THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE

by

LUKE ALLAN

Author of "Blue Pete: Half-Breed, " "The Lone Trail, " "The Blue Wolf, "Etc. 

New YorkGeorge H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1922, by George H. Doran Company

THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE. II

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I MAHON ON THE TRAIL II EVENING AT MILE 130 III THE MYSTERIOUS RAFT IV IGNACE KOPPOWSKI APPEARS V BLUE PETE, FRIEND AND LOVER VI THE HIDDEN MARKSMAN VII CONRAD FLASHES A GUN VIII A TRAGEDY OF CONSTRUCTION IX TORRANCE EVOLVES A PLAN X MAVY TAKES A RISK XI THE DESERTED CAMP XII SERGEANT MAHON SKIRTS DEATH XIII THE VISIT OF THE INDIANS XIV THE FIGHT IN THE SHACK XV KOPPY MAKES A THREAT XVI THE HEART OF A HALF-BREED XVII A PLOT DEFEATED XVIII THE CONSCIENCE OF A BOHUNK XIX THE BEAT OF A MOUNTED POLICEMAN XX INDIAN OR POLICEMAN? XXI BLUE PETE WORKS ALONE XXII NIGHT--AND THE MYSTERIOUS SPEEDERS XXIII RIFLES! XXIV THE SCHEMES OF A LEADER XXV BLUE PETE AND WHISKERS TO THE RESCUE XXVI SERGEANT MAHON'S VISION XXVII AN IRISHMAN AND AN ENGLISHMAN XXVIII THE SIEGE OF THE SHACK XXIX RETRIBUTION BEGINS XXX KOPPY PAYS XXXI BLUE PETE RETURNS

THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE

CHAPTER I

MAHON ON THE TRAIL

Sergeant Mahon emptied the barracks mail bag on the desk beforeInspector Barker and stood awaiting instructions. The Inspector passedhis hand over the small pile of letters and let his eye roam from oneto another in the speculative way that added zest to the laterrevelation of their contents. 

One from headquarters at Regina he set carefully aside. With an "ah!"of satisfied expectancy he selected one from the remainder and placedit before him. Mahon was mildly interested. The little foibles of hissuperior were always amusing to him. Eyes still fixed on the envelope, the Inspector commenced to fill his pipe. 

"Spoiling for a job, Mahon?"

"Depends. "

"Hm-m! Beautifully non-committal. "

Mahon's interest was rising. The Inspector went on calmly cramming inthe tobacco. When the job was completed to his liking, he thrust thepipe between his lips, flicked a loose flake from his tunic, and forgotto apply a match. Instead, he picked up the envelope and examined iton all sides. Mahon began to grow impatient. 

Twice the Inspector turned the letter over. Mahon fretted. He couldsee on its face the Division headquarters stamp--Lethbridge--but whyall this ceremony and pother about an official note that came almostevery day? He recalled suddenly that his wife would be holding lunchfor him--with fresh fish he had seen unloaded little more than an hourago from the through train from Vancouver. He could almost smell itsizzling on the natural gas cooker. 

"Hm-m!" The envelope was not yet broken. "I imagine this willinterest you, Mahon. "

Suddenly the Inspector dived into a drawer and, taking from it anofficial looking envelope, passed it back to the Sergeant. The latteraccepted it with fading interest. The Assistant Commissioner at Reginawas unfolding to Inspector Barker's immediate superior, theSuperintendent at Lethbridge, an unexciting tale of crime. Crime wastheir daily diet, and this was located far beyond their district. 

Somewhere away up north, hundreds of miles beyond the jurisdiction ofthe Medicine Hat unit of the Mounted Police, events of concern to thePolice were happening along the line of the transcontinental railwaynow under construction. Certain acts of sabotage--tearing down railwaytrestles and bridges, undermining trains, displacing grade, tamperingwith rails and switches--were not only hampering construction butendangering life. And things were growing worse. In addition therewas complaint of horse-stealing at one isolated camp. 

The point of the letter was contained in the last paragraph. CouldSuperintendent Magwood spare an experienced bushman and trailer to gonorth and take temporary charge?

Mahon handed the letter back with a laugh. 

"Bit of a joke, horse-stealing from contractors who only last yeargrabbed every stolen horse offered them. Retribution!"

The Inspector swung about on his swivel chair. 

"We never discovered who got those horses. "

"The ones Blue Pete stole?" A cloud came to Mahon's face. "Notexactly the contractors who got them, but there was no doubt where theywent. "

"I always regretted we had to hand over the search just there to aDivision that knows little about ranch horses, " murmured the Inspector. "Still--perhaps--" He stopped and shifted the letter he held from onehand to the other, as if weighing it. 

"We'd have made short work of it, sir. "

"Even if we'd implicated your halfbreed friend?" The older man waspeering beneath his iron-grey brows. 

"I'm afraid nothing more was needed to implicate Blue Pete, " sighedMahon. 

"For a halfbreed rustler he seems to have stamped himself on yourimagination, Boy. " They had called Mahon "Boy" almost since he joinedthe force seven years before as a young man, packed with youthfulvitality, frankness and ambition, and the nickname was dear to him. 

"But he wasn't always a rustler. I remember him only for the two yearshe spent unofficially in the Force, the best rustler-buster we everhad. That was the real Blue Pete. That he died a rustler was due tocrooked 'justice. ' Poor old Pete! If only he hadn't had the Indianstrain!"

"He wouldn't have been so useful to us. His uncanny scent on thetrail--By the way, Mahon, strange we never found trace of him--hisgrave or something--when you're so certain how and where he died. Andwhere's that ugly pinto of his? Whiskers, he called her, wasn't it?"

"Mira found the body, sir--that last letter she sent us said as much. She'd hide him from us--it's exactly the thing she would do. She was aloyal wife--"

"Not quite a wife. "

"A wife as truly as absence of formal ceremony can make one. He'slying out there somewhere in the heart of the Hills he loved. . . . They were a sentimental pair. "

"Almost too much sentiment in Mira Stanton for you, " chuckled theInspector. "When I think of how near a thing it was--"

"I was a fool, sir. " Mahon's face was red. "But it wasn't because Iwas too good for her. We'd never have pulled together; I know thatnow. She was born and bred in the wild ways. I respect her as much asI ever did--perhaps more because she has steadfastly refused even tolet us know where she is--we who sent her down and indirectly killedthe man she loved. "

"I suppose you've talked all this over with your wife, young man?"

"Yes, sir. Helen, though reared in such a different atmosphere fromher cousin, understands Mira better than I. She sympathises--"

"But where is she--Mira, I mean? We know she's drawing the profitsregularly from the 3-bar-Y. But that foreman of hers is as mute as aclam. . . . And now Bert, her best cowboy, has disappeared. Hm-m!What d'ye make of it, Mahon?"

It was not like the Inspector to draw the opinions of his staff, andMahon regarded him slyly. 

"You have a theory, sir. I haven't. I only see what's clear. Mira'sover in Montana--"

"And so you think Mira Stanton is living on her past inMontana--gamboling about with Whiskers, I suppose? And Blue Pete liesin the Hills? Comfortable disposal of the whole affair. I envy you. "

"I've searched the Hills in all his old haunts, sir--"

"And I'm dam glad you didn't find him. "

The Inspector tore open the letter in his hand, smiled, and passed itback. 

"You have a copy of the Assistant Commissioner's letter to me of thetenth, " it ran. "In observance of his orders I would suggest that yousend Sergeant Mahon, who is, I believe, the best for the purpose in theDivision. "

Mahon flushed. A gleam of boyish excitement made him look five yearsyounger. Eagerly he searched the Inspector's face. 

"I'd like it, sir. I'd do my best. I've done bush work in the Hills, and Blue Pete knocked something into me about trails. "

"It always surprises me, " began the Inspector maliciously, "how eageryoung husbands are to get away--"

"May I take Helen, sir?"

"No--you--may--not! What do you think this is--a honeymoon? In thefirst place you'll probably be located in some defunct end-of-steelvillage where even the ghosts are abominable. In the next place you'llbe too busy to know you're married. Horse-thieves? Bah! This isdifferent stuff. You'll be up against something new. We've more thana suspicion that those devils, the Independent Workers of the World, are at the bottom of it. When you get on the trail of the I. W. W. , Boy, there'll be no chivalry of the plains. It'll be knives, and poison, and dynamite . . . And darkness for deeds of darkness. All thecriminals you've met are saints compared with these foreign devils. Thank the Lord, they've come no further from the States as yet than theconstruction camps!"

He rose and deliberately removed the tunic that was to him the badge ofoffice. 

"Speaking unofficially, " he observed, "my advice is to shoot first andenquire after. Remember that every Pole and Russian and Hungarianthere carries a knife or a slug--he has to in self-protection--and usesit as we do slang. Every foreign workman on a railway constructiongang is a potential murderer. . . . I'd rather give evidence for youon a murder charge than strew flowers on your grave. "

He reached for his tunic. 

"You'll have a chance to do credit to Blue Pete's memory. . . . AboutHelen--wait till we see what size the cloud is. "

He thrust his arms into the tunic and buttoned it tight to his chin. 

"You leave on Saturday, " he growled. 

CHAPTER II

EVENING AT MILE 130

"Daddy!"

Big Jim Torrance, framed in the doorway of the shack, was deaf toeverything but the scene before him. 

"Daddy!" There was a note of impatience in the girl's voice. "I knowwhat you're doing--" She appeared in the doorway between kitchen andliving room, enamel pan in one hand and a dish towel in the other. "Ofcourse! That horrid trestle--always that trestle! And you might havebeen helping with the pans. You know how they stain my hands. "

But the noise of the distant camp, lounging out now from the nightmeal, crowded what small interstices of his attention remained from thebeloved trestle. 

Out before him, painted in the vivid mesmeric colours of evening, lay avista dear to him--a new railway built in silent places. Across theyellow grade the bush of Northern Canada stretched on and on, not thickjust here, but prophetic of the untracked forests beyond. On his lefta great cleft cut the earth, an eleven hundred yard valley, in themiddle of which ran a river, sweeping into sight up there round thebend from the deep green of the bush--running placidly enough until itstruck the foaming rapids above the trestle--then smoothing into quietcurrent and swinging back through the chasm to disappear into theunknown behind the shack. 

Five hundred yards up the wide bottom of the valley the constructioncamp sprawled its ugly mass. From where he stood in the doorway helooked down on it over the grade--its straggling unformed planning; theflimsy shacks, half unhewn logs, half canvas, without respect forstreets or angles or lines; its half-hearted struggle to lift itself upthe slope to the sheltered forest above. 

A disreputable, careless, disgusting picture of hardened man cateringonly to his simplest needs. In large part the survival of previousgrade and bridge camps which had merely picked up their canvas whenthey moved along, it had been patched up with more disreputable canvas, now mouldy and torn, with bits of roof gone here, and windows and doorsmissing there. The very dregs even of construction camps. Big JimTorrance himself had used it first on grade and had sold the portableparts to a contractor with work further west. Then O'Connor, the firstcontractor to tackle the trestle, had shoved his men into what was leftwith orders to do their damnedest. And now Torrance again, havingtaken over the task O'Connor had funked in a moment of panic. 

Half a thousand bohunks[1] were existing there now, five hundred of thewildest foreigners even Torrance had handled. But they were _his_gang. And Mile 130 was _his_ camp. That thought had impelled him onceto punch the head of a leering engineer who rashly ventured to call it"Torrance's pig-sty" in Torrance's hearing. The camp might go toperdition so far as he was concerned, but he wasn't going to have anyrank outsider shoving it along. 

With a determined little set to her lips, her only inheritance from herfather, Tressa Torrance passed through the living room and seized himby the ear; and he returned to earth with a howl of mock pain. 

"You little tyrant!" he protested, wrapping one arm about her andhoisting her to his shoulder. "Your mother wasn't a patch to you. "

She wriggled herself free and, still holding to the ear, led him intothe shack. 

"At least you can empty the water, " she ordered. 

"Oh, I can do more than that. How about the pans?"

"They're done. "

He was really contrite. "I guess I did forget, little girl. "

"It's a habit you have. "

He rubbed his moustached lips along her bare arm and swung her again tohis shoulder. 

"Low bridge!"

She bent from her lofty perch until her cheek lay along his hair, andthey passed into the kitchen, where he set her down with elaborate care. 

"I guess that trestle isn't through with me yet, " he observed, a frownmarking his forehead. "It's dropped six inches in the last week. " Hepicked up a pan of dirty water and started for the door. "You won't bebeaten, " she told him confidently. "It's sinking less every day. You've put in half the country now--there must be bottom somewhere. " Hedisappeared without a word and tossed the water over the edge of thechasm. "Anyway, " she protested, as he returned, "looking at it isn'tgoing to stiffen its backbone. If it is, you can do the pans and I'lldo the looking. See those hands!" She held them outspread before hisface. "Aren't you ashamed?"

He tried to look as she desired. 

"They're the dandiest little hands in the world to me. They're yourmother's over again. You don't need to care who sees them out here. "

He saw the slight flush come to her cheeks, and his voice sobered. 

"Adrian Conrad looks a pretty big fish where there's nobody butbohunks. "

"Adrian's a 'big fish' anywhere, " she flamed, "and you know it. Besides, there's the Police. Counting you that makes four real nicepeople. We've often been where there are fewer. The daughter of JamesTorrance, the big railway contractor--"

"Big Jim Torrance, you mean, " he interrupted, throwing back his hugehead to laugh. "The crudest boss that ever hammered a lazy bohunk tohis pick. No, no, little girl, not all your airs, not all my big jobs, can make me more than a half-taught rough-neck--a success, I'll admit. But the biggest success he ever had was in having a daughter--"

He dived for her, but she held him off by planting the bottom of thepan on his face. 

"Now, " she ordered, "you finish your work. "

By the time he had obeyed orders--emptied the last pan of water, taken a look at the two horses in the stable behind the shack, tossed his mud-caked boots through the back door to await hispleasure--inter-larding between each chore another glance at thetrestle--Tressa was in her own room. 

Torrance returned to the front door. A crash of musical instrumentsbroke from the ugly clutter of buildings on the river bottom. 

"Do cut it short to-night, Tressa. Morani's got the orchestra goingalready. Where that Italian devil stows music in that vile body ofhis, and where he manages to find more of it in those other brutes, beats me. "

He could hear her moving about her room, sliding drawers, lifting anddropping the implements of her evening toilet. 

"Not another woman in a hundred miles, " he grumbled, "at least not onethat matters. And yet I got to go through this waiting every night!"

She laughed, her mouth full of the coil of her hair. 

His eye moved upward from the camp and settled on one lone shack thatcrowned a promontory overlooking the ugly scene below. 

"Koppy's at home, " he called. 

"Some day you'll find out something about your underforeman, " sheteased. 

"I wish I could, " he returned so viciously that she laughed aloud. 

"You've been wishing it a long time, but to date he seems innocentenough. You don't need to care so long as he turns up to work everymorning. "

"Innocent?" He snorted. "Them damn Poles can't be innocent. Eversince them horses began to go-- If we could only do without the damnheathen!"

"But you damn well can't. "

"Tressa!" He stumbled back to her door with horrified eyes. 

"My daddy's good enough to copy, " she laughed. 

"Your daddy, girl, is--is shocked. If I hear you--" He tossed hishands up helplessly. "You're making your daddy so mealy-mouthed, thefirst bohunk with a grouch will pull his nose. I've got to swear at'em. If you don't let me tear loose a bit when I'm with you, the air'sgoing to be so blue next time I meet a bohunk that he'll think he'sgone to his last reward. "

She came to the doorway of her room, coiling a loop of hair. 

"Go and listen to the music, daddy. You need sweetening to-night. "

The rough big fellow looked deep into her eyes. "I'd go plumb crazy inthis life without you, little girl. "

"Sure you would, " she agreed contentedly. "Now run along and doMorani's orchestra justice. He deserves it. "

He patted her cheek and returned to his favourite stand in the frontdoor. 

The evening mysteries were deepening. Already the trunks of the treeson the far bank of the river were merging into a dull mass. The playof sunlight and shadow in the nearer forest was an etching of white andblack. The mellow sudden Western night was dropping glamorous mantleover the familiar scene, softening the crudeness of the camp andexalting the dying round of the forest's fight for solitude. The sandof the grade gleamed with evening tint of ochre. The network of thetrestle was a maze of incised lines against the shaded bank opposite. A solitary bird, astir beyond its bedtime, hovered against the sky, cheeping to unseen brood below. Some swift-vanishing creature--wolf orcoyote--ran along the edge of the distant bank for a fearful, curiousglimpse of the persistent invasion of its venerable privacy. The sun, like a mocking challenge, was painting with flaming hand its tremendousbut fleeting colour-picture on the northwest sky, where clouds unseenby day hung ever ready for the evening-hour brush of the great artist. 

The dirty canvas of the camp was laundered by the mysteries oftwilight. Living groups lay peacefully about the river bottom, gambling, Torrance knew. For the moment the orchestra was resting. But snatches of hideous sound came wafting on the evening air as music;concertina, fiddle, mouth-organ, with here and there a cornet, amandolin, a guitar, many breathing individual melody, merged into onevast harmony. Rasping voices lifted themselves in song. No laughter, no shouting--only the sounds of men whose memories are more sensitivethan their feelings, who live in the past or the future, never in thepresent. Evening was fluttering gently down, mellowing line and tone. 

Even to Big Jim Torrance at such an hour came the appeal of dimlyreverent things. Here on the fringe of prairie and forest, in thevast spaces of Northern Canada where wolf met coyote, Torrance waswaging a big fight. Last year he had brought the grade, a simpletask, east of the mountains. Somewhere far down the list ofsub-sub-contractors--fleas on larger fleas almost ad infinitum--he hadbuilt that gleaming line of yellow sand that held the sleepers and therails--almost with his own hands. From far over the horizon to theeast he had crept along westward, urging on his big gang withrelentless but just hand. And out there before his door they haddriven the last spike at the very edge of the valley that cut thelandscape. 

There was the end of his contract. Eastward the line awaited only thefinal ballasting. Westward--that was different. 

The great river chasm that had ended his task was baffling O'Connor, the bridge contractor. For the irregular, winding gouge in the earth, reminder of the day when some tremendous torrent teemed there from themountains hundreds of miles to the west, was more than a mere cuttingto fill. Eleven hundred yards, one foot, four inches from bank to bank(Torrance knew every measurement to the last inch), by one hundred andforty-one feet, eight inches deep, was task enough. Where the railwaywas to span the Tepee River, meandering in the midst of the valley, thewater ran only seventy yards wide; nowhere in sight was it more thanone hundred and fifty. And there was solid bottom to it. 

But down there, one hundred and fifty feet below Torrance's eyes, wastwo hundred yards of quicksands. There lay the real job. 

O'Connor had tackled it blithely enough, while Torrance was hustlinggrade from the east. But when Big Jim Torrance, his task completed, had rolled down his sleeves and commenced to pack, O'Connor was morethan worried. Tressa had skipped about the packing with happy songs, for they were going East--to civilisation. 

Then Torrance had gone to take a last look at O'Connor's progress, andO'Connor had turned haggard eyes on his friend and bent his head overhis arms and wept. The quicksands were beating him. 

Torrance fled back to the end-of-steel village at Mile 127, thatghastly face before him, the picture of a strong man weeping. And forthree days he drank himself to forgetfulness. 

On the morning of the fourth day he rolled up his sleeves again, wavedhis hand after the fleeing O'Connor, and signed a fresh contract forhimself. Nature, the enemy he had been threshing into submission allhis life, was not going to block the beautiful grade he had built. With the effects of the acidulated poison of Mile 127 still in hislimbs but clear of his brain he shook his fist at the quicksands. 

And now, eleven months later, he was still shaking his fist--and hiscurses were deeper and more bitter. For the quicksands were fightingto the last ditch, swallowing whole forests of trees and hills of rock, and opening its maw for more. Friends urged Torrance to ask leave tomove the grade north or south to sounder bottom. But Torrance was notbuilt that way. Besides, he had great reverence for a survey. Even abridge, where a filled-in trestle was planned--a bridge with a span twohundred yards long--impossible!

Torrance stood in the doorway and cast his eye along the line of steelabove the trestle. Only a week ago it had been shored up again, andfewer supply trains than usual had passed. Yet it was down six inches. 

The orchestra Chico Morani, a mere Dago bohunk himself, had organisedamong the men, burst afresh. And every other sound ceased. Even thegambling groups out before the camp paused to listen. 

"Morani's started on the second number, Tressa. Thank Heaven he hasone redeeming feature, if he is a Wop. "

"This isn't your loving night, daddy. It must be my cooking--"

"There's Koppy just come out of his shack. A couple with him, Wernerand Heppel, I bet. "

"Dear me!" she teased out to him. "And I've been so careful with themeals. " A few moments of mirror concentration. "But I know what itreally is--that trestle. It's nerves. . . . Till that hole's filledyou're just an ordinary sick man. . . . And you know you can't standthe twilight. Come in and light up. . . . Adrian'll be here in a fewminutes and read you back to peace. . . . And don't forget, daddy, we're almost out of books. You'll have to send for more by the nextsupply train. Constable Williams is to lend me his catalogues to makeout a new list. "

She stopped, conscious of a tense stillness from the room beyond. Fora fleeting moment she listened, then hurried out, fastening the lastpin in her belt. 

Her father, feet braced, was staring tensely over the grade past thecamp. And in his hand, half raised, was the rifle that always hung ina rack beside the door. 

[1] The term applied to foreign laborers, especially on railwayconstruction. 

CHAPTER III

THE MYSTERIOUS RAFT

Tressa Torrance, inured as sensitive girl could be to the turmoil anddanger of their life on railway construction, experienced a newsensation of fear. Never had she seen her father use a firearm; hisready fists were more to his liking. With a breathless rush she stoodby his side, one hand gripping the wrist of the hand that held thetrigger guard. 

That precaution first. Then she turned her eyes to where her fatherwas staring. 

Far up the ribbon of river, only a few hundred yards below where itemerged from its hidden course through the forest, a clumsy raft wasdrifting clumsily down. In the gleam of the last sun rays it was but asilhouette of black--a flat base with live creatures on it. In amoment it drifted from the glare and in the clear evening air wasvisible to the last line. 

On it were a man and a woman, and a group of horses. Good cause forexcitement there in the shack up by the grade. Along the mile of theTepee that was known to man there was only one raft--at least only onethat had a right to exist--the make-shift affair employed onconstruction duty down at the base of the trestle. Within sixty milesthere was not a living soul but the construction gang and the twoPolicemen at Mile 127, not a horse but Torrance's and the Police pair. At least that was the limit of Torrance's information, and none otherhad such claim to know. 

But this was not the construction raft--and there were the horses. Torrance had already lost a dozen of his best in some mysterious way. It was with that thought that he had seized his rifle. 

Then the woman!

Suddenly he became aware that something was wrong with the raft--and afew hundred yards ahead was a stretch of foaming rapids that wouldsmash it to kindling wood. The woman stood leaning on the shaft of abroken sweep, watching the man. With unhurried but almost superhumanstrength he was working the other sweep from the rear, aiming for theopposite bank. 

The struggle seemed hopeless. Torrance read it at a glance, unaccustomed as he was to water. The tug of the rapids was drawingthem swiftly downward in a course that was too slightly diagonal to itscurrent to promise more than the faintest hope. The man seemedsuddenly to grasp the extent of their peril, for his arms moved morequickly, the bow of the raft swinging about and pointing upstream; butstill the current gripped them relentlessly. 

The woman lifted her head and looked down along the whirling eddies tothe froth of broken water. For a moment she stood, rigid, then turnedto the horses, and from among them sprang a huge dog. Into its mouthshe pressed the end of a rope, and it leaped far into the water. 

Torrance's left hand fumbled back within the door for hisfield-glasses. Through them he saw the dog emerge lower down, stillholding the rope, and dash in long bounds up the bank. As the strainof the rope came, it sank back on its haunches. The rope snapped upout of the water for a moment, and the dog plunged forward with thejerk, fighting every inch. Then it got a firmer hold and braced. Inchby inch the raft yielded to the extra power. It continued to drifttoward the rapids, but also it was working to the bank now. Atintervals the eddying current pulled the dog along, but always itbraced against the tug, its feet digging into the loose gravel and sand. 

The man was working hard, but so regularly that the dog felt but afraction of the weight of the loaded raft. But what it felt wassufficient to turn the scales. 

As the raft slithered in sideways to the bank, a small broncho dashedashore, followed by four other horses. At a fast lope it led awaytoward the trees that grew down the distant slope to the river bottom. 

Torrance awakened then. With livid face he swung the rifle up andfired. Tressa struck at his arm too late. 

It was a long range, and to such an indifferent marksman a matter ofluck. But to Tressa to try was sacrilege after the struggle they hadwitnessed. The bullet fell far short, glancing from the water in aswift slit in the reflecting surface. 

At the report the broncho broke into a gallop. The man and the womanswung swiftly toward the grade, and the next instant the woman haddisappeared--somewhere; neither Torrance nor Tressa knew where. Theman straightened and shaded his eyes toward them. 

Tressa was struggling with her father. He must not shoot again. Theman watched. Presently he slowly raised his rifle. 

The thud of the bullet in the shack not two feet from Torrance'sshoulder preceded the sound of the explosion. The rifle did not drop. A second tiny fleck of smoke, and a bullet sank into the logs only twofeet on the other side of the doorway. Torrance heaved Tressa backwithin the shack. And as he came about, a third bullet from themysterious stranger dug into the log not more than a foot above hishead. 

Torrance did not move--he scarcely even thought at that moment. Themarksman above the rapids lowered his rifle and turned carelessly away. The woman and the dog joined him. The horses were lost in the trees. 

The big contractor twisted himself from bullet hole to bullet hole, andone big hand pushed wonderingly through his heavy hair. 

"It sure ain't me he wants, " he muttered. 

CHAPTER IV

IGNACE KOPPOWSKI APPEARS

The rifle fire, disturbing to Torrance, created a panic in the campbelow. Men who used weapons on each other with the worst intent werethe first to appreciate their menace. True, they seldom resorted tofirearms, for the Pole, and the Russian, and the Hungarian, and theItalian and their kind on construction consider the knife more suitedto their particular case, as being safer and more satisfying. But fora gun they have a proper respect. 

