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-gla.s.ses--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.

Then MacRae leaned over his saddle-horn and made a wry face at them.

"Hunt, confound you," he said, almost cheerfully. "We'll give you some hunting to do before you're through with us."

CHAPTER XIV.

A CLOSE CALL.

We were standing in a brushy pocket on the side of a hill, and as there was no immediate danger of our being seen, MacRae continued, by the aid of the gla.s.ses, to follow the movements of our would-be captors.

"D'you know that plunder can't be far away; those fellows haven't had much time to make their _cache_," he reflected, more to himself than to me. "I wonder how they accounted to Lessard for us. Just think of it--somewhere within twenty miles of us there's in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars of stolen money, planted till they can get it safely; and the men that got away with it are helping the law to run us down. That's a new feature of the case; one, I must say, that I didn't look for."

He lowered the gla.s.ses, and regarded me soberly.

"They fight fire with fire in a gra.s.s country," he observed. "The Mounted Police are a hard formation to buck against--but I've a mind to see this thing to a finish. How do you feel about it, Sarge? Will you go through?"

"All the way and back again," I promised recklessly. I wasn't sure of what he had in mind, but I knew _him_--and seeing that we were in the same boat, I thought it fitting that we should sink or swim together.

"We'll come out on top yet," he confidently a.s.serted. "Meantime we'd better locate some secluded spot and give our nags a chance to fill up on gra.s.s and be fresh for to-morrow; we're apt to have a hard day."

"It wouldn't be a bad scheme to fill ourselves at the same time," I suggested. "I'm feeling pretty vacant inside. The first bunch of buffalo that has a fat calf along is going to hear from me."

"If we can get over this ridge without being seen, there's a canyon with some cottonwoods and a spring in it. That will be as good a place to hole up for the night as we can find," Mac decided. "And there will likely be some buffalo near there."

So we ascended cautiously to the top of the divide, keeping in the coulees as much as possible, for we knew that other field-gla.s.ses would be focused on the hills. Once over the crest, we halted and watched for riders coming our way. But none appeared. Once I thought I glimpsed a moving speck on the farther bank of Lost River. MacRae brought the gla.s.ses to bear, and said it was two Policemen jogging toward camp. Then we were sure that our flight had not been observed, and we dropped into a depression that gradually deepened to a narrow-bottomed canyon. Two miles down this we came to the spring of which MacRae had spoken, a tiny stream issuing from a crevice at the foot of the bank. What was equally important, a thick clump of cottonwood and willow furnished tolerably secure concealment.

The fates smiled on us in the matter of food very shortly. I'm not enamored of a straight meat diet as a rule, but that evening I was in no mood to carp at anything half-way eatable. While we were on our stomachs gratefully stowing away a draught of the cool water, I heard a buffalo bull lift his voice in challenge to another far down the canyon.

We tied our horses out of sight in the timber and stole in the direction of the sound. A glorious bull-fight was taking place when we got within shooting-distance, the cows and calves forming a noisy circle about the combatants, each s.h.a.ggy brown brute bawling with all the strength of bovine lungs; in that pandemonium of bellowing and trampling I doubt if the report of Mac's carbine could have been heard two hundred yards away. The shot served to break up the fight and scatter the herd, however, and we returned to the cottonwoods with the hind-quarter of a fat calf.

Hungry as we were, we could hardly bolt raw meat, so, taking it for granted that no one was likely to ride up on us, we built a fire in the grove, being careful to feed it with dry twigs that would make little smoke. Over this we toasted bits of meat on the end of a splinter, and presently our hunger was appeased. Then we blotted out the fire, and, stretching ourselves on the ground, had recourse to the solace of tobacco.

The longer we laid there the more curious did I become as to what line of action MacRae purposed to follow. He lay on his back, silent, staring straight up at the bit of sky that showed through the branches above, and I'd just reached the point of asking, when he sat up and forestalled my questions.

"This is going to be risky business, Sarge," he began. "But so far as I can see, there is only one way that we can hope to get the thing straightened out. If we can get hold of Hicks or Bevans, any one of the four, in fact, I think we can _make_ him tell us all we need to know.

It's the only chance for you and Lyn to get your money back, and for me to square myself."

"I shouldn't think," I put in resentfully, "that you'd want to square yourself, after the dirty way you've been treated. I'd as soon take to herding sheep, or washing dirty clothes like a Chinaman, as be a member of the Mounted Police if what I've seen in the last ten days is a fair sample of what a man can expect."

