Once out of the official atmosphere, I hesitated over my next move.

Lessard's high-handed squelching of MacRae had thrown everything out of focus. We'd planned to report at headquarters, see Lyn, if she were at Walsh, and then with Pend d' Oreille as a base of operations go on a still hunt for whatever the Writing-Stone might conceal. That scheme was knocked galley-west and crooked, for even when MacRae's term expired he'd get a long period of duty at the Fort; he'd lost his rank, and as a private his coming and going would be according to barrack-rule instead of the freedom allowed a sergeant in charge of an outpost like Pend d' Oreille--I knew that much of the Mounted Police style of doing business. And so far as my tackling single-handed a search for Hank Rowan's _cache_--well, I decided to see Lyn before I took that contract.

I hated that, too. It always went against my grain to be a bearer of ill tidings. I hate to make a woman cry, especially one I like. Some one had to tell her, though, and, much as I disliked the mission, I felt that I ought not to hang back and let some stranger blurt it out. So I nailed the first trooper I saw, and had him show me the domicile of Mrs.

Stone--who, I learned, was the wife of Lessard's favorite captain--and thither I rambled, wishing mightily for a good stiff jolt out of the keg that Piegan Smith and Mac had clashed over. But if there was any bottled nerve-restorer around Fort Walsh it was tucked away in the officers'

cellars, and not for the benefit of the common herd; so I had to fall back on a cigarette.

Lyn was sitting out in front when I reached the place. Another female person, whom I put down as Madam Stone, arose and disappeared through an open door at my approach. Lyn motioned me to a camp-stool close by. I sat down, and immediately my tongue became petrified. My think-machinery was running at a dizzy speed, but words--if silence is truly golden, I was the richest man in Fort Walsh that afternoon, for a few minutes, at least. And when my vocal organs did at last consent to fulfil their natural office, they refused to deliver anything but empty commonplaces, the kind one's tongue carries in stock for occasional moments of barren speech. These oral inanities only served to make Lyn give me the benefit of a look of amused wonder.

"Dear me," she laughed at last. "I wonder what weighty matter is crushing you to the earth. If you've got anything on your conscience, Sarge, for goodness' sake confess. I'll give you absolution, if you like, and then perhaps you'll be a little more cheerful."

"No, there's nothing particular weighing me down," I lied flatly.

"Anyway, I don't aim to unload my personal troubles on you. I came over here to acquire a little information. How came you away up here by your lonesome, and what brought your father and old Hans----"

Her purple-shaded eyes widened, each one a question-mark.

"Who told you that Hans was up North? I know I didn't mention him," she cut in quickly. "Have you seen them?"

It's a wonder my face didn't betray the fact that I was holding something back. I know I must have looked guilty for a second. That was a question I would gladly have pa.s.sed up, but her eyes demanded an answer.

"Well," I protested, "it occurred to me that if you expected to meet your father here in a day or two, Rutter would naturally be with him, seeing that they've paddled in the same canoe since a good many years before you were born, my lady. What jarred you all loose from Texas? And what the mischief did you do to MacRae that he quit the South next spring after I did, and straightway went to soldiering in this country?"

She shied away from that query, just as I expected. "We had oceans of trouble after you left there, Sarge," she told me, turning her head from me so that her gaze wandered over the barrack-square. "It really doesn't make pleasant telling, but you'll understand better than some one that didn't know the country. You remember d.i.c.k Feltz, and that old trouble about the Conway brand that dad bought a long time back?"

I nodded; I remembered Mr. Feltz very well indeed, for the well-merited killing of one of his hired a.s.sa.s.sins 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.s you up as he did a while ago. But here at Fort Walsh we're among a cla.s.s 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 a.s.sociating 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 h.e.l.l, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 cla.s.sed 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 a.s.sured him.