Some of the groups of gamblers on the river bottom saw the raft whileyet Torrance was wrapped in the evening picture, watching at first withthe stupidity of their class, then with equally characteristicsuspicion. From group to group the strange spectacle passed withoutspoken word; and some whose spotted lives had carried them throughvaried scenes realised the threat of the rapids. Here and there one, more sensitive to the struggle, rose to his feet in unconscioussympathy. The stable foreman, recognising the horses, stumbled away towhere his charges were housed for the night. But for the most partthese slow-witted men without a quiver saw death creeping on the raft. Until the horses leaped ashore each knew to a cent his position in theinterrupted games. 

But the rifle shot whipping out from the boss's shack up beside thegrade electrified them. As if worked by a common spring, they rushedfor the camp, heavy footed and panicky, drawing hidden weapons fromshirt or trousers or bootleg to repel the danger they did notunderstand. 

By the time the stranger across the river had replied twice only oneface was visible about the camp. 

From a shack part way up the bank toward the trestle a small man hadbounded at the first report. In his right hand was a hairbrush, and apair of mauve suspenders hung from his hips. Anxious but angry, hesearched the camp with those firm eyes. 

Adrian Conrad, Torrance's foreman, Tressa's lover--the latter first insequence of time as in everything else--knew these men and hated themwith an intensity born of enforced association. Their unorthodox butdefinitive methods of settling the smallest dispute were familiar tohim by experience. Indeed, on his small wiry frame were sundry scarsof knives, whose customarily decisive operations he had thus farescaped by an arrogance of manner and a promptness of action thatdisconcerted a bohunk's aim and riddled his nerve. 

About the camp he saw only the panic of getting to cover. As hewondered, he caught the movement of the lifting rifle across the river. Ahead of the bullet his eye reached the shack beside the trestle, andTorrance's quick turn pointed out its course. Conrad, who kept norifle at his shack, had to be satisfied with watching, mechanicallycompleting his toilet where he stood. Mauve suspenders jerked to hisshoulders--brush slashing across his hair--one hand to test the poiseof his tie--Conrad was preparing for eventualities. 

He marvelled at his own lack of concern. He could see Tressa'sstruggle with her father, and he suspected its cause. Also he hadsufficient faith in her to feel that she was right. The strangerpuzzled him. In the way he handled a rifle was the carelessness ofcomplete confidence. Even before the third bullet directed Torrance'samazed eyes upward, Conrad knew that Tressa and her father were in nodanger. 

It was a fleeting glimpse of the horses disappearing among the treesthat galvanised him into action. Running back into the shack, hesatisfied himself with a hasty glance in the mirror, stuck a jauntystiff hat askew on his head, and sped away up the path his feet hadworn through the months straight to Tressa's door. 

Torrance was still examining the bullet marks when Conrad dropped overthe grade. 

"There!" He placed a big finger tip importantly over one hole. "Andthere--and there!" He turned to Conrad with such a look of awe thatthe latter laughed. 

"All you need care, " Conrad said, digging a finger into Torrance'schest, "is that he didn't wish to put it there. "

The contractor scratched his head. 

"That fellow sure can shoot . . . But it ain't half as queer as the wayhe didn't want to. "

Tressa, hearing Conrad's voice, tripped to the door, her eyes aglowwith a shy eagerness. 

"Evening, Tressa!" The foreman swept off his hat. "Fine evening forrifle practice. "

"I know it don't matter about _me_, " grunted Torrance, "but two feet ata range of twelve hundred yards is cutting it fine for Tressa. "

But Conrad only smiled his unconcern. 

"At least you might be interested in the horses, " Torrance grumbled. "Another bunch gone. That's your business. "

"So that's the cuss who's been robbing us. "

"Such a clever lad, he is!" sneered Torrance. "You could see through apail with the bottom kicked out of it. He'll keep on robbing us, forall you're doing to stop him. Right before our eyes he gets away withit. What do you think I pay you a hundred a month for?"

"Because you can't get any one else to do half the work half as well attwice the price, " grinned the foreman. 

Torrance growled into his moustache. "Four more gone, that is. And Ibet you stopped to brush your hat. "

"I didn't hurry. Why should I? That chap knew he was safe. He'smiles away now, and by the time we could get across the river after himhe'd be in the next Province. He knows the prairie better than we dograde. We'd have about as much chance of getting him as you had ofhitting him. Besides, we're track builders, not track finders. Yourmeasly hundred a month don't half pay for my real job. Get the Policeif you want to keep the excitement up. "

"A hundred a month--and every evening in my shack, " grumbled Torrance. "I know lots of better men would think it good pay. "

"It's every evening in your shack, " gibed Conrad, "or you'd have tocome and live with Tressa and me. "

"Oh?" questioned Tressa. 

"Sure!" confidently. 

"If you two are going to quarrel over me, I'll go back East. "

"Dad-in-law, " pleaded Conrad, "don't you think we could stage a goodrough-and-tumble here and now? I've been two years trying to get herback East for good. "

"I'm staying, " declared Tressa, tossing her head. 

"So'm I--in spite of your father. "

"What gets me, " marvelled Torrance, "is why he bothered to shoot whenhe didn't want to hit. A regular splash of them, too. I might havefired back. "

Conrad's eyes were twinkling. "So you might. What a blessing isself-control! I suppose he's killed so many in his day it's sort oflost its glamour. See the admiring public he left behind by onlyfrightening you to death. "

"But the woman in the case!"

"What woman?" The foreman looked from one to the other. 

"You didn't see her?"

"I confess I haven't the eye for skirts you have, but--" He broke offsuddenly and darted to the grade. "Here!" he snapped, peering into thedark woods beyond. "Come out of it. "

Three men emerged somewhat shame-facedly from the gloom and followedhim to the shack. One of them, evidently the leader, was talkingvolubly, but Conrad did not even appear to listen until they stood inthe open before the door. 

"Now, what were you doing there?"

"Lefty Werner and Heppel and me, we hear shots, " explained a large, raw-boned foreigner with an ugly scar along the side of his jaw. "Wecome quick. Fear boss and young missus maybe need help. "

Koppy, the Polish under foreman, sent his eyes darting from face toface. In his manner was a curious mingling of bravado anddiffidence--a lumbering body, a shrinking way of holding himself, astammering foreign accent and phrasing. But in spite of it there wasample ground for Torrance's persistent suspicions. Perhaps it was thedarting, all-seeing eyes, perhaps the exaggeration of diffidence, butKoppy gave the impression of thinking more than he said. 

"When we need help--" Torrance began furiously. 

Conrad cut in more quietly, but he was evidently holding himself incheck. "And so you sneak up and listen--hide in the trees?"

"No sneak. " Something stronger peeped through Koppy's veneer. 

"We won't argue it. You know I know. "

"I hear rifles, " said Koppy, looking from foreman to boss. "I comequick. " He was, in his subtle way, demanding an explanation. 

"If you were half as keen over the knives and knuckle-dusters of themfellows of yours!" snapped Torrance. 

"Rifles kill--far away. Knives--perhaps not--and only that far. " Heswung out a dexterous arm. 

"Except when they throw the beastly things, " growled Conrad beneath hisbreath, with twinges of memory. 

"My men throw only when they can't reach, " replied Koppy, as if Conradhad spoken aloud. 

"Or when they're afraid to, " added the foreman. 

"Or when they're afraid to, " agreed the underforeman. 

The hint of authority beyond his superiors nettled them both. 

"I don't know what hold you have over that damned crew, " Torrancestormed, "but if you'd make them watch the horses you'd be earning yourmoney better than running up here. "

"That damned crew steal no horses, " Koppy objected with dignity. "Ihold my men--yes, " he went on proudly. "You pay me for that. I makethem obey boss. Ignace Koppowski make them--"

"Yes, yes, " Conrad broke in testily. "We know your full name. Dropthe heroics. "

"No heroics to think of young missus. " Koppy turned to Tressa, forcedto be an uncomfortable witness of one of the frequent quarrels thatnever reached an issue. "If she say no danger, Ignace Koppowskisatisfied. " He bent his big frame with surprising grace. 

Tressa smiled on the Pole from the upper step. She never couldunderstand why her father and lover hated the fellow so. "Thank you, Koppy. Not a bit of danger--as it happened. It was good of you to beconcerned. "

The Pole repeated the obeisance. Conrad caught his eye as he liftedhis head. 

"And now, " he ordered shortly, "you've learned all you're likely to. Get out. "

A flash of anger came and went in the underforeman's face. Hestraightened, looking Conrad in the eye. 

"Up here I take boss's orders. Boss want us to go--we go. But bossmaybe need us some day. Perhaps we find who steal horses. "

"I wish to hell you would, " grunted Torrance. "It's worth fifty bucksin your hand if you do. Horses don't grow on spruce trees in thiscountry. "

"Horses don't. Boss lose no more--and Ignace Koppowski take no morepay. "

With the flourish of the surprising promise he was swinging about toleave, when Conrad spoke. 

"One moment, Koppy. " His voice was very quiet, but his chin was thrustforward a little. "When Miss Torrance requires protection, there arethose here can give it without your assistance. That's all. "

A strange gleam they did not understand shot into the Pole's eyes. "Perhaps--not, " he muttered, and disappeared over the grade, his twosilent followers at his heels. 

Torrance scowled after them. "I'd be willing to lose every horse inthe camp, if you'd go with them. "

"I'll fire him to-morrow. " The words chipped from Conrad's lips. 

Torrance laughed. "Two years with them brutes hasn't taught you much, Adrian. Fire Koppy, and there wouldn't be a bohunk in camp the samenight. . . . And their successors would be viler still, primed tovengeance by the bunch you'd kicked out. Ten years of it has taught menot to gamble with the unknown because I hate the known. Never reallyhad so little trouble with a gang--at least, not till these last fewweeks. . . . What d'ye think's got into them, Adrian? Somebody's sureat the bottom of all these things. That last bit of trestle didn'tundermine itself, and them spikes didn't loosen just to dump theballast train. What's the answer?"

"Sheer cussedness. What would you expect from such scum?"

As they passed inside, Torrance stooped to his foreman's face. "I hirea foreman to stop such things--or cow the brutes. "

"I suggested firing Koppy to-morrow. That's the best way. "

"Why Koppy?"

Conrad's eyes fell away sullenly. "He had the impertinence toimagine--" He stopped. "I could shoot him like a mad dog, " heexploded. 

Torrance chuckled. "That's the spirit, lad. I was going to say thatthere's only one way to handle the bohunk: beat him down. . . . D'yerealise, Adrian, you haven't killed a single one yet? Sandy, who wentbefore you, did for five in his last season--"

"And 'went before' me, " smiled Conrad, "with five knives in his ribs. Thanks. I'm still alive--and I'm getting the work out of them. Butthis is a new one about Sandy. You told the Police, of course?"

"Sh-sh! I couldn't swear to it in a court of law. I'm not sure anunprejudiced jury wouldn't call it accidental death. The accidentshappened to be convenient to Sandy and me. If a bohunk or two droppedout of the way now, d'ye think I'd try to fix it on you? I think toomuch of you, Adrian, my lad. "

Tressa came round the table and pressed them into their favouritechairs. In Conrad's hand she thrust a lurid-backed novel. "And afterall this blood and murder, let's get to the more peaceful pursuits ofbrigands and treasure-hunters. Sandy was a man after daddy's heart, Adrian--and at the last a few hundred bohunks were after Sandy's heart. "

"Sandy never was a hero, " said Conrad. "The hero never dies. "

CHAPTER V

BLUE PETE, FRIEND AND LOVER

Close to the waters of the Tepee River, now returned to its normalsluggishness with the rapidity of mountain-fed streams, a man sat onhis heels in a clump of spruce. There, two miles above theconstruction camp, the canyon fell away more gradually to the old riverbottom, and the trees, encouraged by a century of immunity from floods, crept ever downward until they pressed to the very edge of the channelthat held the waters of the Tepee fifty weeks of the year. 

It was evening. Clear as lines on a white sheet the woods on the otherside stood out in the dustless air against the flaming sky. The wideband of water that intervened gleamed in the setting sun, scarcerevealing the existence of a current. Save for the low chatter ofnesting birds and the gentle gurgle of water beneath the bank there wasnot a sound. The wind was against the camp. For all the solitary mancould hear he might have been the only human within the northland. 

About him was a furtiveness of the wilds, not guilty but protective. In such surroundings he had been born, there he had spent most of hisdays. You could read it in the crouch, the quiet, unwasted movements, the unconscious attitudes. 

His face told much of his story. Those bright, darting eyes, crookedthough they were, missed nothing; those sudden spaces ofmotionlessness, the peculiar, utterly still tilt of the head, were thenatural impulses of one ever listening; the calm immobility of thedusky face was bred of a life of self-sufficiency, where muscle and eyewere ever-active guardians. The coarse black hair that straggled frombeneath a dirty Stetson, the high cheek bones, the swarthy complexion;these the outward signals of his half-breed origin. Yet from Stetsonto high-heeled boots he was a cowboy, with the individualeccentricities in dress that scorned hairy chaps for leather, andwalked with an arch of leg that craved the back of a horse to fill it. 

The half breed was whittling, yet even in that simple recreation of thecareless he bent to his surroundings. No crackling of hasty knife, nosplashing about of shavings. Already one capacious pocket was filledwith them, and those just made lay in a neat heap for hasty collection. 

Often his hand held to listen, and always as he listened his eyessought the shadows among the trees on the far shore. A scowl wastwisting his face, of worry, not of anger; sometimes the knife bit intothe soft stick with muscular response to his thoughts. 

Presently he pushed the dirty Stetson back and ran a sleeve across hisforehead, though it was not warm. Raising himself to his feet withinthe limited range of the clump of trees, he peered anxiously across theriver, searching the opposite bank from the east to where it curvedsouthward above the camp. 

"Gor swizzle! Ef she don't come soon I gotta git over thar an' trailher. . . . An' that means givin' up the job . . . An' mebbe losin'out. Suthin' 's happened; she never took so long before. . . . Butpshaw! what with Whiskers 'n' Juno--they'd take's good keer o' her as Icud myself. "

He resumed his seat, but not the whittling, leaning against a tree withclosed eyes. But he was not resting, for deep sighs broke from him, and his muscles were not loose. 

Suddenly his eyes opened wide with a look of alarm, though not a muscletwitched. His quick ears had caught a sound among the trees at hisback. On the instant he appraised the risk of the gleaming waterbefore him, and then, like a part of the shadows, seemed to melt intothe ground. The clump of spruce was there, and the shadows, just asthey had been all these years, but not a shaving, not a mark. 

Far out in the current the smooth gleam of the water was broken inmoving eddies. Some round object was making its way toward the bank. In the cover of another cluster of trees further down the bank thehalfbreed leaned out over the water and waved a warning hand. He darenot whistle or shout. But the round object, not forty yards out, turned sideways, revealing the head of a large dog. 

At the same moment a rifle snapped from the thickets behind, and evenas the halfbreed flattened out he noted the swift flash of spume closeto the dog's head. Instantly the head dived. Instantly, too, thesecond cluster of trees was empty, though there had been no sound, noperceptible movement. 

Yards further down the stream the head reappeared, directed now to thefar bank and moving more swiftly. A second shot from the thicket toldof a watchful enemy. 

Before the echo had returned from the opposite bank, a third shot, thistime that of a revolver, split the evening silence. A stifledexclamation of alarm, and then the crashing of hasty flight up theslope. 

The half breed thrust his gun in his belt and glided across the open topick up a rifle with shattered stock. 

"Don't know wot makes me so squeamish these days, " he drawled, with aslow smile. "He sartin desarved it in the throat. That Pole 'n' me'sgoin' to butt agin each other some more. I never was wuth shucks whenit comes to justice . . . An' I allus suffer fer it after. Look atBilsy, an' Dutch Henry, an' a bunch more!"

He carried the broken rifle to the river's edge and whistled. The dog, now near the opposite shore, turned about. As it approached the clumpthat hid the halfbreed, ears came forward to assist eyes and nose, anda waggle of welcome told that all was well. With a shudder that sent acloud of spray about, a great cross-bred Russian wolf-hound, with thehead of a mastiff, clambered up the bank and bounded into the trees. The halfbreed threw his arms about the wet neck and hugged it in silentjoy. His eyes were moist as he glanced sheepishly across to the othershore. 

"Juno, ole woman, I sure love yuh to-night. "

From about the dog's neck he untied a tiny water-proof bag and exposeda note, which he laboriously spelt out. Then, moving to the water'sedge, he reached down and waved a hand twice back and forward. 

Followed by the dog, he struck noiselessly upstream through the woods, and at last lowered himself over the gravel bank by means ofoverhanging boughs. Ankle-deep, screened by the foliage, he untied araft of freshly cut logs, made a careful survey of the shore about him, and shoved out into the river, pointing slightly upstream. The dogestablished herself on the bow, her eyes on the shore they wereapproaching. 

As he worked the sweep at the stern the man talked to the dog. 

"Guess you 'n' Whiskers 'n' the missus has bin gallivantin', eh, Juno, ole woman? Sort o' leadin' the gay life all down them coupla hunderdmiles to the Hills whar nobody lives. Trust the women! Yuh wudn't'member thar was a feller back here chewin' his fingers off worryin'about yuh . . . An' workin' the shart offen his back an' gittin' thinfer the fambly, an' not even a horse to git about. . . . Nobody but abunch o' roughnecks an' houn's--'poligisin' tuh yuh, Juno, fer callin'them critters houn's. They're c'yutes, that's wot they are. Ef tharwas trees 'nough I'd len' my bes' rope to hang 'em . . . Every dang oneof 'em, 'cept Mister Conrad 'n' the boss. "

Juno's only response was a periodic and perfunctory wagging of alimited tail, further limited by being sat on. 

"'Magine me, Blue Pete, bes' shot in the Badlands, an' Canada, too, ferthat matter--least that's so, now Dutchy's gone, an' it was nip 'n'tuck between us--'magine me, cow-puncher from my born days, sometimerustler, sometime Mounted P'lice detective, sometime--oh, sometimepretty near everythin' with a horse in it, an' a rifle, an' arope--'magine me workin' 'longside a gang o' Dagoes 'n' Poles thatthink a knife's fer stickin' people, an' a rifle fer the P'lice . . . Me shovin' rocks 'n' logs into a hole in the groun' that won't fillthis side everlastin'! . . . Kin yuh 'magine it, ole woman? An' themjoshin' 'n' guyin' me, an' me swallerin' it like a tenderfoot! . . . An' never did fer one of 'em!"

The dog evidently considered it too preposterous for caudal comment;eyes and ears and nose were stretched toward the shore they werenearing. 

"Yah, she's thar all right, eh, Juno? Yer eyes is better'n mine--but Ibet I kin feel her thar. That's whar I git the bulge on yuh, olewoman. " The half-breed chuckled, and leaned more powerfully to thesweep. "An 'magine me shakin' chaps fer overalls, an' this ole Stetsonfer a fi'-cent cap, an' these nifty ridin' boots fer things as big asthis scow . . . An' takin' back-talk from a two-by-five Pole I cudbreak over one knee 'n' kick the pieces tuh Medicine Hat. . . . But itwon't be fer long now, Juno. Jest two more little horses 'n' it'sdid . . . All did. . . . An' then mebbe we kin go back an' hold up ourheads, Mira 'n' you 'n' Whiskers 'n' me. . . . Wonder wot Whiskersthinks o' me these days!"

He concentrated on the working of the sweep. Juno raised herself togive every inch of her stubby tail a chance. Blue Pete peered eagerlyinto the shadows along the shore. 

"An' thar's yer missus, Juno, " he cried joyfully. "Mira--our Mira!"

A few powerful movements of his arm swept the raft sideways against thebank. A woman, small and dainty, swarthy but without Indian blood, leaned eagerly forward--eager but shy. Waves of dark hair peeped frombeneath her Stetson, and her green blouse blazed against the darker hueof the trees as she stood, one foot advanced, holding her arms towardthe halfbreed. 

Tossing the painter to the dog, Blue Pete leaped ashore and gatheredher in his arms without a word. Then, tremulously happy but abashed bythe fervour of their meeting, he released her and looked enquiringlyabout. 

"I suppose it should have been Whiskers first, " she pouted. 

He laughed and whistled twice, and out from the trees trotted an uglylittle pinto, all blotches of yellowish white and faded red, with aragged tail that looked as if something had started to make a meal ofit but became disgusted just before the end; and the left ear droopedhumorously in its upper third. It nosed up against the halfbreed, nibbling playfully at his ears, his hands, the brim of his Stetson, theleather fringe of his chaps, the ends of the polka-dot handkerchiefknotted about his neck. 

"Yuh're some glad to see me, Whiskers, ole gal--if Mira ain't. Butthen yuh 'n' me knowed each other longer, an' sort o' got to see thegood p'ints. "

He laughed slyly at Mira from the corner of his eyes, and she laughedback, with a tinge of sadness in the tone, and turned away to take thepainter from Juno. A second horse that had followed Whiskers from thetrees stepped aboard the raft after the pinto. 

"Bes' wait till it's darker, " advised Blue Pete. "They got mightypeery since that las' raft showed us up. How d'yuh like the new one?'Tain't's nifty 's the ole one, but it's easier handled, an' it'll lastus through, I guess. "

Mira was examining it soberly. "What's the matter with it? It don'tseem even somehow. "

He looked it over sheepishly. "I figured if I made it a bit shorterone side, yuh'd have less to pull. What bustin' I've did's run more tohorses than boats, but ain't that about right? But the dang thingdon't seem to work--like a loco'ed cayuse. Anyway it was a job. Thembohunks is getting' to roamin' about real annoyin', an' Koppy wust ofall. "

"Who was shooting just before you gave me the signal?"

"The bohunks, out after sparrow pie fer supper, I guess, " he liedplacidly, "ur larnin' which end a gun fires at. It's real dangerous inthe bush these days. Fus' thing we know we'll have to show ourselves'n' ask 'em to shoot at us to be safe. These loose bullets ain't a bitreasonable. "

Mira let him ramble on; she loved to hear him, loved it now more thanever, after her absence south with the last lot of stolen horses. 

"Ain't it a bit small for horses, Pete?"

He eyed the raft doubtfully. "Thar's jes' two more, yuh know. It'llcarry 'em, I guess. Anyway we kin make two trips of it. " He pausedand turned his gleaming eyes full on her face. "Jes' two more, Mira, an' then we kin clear out!"

"Where to, Pete?" She looked up at him in sudden fright then that shehad spoken so plainly. 

"Why--why--down south--to the 3-bar-Y--to suthin' wuth livin' fer--towhar yuh'll be a sight better off than with a rough cuss like me. "

The wistfulness that had stilled her laugh and sobered her face thesemany weeks spoke at last; her eyes were wet. 

"Have you thought, Pete, dear--thought what'll happen when they get usagain?"

"Sure I have, " he replied bravely. "Wot d'yuh mean?"

"What will the Police say?"

He reached out to tickle Whiskers' neck with a twig and laughedlightly. "I don' know wot they'll say, an' I don' care, but I know wotthey'll do. They'll take hold o' my hands an'--an'--Gor-swizzle! Ishud oughta know the Sergeant. . . . No more I ain't skeered o' th'Inspector. "

"But we're still stealing horses, Pete. "

"Yuh still want me to pay Torrance, the ole sinner, fer horses he knewwas stole when he bought 'em?" He frowned. "If yuh say so when I gotthe money myself, I'll give him the ten bucks a head he paid me fer 'emlas' year . . . But I'm sure goin' to git them horses back fust the waythey come, an' I'm not goin' to take any o' your money. Anyway hewudn't sell fer ten bucks. "

"The Police never forgive, " she sighed. 

The half breed leaned thoughtfully against a tree, chewing the twig. 

"I kind o' feel, Mira, " he said presently, "th' Inspector's gotfeelin's some bigger'n that furrin sign he faces every day over hisdesk, 'maintins he drut, '[1] ur suthin' like that. He's a bullyP'liceman, but he's a bully sight better friend, I'm gamblin'. Haveany trouble this trip?"

She threw aside her melancholy. "The two corrals this side of the RedDeer are falling to pieces. Whiskers and Juno and I managed to keepthem in at nights, but we couldn't do it again, I'm afraid. I used theold ford near the H-Lazy-Z; the water was too high to risk the other. Of course I crossed at night. Met a farmer just over the railway, butit was too dark to mean anything. Bert is having an easy time with thebunch in the Hills, but we moved them further east. He's saw thePolice poking about the Hills a lot, specially Sergeant Mahon. . . . I'll be glad when it's over, Pete. Things has gone too easy for a longtime. Something always turns up to spoil things. "

"Didn't the raft 'most get away on us in the rapids? Ain't that 'noughto happen?"

"I wasn't scared a bit, " she said. "I knew you'd get us through. "

"Swizzled if I did, " he laughed. "I was skeered stiff. "

"Well, you fooled me, " patting his cheek with loving incredulity. 

"An' all the time my knees fair tremblin'--wuss'n when Dutchy had thedrop on me an' me without a gun. Juno, ole woman, yuh done us finethat time. . . . Only two more to git, Mira, an' then we're free. Idon' say them two ain't goin' to take some gittin'; they're in theboss's own stable, an' he has ears like a gopher. He 'n' the youngmissus ride 'em--ur they think they do. "

He handed her aboard the raft and took his place at the stern. 

"Lie down, Whiskers; yer legs is too teetery fer this craft. Yuh mighttake a day off 'n' larn that fool jinny o' Mira's to lie down whenshe's told to. No, Mira, I'll git it across myself. It's down stream, an' I wantuh show yuh she ain't so bad a boat fer a cow-puncher to makewith wooden trees outen a wooden head. I got all my ole musclesback . . . Workin' fer Torrance, dang hard work, too, to say nothin' o'them dirty Poles and other cats. . . . I gotta turn up to the minuteevery mornin' ur they wanta know why. That nigger, Koppy! Some dayI'll jes' natcherl bust up an' take him to Heaven with me. I'm surelosin' my spunk. "

[1] "Maintiens le droit, " the motto of the Mounted Police. 

CHAPTER VI

THE HIDDEN MARKSMAN

Adrian Conrad withdrew his feet from the table and consulted his watch. Benny, his cook, a large fair-haired Norwegian, pushed through from thekitchen with an armful of dishes and gravely arranged them on theoilcloth-covered table in preparation for tomorrow's breakfast. Then, with a cough--his nightly farewell--he disappeared. 

Conrad, still examining his watch, heard him depart by the back door, drawing it carefully behind him, and tramp in his heavy dragging wayround the shack to the path leading down to the camp. Alone, theforeman rose and pulled out a drawer, frowning critically into it. 

The task of selecting his evening tie was interrupted by a subduedgrunt from the doorway. The ruddy face of Benny, the silent, waspoking through, alive with excitement. 

