fifty thousand dollars in cold cash."

"Fifty thousand—the devil!" I broke in. "And they got away with it?"

"With all the ease in the world," MacRae answered calmly. "They made a sneak on the camp in the dark, clubbed both sentries, and had their guns on the rest before they knew what was wrong. They got the money, and every horse in camp. The shooting I heard came off as they started away with the plunder. Some of the troopers grabbed up their guns and cut loose at random, and these hold-up people returned the compliment with deadly effect.

"That isn't all," he continued moodily. "I stayed there till daylight, and then gathered up their stock. All the thieves wanted of the horses was to set the outfit afoot for the time being—a trick which bears the earmarks of the bunch that got in their work on us. They had turned the horses loose a mile or so away, and I found them grazing together. When I'd brought them in I got a bite to eat and came on about my own business.

"Up on the ridge, close by the spring I had stopped at, I came slap on their track; the four horses had pounded a trail in the wet sod that a kid could follow. I tore back to the paymaster's camp and begged him to get his men mounted and we would follow it up. But he wouldn't listen to such a thing. I don't know why, unless he had some money they had overlooked and was afraid they might come back for another try at him. So I went back and hit the trail alone. It led south for a while, and then east to Sage Creek. This was day before yesterday, you sabe. Near noon I found a place where they'd cached two extra horses in the brush on Sage Creek. After that their track turned straight west again, and it was hard to follow, for the ground was drying fast. Finally I had to quit—couldn't make out hoof-marks any more. And it was so late I had to lie out that night. I got to Pend d' Oreille yesterday morning two or three hours after you fellows left for the crossing."

I haven't quite got a gambler's faith in a hunch, or presentiment, or intuitive conclusion—whatever term one chooses to apply—but from the moment he spoke of seeing four riders on a ridge during that frolic of the elements, a crazy idea kept persistently turning over and over in my mind; and when Mac got that far I blurted it out for what it was worth, prefacing it with the happenings of the trip from Walsh to Pend d' Oreille. He listened without manifesting the interest I looked for, tapping idly on the saddle-horn, and staring straight ahead with an odd pucker about his mouth.

"I was just going to ask you if you all came through together," he observed, in a casual tone. "I neglected to say that I got a pretty fair look at those fellows. In fact, I wouldn't hesitate to swear to the face of the gentleman who rode in the lead of the four."

"You did? Was it—was my hunch right?" I demanded eagerly.

"I could turn in my saddle and shoot his eye out," MacRae responded whimsically. "And I don't know but that would be more than justice. Of course, the others were the men, but I'm positive of Gregory. You see what we're up against, Sarge.

"That's why," he soberly concluded, "I think we'll have our hands full if we do locate that stuff. It's a big chunk of money, and a little thing like killing a man or two won't trouble them. We'll be watched every minute of the time that we prowl around those painted rocks; that's a cinch. And when we've pulled the chestnut out of the fire they'll gobble it—if there's the ghost of a chance."

While I was digesting this unpalatable information, Hicks and Gregory spurred abreast of us; for the remainder of the journey we four rode elbow to elbow, and conversation was scant.

Mid-afternoon found us camped under the Stone. Once on the ground, I began to think we were in no immediate danger of getting our throats cut for the sake of the treasure. Rutter had said "under the Stone"—and the vagueness of his words came home to me with considerable force, for the Stone, roughly estimated, was a good mile in length. It paralleled the river, a perpendicular wall of gray sandstone. An aptly-named place; wherever a ledge offered foothold, and even in places that seemed wholly beyond reach of human hands, the bald front of the cliff was chiseled with rude traceries—the picture-writing of the Blackfoot tribe. The history of a thousand battles and buffalo-hunts was written there. And somewhere at the foot of that mile-long cliff, under the uncouth figures carved by the red men in their hour of triumphant ease, rested that which we had come to find. I sat with my back against a cottonwood and smoked a cigarette while I considered the impassive front of Writing-On-the-Stone; and the fruit of my consideration was that he who sought for the needle in the haystack had no more difficult task than ours.

