Prescott of Saskatchewan Part 8

"Thanks," said Jernyngham. "I may as well take precautions. How would you recommend my carrying the money?"

The trooper made one or two ingenious suggestions as to the safest way of secreting the bills, and Jernyngham, dismounting, carried them out. Soon afterward the trooper struck off across the plain, and the others, riding on, met a farmer who spoke to them as he pa.s.sed. At length Prescott pulled up his team at the spot where his companion must leave the trail.

"I'll do what I can with the land, Cyril, and keep an account," he said.

"You might write and let me know how you are getting on."

They shook hands and Jernyngham trotted away, while Prescott sat watching him for a minute or two. Man and horse were sharply outlined against the moonlit gra.s.s. Jernyngham looked very lonely as he rode out into the wilderness. He could hardly have been happy, Prescott thought, in his untidy and comfortless house at the farm; but, after all, it had been a home, and now he was rudely flung adrift. It was true that the man was largely responsible for the troubles that had fallen upon him, but this was no reason for refusing him pity, and Cyril had his strong points. He had staunchly declined to profit by a felicitous change of fortune out of consideration for the relatives who had once disowned and the woman who had deserted him. Jernyngham had been a careless fool, and Prescott suspected that he was not likely to alter much in this respect, but he did not expect others to pay for his recklessness when the reckoning came. Then Prescott started his team.

Two days later, he was busy in front of his homestead putting together a new binder which had just arrived from the settlement. It was the latest type of harvesting implement and designed to cut an unusually broad swath. While he was engaged, the trooper he had met when accompanying Jernyngham rode up with a corporal following. He stopped his horse and glanced at the binder with admiration.

"She's a daisy, Jack; I guess she cost a pile," he said. "Where did you get the money to buy a machine of that kind?"

"It wasn't easy to raise it," Prescott replied. "But I'll save something in labor--harvest wages are high--and I've long wanted this binder. When Trant came round from the implement store yesterday morning I thought I'd risk the deal. Will you wait for dinner?"

"No, thanks," the corporal broke in. "We're making a patrol north; just called to look at your guards. Several big gra.s.s fires have been reported in the last few days."

Prescott pointed to the rows of plowed furrows which cut off his holding from the prairie. The strip of brown clods, which was two or three yards in width, seemed an adequate defense, and after a glance at it the corporal nodded his satisfaction.

"Good enough," he said. "We'll take the trail."

He trotted away with his companion and it was evening when they rode along the edge of a ravine which pierced a high tract of rolling country.

The crest of the slope they followed commanded a vast circle of gra.s.s that was changing in the foreground from green to ocher and silvery white. Farther back, it ran on toward the sunset, a sweep of blue and neutral gray, flecked with dusky lines of bluffs, interspersed with gleaming strips of water, but nowhere in the wide landscape was there a sign of human habitation. Small birches and poplars, with an undergrowth of nut bushes, clothed the sides of the ravine, but some distance ahead it broadened out and the stream that flowed through it turned the hollow into a muskeg. There harsh gra.s.s and reeds grew three or four feet high, hiding the stretch of mire.

The police were young men with deeply bronzed faces, dressed in smart khaki uniform with broad Stetson hats of the same color.

"What's that?" exclaimed Corporal Curtis, pointing to an indistinct object lying among a patch of scrub some distance off.

"Looks like a hat," replied Private Stanton. "Some settler prospecting for a homestead location must have lost it."

"You jump at things!" said the corporal. "How'd the man lose it? Guess it wouldn't drop off without his knowing it, and with the sun we've been having he'd want it pretty bad. He wouldn't throw it away, when he knew he couldn't get another. We'll go along and see."

They dismounted a minute or two later and made a startling discovery. The hat was a good one, but in one place the soft gray felt had been crushed and partly cut as though by a heavy blow. On turning it over, they saw that the inside was stained a dull red.

"Blood!" said Curtis significantly, and swept a searching glance about.

"More of it," he added. "See here--on the brush."

Moving forward, they found a succession of crimson spots and splashes on the leaves of the willow scrub and withering gra.s.s.

"Picket the horses. Stanton; we've got to look into this," the corporal said.

"I'd better lead them back a piece," responded his companion. "We don't want to muss up things by making fresh tracks."

When he had done so, they set about the examination systematically. They were men who lived, for the most part, in the open, and made long journeys through the wilds, sleeping where they could find shelter in ravine or bluff. Such things as a broken twig, a bruised tuft of gra.s.s, or a mark in loose soil had a meaning to them, and here they had plentiful material to work upon. Counting footprints and hoofmarks, measuring distances, they constructed bit by bit the drama that had taken place, but half an hour had pa.s.sed before they sat down to talk it over and took out their pipes. The afterglow shone about them; their hands and thoughtful faces showed the same warm color as the brown gra.s.s in the ruddy light. In the hat lay a five-dollar bill and a coat b.u.t.ton.