At the same instant Conrad became aware of the source of theNorwegian's agitation. From the camp below broke the distant clamourof altercation, the full-mouthed curses of excited foreigners buildingup a structure of more strenuous argument. In four strides the foremanwas at the door. 

Conrad's shack was strategically situated. Half-way up the slopingpath between camp and trestle, it overlooked the former unobtrusively. From his door he had his men under his eye, with all the advantages ofa not too distant isolation. 

The scene of the commotion was apparent enough, a small excited groupof men, probably the participators in one of the games of chance alwaysin progress in the evenings in the open space between the camp and thewater. Far more industriously the bohunk gambled his pay away in theevening than he earned it by day. And always overhung the contractorsthis peril of a camp quarrel. 

Almost before Conrad had seized the spirit of the incident, it wasswelled by the accession of other disputants. Five seconds' thoughtfulscrutiny warned him that to attempt to quell it without assistance wastaking an unjustifiable risk. Small groups were rising angrilyeverywhere about the river bottom, and crowding to the fringes of thealtercation. Alone, he might fail, and it were better then not to havetried. By the time he could reach the scene half the camp wouldprobably be involved. 

For he saw at a glance that this was no personal squabble but one ofthe infrequent but always impending race feuds. 

He jerked his head about to see if Torrance knew. But the shack doorup at the trestle was empty; Torrance and Tressa would be in thekitchen cleaning up. Thereupon Conrad set off at a run up the slopingpath, watching intermittently the angry scene below. 

A hundred yards from the grade he put his fingers to his lips andwhistled. Torrance came instantly to the door. He saw the fight, sawConrad's beckoning hand, and, without hat or coat, dashed out to thegrade. But even as he leaped the rails his mood altered: pulling up, he strolled leisurely on down the path. 

Conrad was intent on the waxing conflict. Group by group it wasextending. He realised the wisdom of the instinct that had sent himfor help--if the affray had not already passed control. There wereonly the two of them to count on. Koppy, whose duty it was toforestall such conflicts, was nowhere in sight; and anyway Conrad hadlearned not to trust the Pole. Casting hasty eyes upward toward theunderforeman's shack topping the promontory overlooking the camp, hefancied a dim movement in the darkness of the interior. Unless hiseyes deceived him, Koppy was out of the reckoning in case of need. Irritated, Conrad swung about impatiently. Torrance was saunteringdownward, filling his pipe. 

"Here, " the foreman called sharply, "we must stop that, and quick. "

"It's only a fight, " drawled Torrance. 

Conrad's face darkened with disgust. "Don't cut your own throat. Youdon't seem to have heard of where these fights sometimeslead--Swanson's, for instance, and Tillman's, to mention only lastyear's. You'd be in a fine mess with one of those on your hands inlate July, wouldn't you?"

"Let it go for a couple of minutes longer, Adrian, " pleaded Torrance. "They're just getting into it. I see a knife out. "

"And that's what we must forestall. Or it'll end only when theItalians and the Hungarians have cleaned out the Swedes and the Poles, or vice versa. There's not a second to waste. "

He had hold of Torrance's arm and was forcing him to run. 

"I know you're right, Adrian, " panted Torrance, "but I don't want to. "

As they neared the camp, running now at top speed, Conrad saw Koppyemerge fussily from his shack above the camp and come leaping down--toolate, of course, to be of much service. 

The fight had grown to alarming proportions. Originating in a merenormal act of cheating at cards, naturally resented by a huge Swede whohad been losing steadily to a one-eyed Italian, it had passed swiftlyinto the realms of the smouldering feud between the races. And thefirst blow had excited the onlookers to take vociferous sides; thefirst weapon had roused their lingering instincts of antagonism; andthe first drop of blood had driven a dozen of them headlong into themêlée. Before Conrad and Torrance arrived, knives and knife-endedknuckle-dusters and clubs were swinging. 

The most disgusting feature of the shrieking, struggling mass was thepresence on its outskirts of sneaking villains intent only on theirpersonal enemies. 

One of these had just plunged his knife into an unsuspecting arm whenTorrance caught sight of him. It fired his blood to a blind fury. With a lunge he planted his heavy boot on the brute's forehead, and thefellow crumpled up and lay record to an honest man's anger. ThereafterTorrance knew only that he was enjoying himself, as fist and bootstruck snarling face or struggling body. Followed a few minutes ofmore careful fighting, as the roused bohunks began to retaliate; andthen a sense of personal danger not to be countered by any amount ofexertion. 

As he threw himself into the fight he glowed with the satisfaction ofknowing that every face before him belonged to an enemy. Normallyslinking cowards before authority, the bohunks were now inflamed beyondanything but brute force. Curses too deep and furious to express morethan their tone--the cries of the wounded--the panting of labouredbreathing--Torrance roared into it, striking right and left. 

At the last moment Conrad turned aside. He had an idea that theimpression on the warring elements would be increased by separateattacks. From another angle, therefore, silently and recklessly hefought his way into the mob. He had no thought of defence--merelyslugged, trusting to the surprise and speed of his attack to protecthim. 

Five convulsed faces had fallen before the fury of Torrance's assaultbefore there was resistance. The first threatening arm he seized inrelentless clutch, flinging back over his head the knife it held. Thena Hungarian, saved from a swinging club by Torrance's quick blow, recognised only another foe and lunged with a knife. The contractorkicked him out of the fray and went on. 

In the meantime Conrad was realising his mistake in dividing forces. The mob was quieting a little, it was true, but it was the comparativecalm only of discovering new foes. Torrance, ten yards away, wasbattling like a madman, but now advance was hopelessly blocked byweight of numbers and concentrated resistance. Two dozen bohunks, lostnow to any ordinary sense of peril, were bent on paying off old scores. Conrad began seriously to fight his way over to Torrance. 

Across the crowd he could see Koppy making headway at last, and hevaguely wondered why. A face loomed before him, and he struck into itviciously. It dropped away, but a shooting pain across his scalpwarned him that he was cut; a moving spot of warm moisture on the backof his neck located a small stream of blood. 

The maddest fury of the fight seemed to have waned, yet Conrad knewthat the danger to him and Torrance had increased. Italian andHungarian, Pole and Swede, had forgotten their race feud in the greaterhatred of their bosses. The noise, so hideous and snarling when theyarrived, was stilled in unity of purpose. 

Many had retired, some to nurse their wounds, others not yet blindenough to custom to ignore authority. Those who remained knew whatthey were doing. Murder was in their eyes. 

Through a temporary opening in his own group Conrad caught Torrance'seye, anxious and a little uncertain. The foreman made a peremptorymovement of his head urging retreat--for Torrance. If one of themcould get away for a rifle! At that instant he ducked to avoid a sideattack, and Torrance saw the blood on his neck. With a bellow thecontractor charged through. 

"Back to back!" he shouted, and lashed out sideways with one foot at afresh onset against the tiring foreman. Conrad smiled. He was feelingthe strain--had been for minutes--but Torrance's arrival lent him freshstrength. Back to back they continued the losing struggle. 

A gleam of light darted on Conrad's right, and he knew he could notavoid it. But suddenly the knife dropped, and the one who had wieldedit grabbed his wrist with the other hand. The foreman dare not look tosee what had happened, but he was aware of a sudden thinning in thecrowd of spectators. 

A lumbering Pole, his club knocked away by an unexpected blow fromTorrance, leaped furiously on the contractor. The latter turned hisback to receive the shock, at the same time ducking forward. ThePole's legs shot into the air before Conrad's eyes--a shriek--and asudden stain of blood on the pant leg. Yet no one had touched theplace where the blood gushed. 

The scene was changing curiously. A score of men still fought to reachtheir prey, blind and deaf to everything but their own passions; butthe great crowd that had made the threat of disaster so ominous haddisappeared. One of the mad group about them, teeth bared, wascreeping closer to Torrance, a long stiletto held aloft. But as itjerked back to strike, the hand that held it opened nervelessly, and aspurt of blood covered the fingers. 

Many pairs of eyes had been on that stiletto, and when it dropped, bloody and useless, a sudden silence fell. In the midst of it a riflesnapped from the trees behind the camp. An Italian, into whosebloodshot eyes a sudden sense of fear was crowding, grabbed his ear andhowled. A thin stream of blood trickled down his wrist. 

Not another blow was struck. It was not the casualties, not alone thesound of the rifle, but rather the uncanny mystery of the hiddenmarksman and his aim. Almost before the two hard-pressed men dare lookabout them, the river bottom was empty of life, save for themselves andKoppy, and two or three delayed by the nature of their wounds. 

"Right again, Adrian, " puffed Torrance, picking at the torn sleeve ofhis shirt and feeling himself over gingerly. "I thought they'd got youwhen I saw that scratch. Here, let's look at it. "

But even as he reached to Conrad's shoulder his interest faded beforethe marvel of their succour, and he turned to run his eye in a puzzledway along the thin trees of the slope behind the camp. 

"By hickory! The horse-thief again! There ain't two can shoot likethat. " He noticed Koppy staring angrily in the same direction. "Itsure ain't one of your gang, Koppy. That would be one too many. "

"No bohunk--no bohunk!" assented the Pole, and there was that in hisvoice boded ill for proof to the contrary. "No bohunk . . . Maybe. . . . I don't think. "

Tressa came running round the nearest shack, rifle in one hand and asmall automatic in the other. She saw the blood on Adrian's collar andmade straight for him. For a moment her father frowned jealously. 

"A man brings a daughter into the world, " he sulked, "frets and stewsand labours over her until she's old enough--to fall in love with someyoung fellow who never had a moment's worry about her. "

"And so it has been since ribs ceased to become women, " grinned Conrad. "It's only another beauty mark, Tressa. It's stopped bleedingalready. " He turned angrily on Koppy. "You saw this fight from thefirst--"

"I come as soon as I see, " protested the Pole indignantly. 

"You lie! You wanted to see it get beyond us. You thought they'd dofor us, didn't you?"

"Why do I fight, then?" enquired Koppy, with lifted eyebrows. 

"Heaven only knows, " muttered Conrad. "But you saw we had 'em licked. "

"Don't be an ass, " chided Torrance, his eyes still on the trees. "Wecan lick four hundred and ninety-five of them, but it was that fellowin there did for the extra five. Find him for me, Koppy, and I'll puthim in your place and kick you to hell. "

"If Koppy find him, you no need, " replied the Pole, the expression ofhis face clearing away the ambiguity of his words. "I find him. "

As if in challenge, the unseen rifle replied. Koppy leaped aside, stooping to examine a long slit in the side of his high boots. 

"I find him, " he hissed, shaking his fist at the trees. 

Torrance chuckled delightedly. "A dandy eye for beauty, that chap has. He seems to like us; I'd hate to have him shooting the boots off melike that. "

He started for home, but bethought himself. 

"Get the wounded rounded up, Koppy. Nobody dead. Just as well. Funerals are a nuisance. Can't see why a bohunk can't sneak off intothe bush and die without any bother. If there's more than one speederload to lug that seventy-five miles to the hospital, there'll be thedevil to pay. You and the cooks have your hands full bandaging therest of the evening, I guess. Come up in an hour and report. "

As they toiled up the slope to the trestle Torrance broke a longsilence. 

"In your prayers to-night, Tressa, you might put in a word for amysterious stranger with an eye like an eagle. I think we're going toneed him a lot before this job's finished. "

CHAPTER VII

CONRAD FLASHES A GUN

A whistle sounded down the line, a short nervous blast twice repeated. An instant shrieking of handbrakes, and the rumbling train of loadedflat-cars slowed down toward the trestle. 

Torrance lumbered up from the supper table to watch. He was hopingthat by some slip of the levers up in Murphy's cab the rock-laden carswould glide out over the trestle and give it a real test. The trainsthat crossed carrying supplies to construction further west werecomparatively light, because of just such tender spots on the line; andthey never stopped until they reached the other side. And always theysent back the taunting whistle of engineers breathing again after theperils of the "softest" place on the line. 

Murphy, the engineer of his ballast train, persistently refused toexpose one little car to "the crazy conthraption ye have the nerve tocall a threstle. Sure I'd as lave tie down me gauge and sit on thebiler as put a foot on that skinny doodle. " And Murphy never made amistake with his levers. 

As Torrance watched, the end car slowly glided back toward the trestleand, to the sharply extended arms of an overalled brakesman, came to astandstill with a few inches of the truck overhanging the gossamerstructure. 

Far up the track the engine puffed and panted. Presently a bewhiskeredlittle old Irishman climbed from it and came ploughing down beside thegrade. 

"Late to-night, Murphy, " said Torrance severely. "What's the row?"

"Row, d'ye ask? Listen to that now, " he demanded of the grinningbrakesman. "Huh!" He bent to examine his sand-filled boots. "I'll belater still some o' these nights, that I will, ye big bully, if yedon't take the throuble to lay a footpath down that gr-rade for dacentcitizens to use. Me legs are only that long, and I wasn't born on theseashore. Some day I'll stay up with me cab, I will, and then who'llbrighten up yeer dull and unintheresting lives? How'd ye kape in touchwith civilisation then, I'd ask ye?"

As the extent of Murphy's connection with civilisation was never morethan fifteen miles down the line, Torrance and Tressa could laughwithout offending his choleric feelings. 

Murphy became aware of the few inches of flatcar that overhung thetrestle. 

"Ye mooney-face!" he roared at the brakesman who, his day's work done, was lolling on the grass. "Don't ye know that straw-pile's apt to blowover if ye disturb the air about it. Ye just saved yeer skin by aboutfour inches. If ye'd let me run out on that toy I'd have t'rown yeover it, that I would. "

The brakesman continued to grin. 

"Ye can slit yeer face all up and think ye're laughing, ye can, but bethe time ye'd struck a few t'ousand o' these bean-poles andclothes-line props that Torrance here calls a threstle, ye'd be lookinglike a pin-cushion dress-making day. It's dangerous, I call it, tolave splinters like thim with their ends up. Some day a thoughtlessbrakesman like yeerself will take a careless breath in thevicinity--and there ain't an undertaker this side o' Saskatoon. "

Torrance, half nettled, laughed carelessly. 

"If you'd sharpen up your wits more, Murphy, hustling along here inreasonable hours, instead of insulting a work you're not big enough tounderstand, you'd get away sooner to a softer job. "

"Softer, is it? Sure I nade something softer soon or I'll get as toughas a railway contractor. I suppose ye'd call it a soft job running atrain where a herd of--no, ye didn't hear what I called them, MissTressa--where a filthy, low-down gang of craters dressed up like menand walking on their hind legs, is running loose. Lifted about fourmiles of rail, they did. This locomotive engineer's been doing railwaybuilding for half a day; and if ye could do my job as well as I can doyours, Torrance, there'd be no nade o' the two of us. If I had arowdy, dyed-in-the-wool mob like them under me I'd shoot the lot andhave a better stand in with St. Peter than I'm going to have as anengineer. I'd die happy if I could catch one of thim in the act and hewasn't too big for the fire-door. "

Torrance looked grave. "Another? That's the second this week. Ifthis--"

"Indade, it was another. Ye didn't think it was the same rail I'vebeen putting down every day for six years or so. When I fix a rail itstays, it does. "

"Leave the train there till morning, " urged Torrance; "we'll unload itfirst thing. "

"Lave thim, is it?" shouted Murphy. "Lave thim on the main line! Notlikely! When I lave this man-trap, they go too. "

"Murphy, you're a bad-tempered little stickler to rules that don't meana cuss. There isn't another train within a hundred miles or so, exceptwest; there won't be one this way for days. "

"I didn't know ye'd done so well as a bridge builder they'd made yetrain-despatcher too, " sneered Murphy. "Build a siding and I'll take achance, though it ain't fair to Molly. Ye'll nade one anyway. Trainsought to have a chance to pull up where it's safe and say their prayersbefore tempting Providence on those straws. Why don't ye set up asaloon where the passengers can get drunk first--"

"Look here, man, the whole camp's at supper. They wouldn't work anextra hour for the devil. "

"Why don't ye let somebody else ask thim thin? Of course if they'vegot ye scared--"

Torrance knew the danger of demanding overtime even when necessitatedby their own devilish destruction. He knew the added risk since therecent camp fight. But the suggestion of danger threw precaution tothe winds. Taking a nickel whistle from his pocket he stepped on thetrestle and blew a long blast. 

The camp lay quiet and clear in the late afternoon sun, a long line ofsluggish smoke marking the cook-houses. A few minutes more and thelazy evening life would filter out over the river bottom. At themoment five hundred mouths were working as if their lives depended onit, five hundred pairs of eyes were looking for the next plate todevour. 

First to appear in answer to the summons was Adrian Conrad, the one towhom it was directed. He took in the situation at a glance, evenwithout Torrance's pointing arm, and made straightway for thecook-houses. From the open door of one of them Koppy's head appeared, and disappeared as quickly. He, too, understood. 

As Conrad approached the nearest cook-house, Koppy emerged hastily onhis way to the next. Conrad changed his intentions and strolled onafter the underforeman. The two men met face to face as Koppy wascoming out. The foreman, inches shorter, laid a hand on the Pole'sshoulder. "I want you back here, Koppy. " Without excitement, withoutapparent annoyance, he thrust the Pole ahead into the building. 

A hundred and fifty evil countenances glared at them from about thelong tables, some openly defiant, some only uncomfortable; all sullenand prepared to resist under the influence of what Koppy had justhurled at them in impassioned words. 

"I'm afraid you've made it hard for yourself, Koppy, " said the foreman. "How long will it take them to finish?"

"Supper is _their_ time, " returned the underforeman stiffly. He wastemporising; he scarcely knew how far it was wise to resist. "Aftersupper?" He shrugged his shoulders in simulated indifference. 

Conrad ran undisturbed eye over the tables, noting the pie before eachdiner. 

"After supper is _my_ time to-night, " he corrected quietly. "In tenminutes they're wanted on the grade. There's a train to unload. "

A rumble of protest cut him short. Koppy, the firm lines of theforeman's face close to his shoulder, hesitated. 

"Why for train not here in time?" he demanded. "We work ten hours. Train don't come. Why?"

Conrad lifted his shoulders and let them drop. "Ask the bossthat--after. Now--the train has to be unloaded!"

The underforeman still hesitated. He had a curious respect for thisquiet little fellow who never argued, never swore, never retreated froma stand once taken; and he was not quite certain how far he could trusthis men in open conflict with authority. But they were waiting for hislead; his future with them was at stake. 

"Perhaps they not work. Perhaps they say they work enough to-day. " Hecaught the hardening gleam in Conrad's eye. "Can I make them?"

"If you can't, " said Conrad, "I can. Only there'll be sore heads, andan empty bunk or two before I'm through. And yours will be one ofthem. I've given the orders; are you going to make them obey or amI--in your absence?"

A few of the men were on their feet now, mumbling, waving their soiledfists. Certain mysterious movements were significant to Conrad. Likea flash he had Koppy round the waist and was pressing a small automaticinto his stomach. 

"I want them to sit down, Koppy, " ordered the foreman, "every one ofthem. You have till I count five. If I see a knife in the meantime, time's up. One--two--"

The Pole swallowed--shouted something in a foreign tongue, and everyhand fell into the open, weaponless, every man sat down. 

"You're a wise guy sometimes, Koppy, " smiled Conrad. "Now you and Iremain here for five minutes, then fifty of them come with us--I won'tneed more. Tell them that in the lingo. I'm already holding thewatch. . . . And, Koppy, hereafter you'll save yourself embarrassmentby remembering I'm foreman; these men take orders from me--through you. I don't make a habit of showing a gun, but I prefer it to argument withyou. . . . All ready, march. You and I'll go last, Koppy. "

But outside, Adrian Conrad passed carelessly along the line of sullenmen and led up the bank and through the woods to the standing train. And not a knife showed. 

Torrance and Murphy and the train crew watched the line file from thecook-house and up the path. 

"'Blimey!' as me friend, 'Uggins, o' Whitechapel, would say, " exclaimedMurphy. "And then some!"

Torrance only rubbed his hands. 

"Did I bring enough?" enquired Conrad. 

"They'll do. "

"So'll ye, me lad, " said Murphy behind his hand to Tressa. "Faith, butye've a way wid ye. Here I was hoping for a bang-up spree, wid mehoulding the watch till me blood got riled; and all that rat of a kiddoes is to dr-rop a few hundred husky bohunks into his pocket and lug'em up the bank to overtime on a foine night like this. It'sdishear-rtening. A chap can't get up a recent foight out here. I'mgoing back to civilisation where they still bang each other about a bitin a friendly way, thank God! Where'd yeer father pick him up, Tressa?"

"He didn't 'pick him up', " replied Tressa indignantly. 

The merry eyes of the engineer came round to her in a slow circle. 

"I'm always making mistakes like that. I never can tell when acouple's married--not unless he's showing the mar-rks of it about thepate, or flir-rting wid another gir-rl. What I meant to ask was howdid yeer benevolent paterfamilias contrive to induce him to direct hisseductive manners to the uncongenial atmosphere o' construction. " Hepeered more closely into the laughing eyes of the girl. "And goodtaste he has, too, bad cess to him! If I was younger now-- Thesewhiskers hide me age; they've always been me fatal lure. The girlstake to thim like ants to sugar. Me first wife took to thim soliberally I had to cut thim off in self-protection. I used to wearthim par-rted in the middle. Ah, a gay dog was I. That was before Isaw 'Lord Dundreary. ' Sure I changed thim so quick then the gir-rlsdidn't know they weren't flirting wid the same fellow. Next to beingtaken for an Englishman, an Irishman would prefer old Nick himself. SoI let thim grow solid, the luxuriant and becoming gr-rowth ye'readmiring this very minute. . . . Look at that now!"

He indicated the work of unloading. Each car was being emptied at theedge of the trestle on the other side of the grade, where a long shoothad been scooped from the bank and walled off to direct the fallingrocks from the framework of the trestle. 

"Ye'd think some o' thim beggars liked wor-rk. Koppy, there, him o'the leering eye and forked tongue--that's Indian, ye know--he thinkshe's showing off. "

Koppowski was standing on a car, legs far apart, heaving over greatrocks with his bare hands. Two bohunks, unsuccessfully tussling with ahuge piece, he unceremoniously pushed aside, to grip it with hiscallous hands. Slowly it tilted, balanced a moment, and bounded awayto the valley with great thuds. 

"Ye mayn't be aware of it, gir-rl, but ye're expected to clap. Koppy'sshowing off. I know the symptoms--but I grew whiskers then. " Hecombed long, toil-stained fingers through the beard. 

Car after car the train moved back, the empty ones passing out over thetrestle, which Murphy pretended to study with anxiety. The enginepanted up to the end of its task. 

"Well, there's Molly. " The firemen thrust tousled head from theengineer's side of the cab to catch the signals. "Billy 'Uggins may beonly an Englishman from Whitechapel, or wherever they raise the lowestbrand, but he and Molly are getting too friendly. If I weren'tfrightened o' that crazy conthraption o' yeer father's I wouldn't lethim touch a lever; but till that beanpole toy is safe for a cat I'm notgoing to risk the head end of any train. And here's for supper, and along sleep!"

He sprang into the cab with a roar at 'Uggins, tossed a kiss to Tressa, pulled the whistle cord, and drew away with increasing speed from thetrestle and down the line to the official siding, three miles away, atthe deserted end-of-steel village. 

The work was completed for the night, yet the men lingered, self-consciously kicking over fragments of rock. Torrance and Conrad, without seeming to notice, were aware that something was in brew; and, wishing to meet it in the open, they did not enter the shack. 

Presently Koppy and one of his bosom friends, Carl Heppel, detachedthemselves from the loitering group and approached the boss. 

"What you pay overtime, my men ask?"

"Overtime!" Torrance's roar rolled out over the valley. "What in h--d'ye mean? When I want men they got to work. I don't care what hourit is--" The depth of his fury choked him. "Get your damned bunch outof my sight, and quick, or I'll kick you to perdition. They tore upthe rail that forced the overtime--"

Conrad had come to his side; he spoke quietly now:

"These men may be innocent. They've worked beyond the ten hours. Time-and-a-quarter would be fair. "

Torrance gaped; the world seemed to be falling from beneath his feet. 

"I would add this proviso, " continued the calm voice of the foreman, "that when damage occurs again, the extra work it entails will not bepaid for. You may take that as a warning, Koppy. Tell them"--his eyeswere flashing, though his voice had not risen--"that extra work causedby damage to the line will always be done overtime--and--they'regoing--to do it--without pay. Understand? Now clear out. "

CHAPTER VIII

A TRAGEDY OF CONSTRUCTION

Stretched on the dry grass beside the trestle, hanging perilously overthe edge of the dizzy drop to the river bottom, Tressa watched theunceasing struggle with the hungry quicksands. 

A hive of industry was below her--men and horses, huge tree trunks andmasses of rock, network trestle and piled poles. Men swarmedeverywhere, appearing from her height mere dots of movement, ridiculously unfit to cope with the force that was making her father soirritable these days. 

Two distinct gangs were at work. Over beyond the water the filling inof the trestle was almost complete, the material being hauled by atrain working from cuttings to the west. A great hundred-and-fiftyfoot bank of loose earth had swallowed the "crazy conthraption" to thevery edge of the water, sloping steeply upward at its near side fromthe bridge that spanned the permanent course of the river. Everythinghung now waiting only for the choking of the quicksand to commence thefilling of the near side. 

From bank to bank of the river a heavy boom of logs caught the treesfelled in the forest above and floated down for the great maw that hadalready swallowed so much. These trees, trimmed of all but theirlarger branches, were being drawn to the shore by the surer footed menand several teams of horses; the river bottom down there was a tangleof trunks ready to feed to the quicksands. 

Closer in beneath the bank over which she looked men were piling rockson the spongy area, as they had been for weeks--as they were a year agounder O'Connor--as they might be forever, unless luck favoured herfather. 

To the inexperienced eye the scene was ceaseless activity, but Tressahad long since learned the skill with which the bohunk conceals hislaziness. A dozen civilised workmen would accomplish as much as threetimes their number of foreigners. But this was a bohunk's job;civilised workmen treated it as a plague. 

The swift figure of Adrian Conrad moved from group to group, leaving awake of energy. By sheer personality and grit he gained his ends, though railway construction was as foreign to his life's plans, pastand future, as suicide. 

She smiled as she thought of the reason of his presence, and blew akiss over the edge to his unsuspecting head. This, the great task ofher father's career, would mark the end of Conrad's apprenticeship. These days of a mass attack on the bottomless pit might be thebeginning of the end. When the mass of logs and trees and rocks wasdumped in, surely she could lay her plans for a new life! Conrad wouldreturn to the city, to the partnership he had dropped only temporarilyto be near her; and her father would have enough for the rest of hisdays. 