In due time we ate supper, and dark spread its mantle over the land. Then MacRae and I crawled up on a projecting ledge of rock to roll out our blankets—in a place where we could not well be surprised. Not that either of us anticipated anything of the sort so early in the game; when we had found what we were after, that would come. But the mere fact that we were all playing a part made us incline to caution. I don't know if we betrayed our knowledge or suspicions to Hicks and Gregory, but it was a good deal of an effort to treat those red-handed scoundrels as if they were legitimate partners in a risky enterprise. We had to do it, though. Until they showed their hand we could do nothing but stand pat and wait for developments; and if they watched us unobtrusively, we did the same by them. It is not exactly soothing to the nerves, however, to be in touch all day and then lie down to sleep at night within a few feet of men whom you imagine are only awaiting the proper moment to introduce a chunk of lead into your system or slip a knife under your fifth rib. I can't truthfully say that I slept soundly on that ledge.



CHAPTER XII.

WE LOSE AGAIN.

Three days later MacRae and I scaled the steep bank at the west end of the cliff and threw ourselves, panting, on the level that ran up to the sheer drop-off. When we had regained the breath we'd lost on that Mansard-roof climb we drew near to the edge, where we could stare into the valley three hundred feet below while we made us a cigarette apiece. We were just a mite discouraged. Beginning that first morning at the east end of the Writing-Stone we had worked west, conning the weather-worn face of it for a mark that would give a clue to the cache. Also we had scanned carefully the sandy soil patches along the boulder-strewn base, seeking the tell-tale footprints of horse or man. And we had found nothing. Each day the conviction grew stronger upon us that finding that gold would be purely chance, a miracle of luck; systematic search had so far resulted in nothing but blistered heels from much walking. And unless we did find it, thereby giving the gentlemen of the mask some incentive to match themselves against us once more, we were not likely to have the opportunity of breaking up a nervy bunch of murdering thieves.

We reasoned that the men whose guns we had looked into over Rutter's body and those who robbed the paymaster on the MacLeod trail were tarred with the same stick; likewise, that even now two of them ate out of the same pot with us three times daily. The thing was to prove it. Personally, the paymaster's trouble was none of my concern; what I wanted was to get back that ten thousand dollars, or deal those hounds ten thousand dollars' worth of misery. Not that I wasn't willing to take a long chance to help Lyn to her own, but I was human enough to remember that I had a good deal at stake myself. It was a rather depressed stock-hand, name of Flood, who blew cigarette smoke out over the brow of Writing-Stone that evening.

Mac finished smoking and ground the stub into the earth with his heel. For another minute or two he sat there without speaking, absently flipping pebbles over the bank.

"I reckon we might as well poke along the top to camp," he said at last, getting to his feet. "I sent that breed back, down there, so we could talk without having to keep cases on him. This is beginning to look like a hopeless case, isn't it?"

"Somewhat," I admitted. "I did think that Rutter's description would put us on the right track when we got there; but I can't see much meaning in it now. I suppose we'll just have to keep on going it blind."

"We'll have to stay with it while there's any chance," he said thoughtfully. "But I've been thinking that it might be a good plan to take a fall out of those two." He jerked his thumb in the direction of camp. "If we have sized things up right, they'll make some sort of move, and if we're mistaken there will be no harm done. I'll tell you an idea that popped into my head a minute ago. We can pretend to locate the stuff. Fix up a couple of dummy sacks, you know, and get them to camp and packed on the horse without letting them see what's inside. If Lyn gave Lessard the right figures, there should be between a hundred and forty or fifty pounds of dust. It's small in bulk, but weighty as a bad conscience. If we had a couple of little sacks we could get around that problem, easy enough—this black sand along the river would pass for gold-dust in weight. We could make the proper sort of play, and give them the chance they're looking for. If they make a break it'll be up to us to get the best of the trouble."

"It might work," I replied. "If you think it would make them tip their hand, I'm with you. This watch-the-other-fellow business is making me nervous as an old woman. Once we had those two dead to rights they might let out something that would enable us to land the whole bunch, and the plunder besides; once we had them rounded up we could come back here and hunt for Hank Rowan's gold-dust in peace."