"There were two men here," Curtis remarked. "Both were mounted and came up the trail from the settlement, but it looks as if the first one had picketed his horse and started to make camp when the other joined him."

"That's so," Private Stanton agreed.

"Then there was trouble, but the men didn't clinch. One fellow hit the other with something heavy enough to drop him in his tracks, then got into the saddle and rode off, leading the other horse."

The evidence on which he arrived at this conclusion was slender, but Stanton signified a.s.sent.

"Well," he said, "where's the hurt man?"

"I've a notion he's in yonder muskeg. The other fellow could have packed him there on the led horse--the blood spots point to it--though he might have hid him farther on in a bluff. It's getting too dark to search now; we'll try to-morrow. But I guess we know who he is."

"Sure," said Stanton. "I'll swear to the hat. Chaffed Jernyngham about it one day, and he put it in my hands and said there wasn't another of the kind in the country. A man from Hong Kong gave it to him."

Curtis took up the bill.

"Five dollars, Merchants' Bank, and quite clean; not been issued long.

We'll find out if they've a branch at Regina or Saskatoon and trace up the fellow they paid it to. The b.u.t.ton doesn't count--quite a common pattern. Now if you'll fill the kettle at the creek, I'll start a fire.

We'll camp near the birch scrub yonder."

CHAPTER VI

A DEAL IN LAND

On the morning after the corporal's discovery, Gustave Wandle was leading his team to a drinking pool on the creek that crossed his farm. He was a big, reserved, fair-haired man, with a fleshy face that was redeemed from heaviness by his eyes, which were restless and keen. Though supposed to be an Austrian, little was known about him or his antecedents except that he owned the next half-section of land to Jernyngham's and farmed it successfully. It was, however, believed that he was of an unusually grasping nature, and his neighbors took precautions when they made a deal with him. He had reached the shadow of a poplar bluff when he heard hurried footsteps and a man with a hot face came into sight.

"I'm going across your place to save time; I want my horse," he explained hastily. "Curtis, the policeman, has ridden in to the settlement and told me to go up and search a muskeg near the north trail with Stanton.

Somebody's killed Jernyngham and hidden him there."

"So!" exclaimed Wandle. "Jernyngham murdered! You tell me that?"

"Sure thing!" the other replied. "The police have figured out how it all happened and I'm going to look for the body while Curtis reports to his bosses. A blamed pity! I liked Jernyngham. Well, I must get to the muskeg soon as I can!"

He ran on, and Wandle led his horses to the pool and stood thinking hard while they drank. He was well versed in Jernyngham's affairs and knew that he had once bought a cheap quarter-section of land in an arid belt some distance off. A railroad had since entered the district, irrigation work had been begun, and the holding must have risen in value. Now, it seemed, Jernyngham was dead, which was unfortunate, because Wandle had found their joint operations profitable, and it was very probable that Ellice and himself were the only persons who knew about the land. Wandle mounted one of the horses and set out for Jernyngham's homestead at its fastest pace.

On reaching it, he soon found an iron cash-box in a cupboard and succeeded in forcing it with a screw-driver. It contained a few papers, among which were one or two relating to the purchase of the quarter-section, and Wandle put these in his pocket. The others he threw into the cupboard--Jernyngham's carelessness was well known--and then hastily studied a railroad time-table. By starting promptly, he could catch a train at the station next after Sebastian, which he thought would be wiser, and reach a new wooden town of some importance in the evening.

Having ascertained this, he hurried out and rode home, taking the cash-box with him. On arriving, he smashed it flat with an ax and flung it into his stove in which a fire was burning; then he made a hasty meal, changed his clothes, and saddling a horse, rode hard across the prairie. There was, he realized, some risk in what he meant to do, but it was not a very serious one, and he was thankful that the sale of land is attended by few formalities in western Canada.

When he reached his destination, business premises were closed for the night, but after making inquiries he found a land agent who was recommended as respectable and trustworthy at a smart hotel. Wandle led him to the far end of the lobby, where they would not be disturbed, and sitting down at a table took out the papers.

"What's that quarter-section worth?" he asked.

The agent told him and Wandle lighted his pipe and affected to consider.

He thought Jernyngham had not suspected its value.

"Don't you think you could get another three dollars an acre?" he suggested.

"It's possible, if you will leave the sale in my hands; but I may have to wait for a suitable opportunity. There's a good demand for land in the district now that they're getting on with the irrigation scheme, but to insist on the top price will mean delay."

"Could you sell it for me promptly at the figure you mentioned?"