A week or two to test the success of their latest effort, another tobuild the permanent foundations and strengthen the trestle in its finalshape, and then a few weeks at most for the fill-in. Already the wavein the trestle beneath the supply trains was scarcely noticeable. Theend was in sight. 

Her father she could pick out easily enough--that still, large figurestanding by itself, or joined now and then by Adrian. Once it jerkedforward, and half a dozen men catapulted themselves at some part of thework that did not please him. 

Presently Adrian and two others gathered before the contractor, wherethey seemed to confer a long time. One, Tressa knew, would beKoppowski; the other must be one of his friends, Werner probably, orMorani, or Heppel. They alone of the five hundred possessedintelligence enough to justify consultation. The rest merely obeyedorders, like the horses, and crammed their stomachs till the disheswere empty. Yes, and made strange music of evenings. She neverunderstood that. 

Then Adrian and her father were alone. 

The men swarming through the lower lacework of the trestle were keyingup with sledge and rope and wrench, adding a pole here and there. These they lifted by means of rope and pulley attached to convenientparts of the existing structure. Her father was pointing upward. Abohunk climbed clumsily to the point indicated and tied a pulley there. Passing a rope through the pulley, he tossed the end down. Several menseized it. To the other end a log was attached. 

Down below, Torrance watched the carrying out of his orders withkeenest interest. He had been at this for months, and his trained eyecould pick out the weak spots with unerring instinct. To his eye hewas forced to trust for the support of those twin bands of steel highabove his head, since the uncertain and uneven sinking of the trestle, green timber, and ignorant and careless workmen, with the incidence ofaccident far above the average, made construction at the best patchyand haphazard. 

He was surprised and a little chagrinned by the weakness he haddiscovered; he could not understand how it had escaped him before. Thepull, the brace of the trestle poles just there did not seem unsound, yet instinct warned him that something was amiss in the sag of adjacentsupports. His orders to Conrad, accordingly, were hurried and abrupt. 

The men in the trestle went about the work in their usual clumsy way, but at last a score of men had hold of the rope and the fresh log roseon its end in slow jerks. Then it was clear of the ground, rolling ina leisurely way against the lower supports of the trestle in responseto the uncurling of the rope. Up above, men were holding it away fromthe trestle; a dozen more waiting to fasten it in place. 

It had risen twenty feet when a cry of warning burst from Torrance'slips. He scarcely knew why. His wandering eyes had fancied a sag inthe support that held the pulley; his quick ear had caught a new notein the creaking timbers. 

From above came the sound of snapping ropes--a chorus of panic-strickencries--a succession of crashes as the two logs dashed earthward. 

The swarthy man half way up, who had been directing the rising log, atask for which he was chosen on account of his great strength and cooljudgment, turned a lightning backward somersault without pausing tolook where he might land. As he turned over he twisted in the air, caught a support, and swung himself easily to safety. For a moment hecontemplated the tragedy below, then like a cat sprang upward throughthe trestle. The others merely closed their eyes and hung on. 

Of the two freed logs the upper bounced from support to support, finally resting in the trestle itself. But the one that had been onits way to remedy the weakness turned slightly sideways and glanced offinto the group of frozen bohunks below. The trestle trembled from endto end. 

Torrance did not follow the course of the falling logs. All thatmattered at such a moment was the fate of his great work. He saw thequiver run through it--felt it in his own body--heard the creaking ofropes and blots, and there flashed through him a horror that he had notprovided for a strain like that. When the trestle held its place, agreat surge of pride and joy swept over him, but his knees weretrembling. 

When his eyes returned to earth, the bohunks were in flight, almost toa man, though danger was past. Only Conrad, Koppy, and Lefty Wernerwere straining at the log that held down their crushed comrades. Torrance sprang forward and bent his great back to the weight. Twofewer bohunks were on construction in Canada. 

Some one dropped from the trestle close to Torrance, and a hand thrustitself before the contractor's eyes. In the hand was the end of arope. Torrance looked from it to the dusky Indian face above it. 

"Cut!" jerked the halfbreed. "Thar's more up thar. "

Torrance reached out slowly and took the rope, incredulous. 

"'Twan't bolted, " said the halfbreed. "An' then that. "

A wave of crimson deepened the tan on Torrance's face. Whirling on thegroup beside him, he struck viciously, and Koppy hurtled over the logand lay as still as his dead companions. Instantly Conrad was on thePole, running his hands swiftly over the unconscious body. With asatisfied smile he drew a knife from a leather sheath fastened insidethe trouser-band, and thrust it into his own belt. 

"You did well to strike quickly, " he muttered to Torrance. "A bulletwould be the proper thing, but we've no direct proof; the Police wouldask questions. He'll be round in a minute. "

Torrance was examining the severed rope. 

"Where did you find this, Mavy?"

The halfbreed pointed aloft. "Lower end o' the support the pulley wasfastened to. Thar's more. "

Torrance was restraining himself for lack of victims on whom to venthis wrath; Werner had retired to a discreet distance. Koppy wassitting weakly on the log, wondering what had happened. The contractorreached out one big hand and jerked him to his feet. 

"Now, you--! I'll give you twenty minutes to round up them cusses ofyours and get them up in that trestle. The Indian here'll show youwhat you got to do. And you'll stand right under all the time--andyou'll stand there every time we work on the trestle. I'm going tomake it worth your skin to stop this thing. And if after to-day I finda rope cut or a bolt missing I'll smash you to pulp. And Big JimTorrance don't go back on his word. . . . What's more, you and theother dogs won't be paid for the time it takes to fix things up. "

He closed his powerful fist on the Pole's shoulder so tightly that theman's face twisted. 

"You think you're going to bust this job up, you and your gang. I'mtelling you that before you succeed you'll wish you'd stayed in jail inyour own country. I don't know what you got against the trestle, but Ido know you're a hellish cuss I'm going to break to the halter. If youcount to bust things up here, I'll see that the busting falls on yourown head. Scat!"

CHAPTER IX

TORRANCE EVOLVES A PLAN

"Were they--real dead, daddy? Couldn't we--can't we do anything?"Horror stared from Tressa's eyes; she was trembling from head to foot. "I thought you or--or Adrian were under it, and I almost fell over. I'd have fainted if I hadn't thought you might need me. "

The big man laid his arm across the shaking shoulders and drew her tohim. 

"I guess it was Adrian before your old dad. "

"No--I don't think so. " She continued naively: "Adrian's so quick; Idon't think he'd be caught like that. It was you I thought of--too. "

He smiled a little wistfully. "That's right, little girl, be honest. We all had it--once. When your mother was alive there was no onecounted but 'Jim. ' God, if I could hear her say it now! . . . 'Jim. '"He lingered over the word, repeating it in reverent whisper. "It was'Jim' kept me straight them days. . . . Just the little word 'Jim. 'I've always thought if I could die with that in my ears, perhaps theremight--might open up a bit of a chance for the big rough fellow whohasn't had much chance to get away from things that make menrougher. . . . 'Jim. ' Now I'll have to kick out without it. "

The girl in his arms was frightened of him when he talked that way; andit was happening more frequently in these days of worry. She hadscarcely known her mother, except through the lips of her daddy, butthe woman who touched only the fringes of her memory was to her, as tohim, a being not quite of this earth. 

"'Jim, '" she whispered, scarce knowing she said it. 

His arms closed convulsively, and she could feel his beating heart. 

"Say it to me--sometimes--won't you, little girl?" he whispered. 

But she was suddenly conscious of treading sacred ground. 

"I don't think I can, daddy. It's mother's, mother's own. You're mydaddy, and there's nothing as good as that to me. "

He smiled lovingly down on her, tossing aside his depression. 

"And a daddy couldn't have anything better--no, not if he searched thiswhole wide Canada through from terminal to terminal. I'm just aboutthe luckiest dog this side Heaven. 

 'Just one girl, There is just one girl; There may be others, I know, But they're not my pearl. Sun or rain, She is just the same; I'll be happy forever with Just one girl. '"

The song was coarse and toneless, but he knew no other way of voicingit, and she noted nothing of its crudeness. 

"Daddy, you're a base deceiver. "

She was wagging an accusing finger before his eyes, and he blinked inexaggerated concern. 

"O' course, " he admitted, "I don't say I've had much chance with morethan one. This job of mine is death to gallivanting. I wouldn't knowhow to look at a woman now--not in a way that would mean she was moreto me than one of the same sex as the best little girl in the world. "

But the silently accusing finger continued to wag. 

"Honest, I don't know what you mean. "

"What about the cow-girl last year that you bought the horses from?"

He chuckled deep in his throat. 

"Shucks! I know a pretty girl when I see one, that's all. I knew howto appreciate that skin of hers, and her riding, and the way she liftedher feet when she walked, and how she wore her clothes--though theyweren't much, were they? And I bet they don't half prize her where shecomes from. A chap like me who's known the two best women in the worldcan spot a real pippin any time; and he sort of owes it to the world topass the message along. Shucks, girl! You didn't think--say, youdidn't think I was sidling up to her, or anything like that? All I didwas to touch her arm. I wanted to see if they were all alike, likeyours. And look what she gave me!"

He made a grimace and drew a finger along a dim line cutting down hischeek. 

"She couldn't have been the nice girl I thought, " he reflected, "or shewouldn't have got on her high-and-mighty just for a little thing likethat. "

"Anyway, " sighed the girl, snuggling deeper in his arms, "I was realproud of you when she brought that quirt across your face, and yourcheek all bleeding, and it looked as if your eye was gone. You justlaughed and borrowed my handkerchief. "

He laughed again now. "You didn't think I'd slam at her with one ofthese big fists, did you? I believe I kind of enjoyed wiping away theblood. "

"And you paid her every cent without a word. "

"O' course! That hadn't anything to do with our little tiff. Didn't Iowe the money? I got them horses cheap enough, goodness knows! I'dtake a thousand of them any day in the week she trotted 'em along. Easiest way to make a fortune I know. "

Tressa eased herself away to look gravely in his face. "Did you everthink those horses might be stolen ones?"

"Not more'n I could help, " he grinned. "It wasn't any of my business;she offered them at a reasonable price--"

"You set the price. "

"The buyer always does, my dear--when he can. Ten dollars was only astarter; I'd have given five times as much. They've been the besthorses I've had. " He stopped with a sudden inspiration. "Say, come tothink of it, they're the very ones we've been losing lately. Looks asif some one else is a good judge of horseflesh. "

"I hope they don't touch Doll and Prince. Surely nobody would comeright up here to our own stable!"

"Not while Big Jim Torrance and booze don't get mixing company toofree. You didn't used to think so much of Doll--but that was beforeshe was broke. You're getting your riding legs pretty quick, I say. We'll sell them before we pull out. They're real prairie horses; theywouldn't be happy down East. Just the same, " he murmured, after a longpause, "I'd give a week's pay to know who got them horses. Perhaps thecamps out west needed brightening up their horse-power, and they'vedone it at my expense. If we could have got on the trail of the lastlot that nearly went over the rapids--but there's nobody can trail inthis camp. " He smote his knee with a loud smack. "By hickory! Whydidn't I think of the Indian before?"

"Peter Maverick?"

"Sure. The only Indian we got. He did me a good turn to-day on thattrestle. Never saw an Indian couldn't follow a trail, if there waswhisky or a horse at the end of it . . . And I never saw a likelier onethan Mavy. Might be worth my while to get in ahead of the MountedPolice. They had to be told, you know. "

"Did you tell them how you got the horses, daddy?"

The big man looked grieved. "Do you think your dad has lost all hissenses? But this smashing of things was getting too common, and they'dhave found out about the horses and wondered why I hadn't called themin. I don't think they'd favour buying strange horses at ten dollars ahead and trying to look innocent about it. It isn't any use arguingwith them--but you got common sense. You wouldn't suspect your old dadof receiving stolen property--at ten per; but them Mounted Police willask for a birth certificate for every blessed one. I haven't time tolook into the pedigree of every horse I buy. I'm busy. The Police areso unreasonable when it comes to law. "

"That's why, " he went on, after a thoughtful silence, "I'd like tosteer them off the horse question. There's lots else for them todo. . . . Why didn't I think of Mavy before?"

He went to the edge of the bank and whistled. Ten minutes later Conradwas with them. 

"Koppy got them repairs done yet?"

"Pretty nearly, " replied the foreman. 

"When the Indian can get away, send him up . . . Or maybe we'd betterwait till after hours--if he wouldn't ask overtime. "

"You'll never find him after hours; he doesn't sleep in the camp. Wanders off somewhere in the bush. He has about as much use for whitetrash as you have. "

"Send him right away then. "

CHAPTER X

MAVY TAKES A RISK

Mavy, known on the camp books as Peter Maverick, received the summonsto the boss's shack with his customary silence. For a moment afterConrad delivered the message he hesitated, then, nodding shortly, heswung into the trestle and began to clamber up by way of the hundredand fifty feet of network supports, scorning the path that led up thebank before the foreman's shack. With a puzzled shake of his headConrad watched the strange figure growing smaller. 

"A hundred of him, " he muttered, "and they could take the whole bunchof bohunks. If he's a specimen of the wild Indian, Lord only knowswhat right we had to clean them out of the land. Mr. Torrance wouldsay it was because they never build railways. "

To the bohunks, mildly staring after the vanishing halfbreed, hismethod of reaching the top was merely foolishly exhausting; but severalweeks of acquaintance had taught them to accept his silentpeculiarities with nothing more than casual wonder, though theydisliked him for his unsociability, for the cold contempt that twistedhis lips, and for the stifled volcano that smouldered within hissquinting eyes. They hated him more than ever now, with a hatred thatcould be liquidated only in blood. Their own criminal schemes that hadtaken the lives of two of their companions they did not consider, butthe man who had exposed the cause of the deaths, and had made themsweat unrequited hours for exercising the only weapon they knew intheir relentless fight against their bosses, must answer to them forhis temerity and treason. Hereafter the halfbreed was just prey;sooner or later he would fall before the slumbering fires that knew nolaw but the knife, no restraint but fear. 

Torrance looked up at the shadow in the doorway. 

"Hey? Where did you come from?"

"Yuh sent fer me, didn't yuh?"

"I thought you were down bossing the Koppy job. "

"Sartin. We jest was through when he tol' me. "

"But Conrad only got down there; I saw him. " Torrance squinted sternlyat the halfbreed. 

Mavy nodded. "I come by the trestle. "

"The h--you did!"

The halfbreed shrugged his shoulders. The contractor examined him withrenewed interest. 

"How'd you like to be an underforeman?"

Again the wide, sloping shoulders shrugged. 

"Say, you don't mean you'd turn down an extra dollar a day?"

"Koppy's underforeman, ain't he?" The halfbreed spat with disgust, andTorrance chuckled sympathetically. 

"If I did that every time I felt like it about Koppy, I'd be as dry asa camp-meeting in three days. You're not afraid of him, are you?"

Mavy grinned. 

"Because Koppy's going to be some busy for the next few weeks hangingout under that trestle, and we'll need another underforeman perhaps. "

The squinting eyes took on a sudden gleam, even a keen anticipationthat could not escape the contractor's attention. 

"An' wud I be bossin' 'em about, them bohunks? Wud yuh let me do as Iliked?"

"Well, " smiled Torrance, "not quite what you liked; you'd be under theforeman and me, you know. "

The halfbreed sighed. "That's allus the way. Suthin's allus foolin'me. 'Cause ef yuh'd gi' me a free hand thar'd be a dozen er so lessbohunks the fus' night fer supper. I jes' natcherl hate hidin' myfeelin's. " He repeated the sigh more hopelessly. "Yuh'd never git thework did; thar ain't bohunks enough in the world. "

Torrance clutched his hand; here in an unexpected quarter was a man tohis liking. 

"If I could, " he whispered, "I'd make you foreman this instant, andround up all the bohunks out of jail. But that ain't what I want youfor. Are you a real Indian?"

"Naw, " drawled Mavy. "I'm a Chinee, with a bit o' Pole thrown in. "

Torrance showed he could appreciate humour like that. "I mean, can youfollow a trail?"

The halfbreed's eyes danced. "Take a run in the bush, " he saidproudly, "an' to-morrow I'll take yuh over it agin t' the foot. Kin Ifoller a trail! Gor-swizzle! It's wot I done most o' my born days. "

The contractor ruminated. Much as he dreaded the interference of thePolice in the matter of the stolen horses, he hesitated aboutentrusting their recovery to this strange Indian; and a tardy thoughtcame to him that the Police might question it. He cast the die infavour of his first plan. 

"You know them horses we been losing?"

Mavy kept his eyes fixed on the contractor's face, but he knew thelocation of door and window with the unerring sense of the trapped wildthing. 

"If you can find the thief--or who he is--there's under-foreman's payfor you. A dollar a day more--if money's any use to you. Will youtake it on?"

"No. "

The reply was prompt and uncompromising. Torrance, flaming as usualbefore unexpected opposition, was about to fire him on the spot, whenthe noise of metal against metal drew Tressa to the door. 

"It's Constable Williams and a new Policeman--a Sergeant. Father'shere, Mr. Williams. He was sending for you. There's been a dreadfulaccident. A piece of the trestle fell and killed two of the men. "

As Tressa stepped back to let the Policeman enter, the halfbreed slidunobtrusively to the other side of the room and stood in thesemi-obscurity facing the doorway, his back tight against the wall. 

"Yes, " stormed Torrance, "and if it had killed a dozen of them it wouldhave served them right. They'd taken out the bolts and cut a rope. "

Constable Williams, blinking at the sudden darkness of the sittingroom, stepped aside and made way for a straight, bronzed figure wearingthe stripes of a Sergeant, who was already acknowledging with a winningsmile Tressa's unspoken welcome. 

"Torrance, shake hands with Sergeant Mahon. He's been sent up toclear--"

The halfbreed, his squinting eyes staring as at a ghost, seemed to makeonly a single movement. Then the entire window crashed out, and a pairof heavy boots disappeared over the sill. 

For one brief moment the contractor and his daughter were stupefied. Not so Sergeant Mahon. With the crash he was at the door, tugging athis belt. But Tressa was in the way, and by the time he reached theopen only a tiny cloud of dust rising above the edge of the steep dropto the river bottom told the way the halfbreed had gone. 

The Sergeant rushed to the bank and looked down the hundred-and-fiftyfoot wall with a gasp. No need for a revolver there. With a shudderhe drew back. 

Torrance stormed up beside him, rifle in hand. 

"Where is he? Why don't you shoot? Let me--"

The Sergeant, with a deft twist, secured the rifle. 

"What's he been doing?"

"Doing?" yelled the contractor. "Didn't you see that wholewindow--didn't you--"

"We don't shoot men for that. "

Tressa came to the rescue:

"He's an Indian, one of the bohunks. I didn't know he'd done anything. We were talking to him when you came. Daddy wanted to make himunderforeman, but he refused. And now"--she peered in awe over theedge--"he's killed. "

"Guilty conscience, I guess, " commented the Sergeant. "Lots of themare taken that way when they see the uniform--though I don't recallquite such a sudden and successful attempt at suicide. "

"Suicide!" snorted Torrance, who was lying down where he could see thescene below. "Suicide nothing! That chap's a human cat--or he ain'thuman at all. He came up by the trestle; this is just another way toget down. Look at that dust! He's not falling, not him! He's justkicking up a dust so we can't see, and all the time he's breaking hisup record. He's not dropping fast enough to hurt himself . . . But, byhickory! where he finds toe-holds on that cliff beats me. "

They were all craning over. Down below, the bohunks were scatteringlike frightened sheep, while those further out gaped. The dust-cloudstruck the bottom and spread, and out of it emerged a running figure, limping a little but covering the ground with surprising speed. Tagends of clothing hung to him, and from head to foot he was the colourof earth. 

Torrance cheered. "Hurrah! I'm surer than ever I made no mistakeoffering him the job . . . And I'll pay for the window myself, byhickory!"

Mahon was watching him with a faint smile. 

"It's a lively reception to give a stranger. Is there more to theprogramme?"

"If there is, " replied Torrance, "I'm only one of the innocentaudience. That guy's beaten the limit three times inside as manyhours. He's a continuous performance. He did a few careless flips andtumbles down there to get out of the way of that pole, then he swingsup by way of the trestle while you'd say 'Jack Robinson. ' He's gonedown again, " he added, measuring with his eye the dizzy height, "by wayof Providence. Wouldn't you say he'd got the wrong job out here, evenif he is an Indian?"

"Was it Mavy?" asked Constable Williams. 

"We call him Mavy, but he's a blooming sparrow, or a toy balloon. "

"An Indian who's been working on construction, " Williams explained tohis superior, "a strange, silent fellow. Always seemed a bit above thejob. Peter Maverick was his name. "

Mahon started violently. His heart had made a bound that almostsuffocated him. Before his eyes swept a picture of a court ofso-called justice, with a big half breed giving evidence for the Policein a rustling case. The Judge, ignorantly persisting in his demand fora name for a child of nature who had all his life been content with"Blue Pete, " had swallowed an invention of the moment, though everyrancher in the room laughed at the ludicrously unfit term they knew sowell. "Peter Maverick, " the halfbreed had replied without a smile. 

The Sergeant closed his eyes with a weary shake of the head. Thepicture had faded before another--the halfbreed wounded to death by abullet he had drawn to his own chest to save the Police friend for whomit was intended. 

"Know him?" enquired the Constable curiously. 

Mahon passed a hand across his moist brow. "I knew a cowboy once--bestfriend I ever had--best a man could have. He gave that name oncebecause he had no other to give. . . . He, too, was part Indian. Peter's a common Indian name. . . . He's dead now. He gave his lifefor me. "

"That was Blue Pete, wasn't it?" asked Williams. "We got some of thestory up here. He was working with us down there at Medicine Hat, wasn't he?"

The Sergeant moved toward the shack. "That drop makes me dizzy. "

Within the shack Tressa laid a sympathetic hand on his. 

"You'd better tell us about it, hadn't you? You're thinking a lot. "

He smiled sadly into her tender eyes. "There's not much to tell, " hebegan, "at least, not in quantity. Blue Pete was the whitest man thatever lived, the whitest of any colour. Yet he died a rustler--givinghis life gladly for one who had done nothing more for him than call himfriend. He was no rustler at heart. For years he had stolen horsesand cattle in the Badlands of Montana, because, as he said, every onerustled there, more or less; he was brought up to it. Perhaps he did abit more than the others, but that was because he knew more tricks. Icame on him just north of the border. He'd come across before therifles of two cowboys who hated him so badly they'd quite forgottenthat he could have picked them off with ease any time he wished. Though he was the best shot in the Badlands, he never used his rifletill he had to; and for days he'd been running before them. "

He looked about the room, feeling the silence. To him it was as atribute to his dead friend. 

"I took him in to the Inspector. He became a detective for us. Yousee, the rustlers were getting a bit the better of us because they knewthe Cypress Hills and we never had force enough to take time to studythem. Blue Pete didn't need to. He could pick up a trail anywhere andfollow it like a blood-hound. . . . I learned a little from him;that's why I'm up here. With his assistance we ran down some of therustlers. It was he proved to us that our own ranchers were among therustlers--proved it to his own destruction. It was at the trial of oneof them that he received the blow that sent him wild again. For a weekhe'd been on the trail of that fellow, a man we'd long suspected, halfrancher, half hotel-keeper, and his nerves were a bit raw from lack ofsleep and being forced into the open. You see, it meant giving up allthe cow-punching he loved, for no rancher would employ him then. "

A flash of anger lit the Sergeant's face. 

"The Judge questioned his evidence--doubted it--even censured thePolice for using such an acknowledged rustler. . . . Pete left thecourtroom straight for the old game . . . And I, his old friend--I wasput on his track. It was my duty. In the meantime some of his oldcompanions from the Badlands crossed the border. I don't know whetherBlue Pete joined up with them or not. If he did there are so manythings can't be explained. We caught a few of them--including a whitegirl who--who also had gone wild. She was--a friend of mine, too, once. When we caught her brothers, who owned one of the best ranchesin the district, the 3-bar-Y, and they--killed themselves, she justbroke away. She and Blue Pete worked together. I think they lovedeach other. It was a crazy venture of hers that put her in our hands. She got six months. . . . 

"It was spring when she came out, early spring this year. A gang ofBadland rustlers got into the Hills. We surrounded them, and I went inwith one companion on a trail of blood from a lucky shot we'd got atthem when they tried to break through for the border. The wounded manambushed me . . . But Blue Pete--he'd been creeping along beside me allthe time--took the bullet instead of me. He managed to tell me therustlers' rendezvous, and then something struck me on the head and Idropped. My companion came to my assistance then. I guess I washalf-crazy from the blow, and from the awful wound I'd seen in Pete'schest, because when we closed in on the rendezvous that night I tookfool chances. I jumped in alone. Dutch Henry had my life in his handswhen Blue Pete fired from the shadows. . . . Somehow he'd draggedhimself there to be on hand. He saved my life again. . . . He diedfor it. "

Constable Williams cleared his throat. Torrance was silent. Tressaleaned forward and touched Mahon's sleeve. 

"You didn't bury him in a cemetery? He'd hate it. "

"We never found his body. Mira Stanton, the girl I told you of, buriedhim where we never could find. She wrote us . . . And she hated us. There's a rough stone to his memory down there on the edge of theCypress Hills. It reminds the few of us who see it of my friend, simple, plain, rugged, lasting. There's no name on it, just 'GreaterLove. '"

"You didn't find him? What was he like?" Tressa's face was flushed. 

"A big, slouching sort of figure, but with a world of muscle you'dnever suspect. The face of an Indian, but lighter; it's bluish tintgave him his name. A smile that made you forget anything but that hewas your friend; a square jaw, squinting eyes--"

"Was his face very thin, almost haggard, with hollows under the eyes, and one shoulder lower than the other?"

Mahon smiled at her excitement. "No, his face lurked a little heavily, waiting only for that wonderful smile, but it wasn't haggard. And hisshoulders were twin towers of strength. "

"Oh, " she sighed, "then it isn't him. "

"I can assure you, Miss Torrance, that there's not a grain of hope toraise. Whom does my friend resemble?"

"Why, Peter Maverick--just some ways. "

For a moment he seemed startled, almost frightened, then he smiledindulgently. 

"It only means they're both of Indian strain, have crooked eyes (a notuncommon combination), and happened to toy with the same invented namethat is taken from the herds. Nothing more. . . . If I thought BluePete would throw himself through a window and down a bank like that atsight of me--"

"I'm sorry, " she whispered. "He wouldn't, of course. But wouldn't ithave been a story?"

"The sort of story that never happens even in books, " he sighed. 