"You've got the idea exactly, and we'll see what we can do in the morning," Mac returned. "But don't get married to the notion that they'll cough up all they know, right off the reel. Hicks might, if you went at him hard enough. But not the other fellow. Gregory's game clear through—he's demonstrated that in different ways since I've been in the Force. You could carve him to pieces without hearing a cheep, if he decided to keep his mouth shut. And he's about as dangerous a man in a scrimmage as I know. If there's a row, don't overlook Mr. Gregory."

We hoofed it toward camp as briskly as our galled feet would permit, for the sun was getting close to the sky line, and talked over Mac's scheme as we went. There was no danger of being overheard on that bench. As a matter of fact, Hicks and Gregory didn't know we were up there; at least, they were not supposed to know. MacRae had made a practice of leaving one or the other in camp, in case some prowling Indians should spy our horses and attempt to run them off. That afternoon Hicks had been on guard. When Mac started Gregory back he told him that we would be along presently, then sat himself down on a rock and watched the breed. When he was far enough up the flat to lose track of our movements we dropped into a convenient washout and sneaked along it to the foot of the bank, where a jutting point of rock hid sight of us climbing the hill.

We had no thought of spying on them, at first—it was simply to be rid of their onerous presence for a while, and getting on the bench was an afterthought. But as we came opposite camp, MacRae took a notion to look down and see what they were about. At a point which overlooked the bottom some two hundred yards from the east end of the Stone, we got down on our stomachs and wriggled carefully to the naked rim of the cliff. For some time we laid there, peering down at the men below. Hicks was puttering around the fire, evidently cooking supper, and Gregory was moving the picket rope of his horse to fresh grass. There was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen, and I drew back. But MacRae still kept his place. When he did back away from the edge, he had the look of a man who has made some important discovery.

"On my soul, I believe I've found it," he calmly announced.

"What!"

"I believe I have," he repeated, a trace of exultation in his tone. "At least, it amounts to the same thing. Crawl up there again, Sarge, and look straight down at the first ledge from the bottom. Hurry; you won't see anything if the sun has left it. And be careful how you show your head. We don't want to get them stirred up till we have to."

Cautiously I peeped over the brink, straight down as Mac had directed. The shadow that follows on the heels of a setting sun was just creeping over the ledge, but the slanting rays lingered long enough to give me sight of a glittering patch on the gray stone shelf below. While I stared the sun withdrew its fading beams from the whole face of the cliff, but even in the duller light a glint of yellow showed dimly, a pin point of gold in the deepening shadow.

Gold! I drew back from the rim of Writing-On-the-Stone, that set of whispered phrases echoing in my ears. Mac caught my eye and grinned. "Gold—raw gold—on the rock—above." I mouthed the words parrotlike, and he nodded comprehendingly.

"Oh, thunder!" I exclaimed. "Do you reckon that's what he meant?"

"What else?" Mac reasoned. "They'd mark the place somehow—and aren't those his exact words? What dummies we were not to look on those ledges before. You can't see the surface of them from the flat; and we might have known they would hardly put a mark where it could be seen by any pilgrim who happened to ride through that bottom."

"Hope you're right," I grunted optimistically.

"We'll know beyond a doubt, in the morning," Mac declared. "To-night we won't do anything but eat, drink, and sleep as sound as possible, for to-morrow we may have one hell of a time. I prefer to have a few hours of daylight ahead of us when we raise that cache. Things are apt to tighten, and I don't like a rumpus in the dark. Just now I'm hungry. If that stuff is there, it will keep. Come on to camp; our troubles are either nearly over or just about to begin in earnest."

We followed the upland past the end of the Stone till we found a slope that didn't require wings for descent. If Hicks or Gregory wondered at our arrival from the opposite direction in which we should have appeared, they didn't betray any unseemly curiosity. Supper and a cigarette or two consumed the twilight hour, and when dark shut down we took to our blankets and dozed through the night.

At daybreak we breakfasted. Without a word to any one MacRae picked up his carbine and walked out of camp. I followed, equally silent. It was barely a hundred yards to the ledge, and I caught myself wishing it were a good deal farther—out of range of those watchful eyes. I couldn't help wondering how it would feel to be potted at the moment of discovery.

