Raw Gold: A Novel Page 7

  CHAPTER VII.

  THIRTY DAYS IN IRONS!

  It transpired, however, that before we reached Bat Perkins' cabin Macgot an unexpected answer to one of the questions he intended to ask. Aswe turned the corner of a rambling log house, which, from itspretentiousness, I judged must house some Mounted Police dignitary, wecame face to face with a tall, keen-featured man in Police uniform, anda girl. Even though Rutter had declared she would be at Walsh, I wasn'tprepared to believe it was Lyn Rowan. Sometimes five years will work awonderful change in a woman; or is it that time and distance work somesubtle transition in one's recollection? She didn't give me much time toindulge in guesswork, though. While I wondered, for an instant, if therecould by any possibility be another woman on God's footstool with quitethe same tilt to her head, the same heavy coils of tawny hair andunfathomable eyes that always met your own so frankly, she recognizedthe pair of us; though MacRae in uniform must have puzzled her for aninstant.

  "Gordon--and Sarge Flood! Where in the world did you come from?And--and----" She stopped rather suddenly, a bit embarrassed. I knewjust as well as if she had spoken the words, that she had been on thepoint of asking him what he was doing in the yellow-striped breeches andscarlet jacket of a Mounted Policeman. Whatever had parted them, shehadn't held it against him. There was an indefinable something in theway she spoke his name and looked at him that told me there was still asoft spot in her heart for the high-headed beggar by my side.

  But MacRae--while I was wise to the fact that he was the only friend Ihad in that country, and the sort of friend that sticks closer than abrother, I experienced a sincere desire to beat him over the noodle withmy gun and thereby knock a little of the stiffness out of hisneck--simply saluted the officer, tipped his hat to her, and passed on.I didn't _sabe_ the play, and when I saw the red flash up into her faceit made me hot, and there followed a few seconds when I took a veryuncharitable view of Mr. Gordon MacRae's distant manner.

  The fellow with her, I noticed, seemed to draw himself up very stiff anddignified when she stopped and spoke to us; and the look with which hefavored MacRae was a peculiar one. It was simply a vagrant expression,but as it flitted over his face it lacked nothing in the way ofsurprised disapproval; I might go farther and say it was malignant--thekind of look that makes a man feel like reaching for a weapon. At least,that's the impression it made on me.

  "I might fire that question back at you, Miss Rowan," I replied. "We'reboth a long way from the home range. I was here a day or two ago. Howdid you manage to keep out of sight--or have you just got in?"

  "Yesterday, only," she returned. "We--you remember old Mammy Thomas,don't you?--came over from Benton with the Baker freight outfit. Iexpect to meet dad here, in a few days."

  Her last sentence froze the words that were all ready to slip off theend of my tongue, and made my grouch against MacRae crystallize into afeeling akin to anger. Why couldn't the beggar stand his ground anddeliver the ugly tidings himself? That bunch of cottonwoods with thenew-made grave close by the dead horses seemed to rise up between us,and I became speechless. I hadn't the nerve to stand there and tell hershe'd never see her father again this side of the pearly gates. Not I.That was a job for somebody who could put his arms around her and kissthe tears away from her eyes. Unless I read her wrong, there was onlyone man who could make it easier for her if he were by, and he waswalking away as if it were none of his concern.

  Something of this must have shown in my face, for she was beginning toregard me curiously. I gathered my scattered wits and started to makesome attempt at conversation, but the man with the shoulder-strapsforestalled me.

  "Really, we must go, Miss Rowan, or we shall be late for luncheon," hedrawled. The insolent tone of him was like having one's face slapped,and it didn't pass over Lyn's head by any means. I thought to myselfthat if he had set out to entrench himself in her good graces, he wastaking the poorest of all methods to accomplish that desirable end.

  "Just a moment, major," she said. "Are you going to be here any lengthof time, Sarge?"

  "A day or so," I responded shortly. I didn't feel overly cheerfulwith all that bad news simmering in my brain-pan, and in additionI had conceived a full-grown dislike for the "major" and hisI-am-superior-to-you attitude.

  "Then come and see me this afternoon if you can. I'm staying with Mrs.Stone. Don't forget, now--I have a thousand things I want to talk about.Good-bye." And she smiled and turned away with the uniformed snob by herside.

  MacRae had loitered purposely, and I overtook him in a few rods.

  "Well," I blurted out, as near angry as I ever got at MacRae in all theyears I'd known him, "you're a high-headed cuss, confound you! Is it apart of your new philosophy of life to turn your back on every one thatyou ever cared anything for?"

  He shrugged his shoulders tolerantly. "What did you expect of me?"