CHAPTER XI

THE DESERTED CAMP

Three low taps sounded on the side of Koppy's shack. The underforemanrose and, standing well back in the gloom of the interior, peeredthrough the open door to the boss's shack beside the grade. Then hewent to the window that opened on the woods, swung it open, and withoutlooking through whistled softly. Three men moved furtively across theopening and waited. 

Koppy stepped to the door and carelessly examined the sky, drew tobaccoand cigarette papers and rolled himself a smoke. Then, yawning lazily, he reached back and pulled the door shut and strolled away out of sightround the corner of the shack. With a nasty laugh to the three menwaiting there he led the way back through the window. 

"Boss watching. Door closed--me not here. "

One of the three men, a pair of golden hoops dangling from his ears, lifted a listening hand. From below broke the loud music of theorchestra. 

"Boss think-a me there, " he sneered. "Boss easy guy. Morani'sorchestra, he say. Morani here. " He struck himself dramatically onthe chest. 

"Not so easy maybe, boss ain't, " Koppy shook a doubting head. "Big andstrong and--and thick here, " touching his head. "Maybe--I don't know. "

From a pouch of tobacco which Koppy had thrown on the table they wererolling themselves cigarettes; it seemed to be a common stock of whichthe Pole, in deference to his rank, had the guardianship. One of themen struck a match thoughtfully. 

"Get it out of your noodles that the boss don't know nothing. He getsthere mighty spry sometimes. He's had too much of things lately tokeep his eyes shut. We got to work pretty slick, I say. "

Koppy straightened with a show of resentment. 

"He never had the Workers before. We take him like that"--he closedone big dirty fist with a relentless movement--"and we crush him, likewe crush all our bosses. "

"All right, Koppy. " The other puffed a ring of smoke. "I wish you'reright, if it makes you sleep better. I'm in on the crushing game. Course the Workers make a difference. All the difference in theworld, " he added hastily, catching Koppy's glowering glance. "But wegot to go smooth, I say, all the same-e. He's getting suspicious. That whiffer he belted you to-day on the saloon-sign ought to abouthold you for a while. When your toes curled over that log I thoughtwe'd be measuring you for a coffin. "

The face of the underforeman went livid; a flood of foul expletivesclogged his utterance. 

The one who had not yet spoken broke in soothingly:

"Lefty just means he hit you hard. Why no somebody knife him?"

The four men asked each other the question with their eyes and, receiving no answer, looked confused. 

"Why no you, Heppel?" demanded Koppy. "I had no time. "

"Time wasn't hanging about loose when he let drive, " grinned LeftyWerner. 

"Mr. Conrad took your knife, Koppy, " soothed Heppel. "You couldn't. "

Morani, unobserved, had drawn from some hidden part of him a longstiletto and was whetting it slowly on the palm of his hand. Fascinated, they watched. 

"We were a hundred to two, " reflected Koppy in a low voice; and hiseyes were puzzled. 

That was as far as they ever got in the solution of the eternal puzzleof how one man holds a hundred under his thumb and sleeps the sleep ofthe unafraid. 

"Which ain't quite to the point, " Werner reminded them, "with thismeeting due in half an hour. In the first place, are you sure the bossain't on?"

The Pole lifted his shoulders haughtily. 

"I do it--I, the president of the Independent Workers of the World. "

"All right, old cock, but _what_ do you do?"

"The orchestra. " Morani waved a satisfied hand toward the music. "Itplay. No come-a to meeting. "

"Can't say I'm sorry, " muttered Werner under his breath. 

"Men--many men--they play cards where boss can see, " said Heppel, mildly chiding the lack of faith in his fellow-conspirator. "Campsame, boss think. Meeting in bush same time. Everything fine. "

The local president of the Workers of the World spread his hands out inmodest deprecation of such applause. Werner seemed convinced. 

"You'd pull the wool over the eyes of a professional burglar, Koppy, while you stole his jemmy. But what's the idea of the meetingto-night? A crash--right off the bat?"

Koppy shrugged his shoulders; everything was in the lap of the gods;inspiration was one of his holds on his followers. 

"'Cause every damn one of them will do what you say, " Werner assuredhim, "from waiting to say grace before tackling the soup, to blowingthat trestle to perdition. That is, if they can do it in the dark. "

"In dark--it is our way, " returned the leader crisply. "Laws? Bah!For the bosses they are, like everything else. We work down here. " Hepassed a flat hand low above the floor. 

"A bit lower than that, ain't it?" said Werner, hiding a smile. 

"We cut off the feet of our bosses so they fall. "

"Everybody take a high seat and keep your feet out of the water!" criedthe irrepressible one. "But you want to make sure you don't cut so lowthe bosses hop out of the way. But I guess you're right--you're alwaysright, Koppy. We got to do things in the dark, till we get the LabourUnions at our back. But they're a glass of water when it comes to thereal thing. "

With an imperceptible movement Morani's knife was out again, swishingback and forward across his palm with a low hissing sound. And everyeye was rivetted on it. Koppy dragged his away and spoke:

"You three, you go to boss--"

Werner gave a startled exclamation. 

"Meeting for that, " Koppy went on relentlessly. "We send you three totalk to boss--"

"I never was no talker, Koppy, you know that, " protested Werner. 

But Morani continued to whet his knife with smiling unction. 

"You see boss, " said Koppy, "and demand we boss ourselves--that I bossor job stops. We Workers know no boss; we please ourselves. We bossout here. If any one say no--slash!"

He struck downward with his right hand, as he would gladly strike whenhe had the chance. And Morani repeated the movement, only far moresubtly and efficiently. Werner stumbled to his feet, his eyes onMorani's stiletto. 

"Here, you butcher, I'm not a boss. Keep that sticker away from myshins. Put it up, Morani, for God's sake! You don't need practice. "

Koppy motioned him roughly back to the bunk on which he had been lying. 

"You three tell boss that. "

"Like hell I do!" grumbled Werner, "when I'm off my nut. "

"Like-a hell I do, " repeated Morani fervently. 

"Like hell I do, " agreed Heppel solemnly. 

"Like hell you all do, " Koppy summed up acidly. 

"And your precious skin--" began Werner. 

"I order. "

The unmistakable warning in the abrupt retort silenced Werner for themoment; the distant peril seemed the less ominous. 

"There's no hurry, " he suggested after an interval. "He thinks he'sgot the hole almost filled, but we can hold him up any time by pullingdown some more of the trestle--"

"And I stand under!" snapped Koppy. 

"Well, of course, you don't need to. You're president of TheIndependent Workers of the World. "

Koppy glanced at him from beneath lowering brows, but Werner assumed alook of blankest innocence as he rolled himself a fresh cigarette. 

"Or, " he reflected, "we might leave some one behind to blow it up afterit's finished. "

"Never finished, " declared Koppy. "The bosses must know the Workershave spoken. "

"But three of us, I notice, are to do all the speaking, " Werner growledto himself. "Next thing to being President of the United States I'd bepresident of the Workers of the World--and the last's the safest job. "

Koppy went to the window and looked through into the darkening shadows. A man slid through the undergrowth out there and disappeared. Severalmore drifted in and out of sight. As he looked, a half hundred passedfurtively, slinking along, silent, moving back into the bush and theshadows, a procession of guilty mutes, glancing neither to right norleft, held to their course by the promise of the coming gathering. 

"Come, " ordered Koppy. "We go. "

He lit the lamp and opened the door, and they climbed through the waythey had entered. Outside they became as part of their fellowconspirators, crouching, silent, grim. 

Over the bank came the sound of the orchestra, blaring with forced lungthe message of the ordinary camp life. Half a dozen small groups idledon the ground before the cook-houses. A few walked lazily about thestables, and two white-aproned cooks passed from cook-house tocook-house on the night preparations for the morning meal. Outwardlyeverything was above suspicion. 

Tressa thought so, as she stood beside her father in the doorway andlooked out over the scene, while behind them Conrad read aloud thenewest book to reach them. But her father was not at ease. 

"Morani's giving us more than our money's worth to-night, " he muttered, during a pause in the reading. "It should be made a law that everydirty bohunk had to join an orchestra, so a fellow could keep an ear on'em when he can't see 'em. They're not likely to do much harm with atin whistle between their lips. "

"It's a beastly quiet night, " he complained, when Conrad paused tolight the lamp. 

"I thought it was noisier down there than usual, " said Tressa. 

Conrad came behind them and stood without a word, when the eyes of thetwo men met significantly. 

"Guess I'll be turning in, " the younger man yawned. "It's been a bitof a hard day. "

He turned back to place the book on the shelf, carefully marking thepage. Tressa was there beside him, and her father was standing on thestep with his back to them; but the young lover did not seem to seeher. She walked with him to the top of the path leading down to hisshack, but he only muttered an absent-minded good-night and left her, hastening down the path, knowing nothing of the hot tears behind. 

He did not stop at his own door but passed on to the camp, all the timelistening intently. The camp clamour was there, but it was forced, less general. He hurried his steps. 

In the shadow of the first canvas covered walls he knew what he wouldfind. Pushing suddenly open the door of one of the largestbunk-houses, he faced an empty room, though the lamps were lit. Inanother were two men instead of twenty, both lustily and unmusicallyblowing mouth-organs. Further on three before a door were making thenoise of ten. 

And then over the whole camp fell a sudden silence. In some strangeway all knew he was there. Some animal instinct--or was it a dim soundfrom the corner of a near-by shack--made the foreman leap further intothe open. A knife whistled past his shoulder and thudded into adoor-sill across the way, where it stuck, quivering. Withoutexcitement he pulled his automatic and stepped into the light from theopen door. But he did not pause or turn. 

The full course of the camp he paced, whistling lightly through histeeth, and every ray of light he passed glinted on the barrel of hispistol. Sheer defiance it was, but it succeeded. At the stables heturned about and retraced the crooked street. 

Reaching the edge of the camp, he quickened his pace and where theshadows permitted ran swiftly up the slope to the grade. There hepaused to recover his breath. In response to his warble Tressa openedthe door. Conrad looked beyond her to her father and nodded. 

"Almost empty, " he said. "They're holding a pow-wow somewhere. Lookout for squalls. Better keep the doors locked these nights, and fastenthe windows so no one can get in. "

"I'll lock the stable. " The only menace Tressa could realise was thestealing of the horses. 

Conrad crept over the grade; but he did not drop down the path to hisshack. Instead he entered the bush. It was not so dark yet that hecould not make good speed, once his eyes became accustomed to it. Thenorthern bush was not thick, and the foliage failed to hide astar-filled sky of wonderful brilliance that overhangs the earthnowhere as in the Canadian West. By some bush-sense, aided by muchgood luck, he kept straight ahead until he arrived above the camp. Afew minutes of search found him Koppy's shack. Though the door wasopen and the light burning, no one was there. Conrad hurried on. 

Even before he was conscious of assistance from his ears he knew he wasapproaching a great gathering of men. He was picking his way ascarefully as he knew how, but he was no woodsman; now and then a twigsnapped and his heart beat nervously. 

The first hint that he was heard came with the winding of an arm like aband of steel round his neck, while another held his arms to his sideso that he could not fight. The hand about his neck dropped instantlyto his mouth, as he braced himself against the relentless grip. Thenhe knew that his captor was as anxious as he not to be heard. 

He was lifted from his feet, his head still in chancery and his mouthclosed. He could hear the meeting breaking up, the crunching passageof the silent bohunks returning to the camp. Suddenly he was dropped, and a shadow faded noiselessly into the other shadows of night. 

"Mavy!" he called in a low voice. "Mavy!"

Only two dull taps came back to him from the shadows. 

CHAPTER XII

SERGEANT MAHON SKIRTS DEATH

Blue Pete, alias Peter Maverick, alias anything that seemed to suit thevaried occasions of his checkered career, thrust aside the curtain offoliage covering the hiding place of his new raft. There was no reasonwhy he should visit the raft just then; he could have no possible usefor it until he had in his hands those two horses up in Torrance'sstable. But ever since he had been forced to knock Koppy's pointingrifle from his hands to save Juno the half breed had been oppressed bya thousand fears. 

He did not understand the bohunks--he did not want to. In his vividlife he had met most kinds of men, but the wild Continental scum thattook to railway construction as its own special line of effort wasbeyond his experience. Hitherto he had been able to anticipate thevillainies of his enemies--and in some of them he himself hadrevelled--but no one had yet charted the designs of creatures likeKoppowski and his comrades. 

Even as the foliage parted Blue Pete knew why he had looked. The raftwas gone. He was not surprised, but his anger was none the less forthat. With a muffled oath he let the foliage fall and dropped to theground with the intuitive sense of the wild at evidence of an enemy. 

A moment's thought raised him to his feet again, to strike recklesslyback along the river's brink into the bush. Koppy and his crew, heknew, were busy about the bridge at that hour; the whole out-of-doorswas his. 

Blue Pete, a name once on the lips of every rancher and cowboy, sheriffand Mounted Policeman, from the Montana Badlands to Medicine Hat--oncecowboy and rustler, again cowboy and Mounted Police detective, thenthrown back to rustling by the blindness of a political judge--was notnow the model of physical fitness of a year ago when his rifle and ropewere respected over a prairie Province and State. The bullet that hadbrought mistaken mourning to the Police, and particularly to SergeantMahon, the friend for whom it was intended, had come within a hair'sbreadth of avenging Bilsy and Dutch Henry, the Montana rustlers who hadhated him so. What he had escaped was due to his wonderful physiqueand to the untiring care of Mira Stanton. 

With her his sole nurse and doctor, he had lain in one of their manyretreats in the Cypress Hills until he was strong enough to entrusthimself to the pace of the faithful Whiskers for the slow and painfuljourney to more expert treatment across the border. There he recoveredrapidly. But Bilsy's bullet had extracted its toll. The blue-blackface was darker now and more leathery, as if the blood behind wererunning more sluggishly. His cheeks were fallen in, and great hollowsshowed beneath the squinting eyes. It made him more the Indian thanever in appearance. He had lost weight and bulk, and the shoulderabove the wound was an inch lower than its mate. 

Time would perhaps return him his old form, as it had his strength. But time was the very thing Blue Pete could not wait for. 

Recklessly as he commenced his return along the banks of the river, instinct won; in a few steps he was moving with all the oldsoundlessness. Twigs and crackling leaves seemed to evade his feet;eye and ear were ever alert. Though he knew he was alone in the bush, the way of a lifetime refused to sleep within him. By a circuitousroute he approached a tangle of trees that hung out from a steepprojection in the rising sides of the ravine. His eyes were flittingnow about at his feet, and sometimes he carefully passed a boot overmarks only he could detect. Once, whistling in soft surprise, hescattered a handful of spruce needles. 

Into the heart of the thickest clump of trees he disappeared. Thegreen fell behind him, the woods was lifeless again. 

In the dim light of the cave Mira knew he was worried, but he wouldtell her when it was good for her to know. 

"It's gone, " he growled, after a long silence. 

In their intimate way she understood. 

"Perhaps it broke loose. "

He looked his surprise that she should imagine he had not satisfiedhimself. She came to him and laid tender hand on his arm. 

"I'm sorry, Pete, for your sake. Really it doesn't matter. We couldgo now--"

He moved away from her, not irritably; he just could not trust himselfto refuse her anything. 

"Thar's them two horses yet 'fore we got 'em all back. "

"Can't we buy them? They ain't worth the trouble and risk. "

He shook his head doggedly. 

"Not now. They're after me--again. "

There was a rending sadness about it, as if some overwhelming desirehad escaped him forever, some dreaded fear returned. 

"But you can give up the job on the trestle any time you like. Theycan't touch you for that, can they?"

He had told her of the incident at the trestle, and the hatred nowboiling in the breasts of the bohunks. But of the scene in Torrance'sshack, of Sergeant Mahon, he had not said a word; he felt he dare not. That the Sergeant should be there oppressed and threatened him. LovingMahon with the full strength of his wild nature, he vaguely foresaw thecomplications that might arise; and he wished to save Mira the worry ofit as long as he could. He had no conscious thought that Mira's earlyinfatuation for the Sergeant continued; he knew that he, halfbreedthough he was, had her whole heart. The Sergeant's fancy for theprairie girl had been but the reaching out of his fine nature for thebeautiful, where so little of the beautiful existed. His marriage toMira's Eastern-trained cousin had spelled the end of that. 

What the halfbreed dare not face was the discovery by the Police thathe whom they thought dead was alive. He was still on the Policeblack-books; in spite of their affection for him, he had months ofrustling--if it was rustling--to pay for. 

"Got to git them two horses--somehow, " he persisted. "Then we kinstart all over agin, you 'n' me. The P'lice can't hev anythin' aginus, when the horses are all back whar they belong. "

He searched her face anxiously. So often they had talked it over, andalways neither was quite satisfied. A conflict of emotions was in herface now; her life's dream was there, her great fear. 

"They shouldn't be hard for you to get, " she marvelled. "Far easierthan the camp stables. "

"I lef 'em to the last. The boss is cuter'n a thousand bohunks. Iwanted to be able to git clear away 'fore he got thinkin' toohard. . . . Las' night the stable was locked. Suthin's scared 'em. "

"I don't understand why he hasn't told the Police. But I guess he knewthey were stole--stolen when he bought them. "

Juno lifted her head, ears pointing, and rumbled in her throat. BluePete grabbed the revolver he had discarded on his entry and thrust itinto his belt. Then he vanished into the trees that covered theentrance. 

Worming along the ground, another clump a stone's throw distantswallowed him. There in the darkness of a second cave he pressed thenoses of the two horses, the familiar command to silence, and a momentlater he was outside again. 

Somewhere above on the hillside was a sound only he and Juno couldhear. Blue Pete looked through the leaves and saw Sergeant Mahon. 

The Policeman was bent over the ground. Presently he moved slowlyonward, eyes ever at his feet, dropping yard by yard down thetree-lined slope. Evidently dissatisfied with what his eyes told him, he stooped at times until his face was within a few inches of the deadleaves and moss; often he rose to full height and looked away towardthe camp with a puzzled frown. 

Lower and lower he sank toward the river's edge. 

Blue Pete glided away before him. He himself had taught this man totrail, had roused in Mahon the quick eye of suspicion that questionedevery turned leaf; and now he was to pay for it. Silently he cursedthe luck of things. He was satisfied no prying eye about the campcould follow his tracks, but he had not counted on the Sergeant. 

Down, step by step, moved Mahon, a zig-zag course that missed nothing. Nearer and nearer he approached the cave home of the one who waswatching him with fevered eyes. 

Blue Pete pictured the penalty he must pay were he taken now. Anotherweek or two and it would be different. There were still the two horsesin the boss's stable before his name was clear, and the bunch down inthe Cypress Hills was waiting to be returned to their rightful owners. He could not face what the law would demand of him--Mira would not livethrough it. Imprisonment--disgrace--death to all the hopes that hadsustained them both since his recovery!

On the trail of the unsuspecting Policeman he crept, and his face wasgrim and gaunt. 

Where the river bottom ran more level, Mahon halted and looked aboutwith a more general interest. The halfbreed felt safer, for he hadtaken greater precautions nearer the caves. But there was always thechance of a mistake, none knew it better than he who had profited sooften from the mistakes of others. And Mira's horse might fail them atthe vital moment; he had no fear of Whiskers. 

Sergeant Mahon let his eyes fall to the ground again and started. Dropping to his knees, he bent close above the spot where the halfbreedhad scattered the spruce needles not an hour before. With carefulbreath the Policeman blew. After a time he sank back on his heels andpassed a hand across his forehead. All about him he peered withpiercing eyes. 

Blue Pete slowly drew the revolver from his belt. 

Mahon came to his feet and moved forward, bent over the tell-tale mossand half overgrown sand. He was making straight for the cave. 

The arm of the halfbreed lifted. Perspiration was breaking out on hisswarthy face, and his left hand opened and closed. But his teeth weregritted, and the hand that held the gun was steady as steel. At leasthis old friend would never know who killed him. 

A short ten yards from the cluster of trees that hid the cave Mahonstopped, a perplexed, self-deprecatory twist to his face, like a manwho has been dreaming. Then he edged off toward the river, carelessly, smiling reflectively. The halfbreed wriggled after him. For severalminutes the Sergeant stood looking out across the water, then, shrugging his shoulders, skirted to the east and slowly climbed thebank. 

Blue Pete threw himself on the ground, dark face pillowed in a shakingarm. 

Mira came to him and touched his shoulder. 

"I saw, Pete, " she whispered huskily. "I, too, had him covered. . . . We'll have to move again. "

He looked up into the loving face, his heart thumping so fiercely thathis ears drummed. Suddenly he realised how much it meant to him thatnow he was the only one that counted; she would have pulled the triggerrather than risk his capture by the Police. 

"You knew he was here?" There was no reproach in her voice. 

"I didn't want to skeer yuh, " he replied weakly. 

She smiled: she could read him so well. 

"We must cross the river and find a place over there, " she decided. "The construction raft at the trestle will get the horses over. . . . If the Sergeant caught only a glimpse of Whiskers he'd know. "

Blue Pete laughed. "When I git through with the ole gal her own motherwudn't know her. I ain't bin in the rustlin' game all these years notto pick up a few tricks to make a woman pinto look like a bloodstallion. "

"But if he ever saw us--either of us. "

The halfbreed spent the evening pondering on that. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE VISIT OF THE INDIANS

"Tressa! Quick!"

But Tressa was too busy in the kitchen. 

"Tressa Torrance. It's a free show--I wouldn't miss it. It's anepoch. "

She came skipping through the door. "If it's only the trestle again--"

Torrance pointed dramatically across the trestle to the far bank. "This time it's our first callers. " He turned to the pair of saddledhorses tied to rings in the wall beyond the front door. "No, we're notriding to-night. We're entertaining. That is, if the local nabobsover there don't funk the trestle. I'd run the speeder over if Ithought it wouldn't give them a fit. You never know what scares anIndian. "

On the distant bank an Indian and his squaw were seated like statues onhorses as motionless as themselves. The former, his horse seemingly onthe very brink of the chasm, was leaning forward, his eyes shaded byhis hand. The squaw, on higher ground, outlined against the sky, waited phlegmatically. 

"Are you sure they're alive, daddy?"

"Certain. I saw Mrs. Indian's horse's tail flicker. Like to have aclose-up, wouldn't you? Staring at us like that, it makes a fellowfeel as if he's been stealing something of theirs and they're taking agood look in time for the scalping season. "

He climbed the loose sand of the grade and waved. 

The response was immediate. At a jerk of the squaw's hand her horsecantered down to where her lord had taken his stand. And for a timethey sat side by side watching the distant welcome of the white man. 

Suddenly the Indian's heels flew out and in, and the odd little bronchowheeled on its hind legs and swung into a wide circle. The squaw didnot even look interested. 

"Some rider, eh?" applauded Torrance. "If your old dad could ride likethat he'd never have taken up railway building. Funny nag, that ofhis. Looks like a hobby horse come to life. What's he trying to tellus? Regrets he can't come? Or is it a challenge to bring my bow andarrow and settle the old feud? Anyway, it's a rattling good stunt--andI'd like to know the answer. "

"I think he wants time to consider your invitation. "

"By hickory, Tressa, another year and we'd have missed this. It takesonly about one season to muddle up their riding with the white man'sbooze--or the white man's treaty money. Why don't we leave well enoughalone--that is, if they'd let us build railways?"

The horse continued to gyrate, its rider performing the familiar Indiantricks--now leaning far over until his twin braids brushed the ground, now leaping off in full flight and on again as the horse came round inthe circle; lying flat along the horse's side until only one leg fromknee to foot was visible, leaning far over to peer at them under thehorse's neck. As a finale he stood erect while the broncho dashedheadlong for the bank. At the very brink it dropped back with bracedlegs, and the Indian, leaping gracefully backward, turned a somersaultand landed on his feet. 

"By hickory!" Torrance whistled through his teeth. "I know a showmanwould swop his whole caboodle for half an hour of that. I wonder whatI'm expected to do over here to hold up my end. I want to be civil. Idon't know anything that wouldn't look cheap after that. Wish I'd donemine first. Hi, you!" He was adding voice to arms. "That trestle'llbear _you_ anyway. Trot over and shake. Bring that little beast thatlooks like a horse, and I'll get you the biggest audience this side ofWinnipeg. "

Down in the camp half a thousand bohunks were watching every move. 

The Indians had dismounted. He was pointing across the trestle. Hissquaw seemed to hesitate. 

"If I made a sound like a bottle of fire-water, " grinned Torrance, "he'd beat the record. "

"You're not to let them have a drop. Now remember, daddy. "

"The nearest bar's too far away to waste it on an Indian, my dear. Butthere's methylated spirits somewhere in the stores--and you've a bottleor two of flavoring extract, haven't you? All it needs is asmell. . . . They're tackling the trestle, Tressa. Bully for you, BigChief! You got Murphy beat a mile. Must have heard us talking aboutfire-water. Wonderful ears, them Indians have. "

Adrian Conrad, ready for his evening visit, slipped his automatic inhis pocket and hastened up the slope. He arrived as the squaw, with anervous little run, covered the last few yards of the trestle andstamped moccasined feet on solid ground. The Indian, frightened as heplainly was, stalked stolidly on to her side. "Nothing the white mancan do, " he seemed to say, "will flurry me. "

Torrance met them with extended hand. 

"I hope my little conversation with my daughter didn't raise falsehopes, Big Chief. I haven't a drop that's fit to swallow. "

The Indians stared at the extended hand in silence. 

"I don't know whether they shake hands in your language, " explainedTorrance, "but it's all the rage with us. I'm straining to show howpleased I am. Ah--how's all the little papooses? Has the hired girlkicked for another afternoon a week, and who's the latest married manto run away with another woman? That may not be wigwam gossip, butit's all we know in our set; it's all the small-talk I have. "

The Indian solemnly accepted the preferred hand, studying it curiouslyas his own brown one shook to Torrance's welcome. 

"Me spik English, " he grunted. 

Torrance grinned foolishly. "Good--Lord!"

"Me spik English, too, " murmured the squaw sweetly. 

"Well, I'm bunco'ed!" Torrance rolled his eyes helplessly. "Take ahand, Tressa. Fancy meeting a family of redskins a thousand miles fromnowhere and asking what make o' car they use!"

"Both spik English, " said the Indian without a smile. 

Torrance groaned. "Can you smile in English? This is getting on mynerves. "

The Indians looked at each other, and as if one spring worked themechanism their faces relaxed. 

"Look at that, Adrian. That's prairie manners for you. I suppose if Iasked him to jump off the trestle--"

The Indian shifted about and gravely regarded the long drop. Torranceclutched his arm and led toward the shack. 