"I thought I'd leave them both behind, and let them take it out in guessing," Mac explained, when we stood under the rock shelf upon which we had looked down the evening before. "We're right under their noses, so they won't do anything till the stuff's actually in sight."

He studied the face of the cliff for a minute. The ledge jutted out from the towering wall approximately twenty feet above our heads, but it could be reached by a series of jagged points and knobs; a sort of natural stairway—though some of the steps were a long way apart. Boulders of all shapes and sizes lay bedded in the soft earth where we stood.

"You shin up there, Sarge," Mac commanded, "and locate that mark. It ought to be an easy climb."

I "shinned," and reached the ledge with a good deal of skin peeled from various parts of my person. The first object my eye fell upon as I hoisted myself above the four-foot shelf was a dull, yellow spot on the gray rock, near enough so that I could lean forward and touch it with my fingers. A two-inch circle of the real thing—I'd seen enough gold in the raw to know it without any acid test—hammered into the coarse sandstone. I pried it up with the blade of my knife and looked it over. Originally it had been a fair-sized nugget. Hans or Rowan had pounded it into place with the back of a hatchet (the corner-marks told me that), flattening it to several times its natural diameter. I threw it down to MacRae, and looked carefully along the ledge. There was no other mark that I could see; I began to wonder if we were as hot on the scent as we had thought.

"Is there a loose piece of rock up there?" Mac called presently. "If there is, set it on the edge, in line with where this was."

I found a fragment about the size of my fist and set it on the rim of the ledge. He squinted up at it a moment, then nodded, smiling.

"Come on down now, Sarge," he grinned; and, seating himself on a rock with the carbine across his knees, he began to roll a cigarette, as if the finding of Hank Rowan's gold-cache were a thing of no importance whatever.

"Well," I began, when I had negotiated that precarious succession of knobs and notches and accumulated a fresh set of bruises, "why don't you get busy? How much wiser are you now? Where's your gold-dust?"

He took a deliberate puff and squinted up at the ledge again. "I'm sitting on it, as near as I can figure," he coolly asserted.

"Yes, you are," I fleered. "I'm from Missouri!"

"Oh, you're a doubting Thomas of the first water," he said. "Stand behind me, you confounded unbeliever. Kink your back a little and look over that stone you set for a mark. Do you see anything that catches your attention?"

Getting in the position he suggested, I looked up. Away back in the days before the white man was a power to be reckoned with in the Indian's scheme of things, some warrior had stood upon that self-same ledge and hacked out with a flint chisel what he and his fellows doubtless considered a work of art. Uncanny-looking animals, and uncannier figures that might have passed for anything from an articulated skeleton to a Missing Link, cavorted in a long line across that tribal picture-gallery. Between each group of figures the face of the rock was scored with mysterious signs and rudely limned weapons of war and chase. Right over the stone marker, a long-shafted war-lance was carved—the blade pointing down. MacRae's seat, stone-marker, and aboriginal spearhead; the three lined up like the sights of a modern rifle. The conclusion, in the light of what we knew from Rutter, was obvious, even to a lunkhead like myself.

"It looks like you might have struck it," I was constrained to admit.

Mac threw away his cigarette. "Here and now is where we find out," he declared.

Worming our fingers under the edge of the boulder, we lifted with all the strength that was in us. For a second it seemed that we could never budge it. Then it began to rise slowly, so slowly that I thought the muscles of my back would snap, and MacRae's face close by mine grew red and then purple with the strain. But it moved, and presently a great heave turned it over. Bedded in the soft earth underneath lay the slim buckskin sacks. Our fingers, I remember, trembled a bit as we stood one on end and loosened its mouth to make sure if we had found the treasure for which two men had already lost their lives.



"Here"—Mac handed me his carbine—"you stay with the yellow temptation. From now on we'll have to keep a close eye on this stuff, and likewise have our guns handy. I'll make those fellows pack up and bring the horses here. Then we'll load this and pull for Walsh."