"Fiddlesticks!" Mac impatiently exclaimed. "You don't know what you're talking about. I tell you a man in the Police, if he has any head at all, can control his own destiny. You'll be a heap more sane when you get that old, wild-west notion, that every man should be a law unto himself, out of your head. I'll venture to say that the Northwest will be a safer and more law-abiding place five years from now than south of the line will be in twenty--and the men in red coats will make it so.

Why, I wouldn't miss helping tame this country for half a dozen such sc.r.a.pes as I'm in now. This is merely the result of a rotten spot in the personnel, a rotten spot that will soon be cut out if things come about logically; it isn't the fault of the system. There never was any great movement in developing a new country that didn't have a quota of d.a.m.ned rascals to eliminate from within itself. If you didn't have such a perverted idea of independence, you'd see that I'm in no danger of losing either my ident.i.ty or my self-respect simply because I've become a unit in a body of six hundred fighting-men. I don't intend to remain in the insignificant-unit cla.s.s."

"Your intentions," I interrupted, "will cut a mighty small figure if your friend Lessard gets hold of you in the next day or two."

"That's the melancholy truth," he returned seriously. "I imagine we'd get a pretty rough deal; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that troop has received orders, by now, to shoot first and arrest afterward. Still, I'm willing to gamble that if we rode into Fort Walsh and gave ourselves up, it would only be a matter of a few weeks in the guardhouse for us before the thing was cleared up."

"Maybe," I responded skeptically. "If that's your belief, why don't you act accordingly?"

"Because, confound it, that's just where they want to get us," he declared. "Once we were safely penned, they'll drift, and neither you nor Lyn Rowan nor the government would ever lay eyes on that bundle of money again. I have a theory--but what's vastly more important, I think those fellows can hardly get out of the country with their plunder without crossing trails with us. It was smooth business to set the dogs on us. I don't quite _sabe_--well, I do, too. You can probably realize just how headquarters would take the sort of yarn we'd spin if we dashed in and told them the truth. But I think we're smart enough to upset these fellows' calculations. Lord! wouldn't it be a stroke of business if we could trap that collection of buccaneers? Frankly, that would be the biggest thing that ever came my way."

"It would be equally a stroke of business if they happen to trap us," I reminded.

"They won't," he a.s.serted confidently. "We can't afford to let them.

We've inflicted a compound fracture on established law, and until we can make the outcome justify our actions, we're compelled, in self-defense, to avoid being caught. It may be a dubious undertaking, but as I see it the only thing for us is to hang on the flank of these man-hunters till we can lay hold of one of that red-handed quartette. According to Burky, two of them, at least, are in that troop. Probably the others are. And knowing that bunch as well as I do, I don't think they'll lift the plunder and quit the country till they can go together. Even if we can't get hold of one of them, we can keep track of their movements, and if they _do_ lift their _cache_ and pull out, why, that would be as good as we want. I wouldn't ask anything better than to get a fair chance at that bunch with the stolen money on them."

I'll admit that, soberly considered, MacRae's plan did look exceeding risky. No one could appreciate better than ourselves the unpleasant possibilities that stared us in the face. But things had narrowed to a point where only two courses were open to us--one, to throw up our hands and quit the jurisdiction of the Mounted Police, which involved desertion on MacRae's part, and on mine a chicken-hearted abandonment of La Pere's trust in me (for, rightly or wrongly, I was given over to the feeling that on me alone rested the responsibility for the loss or recovery of La Pere's money); the other, to take any measure, no matter how desperate, that would unravel the tangle. All things considered, the latter was the logical choice. And the plan Mac had put forth seemed as feasible as any.

"We'll have to proceed on the faro-bank formula that all bets go as they lay," I said lightly. "There's no use antic.i.p.ating things disagreeable or otherwise; we'll simply have to take them as they come."

By this time dusk was upon us. We picketed the horses in the open bottom where gra.s.s was more plentiful than in the brush, and settled ourselves to sleep. Fortunately, the aftermath of that blistering day was a fairly warm night. By spreading over us the heavy woolen blankets the Mounted Police use under their saddles, we slept in comfort. Long before dawn, however, we arose, built a fire, and breakfasted on buffalo veal, at the same time broiling a good supply and stowing it in our pockets to serve the rest of the day. Then, with darkness still obscuring our movements, we saddled and rode over the ridge and down into Lost River, crossing that ancient waterway before the first glimmer of light in the east.