  "You might have--oh, well, I suppose you'll go your own gait,regardless," I sputtered. "That's your privilege. But I don't see howyou had the nerve to pass _her_ up that way. Especially since that StonyCrossing deal."

  Mac took a dozen steps before he answered me.

  "You don't understand the lay of things, Sarge," he said, ratherhesitatingly. "If I have the situation sized up right, Lyn ispractically alone here, and things are going to look pretty black to herwhen she learns what has happened. Hank never had anything much to dowith his people. I doubt if Lyn has even a speaking acquaintance withher nearest kin. She has friends in the South--plenty of them who'd bemore than glad to do as much for her as you or I. But we're a long wayfrom the Canadian River, now. And so if she has made friends among theofficial set here, it's up to me to stand back--until that _cache_ isfound, anyway."

  "Then you're not going to try and see her, and tell her about this thingyourself?" I asked.

  "I can't," he replied impatiently. "You'll have to do that, Sarge. Hangit, can't you see where I stand? The mere fact that Lessard was takingher about shows that these officers' women have received her with openarms. They form a clique as exclusive as a quarantined smallpox patient,and a 'non-com' like myself is barred out, until I win a pair ofshoulder-straps; when my rank would make me socially possible. Meantime,I'm a sergeant, and if Lyn went to picking friends out of the ranks, I'mnot sure they wouldn't drop her like a hot potato. Sounds rotten, butthat's their style; and you've been through the mill at home enough toknow what it is to be knifed socially. It's different with you; you'rean American citizen, a countryman of hers. You understand?"

  "Yes," I answered tartly. "But I don't understand how you can stomachthis sort of existence. What is there in it? Where is the profit orsatisfaction in this kind of thing, for you? Will the man in the ranksget credit for taming the Northwest when his work is done? Why the devildon't you quit the job? Cut loose and be a free agent again."

  "It is a temptation, the way things have come up in the last day ortwo," he mused. "I'd like to be foot-loose, so I could work it outwithout any string attached to me. But there are only two ways I couldget out of the Force, and neither is open. I might desert, which wouldbe a dirty way to sneak out of a thing I went into deliberately; or, ifthey were minded to allow me, I could buy my discharge--and I haven'tthe price. Besides, I like the game and I don't know that I want to quitit. The life isn't so bad. It's your rabidly independent point of view.A man that can't obey orders is not likely to climb to a position wherehe can give them. What the dickens would become of the cow-outfits," hechallenged, "if every stockhand refused to take orders from the foremanand owners? Do you stand on your dignity when La Pere tells you to docertain things in a certain way?"

  I shrugged my shoulders. There was just enough truth in his words tomake them hard to confute, and, anyway, I was not in the mood for thatsort of argument. But I was very sure that I would rather be aforty-dollar-a-month cowpuncher than a sergeant in the Mounted Police.

  "That fellow with her is the big gun here, is he?" I reverted to Lyn andher affairs.

  "Yes," Mac answered shortly, "that was L
essard."

  By this time we had come to the last cabin in the row. A whitewashedfence enclosed a diminutive yard, and as we turned in the gate BatPerkins appeared in the doorway, both hands thrust deep in his trouserspockets and a pipe sagging down one corner of his wide mouth. He wasrudely jovial in his greeting, as most of his type were. His wit waslabored, but his welcome was none the less genuine.

  "I seen yuh ride in, Mac," he grinned, "an' I told the old woman t'turn herself loose on the beefsteak an' spuds, for here comes thathungry-lookin' jasper from Pend d' Oreille."

  I was duly made acquainted with Bat, and later with his wife, who, ifshe did have a trace of Indian blood in her, could certainly qualify asthe patron saint of hungry men. Good cooks were a scarce article on thefrontier then. Bat, I learned, was attached to the Force in a civiliancapacity.

  We ate, smoked a cigarette apiece, and then it was time for us to"repawt." So we betook ourselves to the seat of the mighty, to unloadour troubles on the men who directed the destinies of the turbulentNorthwest and see what they could do toward alleviating them.

  This time the orderly passed us in without delay, and once more we facedthe man of rank, who, after taking our measure with a deliberate stare,ordered MacRae to state his business.

  As Mac related the unvarnished tale of the banked fire in the canyon,the hold-up, and the double murder, a slight sound caused me to turn myhead, and I saw in a doorway that led to another room the erect figureof Major Lessard listening intently, a black frown on his eagle face.When MacRae had finished his story and the incapable blockhead behindthe desk sat there regarding the two of us as though he considered thatwe had been the victims of a rank hallucination, Lessard slammed thedoor shut behind him and strode into the room.

  "I'll take charge of this, Captain Dobson," he brusquely informed thered-faced numskull.