His first move was to saddle his black horse and my dun. These he led to the fire, and thereafter stood a little to one side, placidly consuming a cigarette while the other two packed the camp-outfit and saddled their own mounts. Then they trailed across the flat toward me, MacRae blandly bringing up the rear. He wasn't taking any chances.

Half an hour later, with the sacks of gold securely lashed on the aparejos of the pack-horse, we climbed out of Writing-Stone bottom and swung away over the silent tablelands.

With Writing-on-the-Stone scarcely three miles behind, the long-abandoned burrow of a badger betrayed us into the hands of the enemy. (What a power for thwarting the plans of men little things sometimes exercise!) We had contrived that Gregory should lead the pack-horse, which gave MacRae and me both hands to use in case of a hostile demonstration; that there would be such, neither of us doubted from the moment those two laid eyes on the buckskin sacks. The sidelong, covetous glance that passed between them bespoke what was in their minds. And from that time on the four of us were like so many open-headed casks of powder sitting by a fire; sooner or later a spark would bring the explosion. We had them at a disadvantage trotting across the level upland, Gregory in the lead and Hicks sandwiched between Mac and myself—until MacRae's horse planted his foreleg to the knee in an old badger-hole hidden under a rank accumulation of grass. The black pitched forward so suddenly that Mac had no time to swing clear, and as he went down under the horse Gregory's agile brain grasped the opportunity of the situation, and his gun flashed out of its scabbard.

My hand flew to mine as I jerked the dun up short, but I wasn't fast enough—and Hicks was too close. It was a trilogy of gun-drawing. Gregory drew his and fired at MacRae with the devilish quickness of a striking rattler; I drew with intent to get Mr. Gregory; and Hicks drew his and slapped me over the head with it, even as my finger curled on the trigger. My gun went off, I know—afterward I had a dim recollection of a faint report—but whether the bullet went whistling into the blue above or buried itself in the broad bosom of the Territory, I can't say. Things ceased to happen, right then and there, so far as I was concerned. And I haven't satisfied myself yet why Hicks struck instead of shooting; unless he had learned the frontier lesson that a bullet in a vital spot doesn't always incapacitate a man for deadly gun-play, while a hard rap on the head invariably does. It wasn't any scruple of mercy, for Hicks was as cold-blooded a brute as ever glanced down a gun-barrel.

When my powers of sight and speech and hearing returned, MacRae stood over me, nowise harmed. The black horse lay where he had fallen. I sat up and glanced about, thankful that I was still in the flesh, but in a savage mood for all that. This, thought I, is a dismal-looking outcome—two men and a dead horse left high and dry on the sun-flooded prairie. And a rampant ache in my head, seconded by a medium-sized gash in the scalp, didn't make for an access of optimism at that moment.

"Well," I burst out profanely, "we lose again, eh?"

"Looks like it," Mac answered laconically. Then he whirled about and walked to a little point some distance away, where he stood with his back to me, looking toward Lost River.



CHAPTER XIII.

OUTLAWED.

I sat where I was for a while, fingering my sore head and keeping my thoughts to myself, for I had a keen sense of the mood he was in. For the second time, through no fault of his own, he had failed to live up to that tradition of the Force which accepts nothing short of unqualified victory for a Mounted Policeman when he clashes with breakers of the law. And, in addition, he had let slip through his fingers a fortune that belonged to a woman for whom he cared a great deal more than he was willing to admit. I felt pretty small and ashamed myself, to think of the ease with which they had left us afoot on the bald prairie after all our scheming, our precaution against something we were sure would happen; and there was no responsibility on my shoulders—except for that ten thousand of La Pere's, which I was beginning to think I'd looked my last upon. Mac had not only the knowledge of personal failure—bitter enough, itself, to a man of his temperament—to gnaw at him, but the prospect of another grilling from the powers in gold braid. It would have been strange if he hadn't felt blue.

He came back, however, in a few minutes, and squatting beside me abstractedly got out papers and tobacco.

"I suppose that bunch will quit the country now," he remarked at length. "They've got their hands on a heap of money in the last ten days; all they'll have a chance to grab for some time. And they've come out into the open. So there's not much doubt of their next move—they'll be on the wing."

