Sergeant Silk the Prairie Scout Part 5

A whole troop of the Mounted Police turned out in pursuit of him. They were posted to guard all pa.s.ses through the Rocky Mountains, and a district of ninety square miles was combed over incessantly by strong patrols. His escape seemed almost impossible. The district, however, was one of foothills, bush, winding gorges, tracts of boulders, and, to the eastward, rolling prairie, where the fugitive's friends, the Piegan and Blood tribes, were using every subtlety of Indian craft to hide him and outwit the police.

Day after day went by, and no positive trace of the criminal was found.

The only hint of his whereabouts was given in the fact that Sergeant Silk, the most energetic of his pursuers, was constantly encountering unexpected dangers. This was particularly so whenever he rode alone unattended by scouts.

Artful traps were laid for him. He was misled by a hundred rumours that took him far astray into lonely places. False trails were set to lure him into hidden pitfalls and ambuscades.

Once, in the darkness, his horse bolted for a cause unknown until he found an Indian arrow sticking in her b.u.t.tock. Once his saddle and bridle were stolen while he slept in the shelter of a friendly ranch house.

It did not take him long to realise that he was himself being dogged and shadowed by the very man he was pursuing and against whom he had given information. His every movement seemed to be known almost before it was made. A man less bravely watchful might have gone in fear of his life; but Silk only welcomed the signs which proved that he was still upon the fugitive's trail.

At Lee's Crossing one dark night he went out swinging his lantern, sniffing the warm air, bound for the stable, when he saw a sudden blaze revealing a dark face behind the horse trough, while a bullet ripped through his sleeve.

Silk ran back to the house, grabbed his gun, and returned, only to hear a horse galloping away in the night. The creature was his own favourite mare, and the man who had stolen her--the man whose face he had seen in the flash from the gun barrel--was Pierre Roche.

On a borrowed mustang, heavier and less swift of foot than his own stolen troop horse, Sergeant Silk went off in pursuit. He knew by the direction taken that Roche was making for the refuge of the Indian Reservation at Minnew.a.n.ka, thirty odd miles away across the mountains.

There were two possible trails. He realised that the fugitive would take the shorter one over the steep shoulder of Minnew.a.n.ka Peak, and that he would give the mare a rest before ascending. By taking the longer, though somewhat easier, trail through One Tree Canon, it might be possible to head him off. This is what Silk did, and he urged his horse forward at almost reckless speed.

It was early dawn when he came out from the gloom of the gulch at the point where the trails crossed and examined the dewy gra.s.s for signs.

There were no hoof marks to be seen, and, satisfied that he had gained his object, he waited under the shadow of a great boulder, watching and listening.

In less than an hour's time he heard the familiar sound of his mare's hoofs, carried towards him by the morning breeze, and soon afterwards his keenly searching eyes distinguished against the rosy glow of the sky the form of a horseman riding slowly over the ridge of one of the nearer hills.

The sound of pattering hoofs came clearer and clearer from the farther valley, and at length, when Pierre Roche came again into sight, hardly a hundred yards away, Silk moved out and halted in the middle of the trail, drawing his revolver.

"Stop, or I fire!" he cried aloud, confronting the fugitive.

His instructions were to shoot at sight, but he held his weapon in front of him, hesitating to fire, wanting, for the sake of a great tradition, to make the usual arrest, the taking of an outlaw alive and uninjured.

Roche's rifle lay across the saddle, and he held the reins Indian fas.h.i.+on with the right hand; but when Silk, riding boldly up to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, he swerved, touching the trigger with his left.

Silk knocked the gun upward, and the bullet, meant for his body, tore through the rim of his hat, grazing his ear.

"Hands up!" he commanded, keeping a watchful eye upon the now desperate half-breed. "Drop that gun!"

Roche stared into the threatening muzzle of the s.h.i.+ning weapon that was levelled at his forehead. He knew that it was futile to resist one of the resolute Riders of the Plains. For an instant he glanced around to see if the sergeant were alone, fearing, perhaps, that he had companions waiting in ambush. His fingers were twitching at the lock of his repeating rifle, but he saw that it was no use, and he sullenly obeyed, letting his weapon fall heavily to the ground as he slowly raised his empty hands above his head.

Sergeant Silk brought the two horses closer together, took possession of his prisoner's knife and pistol, and leisurely drew out a pair of handcuffs, which shone like burnished silver in the sunlight.

At sight of them Pierre Roche swayed in his saddle, then began to struggle in an attempt to break away, but the cold ring of a revolver muzzle was pressed against his neck, his right arms was seized by a hand stronger than his own, and the handcuffs were smartly clasped upon his wrists.

"Now you will go with me," said Sergeant Silk.