  Taking his stand at the end of the desk, he made MacRae reiterate indetail the grim happenings of that night. That over, he quizzed me for afew minutes. Then he turned loose on MacRae with a battery of questions.Could he give a description of the men? Would he be able to identifythem? Why did he not exercise more precaution when investigatinganything so suspicious as a concealed fire? Why this, why that? Whydidn't he send a trooper to report at once instead of wasting time ingoing to Stony Crossing? And a dozen more.

  With every word his thin-lipped mouth drew into harder lines, and thecold, domineering tone, weighted heavy with sneering emphasis, grated onme till I wanted to reach over and slap his handsome, smooth-shavenface. But MacRae stood at "attention" and took his medicine dumbly. Hehad to. He was in the presence, and answering the catechism, of asuperior officer, and his superior officer by virtue of a commissionfrom the Canadian government could insult his manhood and lash himunmercifully with a viperish tongue, and if he dared to resent it byword or deed there was the guardhouse and the shame of irons--fordiscipline must be maintained at any cost! I thanked the star of destinythen and there that no Mounted Police officer had a string attached tome, by which he could force me to speak or be silent at his will. It wasa dirty piece of business on Lessard's part. Even Dobson eyed himwonderingly.

  "Why, damn it!" Lessard finally burst out, "you've handled this like agreen one, fresh from over the water. You are held up; this man isrobbed of ten thousand dollars; another man is murdered under your verynose--and then you waste thirty-six hours blundering around the countryto satisfy your infernal curiosity. It's incredible, in a man of yourfrontier experience, under any hypothesis except that you stood in withthe outlaws and held back to assure their escape!"

  At first MacRae had looked puzzled, at a loss. Then under the lash ofLessard's bitter tongue the dull red stole up into his weather-brownedcheeks, glowed there an instant and receded, leaving his face whiteunder the tan. His left hand was at its old, familiar trick--fingersshut tight over the thumb till the cords stood tense between theknuckles and wrist--a never-failing sign that internally he was close tothe boiling-point, no matter how calm he appeared on the surface. Andwhen Lessard flung out that last unthinkable accusation, the explosioncame.

  "You lie, you----!" MacRae spoke in a cold impersonal tone, and only theflat strained note betrayed his feeling; but the term applied to Lessardwas one to make a man's ears burn; it was the range-riders' gauntletthrown squarely in an enemy's face. "You lie when you say that, and youknow you lie. I don't know your object, but I call your bluff--you--youblasted insect!"

  Lessard, if he had been blind till then, saw what was patent to me--thathe had gone a bit too far, that the man he had baited so savagely wasprimed to kill him if he made a crooked move. MacRae leaned forward, hisgray eyes twin coals, the thumb of his right hand hooked suggestively inthe cartridge-belt, close by the protruding handle of his six-shooter.They were a well-matched pair; iron-nerved, both of them, the sort ofmen to face sudden death open-eyed and unafraid.

  A full minute they glared at each other across the desk corner. ThenLessard, without moving a muscle or altering his steady gaze, spoke toDobson.

  "Call the orderly," he said quietly.

  Dobson, mouth agape, struck a little bell on the desk and the orderlystepped in from the outer room.

  "Orderly, disarm Sergeant MacRae."

  Lessard uttered the command evenly, without a jarring note, his tonealmost a duplicate of MacRae's. He was a good judge of men, thateagle-faced major; he knew that the slightest move with hostile intentwould mean a smoking gun. MacRae would have shot him dead in his tracksif he'd tried to reach a weapon. But a man who is really game--which noone who knew him could deny MacRae--won't, _can't_ shoot down anotherunless that other shows _fight_; and a knowledge of that gun-fighters'trait saved Major Lessard's hide from being thoroughly punctured thatday.

  The orderly, a rather shaky orderly if the truth be told (I think hemust have listened through the keyhole!) stepped up to Mac.

  "Give me your side-arms, sergeant," he said, nervously.

  MacRae looked from one to the other, and for a breath I was as nervousas the trooper. It was touch and go, just then, and if he'd gone thewrong way it's altogether likely that I'd have felt called upon to backhis play, and there would have been a horrible mix-up in that two byfour room. But he didn't. Just smiled, a sardonic sort of grimace, andunbuckled his belt and handed it over without a word. He'd begun tocool.

  "Reduced to the ranks--thirty days in irons--solitary confinement!"Lessard snapped the words out with a wolfish satisfaction.

  "Keep a close mouth, Sarge," MacRae spoke in Spanish with his eyes benton the floor, "and don't quit the country till I get out." Then heturned at the orderly's command and marched out of the room.

  When I again turned to Lessard he still stood at the end of the desk,industriously paring his fingernails. An amused smile wrinkled thecorners of his mouth.