"Well, we have a cinch on identifying them now," I commented. "We've got that much out of the deal. If the Mounted Police are half as good man-hunters as they are said to be, they ought to round up that bunch in short order. Did the black hurt you when he fell?"

"Bruised my leg some," he returned indifferently. Then, scowling at the remembrance: "If he hadn't caught me right under him I'd have got action on those two. But the jar threw my six-shooter where I couldn't reach it, and the carbine was jammed in the stirrup-leather on the wrong side. I reckon Gregory thought he got me first shot. He would have, too, only Crow threw up his head and stopped the bullet instead of me. They had ducked into that coulee by the time I got clear. Hicks grabbed your horse and took him along. I'm somewhat puzzled to know why they didn't stand pat and make a clean job of us both. Blast them, anyway!"

"Same here, and more of it," I fervently exclaimed.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Mac abruptly proposed. "We'll have to make Pend d' Oreille and send word to Walsh. It'll take the whole force to catch them now."

My gun lay where it had fallen when Hicks whacked me over the head. I picked it up, replaced the empty cartridge, and shoved it back into the scabbard. MacRae hoisted the carbine to his shoulder, and we started.

We poked along slowly at first, for I was still a bit dizzy from that blow. Before long we came to a spring seeping from the hillside, and when I had bathed my head in the cool water I began to feel more like myself. Thereafter, we tramped silently across high, dry benches, slid and scrambled to the bottoms of an endless succession of coulees, and wearily climbed the steep banks that lay beyond. The cool morning wind died away; the sun reeled up on its appointed circle, glaring brazenly into every nook and cranny in the land. Underfoot, the dry sod grew warm, then hot, till the soles of our boots became instruments of torture to feet that were sadly galled by fruitless tramping around the Stone. When a man has grown up in the habit of mounting a horse to travel any distance over three hundred yards, a walk of twenty undulating miles over a network of bald ridges and yawning coulees makes him think that a sulphur-and-brimstone hereafter can't possibly hold much discomfort that he hasn't sampled. A cowpuncher in high-heeled riding-boots is handicapped for pedestrianism by both training and inclination—and that scarred and wrinkled portion of the Northwest is a mighty poor strolling-ground for any man.

But we kept on, for the simple reason that there was nothing else we could do. MacRae wasted no breath in words. If the heat and the ungodly steepness of the hills and the luke-warm water that trickled along the creek channels ruffled his temper, he made no noise about it, only pressed doggedly toward Pend d' Oreille. I daresay he thought I was attending to that part of it, registering a complaint for both of us. And if I didn't rise to the occasion it was the fault of my limited vocabulary. I kept a stiff backbone for a while, but presently a futile rage against circumstances bubbled up and boiled over. I climbed each succeeding canyon wall oozing perspiration and profanity, and when the top was reached took fresh breath and damned the Northwest by sections in a large, fluent manner of speech. In time, however, the foolishness of this came home to me, and I subsided into spasmodic growling, saving my wind for the miles yet to cover.

Well past noon we reached the summit of a hog-backed ridge that overlooked the tortuous windings of Lost River, a waterless channel between banks that were void of vegetation. The crest of the divide was studded with great outcroppings of sand-stone, and in the shadow of one giant rock we laid down to rest before we descended into that barren valley where the heat-waves shimmered like crepon silk. The cool bit of earth was good to stretch upon; for nearly an hour we laid there, beyond reach of the glowing sun; it was worth almost the treasure we had lost to ease our aching feet. Then reluctantly we started again.

As we stepped from behind the rock three riders came into sight on the opposite slope of Lost River. A moment's scrutiny assured us that they were Mounted Policemen. From habit our eyes swept the surrounding country, and in a moment we observed other groups of mounted men, an equal distance apart and traveling in the same general direction—like a round-up sweeping over a cattle-range.

"They're out for somebody. I shouldn't be surprised if they have smelled out our friends," said MacRae. "And seeing this bunch is heading right toward us, we might as well take it easy here till they come up."