"Don't you do it, Chief. I ain't worth it. "

He brought chairs from the sitting room. 

"I don't even know whether you sit down. I haven't a pipe that wouldgo round, but there's a fair tobacco you're welcome to. It don't makebad chewing. Tressa's awful glad to see you. We haven't had a callersince the new curtains went up. "

The Indian was not listening; his eyes were on the two horses tiedbeyond the door. Gathering his blanket about him, he went to them, running a hand over them with the air of a connoisseur. He stooped totheir feet, his two braids, twined through and through with bits ofcoloured cloth, falling over his ears. 

"Good!" he grunted. 

"Just what I said, " agreed Torrance amiably, "--of course, after I'dpaid for them. Best bits o' horseflesh this side of anywhere. Broke'em myself, so I ought to know. "

"Daddy!"

"Maybe not quite broke 'em, " corrected Torrance easily, "but theynearly broke me. Picked 'em from a bunch of the finest animals evercame off a ranch--"

"Daddy!"

"That _was_ a fine lot, Tressa--and those two were the best of thebunch. "

"How much?" The Indian's face was expressionless. 

The contractor blinked. "You don't want to buy? I thought Indiansalways stole what-- The worst of me is I talk too fast. You see Ilost a lot of horses not long ago, and it's temporarily affected myjudgment. I don't say it was Indians stole 'em--in fact I saw the guy, but it was too far to catch his pedigree. Anyway, he was dressedwhite. One of three got 'em--either my own men, or contractors outwest, or the Indians. If I thought it was my men there'd be a new lineof graves to-morrow--and I don't somehow think the contractors wouldrisk it. It seemed safer to blame the Indians then. Now? Oh, I guessI must have been crazy. Them horses weren't stolen. They've taken aholiday to get a drink, or gone for the World's Series baseball games. "

"How much?" repeated the Indian stoically. 

"But you don't want horses like them, when you've a circus beast overthere would make them look like a wheelbarrow without the wheel. "

"How much?"

Torrance sighed. "Is that all the English teacher knew at your school?Conrad, he's making me name a price, because I don't know any other wayto stop him. Indian-who-spiks-English, they cost me two hundreddollars each, and--"

"Daddy!"

"Oh, bother!" Torrance mopped his forehead. "That's the worst ofbringing up a daughter too strict. A real liar hasn't half a chance. Did I say fifty dollars?"

"Fifty dollars, " offered the Indian, unfolding a wallet from hisblanket. 

"One hundred dollars--in cold cash--out here in the bush! Say"--hewalked reverently round the Indian, looking him over--"where d'you keephis scalp? I warn you I haven't ten dollars in the shack--and I'mgetting bald about the crown. "

"Fifty dollars!" grunted the Indian. 

"I got to turn it down, old friend. They're the only saddle horses, bar the Police, within a week's journey. "

"One hundred dollars. "

Torrance walked reverently over to the horses and stared at them. 

"I bet they're a damn sight better'n I thought. "

"Two hundred each!" There was a finality about the extravagant offerthat impressed Torrance. 

"Big Chief, " he murmured, "let's see that bank again. To tell you thetruth, I paid exactly ten dollars each for them--and I couldn't rob adecent citizen. So you see the deal's off: I wouldn't take the money, and you couldn't go back on your offer. "

The Indian was holding out a huge roll of bills. Torrance blinked atit and turned to Tressa. 

"You can't sell, daddy. One is mine, and I'm learning to ride. Butwe'll give them the horses for nothing when we leave. "

Torrance extended his hands helplessly. "That ends it, you see. She'sboss. We can't sell, but we'll hand 'em over f. O. B. When we go--and ifyou've oats enough in your tribe for that red fellow I wish you'd giveme your address and let me know when nobody's home. "

The eyes of the Indian and his squaw met. The latter sighed. TheIndian slowly thrust the wallet within his blanket. Then withoutanother word he took her hand and they started back across the trestle. 

Torrance watched them with amazement "Hi--say!"

The Indians stalked on. 

"I might be able to scare up a bottle of fire-water--"

No response. Torrance sank into a chair and drew his sleeve across hisforehead. 

"Talkative? By hickory, they reek with it. They sure got my goat. All the squaws I ever saw before were so thick with grease, and thethings that stick to it. . . . I'm beginning to feel for the squaw-manafter seeing that girl. "

"Wasn't she pretty?" Tressa was staring regretfully after the recedingcouple. "I didn't know they were so dainty---"

"Wasn't I telling you they aren't--"

Conrad spoke for the first time: "I've seen that chap before. "

"Me, too, " said Torrance. "But I can't imagine not picking him out ofany Indians I ever met. They don't grow 'em like him. Our fire-water, with here and there a missionary for good measure, sees to that. Oh, hello, Sergeant!" Unheard, Sergeant Mahon had come along the softgrade and was watching the Indians now almost at the other end of thetrestle. "You missed the fun. Highest velocity conversation on twowords ever. "

The Sergeant whipped out his binoculars. He did not move again untilthe Indians had galloped out of sight. 

"What d'you make of 'em, Sergeant?"

"Strange!" muttered the Policeman, slowly replacing the glasses. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE FIGHT IN THE SHACK

Big Jim Torrance was thrilling with incipient twinges of a greattriumph, though the superstitions of his kind struggled against theirdisplay. For two weeks his eager, hopeful eyes had been fixed on thosetwin lines of steel above the trestle, and not an atom of bend could hedetect. 

What if at last he had choked that insatiable maw on the river bottom!What if his great task was nearing its end!

A timetable, against his inclination, began to form in his mind. Another week of foraging for those omniverous jaws, of bolstering upthe structure of the trestle. If by that time its appetite had notrevived, only the new foundations and the light task of filling in. Perhaps then he would relieve himself of half his staff; he wassuddenly aware of the strain of such a lawless crew. Unexpectedly andwithout precedent he found himself anticipating the six months' winterrest. 

His excited joy had been assuming peculiar expression. Sitting downfor more than a few minutes at a time became a strain. He insisted onhelping Tressa with the housework, and his interest in the books theywere reading was so perfunctory that Conrad and Tressa went on to theend without bothering about his attention. Not infrequently hestrolled down to the river bottom and paced up and down beneath thetrestle. Again he would walk out on the sleepers above the quicksandsand glory in the solidity beneath his feet. 

One evening when Conrad had gone to the Police barracks to make areport on recent trifling but significant occurrences, and to completeplans for a more systematic protection of the trestle now that it wasnearing completion, Torrance moved his chair to the open doorway andsat dreaming. 

"You haven't locked the stable yet, " Tressa reminded him, breaking along silence. 

He laughed recklessly. "What's the need? We'll be away in a month. Big Chief gets 'em then. Funny if they were stolen. You bet theIndian would find them. "

"Don't be too sure of things, daddy. Adrian doesn't feel ascomfortable as you do--or want to make yourself think you do. "

He whirled about in his chair, scowling. "What do you mean--'makemyself think I do'?"

She looked him steadily in the eye. "I don't believe you're as easy asyou make out. The trees are thick ahead yet. "

"It's you, saying things like that, makes me moody, " he returnedsulkily. 

Tressa rose to find something in her room, and her father turned backto the out-of-doors with an impatient exclamation. 

In reality he was no more easy about things than Adrian. It was thegripping anxiety of it made him struggle to convince himself. But itwas not the quicksands he feared, as Tressa supposed, but the bohunks. Things were going too smoothly in bulk--the disturbing incidents wereso trifling and ineffectual. Accustomed to difficulties, the absenceof friction since the tragedy of the falling log was oppressive to him. It was unnatural. Koppy was too tractable, the camp too peaceful. Inthe idleness of those days he had time to brood over that. 

But he set his face stubbornly against the fears her words aroused. Hecould see the trestle sound and solid as a rock. The camp lay beneathhim, as quiet as a country village. Only a week or two and everythingwould be settled. He scoffed at his fears. As he looked out over thetumble of log and canvas, he vowed that when it was all over he wouldprovide a bang-up feed that would send the bohunks away with onepleasant memory at least. Murphy and his engine would scurry off toSaskatoon and fetch such grub as bohunk never before tasted. It wouldbe a finale befitting--

And just then three men topped the grade a score of yards away. 

Torrance's sky suddenly darkened--Lefty Werner, Chico Morani, andHeppel, Koppy's special cronies. But he hid his concern beneath agrunt. 

He had no intention of making his grunt an invitation, but the threecame on without pausing, and Werner greeted him with an embarrassed"good-evening, boss. " Torrance rose and stepped back into the sittingroom. Some instinct made him wish to move things beyond the eyes ofthe camp. For a moment the men hesitated, then, pushed into the lead, Werner led the way inside. 

"Now, " snapped the contractor, "get it off your chests. Where's Satanhimself--Koppy, I mean?"

The most intelligent of the visitors, the most capable of estimatingthe underlying significance of tone and inflection, was Lefty Werner. The other two, maintaining their usual expression of phlegmatic andstubborn sullenness, left the delivery of their message to him, theglibbest talker. And plainly he had taken a dislike to it. A wild andfleeting wish that civilisation were nearer, wherein to hide himself, struggled with a goading appreciation of the comforts in Torrance'sshack; for Werner often of late was oppressed with the futility of hispresent sphere as malcontent. 

His aberrant reflections were interrupted by Torrance's risingimpatience. 

"Here, Werner, what is it? Speak up!"

Werner removed his hat and twirled it in his hand. Twice he clearedhis throat before he could bring himself to speak. 

"We've been sent--sent by the general body of workmen--"

"The bohunks, you mean, " drawled Torrance with deliberate insult. "Drop the gush, Lefty. What do you want? . . . And you won't get it. "

Werner turned anxious eyes on his two stolid friends for moral support. He noted Morani's hand slide to the waistband of his trousers, and acold sweat broke out on his forehead. 

"They appointed us to tell you--to tell you that the time has come"--hewas stammering, his eyes fastened on the Italian's supple hand--"thetime has come when we, the workers, have decided--have decided that--"

Torrance lounged round the corner of the table that separated them, butWerner had eyes only for Morani's hidden hand. 

"--have decided that we must be freed from the yoke of bondage. Wedemand the right to control ourselves, under our own leaders--"

He saw the wall of the room rush toward him--felt it strike him dizzy;and he lay wondering what had happened. Gradually he became aware of agreat tumult about him, and he knew he was vitally concerned. His ideaof fighting happened to centre in a knuckle-duster with an ugly daggeron the end of it. He drew it mechanically before his scattered witstold him where to direct it. 

The tumult increased. With the roar of a bull Torrance had turned hisattention to the other two. But they had taken surprisingly swiftmeasures for self-protection, and Torrance was momentarily baffled. Morani glided behind the table, and Heppel, roused to unheard-ofactivity, kicked a chair before the impending peril. 

Torrance stumbled over the chair and crashed into the table, smashingit flat, fortunately carrying Morani down with it. He was on his feetbefore Heppel's slow wits realised the opportunity. Always thecontractor had handled these men with his big fists; other weapons onlydignified their resistance. These two fists of his, these greatmuscles--they were made for a game like this. 

From her room Tressa heard the entrance of the delegation but not theirmessage. At the first blow she ran to the door and peeped through. Was it vengeance for the devastation her father had wrought in the bigcamp riot? But she had faith in him almost equal to his own, and sheknew she would only be in the way out there. But as the fightprogressed, Torrance's bull voice rising with the fury of the fray, shelifted a small automatic from a drawer and hastily examined it. 

As she turned, her window was raised from the outside and some oneleaped through. Instantly the pistol was covering the intruder. 

"No shoot! Indian come to help. "

"Father don't require it, " she returned stiffly. And she did not lowerthe gun. 

"I come by window, " explained the Indian. "Camp watching. White girlstay here. Indian help--maybe kill. "

A loud crash from the sitting room drove the blood from the girl's face. 

"Go then--go!"

In the room beyond, Torrance was enjoying himself, though not withoutpainful reminders that it was a real fight. Heppel had secured a tableleg and was wielding it as never sledge or axe. Werner, havingrecovered his senses, had joined Morani and was circling the room for achance to strike at the boss's back, in the meantime throwing chairs, books, loose parts of the stove, anything that came to his hand. Aflower pot on the elbow brought a howl from Torrance, and for a momenthe pulled himself together. 

Bringing himself up short in the centre of the room he started outrelentlessly to corner Werner, ignoring the others. The threatened manfled shrieking before him. 

"Knife him, Morani! For God's sake, give it to him on the head, Heppel!"

A bright line slid down the Italian's hand and flashed like a gleam oflightning. Torrance drew up with a shooting pain in his left arm. Heppel leaped in behind and swung the table leg with all his cruelstrength. 

Morani and Heppel saw a figure launch itself through the bedroom door. It swept them crashing together and shot them through the outer doorbefore they could use their weapons. Werner leaped after them. 

Torrance started to give chase, mouthing great curses. But a pair ofarms encircled and held him as if he were a child. Shifting bloodshoteyes to the new foe, he looked into the face of the Indian. 

"You damned redskin! You're at the bottom of this, eh?"

The Indian tightened his grip. "White man a fool. Indian save him. You chase--whole camp come. Two no fight five hundred--almost killedonce trying it. The girl in there. "

The last four words brought Torrance to his senses. He ceased tostruggle. The Indian's hands fell away. Tressa lifted her father'sleft arm; blood was dripping from it. 

"Sit still, daddy. Hold your arm like that till I get the water andbandages--there's still hot water, I think. It's only a scratch. Gripyour arm there. "

Torrance, suddenly weak at the sight of his own blood, sank into achair, staring at the stained sleeve. 

"Say, Big Chief, you're a good sport. I guess you came in time--Say!Where's he gone?"

The window in Tressa's room rattled. 

"By hickory! If that fellow don't owe me something I don't know about, he's running up a big bill against me. "

CHAPTER XV

KOPPY MAKES A THREAT

Though he had emerged from a perilous situation with little damage, Torrance was nursing a keen sense of injury when Conrad returned fromhis visit to the Police and saw a light still burning in the shack. The foreman listened to the story with more concern than anger. Thedanger lay not in what the bohunks demanded--they could resistthat--but in the insolent confidence that put the demand into words. Therein, was displayed a disturbing sense of power, a reckless daringto strike the boss in his most sensitive convictions. It could onlymean that they were prepared to bring matters to a head without loss oftime. 

And the trestle was just ready for the final touches!

That the incident increased the difficulties of his own position didnot enter Conrad's head. Thoughtful eyes moving from father todaughter, his first words betrayed his main anxiety. 

"Tressa can leave right away for the East. "

Surprise and indignation were added to the cloud of fury that twistedTorrance's face; he was speechless. Tressa herself settled thequestion:

"I'm not going. "

"Send her out of the country for a few filthy bohunks!" sputtered herfather. He spat into the sawdust box and crammed a charge of tobaccointo his pipe with his uninjured hand, though the pain of holding thepipe in his left hand made him wince. "I won't recognise them by somuch as a wink. They have my answer, and I imagine it was a bitconvincing--"

"The Indian can't always be on hand, " said Conrad stubbornly. 

Torrance screwed up his eyes. 

"He's getting the habit of popping up unexpectedly. I wonder what'sthe game. I thought I was strong, but that chap could whistle 'GodSave the King' and truss me up like a partridge at the same time. Hisarms felt like them two trees that fell on me down Thunder Bay way. I'd hate to have him on the other side in a fight. "

The practical Conrad brought him back to the point. 

"And now what?"

Torrance considered a moment. 

"First we'll tell the Police. I was going to fire them off the bat, but I'm too mad for that. I want to see them get a couple of years injail. I want the law to take a hand now; I've taught them _my_ law. "

"What can the law do to them?"

The contractor eyed his foreman belligerently. 

"What can it do? Don't you think coming up here and trying torough-house me is worth a year or two? Say, you don't think it was aslapping match, or a pink tea sociable! Take a look about the room. "The sarcasm of it was pleasing to his jangling nerves. "If you don'tguess right the first time, take another. If you're off the trackthen, I'll get a doctor for you--or show you this arm of mine. "

"Who started it?"

Torrance leaned forward and searched Conrad's face as if he consideredhim demented. 

"O' course, " he sneered, "you'd go into court and swear I went on therampage and cornered them. You'd say I caught 'em at their eveningdevotions and smashed their crucifixes over their heads and tackled 'emwith a cutlass in my teeth and two revolvers--"

"You might have a little on Morani for using a knife, " Conrad agreedcalmly, "but you'd have trouble finding a lawyer to take such a case. They made a request, without violence--"

"Yah, they knelt down on their marrow-bones and begged His Highness togrant them the small boon of letting them put their feet on his neck. They humbly petitioned me to kick over the trestle, pay them tendollars a day, raise the allowance of pie, and then give themcertificates of character. You'd have done it, I suppose. Only thatisn't the way I've made a success of railway construction, my lad. "

Conrad took it cheerfully. "Then imagine you take it to court. Haveyou time? It'll mean Battleford for the Police trial. And what wouldyou win? They don't jail men even out here for defending themselves. And what would happen the trestle in the meantime?" He saw hesitationin Torrance's eyes. "Besides, I'd hate to be called to prove thesweetness of your temper and your unprovocative ways. "

Torrance took it out on his pipe for three minutes. "Then off you makefor the camp, " he decided, "and fire them. Don't let 'em even spendthe night here. If I set eyes on one of them again there'll be murder;I won't be responsible for myself if that cur Werner's smirking physoggets in front of me; and I'll punch Morani on sight, just forsafety-first. "

Conrad rose and went to the door, where he stood in silence a long timelooking through the darkness to the camp lights. 

"I'm thinking of the work, " he said gravely. 

"Oh!" snapped Torrance. "I'm not, of course!"

"Sometimes I question it. Werner and Morani and Heppel were sent bythe bohunks. With Koppy they have the whole bunch in the hollow oftheir hands. We couldn't face a strike at this time of the year; we'dnever get another crew now till next spring--and you couldn't standthat. . . . Don't imagine you've cowed them through their delegation. I'm willing to wager the camp never hears of the fight; it mightdisillusion them of a fancied power. Koppy knows better than to letthem know they're licked. "

"I said to fire them. " Torrance spoke so calmly that Conrad searchedhis eyes with unaccustomed concern. Yet the foreman did not falter. 

"There are other things to consider--"

The contractor raised himself to his full height and frowned down onthe smaller man. "You seem to misunderstand your position, AdrianConrad. What did I hire you for?"

"For quarter what I'm worth, " replied Conrad caustically. 

Torrance blinked twice, then, coldly:

"From the first of this month your pay will be four hundred a month. Now do what you're told--or your pay stops instanter. "

"Then I'll have to work for nothing, " said Conrad serenely. "I'm notworking for you--or you'd have been paying me four hundred for the lasttwo years, and some one else to look after me. " He examined thecontractor up and down with frank disgust. "I don't know how anydaughter of yours keeps me here. "

Tressa came to them then and seized a hand of each. They made a prettypicture in the lighted doorway--the big, frowning father in the rear, the smaller foreman with one foot on the step, and between them thissweet girl whose whole horizon was bounded by them, holding a hand ofeach, now dimpling, now pouting, always pleading and certain of herself. 

Down in the camp the peace of night had fallen. Weary and gorged, quieted by the evening's lounge and the music they loved, the crudeoff-scourings of a dozen nations had retired to their bunks and weresleeping as peacefully as if their consciences were clean. Here andthere a light twinkled, but as the three in the doorway looked, theyblanked out one by one. The soundless night had closed in. 

Torrance moved uncomfortably. He would have yielded to anything butdisobedience, and a disobedience that entailed the retention of men whohad made a ridiculous demand and then attacked him when he refused it. Would it look as if he feared to discipline, as if the flash of a knifecould cow him? Anything rather than knuckle down to such creatures!

"May I speak to the boss?"

A familiar voice came out of the darkness not a. Yard from Conrad. They heard it with an inward start; the training of their lives hadbeen never to exhibit alarm--it was one of the muscles whereby theycontrolled men like these. 

"I hear what happen. I come for truth. "

Torrance, at the first sound, had slipped the bandage and lowered hisshirt sleeve, stained as it was. He brushed the other two aside andfilled the doorway. A sudden disgust filled him lest the Pole shouldenter. 

"You know the truth already, you skunk! You knew what would happenbefore it happened--or you thought you did. I guess I disappointed afew of you. "

"I find Lefty with sore head and I ask why. I make them tell. My mentell when I command. He say--"

"I don't care a tinker's cuss what he say. It's what _I_ say counts onthis job. "

"Did they hurt boss?" Koppy's voice was servilely anxious. "Leftytell me Morani stab. "

Torrance laughed contemptuously. He was stroking his moustache withthe injured hand; now he threw both arms out and repeated the sneeringlaugh. 

"Chico's knife is more dangerous to himself than to me. " He turnedback and picked up the stiletto from the table. "Here"--tossing it onthe ground before the Pole--"tell him he dropped his needle in hishurry; and I guess he didn't want to come back for it. It's no use tome. Your five hundred Chicos, with all their knives andknuckle-dusters, can't come up here and give orders. "

"I fire them to-night, " promised Koppy. 

"No, you won't. " Torrance's mind was working with unusual celerity. "They got what was coming to them from my fists this time. Next timethey'll need a doctor--or an undertaker. Besides, it's not yourbusiness to fire. That's all. Good-night. "

"Ignace Koppowski hope young missus not frightened, " came the voicefrom the darkness. 

"Why should she be? There ain't enough men in the camp to hurt her. If you doubt it, refer to Werner and Morani. "

Koppowski coughed. "Indian strong man. Indian save your life. Godd!But he hurt my men. Indian look out. They never forget. You tellhim?"

"Tell him yourself, " jerked the contractor. "And I'd like to be aroundwhen you're at it. I fancy he can look after himself. "

"Indian need to, " said Koppy from the darkness. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE HEART OF A HALFBREED

Blue Pete glided in and tossed aside the blanket of his Indian disguisewith a gesture of irritability. With a petulant kick his beadedmoccasins struck the ceiling of the cave, and, sighing, he sank hisfeet into the more familiar high-heeled cowboy boots. 

Mira, moving busily about the camp stove in a recess, noted it allwithout turning her head--noted, too, that there the usual routine ofhis return was interrupted. The great two-inch spurs, his individualtwist to cowboy attire--great spiked wheels which he never used, butwhose glitter and rattle seemed to satisfy him--were forgotten. Instead, he sank to the rocky floor and meditatively drew from his beltthe beloved corncob pipe. 

Troubled, Mira went about the preparation of their evening meal with aplaintive quietness. Juno, too, seemed oppressed, for after atentative wriggle of her stump of a tail she settled back on herhaunches, eyes fixed on her mistress. 

Mira struggled to hold back the tears, struggled harder to hide themwhen they persisted. To celebrate their return to the old cave underthe river bank she had spent hours that afternoon scouring woods andriver bottom for wild flowers; and a dozen old tin cans rescued fromthe camp garbage heap gleamed confused colour in the candle light. Formore hours she had been rasping her little hands with scrubbing therude table and the blocks that served as seats; and over the table shehad draped after much experiment a gaudy Indian blanket, therebyapproaching more nearly the atmosphere of home they both craved soeagerly. About the wall depended picture papers, meaningless in storybut heavy with pathetic longing. 

Hitherto he had always noticed so quickly and eagerly her effortstoward their comfort. From the first it had been one of the rites oftheir association--he beaming wordlessly at the touches of decorationwith which she busied herself about their wild homes, she glowing withvocal pleasure at the things he carved with his own hands--the chairback in the Cypress Hills cave, the shelves for her stores, the drawerin the table, the box for Juno to sleep in. 

And now he did not seem to notice--and she had worked so hard. 

Presently the odour of the cooking venison beat its way to his brainand he lifted his head from his chest. He saw then the flowers in theold tomato and butter tins, the Indian blanket hanging from the table, the fresh spruce boughs of their bed; and his neglect was to him akinto sacrilege. Rising, he made for the door and the darkness beyond. 

Without turning she saw him leave, and in part she understood. 

He was suffering--Blue Pete was suffering these days in mind as neverin body. The accumulation of the intense longings since she had beentorn from him down in the Hills to serve her sentence for rustling wasstruggling with other hopes and fears; and the fight was rending. Until only a few days ago he had been heading with certain and speedysuccess for the day when Mira might return with head held high to the3-bar-Y, her own ranch. Only his guilt intervened, for she had alreadypaid the penalty of her own rustling. It was the knowledge that shewould never return without him that made the aim such a sacred one. Tofree her he must clear himself with the Police. And that could be onlywhen every horse with whose stealing he had been connected was returnedto its rightful owner. In his simplicity he imagined the law would besatisfied then. 

So near had been the attainment of his one great ambition that his headsometimes whirled. Only two horses yet to recover! Then so manythings had happened. 

Throughout his engagement as a common bohunk Blue Pete had been happilyunconscious of the embarrassing forces working subtly within him tothrust to the background his own redemption. He only knew he wasuncomfortable, that strange processes were cropping to the surface inhis once firmly fixed mind. It seemed treason to Mira--Mira, for whomeverything was done--to delay a task so simple. 

Yet he could not take the last two horses that alone, he imagined, stood between him and freedom, and relieve himself of newresponsibilities. 

Doubly miserable, he sank on the needle-strewn sand and sighed. 

"Pete!"

Mira's gentle voice came to him through the darkness, filled withtrembling entreaty. Conscience-stricken, he hurried back to the cave. She met him at the edge of the candle light and took his hand. 

"Can't you tell me about it, Pete?"

With angry self-accusation he replied: "I cud 'a' got the horses, Mira, an'--an' we'd 'a' bin back in the Hills long before this. Thar wasjes' a padlock to smash . . . An' I didn't smash it. "

She smiled sadly and wound a small arm about his neck. 

"I know, " she whispered. "We can't help it. . . . There are so manyreasons why we can't go yet. "

She turned swiftly away to the stove that he might not see how it toreher. Never in his gloomiest suffering had Blue Pete longed as she hadfor a home. For he had never known home as she had. Her efforts tobrighten up their days were the expression of a desire to plant in hisinexperienced mind the picture of home that kept passing before hereyes. Her nights were but one long dream of a fireside, with Blue Petein the other chair. And as the time of their penance seemed to benearing an end the ugly ranch-house at the 3-bar-Y became to her apalace. Over and over again she planned the fresh home they wouldstart--every chair and table and picture and rug had a place. HelenMahon, the Sergeant's wife--her own educated cousin--would help her, would supply the art Mira herself, in her prairie upbringing, onlygroped for. She would make of the 3-bar-Y a home for the whole CypressHills district. Every day of delay was agony. 