Day found us dismounted in the head of a coulee where we could spy on the Police camp from a distance of three miles, more or less. About sunrise the troop left camp in a body, later spreading fanwise over the prairies. Once a party trotted by within a half-mile of us, but no one of the four men we wanted to see was in the squad.

Until after the noon hour we laid _perdu_ in the hollow, no wiser for our watching. Then I saw a number of riders debouch from the camp, and at once trained the gla.s.ses on them. At first I couldn't distinguish any particular face among so many shifting forms, but presently they split in two bodies, and these again subdivided; and in the bunch coming toward us I recognized three men, Lessard, unmistakable in his black uniform, Hicks, and Bevans. I turned the gla.s.ses over to MacRae then.

"I thought probably some more of our friends would show up," he said, after a quick survey. "With those two in sight the chances are that all four are with the troop. The other fellows in that squad are just plain buck Policemen. Confound them, I wish----Aha, by Jupiter! the big chief is turning off those two."

As Mac spoke I saw the two men I had spotted as Hicks and Bevans swing away from the rest and angle toward Lost River. From our vantage point we watched them come abreast and pa.s.s us at a distance well within a mile. The others turned south, directly away from us.

"Now," Mac coolly declared, "here's where we get the chance we want, if we're lucky. We'll keep parallel with these gentlemen, and if they get out of touch with the rest we'll make a try at nailing them. Be careful, though, how you show yourself; there's at least fifty of these peacemakers within four or five miles, and a shot or a yell will bring them on a high run."

Hicks and Bevans, whatever their destination, were in no haste. They rode at a walk most of the time, and we were forced to keep the same pace. It was slow work poking along those coulee-bottoms, now and then making a risky sneak to ground, whence we could get a clear view of the game we were stalking so a.s.siduously.

Progressing in this manner we finally reached the breaks that ran down to Lost River, not a great distance from where MacRae and I had kicked over the traces of legally const.i.tuted authority the previous day. Here we had to dodge over a stretch of ground barren of concealment, and to do so waited till such time as Hicks and Bevans were themselves in the depths of a coulee.

When next we caught sight of our men--well, to be exact, we saw only one, and that was Bevans. He had stopped his horse on top of a knoll not more than four hundred yards to the north of us, and was standing up in his stirrups staring over the ears of his horse at a point down the slope. Hicks had disappeared. Nor did we see aught of him during the next few minutes that we spent glaring at Bevans and the surrounding territory.

"I wonder if that square-jawed devil has got a glimpse of us and is trying a lone-handed stalk himself?" I hazarded.

MacRae shook his head. "Not likely," he said. "If it was Paul Gregory, now, that's the very thing he'd do. I don't quite _sabe_ this performance."

We watched for sign of Hicks, but without result. Then Bevans got under way and moved along at the same poky gait as before. When he had gone some distance we took to the hollow. Twenty minutes jogging brought us into a stretch of rough country, a series of k.n.o.bs and ridges cut by innumerable coulees. Here it became necessary to locate Mr. Bevans again. Once more he was revealed on top of an elevation, studying the surrounding landscape, and he was still alone.

"Where the mischief can Hicks have got to?" Mac growled. "We really ought to smell him out before we do anything."

"Look, now," I said. "Don't you suppose Bevans is waiting for him?"

Bevans had dismounted and stretched himself on the ground in the shade of his horse. But he was not napping; on the contrary, he was very much on the alert, for his head turned slowly from side to side, quiescent as he seemed; there would be little movement pa.s.s un.o.bserved within range of that pair of eyes.

"Maybe he is," MacRae replied. "Anyhow, I think we'd better wait a while ourselves."

For nearly an hour Bevans kept his position. Hicks, if he were in the vicinity, kept closely under cover. Bevans had all the best of the situation, so far as being able to keep a lookout was a factor; the opposite bank of the coulee we were in towered high above us, and shut off our view in that direction. And we didn't dare risk showing ourselves on high ground. Finally, after what seemed an interminable period of waiting, Mac's patience frazzled out and he declared for action.

"We're doing no good here," he said. "Hicks or no Hicks, I'm going to have a try at making connections with his nibs on that hill. I think the coulee right under his perch is an arm of the one we're in; runs in somewhere below. Maybe we can get to him that way. It's worth trying."