Returning to the cool shade, we waited till they crossed that miniature desert. I looked once or twice, and hoped we would not have to walk over it; I'd seen the Mohave and the Staked Plains, and I knew it was sizzling hot in that ancient river-bed—it is hot, and dry, when the heat-waves play tricks with objects seen from afar. Those three riders moved in a transparent haze, distorted, grotesque figures; now giants, broad, uncouth shapes; now pigmies astride of horses that progressed slowly on long, stiltlike legs, again losing form and waving like tall, slender trees swayed by vagrant winds. After a time they ascended above the level where the superheated atmosphere played its pranks, and came riding up the ridge in their true presentment. When they got within shouting distance we stepped into the sunlight and hailed them.

From the moment that they jerked up their horses at MacRae's call, I had an odd sense of impending trouble. For an instant it seemed as if they were about to break for cover; and when they approached us there was a strained, expectant expression on each tanned face, a wariness in their actions that looked unnatural to me. The nearer they came the more did I feel keyed up for some emergency. I can't explain why; that's something that I don't think will bear logical analysis. Who can explain the sixth sense that warns a night-herder of a stampede a moment before the herd jumps off the bed-ground? But that is how I felt—and immediately it transpired that there was good reason.

They stopped their horses within ten feet of us and dismounted, all three of them, a corporal and two privates, in the same breath that we said "hello." The corporal, rather chalky-looking under his tan, stepped forward and laid a hand on MacRae's shoulder.

"Gordon MacRae and Sarge Flood, in the Queen's name I arrest you for the robbery of Paymaster Ingstram on the MacLeod trail and the murder of two of his escort, and I warn you that anything you may say will be used against you."

He poured it out without pause or inflection, like a lesson well learned, a little ceremony of speech that it was well to hurry over; and the two troopers edged nearer, the right hand of each stealing toward the pistol that rested on his hip. It took nerve to beard us that way, when one comes to think it over. If we had been guilty of that raid, it was dollars to doughnuts that we would resist arrest, and according to the rules and regulations of the Force, they were compelled to take a long chance. A Mounted Policeman can't use his gun except in self-defense. He isn't supposed to smoke up a fugitive unless the fugitive begins to throw lead his way—which method of procedure gives a man who is, in the vernacular, "on the dodge" all the best of a situation like that; for it gives an outlaw a chance to take the initiative, and the first shot often settles an argument of that kind. The dominating idea, as I understood it, was that the majesty of the law should prove a sufficiently powerful weapon; and in the main it did. No thief, murderer, or smuggler ever yet successfully and systematically defied it. Men have gone to the bad up there—robbed, murdered, defrauded, killed a Policeman or two, maybe, but in the end were gathered in by "the riders of the plains" and dealt with according to their just deserts. So it has come to pass throughout the length and breadth of the Northwest that "in the Queen's name" out of the mouth of an unarmed redcoat, with one hand lightly on your shoulder, carries more weight than a smoking gun.

None of this occurred to me, just then. The one thing that loomed big in my mind's eye was the monstrous injustice of the accusation. Coming right on top of what I'd lately experienced at the hands of the men who had really done that dirty job—my head still tingled from the impact of Hicks' pistol—it stirred up all the ugliness I was capable of, and a lot that I had never suspected. No Fort Walsh guardhouse for me! No lying behind barred windows, with my feet chain-hobbled like a straying horse, while the slow-moving Canadian courts debated my guilt or innocence! Not while I had the open prairie underfoot and the summer sky above, and hands to strike a blow or pull a trigger.

Even had I been alone I think that I was crazy enough, for the moment, to have matched myself single-handed against the three of them. In which case I should likely have bidden a premature farewell to all earthly interests—though I might, perhaps, have managed to take with me a Policeman or two for company on the long trail. But a queer look that flashed over MacRae's face, a suggestive drawing back of his arm, intimated that something of the same was in his mind. Heavens, but a man can think a lot in the space of time it takes to count three!

I jumped for the two troopers, with a frenzied notion that I could put them both out of business if MacRae would only attend to the corporal. The distance didn't permit of gun-play; and, hot as I was, I had the sense to know that those men weren't responsible for my troubles; I didn't want to kill them, if I could help it—what I desired above all else was to get away, and burn powder with Hicks, Gregory and Co., if powder-burning was to be on the programme. They did try to pull their guns, but I was too close. I spoiled their good intentions by kicking one with all the force I could muster, and throwing my arms in a fervent embrace about the neck of the other.