Yet she spoke cheerfully. "It wouldn't be just--just right to go tillthe trestle's done, Pete, dear. "

He looked at her sharply. It was the conviction he had been fightingmany a day--that it seemed to be only his own had made it so muchharder for him. From the silence he had forced on himself of late hespoke fiercely:

"That damned Pole! We can't let him win. We got to lick them bohunks. "

"And Mr. Torrance--after all, Pete, he's only a tenderfoot. . . . Thenthere's Tressa. "

He nodded slowly. "Yes, there's Tressa. " A chivalry he would neverhave acknowledged had been thrusting the girl more and more into theforeground. From the ordinary perils of isolation father and lovermight defend her, but in the great calamity that Blue Pete knew wasplanned to overwhelm her two protectors she would inevitably fall. 

"But yuh shudn't have to wait, Mira, " he burst out. "An yuh wudn't, "he added miserably, "if I wasn't jes' a common rustler. "

She came to him with quick steps and ran her fingers through his coarsehair. 

"I wasn't no better, Pete--me and my brothers. " In her emotion she haddropped back into the old looseness of speech. 

He seized her hand in both his own and crushed it to his lips so thatit hurt pleasurably. 

"I know why yuh stole them horses, " he murmured. "Yuh cudn't bear tosee the Sergeant thinkin' he loved yuh--an' yuh knew he cudn't love arustler. "

"I guess I knew I was going to love you, Pete. "

He wrapped his arms about her and buried his face in her neck; and shecould feel him trembling. 

Presently she spoke again softly:

"And there's the Sergeant. "

"God help me!" he groaned. "I think that's what's holdin' me. "

From the moment of his leap through Torrance's window the half breed'smind had been disquieted. At any risk, until he could go to them withclean hands, he would not let the Police know he was still alive. Heknew their relentlessness in the chase; and he must be free in order toredeem himself. 

That very night, straight from eaves-dropping at the bohunks' meeting, he had crept back to Torrance's stable and found it locked. Thepadlock in itself was nothing, but it implied suspicion--possiblyentangling precautions. And so he had slunk away. 

A night's reflection had warned him how fortunate was the instinct thatheld his hand. As Mira lay sleeping heavily beside him on their bed ofspruce, he had lived again the happy days of his unofficial Policeduties with Sergeant Mahon--on the prairie, at the barracks and thePolice post, but more vividly than all, in the fastnesses of theCypress Hills. He saw once more the kindly eye, felt the friendlyhand, heard the soft voice of the one man above his class who hadtreated him as equal and friend. He saw again the old tobacco pouchspilled on Inspector Barker's desk in the barracks at Medicine Hat. 

He knew why Mahon had come north. 

"I can't see him fail, Mira, " he groaned. "He's did fer if he does. We got to stay an' see him through. "

"Perhaps he's after the horse-thief too. "

Blue Pete started. Then his head sank in one arm. "We can't help himthar, Mira. We can't be caught--yet. . . . An' the Sergeant wudn'twant to get us--yet. "

"It'll be all over soon, Pete, " she said more brightly. "Mr. Torrancehas promised us the horses when he goes. "

"God fergive me fer keepin' yuh waitin', Mira!" he breathed, trying toread in her face the forgiveness that meant more to him. 

But she had turned away, and he did not see the tear on her lashes. 

CHAPTER XVII

A PLOT DEFEATED

Torrance's pride was becoming a devastating thing; for the moment ithad run away with his sense of proportion and obliterated everysuperstition. As he ran his eye expertly along the level of the steelrails and saw that the trestle did not sink so much as a hair'sbreadth, he wanted to shout it to the world. Had he not, at unguardedmoments, been held down by momentary flashes of the old dreads he wouldhave jumped on his little speeder and chugged away to the west to singhis satisfaction to the hundred and one contractors who were lookingfor him to open the way to their longest and heaviest trains ofsupplies, growing longer and heavier as grade crept into the mountains. He wanted to cry to them: "Run your trains--fifty cars at a time, ifthe rest of the line will bear 'em. As for the Tepee trestle, it's assteady as the mountains--and a blame sight bigger job. "

He longed to talk it over with those who had intelligence to size upthe task; he wanted to read its due in the great newspapers of the East. 

"Some little jerk-water builder puts up a six-penny cement culvert downEast and gets half a column. There ain't enough newspapers in the Eastto do justice to my trestle. "

He was as frank in his self-appreciation as in his passions. Now, sofar as Big Jim Torrance was concerned, there was not an obstacle in theline from Montreal to the Pacific. And he, Big Jim Torrance, had madethe transcontinental possible where others had failed. 

It irritated him that his audience was so small. Tressa's confidencewas no new thing; she had always believed in him--no more now thanbefore. Conrad still clung to his megrims--phantom fears that had allbut faded from Torrance's mind. As for the five hundred brainlesscreatures to whom his great victory should be a matter of personalpride, it meant no more to them than last year's flowers. 

And so Torrance, waving a boisterous hand from the low seat of hisspeeder to the young pair standing on the steps of the shack, threwopen the gas and throbbed down the track to the end-of-steel village toadd to his audience two Policemen and a train crew who were alreadycrowing in anticipation of the end. 

Adrian Conrad and Tressa saw him go without a worry in the world butthat he would return too soon. Where only the three of them lived itwas almost impossible for the two lovers to creep away by themselves. Even a sympathetic daddy becomes a burden in the springtime of youth. 

As the older man vanished in a whirl of dust from the loose grade, Conrad puffed a long breath, turned to look deep into the girl's eyes, and without a word held out his hand. She took it, and they ran likechildren across the grade and into the forest. 

Not by favour but by a brain to plan and a never-ceasing vigilance didIgnace Koppowski hold the position of local president of the outlaworganisation. His spies were everywhere--or everywhere that mattered, he thought. And spies spied on other spies; that was the vertebrae ofthe system on which the I. W. W. Thrived. 

With his own eyes he saw Torrance mount the speeder and drive away; andwith a scowl he followed the laughing flight of the girl and her lover. 

At last the trestle was unguarded!

A few hasty words to Heppel started him at a lumbering trot for thecamp. Ten minutes later a score of men stood within their leader'sshack. 

Koppy knew he had time. The boss was gone for the evening; and he knewsomething of lovers' rambles. One gang he despatched into the forestafter Tressa and Conrad. A second crawled in detachments through thewoods to the powder cache near Conrad's shack. Heppel had charge ofthe first, Werner of the other. Werner, given his orders, demurred. 

"Thanks, Koppy, but I don't think it's a thing I couldn't do without. "

"Five men will do, " said Koppy. 

"Five men's six too many, " grumbled Werner. "Why d'you pick yourstruly for all the soft jobs?"

"You are honoured. Only three of you--"

"I'll give up my share of the honour to Morani's; he's fair bubblingfor a chance to wipe out the miss he made with his dirk the othernight. I'm not a bit resentful. I don't care if I never see the bossagain. I resign in favour of Chico. "

"I need Morani. "

"Not half as bad as I do, pompous one. Look here, old chap, this is abig job, ain't it, a real big thing?"

"Perhaps the end of everything, " agreed the underforeman solemnly. 

"That's why I'm not hankering for it, " said Werner under his breath. "And the fellow who carries it through is going to wear a bigger jewelin his crown, so to speak?" he asked aloud. 

Koppy glowered. 

"Then why not cop it yourself, old man? My crown's getting a bittop-heavy already. You got a finer sense of balance, and your neck'sstronger. Them bolts I drew on the trestle pretty near gave me aheadache--not to say as near as you came to it when the boss gotswinging, " he added with a leer. "Hugo Werner never was ambitious. "

Koppy raised himself haughtily. "I order, " he rapped. 

"Too darn much for my skin, " grumbled Werner. "It's a bad habit to getinto--for the other fellow. "

But he set about obeying, for therein lay the choice of two evils. Five experienced "rock-hogs" were put in his care, men with so littlereverence for dynamite that they chewed the sticks, from bravado atfirst, later as a horrible habit. 

"They're all away, " Werner assured them, "and the girl. Puff!--andit's all over. "

He ran up the slope to the grade and danced in the open door of theboss's shack; and, grinning at the convincing devil of it, they setabout their task. Armed with fuse and dynamite they crept alongunderneath the bank toward the trestle. Werner, as an excuse tolinger, carried the fuse; he almost envied the bohunk in the rear withthe dynamite. With quick hard blows the "rock-hogs" attacked one ofthe main central piers with hammer and chisel. They wanted to get itover; the job was too much exposed to suit them. 

Almost at the first blow a rock tumbled from the top of the trestle attheir backs, and immediately a shower of gravel beat on and about them. Promptly they ran, Werner leading all the way. 

From within his shack Koppy witnessed the foiling of his plans. Mouthing deep maledictions, he saw the Indian dance a few steps on thetrestle, shouting derision at his fleeing followers. And presently thered-skin clambered down through the network of the trestle and pickedup fuse, dynamite and tools, to carry them stolidly up the slope pastConrad's shack to the grade. Then in full view of the camp he seatedhimself on the grade, rifle across his knee, and began to whittle. 

There Torrance, chugging noisily up from his evening dissipation at theend-of-steel village, found him. Even at a distance the absence oflife about the shack struck the contractor, and the last half mile hecovered with everything open. With the brakes still screeching, hetumbled off and ran to the door, calling to Tressa. The Indian slippedthrough behind him. 

"Girl no here. "

Torrance whirled, every nerve tingling, fresh fears tumbling throughhis brain. 

"Out in woods with young brave, " continued the Indian, shrugging. "Nowatch time. "

The contractor struck a match and lit the lamp. The Indian closed thedoor and came close to him. In one hand he held several drills andhammers, in the other a length of fuse and two sticks of dynamite. Torrance's eyes protruded. He looked from the Indian's tell-tale handsto his stolid face. 

"They drew them away and--and tried to blow up the trestle?"Self-contempt for the evening's noisy pride swept over Torrance. Thenthe trestle faded completely from his mind. Tressa--where was she?

"Stay here, " he ordered, rushing to the door. "I'll bring the Police. "

Like a toy he lifted the speeder about, and with a heave of powerfullegs sent it away to a flying start. 

But Torrance's reaction had carried him too far--just too far. Tressawas safe. Heppel and eight cruel companions, as directed by Koppy, hadgone on the trail of the two lovers. But when it came the moment tostrike, Adrian Conrad was their master. In the darkness they slunkaway. And the two lovers, arms entwined, scarcely knew that darknesswas falling. 

In the shack the Indian listened to the fading exhaust of the speeder. His eyes were roving about the room. He was smiling. For the secondtime in a year he was within the walls of a home; for the first timefree to look about. A curious pathetic longing twisted his face. Hebegan to tip-toe about the room, laying a reverent finger everywhere. The covers of the coloured magazines he lifted and let fall, pressedthe gaudy cushions that strewed the couch, touched the cheap ornamentsTressa had woven into the picture with happy hand, stared into thehome-framed pictures. Over the vase of wild flowers he stooped with areminiscent smile; and thoughtfully for several minutes he rockedTressa's own chair. 

"Mira shud have 'em all. . . . An' she's got nothin' but a hole in theground with a halfbreed. . . . An' yet I ain't done nothin' . . . Nothin'!"

Absorbed as he was in his dreams, he did not forget the open doorwaywith its view from the distant camp. Stooping beyond its range, hepushed through to the kitchen. It was pitch dark there, yet his eyesseemed to take in everything. A distant sound from far down the tracksent him running to the stable door. It was locked. Inside he couldhear the quiet munching of the two horses. His powerful fingers closedover the padlock. A mere twist and nothing lay between Mira and thehome that should be hers. The chug of the returning speeder roarednearer. 

Blue Pete put a hand to his head and turned away. 

Up through the night came the beating car, everything wide open, andstopped before the door. Into the shaft of light from the open doorwayTorrance and Sergeant Mahon ran. 

"Chief, Chief, where are you?"

From out over the trestle a voice replied. 

"Indian gone. "

Torrance dashed out on the grade and tried in vain to pierce thedarkness. "Here--here, you blithering idiot! The police want you. "

No reply--not even a sound. 

"You smug-faced redskin! I wonder how much you're mixed in this. "

"Indian no come more. " The voice drifted from far away in the darknesson the trestle. 

Sergeant Mahon lifted his head like a hound on the scent, then with aperplexed smile re-entered the shack. 

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CONSCIENCE OF A BOHUNK

Tressa Torrance's outlook on life was a comfortable one, born of herown sunny nature. Its foundation was love, the keystone of its archpeace. The blood of a gentle mother had effectually subdued in her thefierce impetuosity of her father--as in life the frail little wife haddominated the boisterous husband. Tressa wanted most to be loved. Itwas food to her self-respect, to her easy and appealing ways, even tothe laugh bubbling so readily to her rosy lips. Most of all she wantedto be loved by Adrian Conrad; her father--well, his love was imperviousto influence. 

In her gentle love of peace the bickerings that surrounded her made hershrink within herself, wondering, staunch in her faith that her daddyand Adrian were right--without these blundering, uneducated foreignersbeing quite as bad as their masters thought. 

Desiring to escape it all for a time, she crept away one late afternoonwhen Adrian and her father were in conference with the two Policemen. They did not seem to notice. Less than a week ahead was thecommencement of the last operation on the trestle before handing overto the big contractors complete; and the anxiety of the moment spoke inthe firmness of their tone and the grimness of their measures. Tressastole away, troubled at heart. 

In her favourite retreat, a cluster of slender birch trees deep in theforest, she seated herself on a fallen trunk and unrolled hercrocheting. Through the thin foliage the sun filtered over her hairand spangled the ground at her feet. A breeze as gentle as herselfwhispered above her head in friendly commune with the great rustle ofthe forest. Secluded without being closed in from the light, she feltthat she might untangle there more clearly the trifling problems of hersheltered life. 

As she worked she hummed. Into the network of woven threads she wasweaving the future--a month hence--a year--two years--five. And thepictures pleased her progressively. Adrian, laughing into her eyesafter the season's hard struggle, was at her side . . . A happy husbandthen . . . A beaming and foolishly proud father; and little tots withtheir father's fair hair--

Something--more a feeling than a sound--arrested her. She flushed atthe thought that some one was looking at the pictures of herimagination. Abashed, perhaps a trifle annoyed, but without a thoughtof fear, she lifted her eyes. But when she beheld Koppy, hat in hand, standing at the edge of her retreat with head bowed, his humilityseemed to call only for the sympathy always denied him. With maidenlymodesty she gathered her work to tighter compass, but no otherrestraint did she feel in the presence of the man her friends accusedof unthinkable crimes. The inheritance of her femininity assured herthat she was in no danger. Koppy had always liked her--she knew thatalso by virtue of that inheritance; and every woman loves the strongthing that bends to her--loves, but perhaps does not respect. 

Unconscious of the challenging coyness of words and manner, she spoke:

"You didn't frighten me a bit, Koppy. "

"I didn't want to, " he replied in a low voice. 

"I don't think I heard you. I guess I must have--felt you. "

He moved swiftly in among the trees and stood before her, soiled hatturning in grimy hands. 

"You--felt me?"

A vague and sudden sense of discomfort made her raise puzzled eyes tohis, but she dismissed it firmly as born of her father's suspicions. Still she wished he would not stand so close, stooping over her, withthat funny look in his eyes. Suggestively she glanced at the whitetrunk on which she was seated, and moved further along. 

"I suppose it's an instinct, " she said. "Animals must feel like thatabout things they can't see or hear. Haven't you often been consciousof being watched when you couldn't see the watcher?"

He smiled from a world of superior knowledge; the unseen watcher wasthe foundation of the big game he was ever playing. The smile ended ina short laugh, and somehow it startled her--she seemed so naked inthought before this strange foreigner. 

"You know what I mean, " she went on lamely. "I suppose a gopherpeering from its hole in the ground would disturb me sooner or later. "

"Don't explain, " he almost pleaded, "don't try to explain. " He seatedhimself far up the trunk. 

Again her puzzled eyes were on him. In some indefinite way he was sodifferent, so--so human and equal. Outwardly there was no evidence ofthe change--the same nondescript clothes, the same grimy hands andface, the same coarse boots and clumsiness. 

He seemed to read her thoughts, for with a gesture of long-suppressedprotest he threw out his hands. 

"Yes, " he cried, "they're gnarled and dirty, and these old overalls arethe mark of my degradation. " He flung his hat passionately on theground. "But I'm not always this way. Back in Chicago Idress--sometimes. There I'm what I like to be, what I can be. Notoften--it is not that way I rule. "

Her eyes were wide with surprise. "You--you speak--"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I speak English as well as you or any oneelse. I think in English. But it pays me to look foreign, to fightoutwardly the 'civilising' influences of the country of my adoption. "A slight sneer twisted his lips. "I must look like a cut-throat, because in that way I've reached the height I've attained in myorganisation. It shocks you, because you don't understand, becauseyou've never had to plough the row I've toiled along. . . . I'm not asbad as I seem. "

She picked up her work to cover the beating of her heart. 

"If you're out of sympathy--"

"But I'm not out of sympathy, " he interrupted earnestly. "I'm a Workerof the World, and always will be. I would prefer not to have to dresslike this, but not because I deplore our aims. It is the misfortune ofthe class of men for whom I fight. Miss Torrance"--he slid abruptlydown the trunk and leaned forward to look in her eyes--"I'm talking toyou as I never talked before, as I scarcely dared to think. Any oneelse would hand me over to the Police. You won't. And to talk likethis to a fellow-worker would mean a knife slid in here. No, you won'ttell. I've known a lot of women, most of them bad ones because that'sthe only kind I have a chance to meet, but I never knew one to sell aman she did not hate . . . And a woman never hates till she firstloves. You've never loved more than one. "

"And not likely to, " she put in quietly, even as she thrilled to thecompleteness of his trust. 

He laughed harshly. "They all say that--that is, all but the kind anyman can buy. But you know nothing of them--forgive me for mentioningthem. . . . There aren't many women stick to their first love. "

"Oh?" she said indifferently. "I haven't thought it worth discussing. "

"No? Perhaps you're right. Many a time I've thought the same ofwoman, all women--until I learned that every woman, good or bad, isworth it. "

His eyes had gone to the tree tops; they returned now so suddenly thatshe started. A curious smile moved his lips. 

"Do you know, you've disturbed all my convictions of women? I reallyknow so little of you that it may be foolish, but you've made me feelthat woman in the singular may be so much more to a man than the wholemass of the sex. For you, or one of the very few like you, a man mightgive up every other ambition without regret . . . And I've hadmany--women and ambitions--in my day. "

She was flushing, though she knew from the utter frankness of it thathe was not making love, not even being impertinent. She had no fear ofhim, only of her inexperience in handling so strange a situation. 

"You make a man feel there is everything in tossing aside all I'veattained, merely to settle down as a respectable citizen. " He wasstaring through the tree-tops again, hands clasped over one knee. "Icould make a way for myself, a good way, without all this fever, with awoman like you to hold me straight. I know what I can do. " A forlornsmile wrinkled his face not unpleasantly. "But there are twoinsuperable obstacles. The Workers wouldn't let me--and the womanwouldn't have me. . . . That's why I grow desperate sometimes, why I--"

She questioned with her eyes his continued silence. "I won't tell, "she promised gently, "but perhaps you'd better say no more. "

He did not seem to hear her, and she was cudgelling her inexperiencefor some smooth retreat, when he broke out explosively:

"I'm the product of over-sudden civilisation, like a thin-blooded manplunging into cold water. From the crude half-lights of my own countryI leaped at one bound into the brilliance of civilisation's beam, as itis found in America. And I couldn't stand it--few of us can. We getnumb to everything but our own discomfort. And knowing we're bound forlife, we struggle and beat our wings against things as we find them, ina panic because they differ so from things we were born to. We're likea bird in a room. It may be a cosy, warm and friendly room, but thebird wants only to get out in the cold. . . . The human tide we'replunged in from the very first day ignores us, or tramples us, ordrives us like cattle, forgetting that we are numb and bewildered, panic stricken, unable to think beyond primal emotions. . . . 

"If we could only have a year's apprenticeship where sympathy holds ourhands! If only we could enter the new state by a gradient instead of aplunge! But there is no isle between, no one to lead us gently to thelight. . . . And few of us would pause to be led. And so we struggle, and in the struggling hurt ourselves or are hurt. We strike out--andare struck back by stronger force than ourselves. And so we tumbleback to sullen silence, watching and planning to beat that force as wemay. . . . And there I am. "

The hopelessness of his tone held appealing hands to her. She longedto help him, yet knew not how. And suddenly it came to her thatperhaps it lay within her power to build up the structure ofdissatisfaction that he was exposing to her. 

"You know how foolish it is, " she said. "You have intelligence, yousee where fighting leads. Why strike back? Go with the tide; it isnot trying to overwhelm you, only to do you good. There'd be fewknocks then. "

"Ah, " he cried bitterly, "but it's too late. The poison of resistancehas flooded our veins, and as yet there is no antidote. Slowly it hasbeen weaving itself into the very fibre of my character; I can't helpit. At moments like this I see, for my mind still retains some of itssense of proportion . . . But part of the poison of it is that we domore with our hands, these hands you hate, than with our minds. Tenyears it has been coursing through me. Can I alter my stature by athought? As I talk to you I'm able to stand aside and watch thehorrible thing, but gnawing always at me is the memory of those earlydays of panic. "

She shook her head. "You'll never understand, " she sighed. "I hopedyou would. "

"But I do understand. It's you can't, because you never stood onforeign shore--alone. "

"Yet it is better than home, or you wouldn't come in your thousands. "

"Better than home, yes, but worse than we hoped. Only those who fleethe rude traditions, the heartless laws, the ignorance and comfortlesslife of worn-out Europe can see the pictures the very word 'America'rouses in us. I don't know whether it is not more the fault of ourignorance than of the boasts of those who have already gone, of thosewho would profit by our going, that we land with hopes nothing on earthcould justify. And, not finding the milk and honey flow out to laveour ship, we start depressed and resentful. We land in a strangecountry with only a word of its language. No one greets us, no oneholds our fumbling hands. By dirty ways we slink to dirty tenementhouses to hide ourselves--where disloyalty is the air we breath, discomfort our bed, and robbery our experience--robbed by the veryfriends who preceded us. Half-cowed, lonely, cursing in silence thedrudgery that faces us, we learn to live for ourselves alone. Helpless, we drift into the hands of our own kind, who wax rich on thesale of us in herds to work no one else would undertake. Sullen, keento the injustice of things, but ignorant of the simplicity of redress, we fall victims to our own morbid hatreds, to anything that promises tofeed our fury. . . . 

"That is where the Independent Workers of the World gets its recruits. And once its clutches close on us--" He stopped suddenly and clamberedto his feet. "Miss Torrance, you'd better go home. You shouldn't comehere. Go--right away!" His fists were clenched, his under lip grippedbetween his teeth. 

She had dropped from her seat and was staring at him, alarmed at last. Over his face, into his very clothes and manner, had passed somethingthat tumbled her rudely back to the Koppy she knew best, the malignant, sneering, mesmeric, uncouth underforeman her father and Adriansuspected. He stooped and lifted his hat jerkily. 

"Workers strong, " he said in his broken English. "They see big things, they do them. I, a vice-president--just a Pole, but big man--I order. Go home!"

Yet he turned his back before she did, and even as she started away sheknew he knew that he could not harm her. She ran as she had never runbefore, clutching her work in a grim little fist, not from fear ofKoppy but of the strange thing she had seen. 

Within sight of the grade she sank on the forest floor and lay lookingup through tangled pictures, as through the woven ceiling of greenleaves that sprinkled the sky. Then she sat up, smoothed her hair, wiped from her face every mark of agitation, and sauntered back to theshack. 

"Where have you been?" Conrad called anxiously to her from the doorway. "We were calling you. "

"Just getting away from you cold-blooded schemers, " she laughed. "There's peace in the woods tonight, anyway. " And she went past him tothe kitchen to boil the kettle. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE BEAT OF A MOUNTED POLICEMAN

Sergeant Mahon was not happy in his new work. After a Policeexperience that knew only the ranching district he found the newconditions, the new crimes and criminals, irritating and a littlebewildering. None of the trailing he loved, of horse and steer; noranchers and cowboys and rustling gunmen any longer filled the horizonof his friendships and duties. He began to fear that a few months ofit would wipe from his mind all he had ever learned. Even his horsewas of little use, for the only path to ride, the three miles to thetrestle, was quite as easy by foot or ballast train. 

The limitations of his official horizon were stifling, a mere mile ortwo in radius. And within that circle were only a handful he couldcall friends, and a camp of bohunks. He hated the shadows of theforest, where life was scarcer than in the Hills, where even keen witswere wasted. 

Here the guns of his former enemies were supplanted by knives andknuckle-dusters and clubs; and the men who wielded them were cowardly, slinking foreigners whose very appearance was repugnant. Sneaky, underground, despicable crime it was, running the gamut from pettyannoyance to senseless murder. None of the open-handed, bold andreasoned intelligence of the prairie criminal. It revolted him. Senseless, insensate, formless, erratic, it only disgusted him with itssheer and unprofitable lawlessness. On the prairie crime meant doubleduty for him--to discover, then to catch the criminal; here there wasno escape--once the criminal was discovered. 

This offscouring of Europe was little more individual to him than aChinaman; Mahon was doubtful that he could pick out a second time morethan a few of the bohunks. With faces dull and brainless, voices draband lifeless, they merged into a mass of slime. 

For the first time since he had donned the uniform Mahon began toquestion his capacity for it. Knowing the history of the wide effortdemanded of the Mounted Police, he began to wonder if he could throwhimself into it with credit to the Force. 

The only attractive feature of his new life was the friendship of thebluff, cantankerous, but kind-hearted contractor, his sunny daughter, the manly foreman, and the talkative Murphy. Of Tressa he had so manyglowing things to write in his letters to his wife that Helenthreatened to rush north in self-defence. Thereupon he crammed oneletter from start to finish with Tressa Torrance's praises, and defiedHelen to fulfil her threat. 

In the course of his work the solitary part that intrigued him was themystery of the Indian. He felt that there was more there than he knewof; he had more than a suspicion that Torrance was concealing from himessential facts. But there seemed no call for official action. Thusfar the Indian was friendly; it was his nature to be silent andmysterious. 

Failing use for his horse, Mahon spent much time in the forest. Andafter a time, the very shadows, and the secrecy breathed by the treesseemed to hint at revelations just round the corner. Down in the camphalf a thousand bohunks, with brutal murder in their hearts, would, under Police eye, climb to their bunks as innocent in appearance askittens. There in the woods, freed from observation, the bohunk wasmore apt to discard his mask of stupidity. Somewhere there his planswere laid, orders given and received. 