He dismounted to pick up the gun and his hat and to examine his mare to a.s.sure himself that she had suffered no harm at the hands of her strange rider.

"You tek me to de prison for steal your cayuse?" Roche panted agitatedly.

Silk nodded.

"For stealing my mare, yes," he answered, bringing his hat into its proper shape, "and for an offence yet more serious than your old game of horse stealing. And you may consider yourself lucky that I did not shoot you at sight just now."

"It is probable you tek me to Bankhead?" questioned the half-breed. "It is de nearest depot of de police."

"It is the nearest, sure," returned the sergeant. "But as the way to it lies across the neighbourhood of your Indian friends, who would no doubt attempt to rescue you, I take you to a stronger lock-up, see? I take you to Fort Canmore."

"But dat was a two-day journey," exclaimed Roche, "across de prairie!"

"If it were twenty days it would be all the same to me, now that I have you," Silk retorted.

He tied the mare's bridle over her neck, fastened a rope to the bit ring, and led her behind the heavy bay mustang, which he continued to ride.

As the sun rose above the hills the air became oppressively hot, and Pierre Roche appealed many times to have his hands liberated, if only that he might wipe the perspiration from his forehead and fend off the midges and mosquitoes; but all that the police sergeant would do for his comfort was to give him a drink of water whenever they came to a creek, and, at midday, to let him dismount for a rest and to feed him with a share of the remaining contents of his haversack.

By the afternoon they had left the foothills behind in the blue distance, and were ambling slowly, wearily, over the parched prairie, miles and miles away from any human habitation.

So fatigued were they and their ponies that even before sundown Sergeant Silk resolved to halt and make camp for the night beside a water hole in the hollow of a coulee, where a few dwarf elder trees afforded a meagre shelter.

On dismounting Roche flung himself down in the long gra.s.s, apparently to sleep, while Silk attended to the horses. He had taken off his tunic, and laid it neatly folded with his belt and the firearms on a tiny knoll. Once he glanced round at his prisoner, and saw that he was lying exhausted, with his face downwards, across his manacled hands.

Having no fear of him, Silk went on with his work of driving stakes in the dry ground, by which to tether the horses by trail ropes. His back was turned to the half-breed, but in a pause of his hammering he heard a slight movement behind him.

He wheeled sharply round, and, to his amazement, saw that Pierre Roche had crawled forward, caught up one of the loaded revolvers, and was holding it with both hands, aiming at him point-blank.

With quick instinct Silk gripped his hammer to fling at the man, but even as he raised his arm there was a flash. The bullet went wide of its intended mark, but struck the shoulder of the bay mustang, which reared, kicked and whinnied with pain.

"Say, my boy, you've done yourself no good by that silly trick," cried the sergeant. "How d'you suppose you could have mounted and ridden away with the handcuffs on if you'd killed me? You'd sure have died here of hunger and thirst, and that wouldn't have been anyways nice."

"_Tiens!_ Is dat so?" returned Roche in surprise.

"Why, cert'nly, you brainless cariboo. Don't you understand that you're helpless without me to look after you?"

As a precaution against the repet.i.tion of any such attempt upon his life, Silk now took one of the ropes and tied it tightly about his prisoner's legs and body, leaving him lying there unable to stir hand or foot. Then he went to examine the wounded bay.

The wound was much more serious than he had supposed, and he was occupied for a long time in trying to extract the bullet and staunch the flow of blood from the animal's chest. Darkness came over the prairie before he had finished, and he had no lantern. All that he could do was to plug the wound with his handkerchief and wait for daylight, s.n.a.t.c.hing a few hours' rest meanwhile.

Before lying down he saw that his mare was secure. There was no need for him to concern himself further with Pierre Roche, who could do no harm.

So he wound his watch, took a drink of water, glanced at his prisoner, spread his blanket, and curled himself up to sleep.

The difficulties and anxieties of his situation, isolated here on the desolate prairie in charge of a desperate criminal and a wounded horse, without food or the immediate hope of getting any, did not prevent him from sleeping soundly. He had had no rest on the previous night, and had been in the saddle for a score of hours, and he yielded to his fatigue.

He awoke with a start. There was a dry, choking sensation in his throat, which made him cough. His mare was snorting impatiently and tugging violently at her halter.

A strange, weird moaning filled the air, like the sound of distant waves breaking against a rocky coast.

Silk sat up, staring about him wonderingly. All was dark around, excepting in the east, where there was a rosy flickering glow in the sky. He could see Pierre Roche lying near him, still sleeping soundly.

He leapt to his feet and strode up to the wounded horse. It lay motionless on its side, and, as he bent over it and touched it, he found that it was dead.