A number eight box-toed riding-boot planted suddenly in the pit of one's stomach brings about the same result as a kick from a vigorous Missouri mule, I should imagine; anyway, that Mounted Policeman was eliminated as a fighting unit from the instant my toe made connections with his person. The other fellow and I went to the ground, and our struggle was of short duration, for Mac bought into the ruction with his carbine for a club, and under its soothing touch my wiry antagonist ceased from troubling. I scrambled to my feet and glanced around. The corporal was sprawled on the grass, his face to the sky.

"We've burned our bridges now, sure as fate," Mac broke out. "Here, I'll peel the guns off the bunch, and you lead their horses up to the rock out of sight of these other fellows. If they catch sight of us milling around here they're apt to swing over this way to see what's up."

I led the horses close to the boulder and left them standing there while I hurried back. By that time the fellow I'd kicked had so far recovered as to sit up, and the look he gave us was a scorcher. MacRae, with cocked carbine to emphasize his command, ordered him to drag his comrade to where the horses stood; and I followed after, lugging the insensible corporal to the same shady place.

"I want to know the how of this," Mac demanded of the trooper. "Who issued orders for our arrest on this damn fool charge? And when?"

"Lessard give us our orders," the Policeman growled. "He's been out with a whole bloomin' troop ever since he got word the paymaster 'ad bin stuck up. We got a commissary along, an' nooned about ten miles east o' here. After dinner—about two or three hours ago—he lined us up an' said as 'ow he'd got word that you two fellers 'ad bin identified as bein' the chaps as pulled off that paymaster row, an' that he wanted you. Said he 'ad reason t' believe you was some'ers between Lost River an' the Stone, an' you was t' be captured without fail. An' that's all I know about it," he concluded frankly, "except that you fellers is bloody fools t' make a break like this. It'll go that much 'arder with you—there ain't a bloomin' chance for you t' get away. You might just as well give up peaceable."

"Oh, don't preach," MacRae protested. "I know all that as well as you do. Great Scott! Burky, you've known me ever since I joined; do you imagine for a minute that I was in on that hold-up? Why, you know better. If I'd done anything so damned rotten, I'd have been out of the country long before this."

"Orders is orders," Burky sententiously observed. "Headquarters sez you're t' be took in, an' you'll be took in, no matter what a feller's private opinion happens t' be. I ain't no bloomin' judge an' jury t' set on your case, anyway. You'll get a square trial—same as everybody gets. But you ain't a-helpin' yourself a-cuttin' of didoes like this."

"I haven't time to go into details," Mac told him, "and I don't suppose you'd believe me if I did. But I've a blamed good reason for not wanting to put in several months cooling my heels under guard while the men that got the stuff get clear out of the country. We're going to take two of these horses, because we'll need them in our business; and we'll leave your guns at that big rock down the ridge. I don't want to hurt you, Burky, but if you start making signals to the rest of the bunch before we get out of sight, you'll go back to Walsh feet first. So be good. You'll see us again before long."

When we were ready to mount, MacRae fired another question at Burky. "Say, have you seen anything of Frank Hicks or Paul Gregory to-day?"

"They was both in camp at noon," the trooper replied.

"Huh! They were, eh?" MacRae swung up, and spoke from the saddle. "Well, if you see them again, tell them we'll sure give them a hard run for the money. And if you've got your month's pay on you, Burky, you'd better keep your hand on it while those two pilgrims are about."

We took the third horse along as a precautionary measure. At a boulder down the ridge we left him, together with their belts, as Mac had promised. The only bit of their property we kept besides the horses was a pair of field-glasses—something that we knew would be priceless to men who were practically outlawed. For the next two hours we slunk like coyotes in coulee-bottoms and deep washouts, until we saw the commissary wagon cross the ridge west of Lost River, saw from a safe distance the brown specks that were riders, casting in wide circles for sight of us or our trail.