What the Sergeant picked up little by little in the woods, small as itwas and unsatisfying to his youthful impatience, sufficed to sustainhis hopes. The constant meeting after work-hours with slinking bohunkswho always avoided him, convinced him that something within the law wasafoot, and repeated glimpses of distant groups which dribbled away whenhe came within sight induced him to alter his methods. More covertlyhe hunted, though it tried him sorely, and snatches of conversationuntangled from the froth of their utterances did much to simplify histask and give more definition to his search. 

Somehow his mind never quite freed itself of the haunting memory of hisdiscoveries that early day down the slope of the river bank. Thoughthe tracks were dim, he was satisfied that horses had passed that wayat no distant date. Suspicious at first, doubtful as the marksadvanced toward the river (largely on account of certain past memoriesroused by peculiarities he seemed to recognise), he had later decidedthat what he saw was no figment of an imagination rendered more livelyby the revival of the story of Blue Pete. Certainty was added by thesuspicion that efforts had been made by a master-hand to hide thetracks. 

Where that led he could not even guess, though at that stage his mindkept reverting to the Indian. 

The mysterious arrivals and disappearances of the redskin as Torrancesaw them was interesting enough, but they were as nothing to Mahoncompared with his own failure to meet the Indian face to face. Thatwas epitomised in the incident of the voice from the darkness over thetrestle the night he rushed to Torrance's assistance. There was littleto connect Torrance's inexplicable Indian friend with the Indian bohunkwho had dived that first day over the cliff to almost certain death, but Mahon had been living among inferences and deductions and a certainquestion was arising in his mind. Still it pointed nowhere. 

Constable Williams had told him of isolated bands of Indians who hadvisited the camps during the previous summer, and Mahon conceived theidea that with one of these braves Torrance had had dealings whichplaced the redskin under obligation though the contractor himself mightnot suspect it. An Indian never forgets; that was the simplestexplanation. 

The secrecy of the Indian's movements might be accounted for by anatural reserve, and specially by a shyness before the uniform. Butwhere was he hiding? That he was never far away was apparent. Mahonadded to his other duties this new trail. 

He realised the difficulty of his task after several distinct twingesof that strange sense developed in the wary at being under unseen eyes. It could not be a bohunk, for the workmen were not clever enough totrail him unseen. Also it was not an inimical inspection. Only theIndian could trail the trailer with such unerring confidence. 

It was not unnatural, therefore, that as time went on the Indianassumed the proportions of a gripping mystery. 

On the track of the new problem, Sergeant Mahon took to roaming thewoods by night. His reward was unexpected and unsought--it had noconnection whatever with the Indian. He discovered that the bohunkswere meeting in their hundreds under cover of the darkness. To satisfyhimself that an outside menace was not added to the perils surroundingthe trestle, Mahon took to inspecting the camp from hiding whenever hecame on one of these gatherings. The fact that they were composed ofthe ordinary bohunks of the camp, on some nights almost emptying it, relieved him. 

He was turning his attention more directly to these meetings in thewoods, when something happened to alter his plan. 

CHAPTER XX

INDIAN OR POLICEMAN?

The tang of the northern evening drifted through the open door of theshack, within which the contractor lounged in his big arm chair, smoking hard but thinking harder. Near the table, bending to let thefull light from window and door fall on her work, Tressa stitched at arip in a disreputable old vest of her father's. 

The days were getting noticeably shorter, and the advance breath of thelong, tight winter was beginning to add a new snap to the air. Thenoises of the camp drifted up over the grade fitfully, dreamily; somenew hunger that might have been called homesickness was urging a newtone into the evening sounds. 

Torrance, the stability of his work assured, imagined that he wassupremely happy. But life had lost a fraction of its zip, though herefused to acknowledge it. 

But Tressa knew it. Idleness was worse than medicine to her father, and for days he had been fuming with impatience for the opening of thelast operation, more than a little irritable. She knew it as shewatched the smoke breathe more slowly from his lips and the pipe growcold. Presently, without opening his eyes, he dropped the pipe on thetable and nestled his head against the cushion. Tressa smiled, for shewas happier than her father--and Adrian would be up shortly. 

She heard the familiar whistle break out far down the sloping pathbeyond the grade. Higher and higher it mounted, and with hand held shelistened with smiling eyes. She would keep on with her mending as ifshe had not heard; and the whistle would grow more impatient as itapproached, calling her to reply. 

Now he was half way up the slope--now only a few yards beyond thegrade. She grabbed her mending and began to work industriously. Nowhe was on the grade--he would see her sitting there working as if shehad forgotten there was an Adrian Conrad. 

But just then the whistle ceased abruptly. That was not part of theformula, but she would not raise her eyes; he would break out in amoment more impatiently than ever, and she would look up as if she hadjust heard--

She looked up sooner than she reckoned, for the silence continued. Yetshe anticipated only by a second Conrad's flying entrance, his facetense with a sudden alarm. Without a word he seized the rifle from itsrack beside the door and dashed to the kitchen. Torrance blinkedhimself awake at the scurry. 

"Wha-at-what--"

Conrad turned in the kitchen doorway and pressed finger to lip. Theyfound him kneeling on the floor beside the kitchen window, the riflepointing over the sill past the side of the stable. 

Torrance, still blinking with sleep, looked along the rifle barrel. For several seconds he could see nothing but the dead grey grass. Thena dim movement focussed his eyes. A hundred yards away the Indian wascreeping toward them. 

At intervals the redskin raised his head to peer across the grade. Notuntil he was close to the stable did he appear to notice the threewatchers, then he lifted a hand and disappeared behind the stable. Ashe wormed his way to cover Torrance spoke eagerly. 

"Let him have it, Adrian. I've always had my suspicions. It's somedevilish trick or he wouldn't sneak up that way. Soon as he saw us hescrambled to cover. Watch for him around the other side. "

But Conrad shook his head and pushed aside Torrance's extended hand;but he did not lower the rifle. 

The Indian came round the other side of the stable, as Torrance hadpredicted, but there was no attempt at secrecy, except that hecontinued to hug the ground. Torrance grunted. Tressa sighed. Conradlowered the rifle. The Indian crawled over the back step and liftedhimself to his feet. Torrance forgot every suspicion before that smile. 

"You got a nerve taking a chance like that, Big Chief. If I'd 'a' hadthe gun you'd 'a' got your blanket full. "

The Indian looked significantly at Conrad and shrugged his shoulders. "Him no shoot Indian. "

"You're too blamed sure, " replied the contractor pettishly. "What'sall the fuss about, anyway?"

"Bad paleface mebbe see. " The Indian pointed toward the camp. 

"Not likely! We could hardly see you ourselves. You better drop apostcard next time. I was just in the middle of a dream that thetrestle was done and I was cashing the check in Winnipeg inthousand-dollar bills, after polishing off a few bohunks for a realbang-up finale. Then in booms Conrad here and grabs the rifle, and Iwake up with the feeling them bohunks are doing the polishing on me. Iwas mighty near scared. By the way, we wanted you. The Police wantyou to identify the bohunks in that gang the other night that tried toblow up the trestle. If you'll come down to the camp with me and pick'em out--"

"No good. " The Indian shook his head. "You shoot. No save bridgethat way. Others blow up. Job never done. "

Torrance's admiration showed in his grin. "That's thinking, Big Chief. Of course the Police don't give a cuss about the trestle, if they canget some one to hang. " His face sobered. "Just the same, when thisthing's off my hands and there's nothing to blow up but a pile of dirt, I'm going through the camp with an arsenal on me, and I'll splash bloodover the ugly place till it looks like a Chicago beef-cannery. Itwould save transportation expenses, too. When the last shovel's dumpedand the Police gone home to supper I'm going to boil over and roast adozen bohunks alive--"

"Daddy!" chided Tressa. "He'll believe you. "

"Think so?" asked Torrance delightedly. "Then here goes: Say, I'll eatmy last breakfast of bohunk livers, seasoned with bohunk brains--ifthere are any--and as an appetiser, bohunk tongues steeped in--"

"Heap big talk, " broke in the Indian wearily. 

"And that, " snorted Torrance, "just about puts the blinkers on that. Even strangers don't believe me. But you put before me bohunk heartsstuffed with bohunk sweetbreads--"

The Indian turned up his eyes in disgust. Torrance chuckled. 

"He knows the belly-ache it would give a fellow, and I bet he's et moremen for breakfast than I ever dreamed of murdering. If your appetite'sup to it, Big Chief, take a mouthful of that thug living up on the bankabove the camp. He's got all the pizen of Russia in him, flavouredwith the rankest sauces of Europe. "

The Indian waited. 

"Shouldn't wonder, " ventured the contractor, "if he's got something inhis system. "

"If you'll let him get in a word edgeways, " laughed Tressa. 

"That's the way all yours get in, " grumbled her father. 

"Bohunk have big plans, " grunted the Indian. 

"We know that, but what's eating us is what they are. "

"Indian find out. "

"Then you'll do more than a squad of Police. But what's the charge?"He eyed the Indian with suspicion. "They're laying for you, you know. "

The Indian smiled scornfully. 

"That shows you know the bohunk, friend. Because there's really noneed to be afraid if they're afraid of you. It's the nature of thebeasts. In three or four days I'll take the starch out of them by hardwork, but in the meantime you can help us a lot--and earn enoughcartwheels for yourself to keep you in fire-water the rest of yourdays. Look here"--he smiled magnanimously--"for every bohunk you giveme an excuse to hang there's a dollar for you. That's five hundreddollars--and it's yours with my blessing. "

"Aren't you extravagant?" asked Tressa slyly. 

He regarded his daughter with an injured expression. "You take all thepleasure from my bargains, Tressa. Make it three dollars a day, BigChief. It sort of makes a man reckless to have his own detectiveforce. "

The Indian waited patiently until the torrent of talk ceased. 

"Indian take no pay, " he said stolidly. 

The contractor rubbed his chin. "What's the big idea? That's plumbcrazy--it ain't human nature. I had an Indian working for me once--andcome to think of it, it didn't take us long to strike much the samebargain--and he was the best man I ever had working for me. If there'sa tribe like you and him, I'll engage the whole caboose on the spot--atthe same price. And I'll give you the sweetest job an Indian ever hadsince the North-West Rebellion. All you need do is surround that messof huts down there, make a noise like an apple pie, and shooteverything that comes out to take a bite--that is, after the trestle'sdone. If you can handle a spade and crowbar, and live on dessicatedsawdust and tinned whale, you can take the shooting job on instanter. There's a good two weeks' work for you afterwards. Only start onKoppy. Eh, how's it look to you?"

"No pay Indian, " repeated the Indian. 

"There's a sting in the tail somewhere, " Torrance muttered to hisforeman. "Either he wants my calabash pipe, or he plans to land hiswhole family of papooses on my breakfast table while he's on the job. And their annual bath may be eleven months back. Go on, Chief, what'sthe answer?"

"Indian no work with P'lice. "

"I don't ask you to--I don't want you to. "

"Call off P'lice, then Indian find out everything. "

"Mm-m! So that's the cue?" He turned his back to look meaningly atConrad. "You want the Police called off, eh?"

"Indian no can work with P'lice. "

The redskin went through exaggerated motions of peering about, hismoccasins scraping noisily on the floor. Torrance began to understand. 

"I see. The Police give the show away by snooping too much?"

"P'lice lookin'--bohunk good, " grunted the Indian. "Nothin' doin'. Indian watchin'--bohunk not know. "

"If I could I'd do what you want, but I'm not the Commissioner. Justthe same, I'll put it to them. If they bother you, truss 'em up--onlydon't say I advised it, or leave me your widow to look after. By theway, where is she? Tressa wants to talk the latest prairie styles withher, and how to cure freckles. But come on into the sitting room andbe comfortable. "

He started for the front room, pushing the others ahead of him. Turning at the door to throw another banter at his guest, he faced anempty kitchen. 

"By gad! There he goes again!" He went into the sitting room and satdown with a loud sigh. "That fellow can't even leave like a civilisedbeing, and he don't come like one. He gets on my nerves. I don't knowwhether it's best to go down with the trestle with a knife in mygizzard, or to die of that spooky feeling nobody's ever invented apatent medicine for since Peruna. "

Sergeant Mahon heard the Indian's curious demand with a calmness thatsurprised even himself. As for Torrance, he was completely bewildered. 

"I suppose it sounded fishy to you, " Mahon reflected. "I don't quiteunderstand why it doesn't to me--except that we've found no reason yetto suspect him. . . . Wish I could talk with him. "

"You kick around here for a day or two; he's sure to turn up down thechimney or through the keyhole. "

Mahon shook his head. "He doesn't want to talk to the Police. Itdoesn't necessarily imply guilt in an Indian. He's watching us asclosely as he is the bohunks. I'll wager he knows I'm here now. TheIndians never liked the Police--like a boy under his dad's eye. Iguess they know they've given us our hardest jobs. You should hearInspector Barker's stories. " He strolled to the door and looked overthe river. "He's been guarding the trestle better than any of us, " hemused. 

Suddenly he swung about. 

"Tell him he's got a clear course, unless something big threatens. Idon't seem to be on the right track. We're only crossing and mussingtrails by working separately. . . . If he won't work with me--tell himI'm trusting him. "

CHAPTER XXI

BLUE PETE WORKS ALONE

Koppowski and his three friends climbed through the window of the shackon the top of the bank and were swallowed in the forest. And aroundthem other shadows moved silently in the same direction. 

They were on their way to the big meeting of the season. Except for amere dozen of practised ubiquity the camp was empty; for that night, which was to seal the fate of the trestle--perhaps--Koppy was lessconcerned than usual that the three up on the grade should be deceived. 

For days he had been polishing up the details of his plan. And of thetwo methods open to him for passing those details on to his followers, like a true leader he chose personal delivery. Eloquence was anever-failing inspiration of his in the face of crowds, and hysteria, his best ally, worked only at its highest pitch in the mob. Besides, there was a gratifying pomp in the meeting; the thrill he so readilyimparted to his audience returned to him double-fold and opened thegates to further honours in the inner councils of the I. W. W. 

Without underestimating the gravity of failure before such a gatheringas he would face that night, self-confidence never deserted him; neveryet had it let him down. As a born gambler he had no compunctions atstaking everything on one throw. 

Directly away from the grade he led deep into the woods, and all aboutthem was movement, silent, individual, wrapped in the promise of themeeting. Presently Koppy made a peremptory motion of his hand. 

"Wait!" He left them there, moving ponderously forward to the heart ofa small clearing, where he paced up and down, chin in hand. The threefollowers watched from a distance. 

"Nap--or was it Wellington--at Waterloo or somewhere!" jeered Werner ina low voice. "The mutt thinks the whole world is watching . . . And Iain't sure it ain't. "

Koppy waved his hand, and they rejoined him. 

Patches of darkness already filled the forest, but a late sun filteredthrough the tree tops in the thinner spaces and wove a pattern ofcolour on the brown leaves and dead green moss, the slender spruceneedles and straight-standing trunks. Nature was in a gentle glow; thepure clear air of falling evening draped the earth in sweetness. Yetthrough it wound long lines of ghoulish men who felt it not, held tofiendish things by mistaken ambitions, by an unjustified bitternessthat fed on its own helplessness. For, after all, the varying moods ofnature are but constituents of a formula of which each man provides forhimself the other half--else would the Eskimo be a paragon, the huntera saint. 

Koppy had explained it to Tressa in fiery words; the IndependentWorkers of the World had found tilled soil in the breasts of theseunthinking men. By feeding their smouldering bitterness againstconditions due largely to themselves it had won their unreasoningfidelity; like dogs they crept to heel. Here at last was a medium inwhich to express their wrath. That it could profit them nothingmattered not. All they read was that, under-dogs as they were doomedto be, they might make their masters suffer. 

Werner, more sensitive to the silences, grumbled at his leader's back. 

"Cheerful sport, this. A real hi-larious way to end a dull day. "

Morani's lip curled. 

"It's all right for you, Chico, " muttered Werner. "All you got to doto get your blood running fresh is to slip that stiletto intosomebody's ribs. They don't expect any better of a Dago. Me? They'dfasten a rope under my ears and wish me pleasant voyage. "

The Italian expectorated noisily. 

"I suppose, " continued Werner, "you might's well do that as spitmacaroni talk at me. You get me roused and I'll tear off chunks ofGerman and throw them--"

Koppy's hand went up for silence. The men plodded on. 

At the place of meeting not a man was in sight; a great silence seemedto have stifled life itself. But as Koppy raised himself on a slighteminence in the centre of the clearing and made a gesture with hisexpressive hands, throngs of his followers crowded about him with nosound but shuffling feet. 

As Koppy looked about on their massed faces a disturbing memory ofthose strange moments with Tressa Torrance almost unnerved him. Heunderstood these men; he knew the forces that had brought them down torailway work. And the flick of a still faintly breathing consciencemade him pale. The daily sight of Tressa Torrance and her simpleacceptance of him as a fellow-creature had roused within him thoughtshe imagined he had long since stifled. There were times when hecontemplated the possibility of carrying her away and leaving all elsebehind. Never before in America had a decent woman looked at him insuch a kindly way. The many women he had known he had been willing topay for, as was expected of him; here was one he could not buy, yet shewas almost within reach for nothing. 

Sometimes of late his mind had roved beyond a crude camp of logs, withfilthy bunks in tiers, with filthy straw on which to lie. Carpetedrooms, with pictures on the walls, and shiny chairs and tables; smartclothes and clean hands; evenings of mental peace in a home of his own. And a woman to manage it and him. That was the bewildering part ofit--he wanted a woman to order him about, some one gentle and sweet, toblot from his warped mind the hideous nightmare of strife and schemingamidst which he seemed always to have moved. He longed to have tochange his clothes after the day's work, to wash and brush himself, tosmile and converse in his best of English. He owed nothing to theI. W. W. That he had not repaid a hundredfold. He was a bit weary of hisown passions and the direction of others. 

But from beneath his shaggy brows, as he stood towering above hisfollowers in the semi-darkness of the clearing, he readexpectation--nay, even demand--in every upturned face. And the oldsurge of pride, the sordid memories that had kept him to his meanesttasks and sometimes convinced him of a divine mission, bent him back tohis big plans. In long silence he returned their gaze, moving his headsharply from side to side to fix every eye. None knew better than hethe value of silences, of the ponderous manner. Every art of theleader of mobs was his. 

As if delving to their very hearts he stared into every face. And theyrecognised his leadership by stifled sighs and sudden breaths. Dull toreason, as to pain and pleasure, their nerves were denied theprotective covering of sanity that comes with education. What they didnot know was less than what they imagined. In such an atmosphererespect became reverence, irritation fury, fear panic, a sense ofinjustice justification for any crime. Before the piercing gaze oftheir leader their lips opened, their bloodshot eyes shifted, andbreath came uncertainly. It was a form of mesmerism. 

And when at last he burst out in an impassioned jargon that did duty ascommon language, they rose to him hysterically. 

Truth to tell, he had called the meeting with no intention of spurringto immediate action. So much hung on the final decision that was toculminate their year's work that Koppy hesitated to give the order. The meeting had been conceived as nothing more than a preliminary testof their loyalty and determination; perhaps he might raise their ardourto the point where it would be safe to let them know the scheme ingeneral. The details would reach them later through trustedmouthpieces. But most of all he wanted to feel their hands on his. 

But when, in the mellow light of the setting sun, he read their madrecklessness he reacted to it. Carried from his feet, he spokefiercely; passionately, as one inspired. The passive, undergroundresistance of the past few weeks swept swiftly in a few sentences toopen rebellion. Hesitation looked cowardly then, caution tawdry, waiting an insult to their dignity. 

Werner alone did not follow him. When five hundred fists thrust asmany weapons into the air and cried for action, Werner felt the urge ofaction of his own. Slowly he slunk to the outskirts of the mob. 

"This, " he said to himself, "is where Hugo Werner takes to the talltimbers. I don't hypnotise worth a cent. All Koppy's eagle eye doesto me is warn me I'm not bullet-proof. Me for the safe spots; they canget as maudlin as they like. I got a hunch this is no place for HugoWerner. "

Behind him the low murmur of excitement grew to hysteria. Theydemanded to do something, to destroy and smash and rend. Another twominutes and nothing could hold them back. To and fro swayed fivehundred hot bodies, back and forward shook five hundred threateninghands. 

Koppy knew that he was master of their very souls, that there beforehim five hundred men awaited his direct orders without question. Thrills tingled scalp. With fists uplifted he shrieked at them:

"Now, now is the time! We are five hundred; they are two. They areours. These oppressors, who have for years ground our faces to thedust, are trembling before us. Let us strike--strike! We rush, fivehundred of us; we smash and wreck. Then we are masters, not slaves. _The trestle must go--now!_"

"Me, too, " murmured Werner from the shadows. "Damn glad I got a start. Wonder how far it is to my next meal. "

"Come closer, men, closer!" Koppy was holding out his arms to them. "Let me feel your strong hands before we strike. It is almost time. It is dark. From the crawling shadows five hundred--"

He had overdone it. Five hundred pairs of eyes tore themselves fromtheir leader's face and shifted fearfully to the lurking, crawlingshadows that closed them in. 

And at the instant a dismal howl struck through the night, unplacable, all-pervading, unearthly. At the top of its most hideous note itcrashed to silence. 

Five hundred pairs of eyes sought each other with the blankness ofterror-numbed minds. Five hundred bodies trembled. Transfixed, theywaited. 

It came again, louder, crushing menace in its tone. Two piercingwhistles cut it short, and some huge, unearthly creature crashed outfrom the darkness toward the place where they stood. A roar of cannonseemed to tear their ear-drums--another--and another--everywhere aboutthem. With one mind five hundred imaginative workmen dropped theirweapons from nerveless hands and fled, bumping, tumbling, fighting eachother. A voiceless flow of chaotic clamour marked their course towardthe camp. 

Koppy, teeth gnashing, threw up his hands and slunk into the darkness. 

And from the shadows moved one solitary Indian and his squaw, oneinoffensive little broncho, one great mongrel Russian wolf hound. 

"Phew!" breathed the Indian, as he snapped his rifle shut and reachedup to fondle the horse's ears. 

CHAPTER XXII

NIGHT--AND THE MYSTERIOUS SPEEDERS

Big Jim Torrance sighed happily. He was thinking of the orders he hadissued for the commencement of the fill-in. In the definition thusgiven to the task he found the most effective silencer of every fear. 

Supply trains had multiplied of late, but not the heaviest had made somuch as a visible tremble in the trestle; and he should know, for hewatched with bated breath and expert eye. Even the crews were teasingthat they hoped once more to see home and mother. Torrance acceptedtheir banter with a pleased grin, and hurried to tell it word for wordto Tressa and Adrian. 

Yet as darkness fell flashes of the old restraint held him silent andwondering. The solitude of the northern evening was making him a bitfrightened of his success. Removing the old calabash pipe from hislips, he expectorated thoughtfully toward the grade. 

Just within the door Tressa sat as silent as her father. In all hersilent moments now she was building, building. Conrad--home--a fatherfar from the harsh influences of this rough life where man fought manas well as nature, and quite as brutally. The rapping of her father'spipe against the doorpost interrupted her dreams. 

"On Thursday!" he said. "I've spoken to Murphy. There'll be fourballast trains here on Saturday, two working each way. Another tendays will see the thing through. The big cutting at Mile 135 will havea steam scoop to fill a train in a few minutes; it's a solid gravelbank there, they say. We'll lift the heart out of it and put it tobeat in that trestle of mine to the end of time. "

He laughed proudly, with a touch of sheepishness at the unaccustomedmetaphor. 

"Then we'll go--home, " she murmured. 

In his blundering way he understood, and stooped to pat her bent head. 

"'Home!'" he whispered. "'Home!' If your mother could be here! . . . I know what she'd say. 'Jim, ' she'd say, 'you've done well. ' . . . I'd like to hear it, little girl. 'Jim. '"

"Is it so much nicer than 'daddy'?" she asked jealously; she had hadthis big loving man so long to herself. 

He dropped to the doorsteps and reached back to throw an arm over hershoulders. 

"Some day, little girl, you'll know what the one voice, the one word, means. . . . If I were dying, 'Jim' would call me back--as it seems tocall me on---from somewhere now. . . . 'Jim. '"

Conrad found them thus, the man's great arm laid lightly across thegirl's shoulders, her head sunk in his neck; both staring through thedusk to the mazy tangle of timbers that had been their season's care. The foreman silently drew a chair to the other side of the girl andtook her hand in his. 

Presently Torrance stirred, diving into his pocket in search of ahost's tobacco pouch. 

"Thursday, " he said, handing it to Conrad. 

Conrad nodded. 

"And in three weeks we'll be going home, " murmured Tressa, --"goinghome--only three weeks!"

A gentle birr, like the distant note of a toneless beetle, insinuateditself into their dreams. They had heard it for seconds withoutnoticing, rising and falling on the night breeze. 

Almost together the two men jerked their heads up to listen; Tressafelt their arms tighten about her. Through the darkness they straineddown the track to the east, their hearts thudding almost audibly. 

The sound swelled--swept toward them out of the night. Swiftly it grewto dominate the darkness, echoing through the forest. It became a roar. 

"Chug--chug--chug--chug!" but in such a swiftly throbbing stream as tobe almost a steady torrent of sound. 

Torrance leaped to the grade and stood, a heroic figure outlinedagainst the dim sky, struggling to pierce the mystery with his eyes. 

"Speeders!" he jerked, in a breathless whisper. "Two of them, andgoing like hell! The rifle--quick!"

Then suddenly, not a mile away, it ceased, dying to silence in a fewpanting chugs, leaving the void a crash of silence. Not a breathnow--it was like a nightmare. Even the camp was listening. 

They heard each other's breathing catch, but that was all. Back in thelocked stable the two horses snorted with fear; the strain had reachedeven them. 

A short ten minutes of awful waiting. Then "chug--chug--chug!" again. With fantastic rapidity the warm engines picked up to racing speed. Torrance swung his head incredulously toward Conrad. 

_The speeders were going the other way now. _

The contractor stumbled to the shack like a blind man and sank in achair. 

"My God!" he breathed. 

Three miles down the track, in what remained of a deserted end-of-steelvillage, Sergeant Mahon sat in his shirt sleeves, smiling across thecorner of a table into the eyes of his wife, the only white woman, except Tressa Torrance, within a day's hard ride. 

Of the village that ten months before covered a life as fevered as itwas unclean, only the Police barracks remained in repair, since lifehad passed the rest by and forgotten it. The ill-defined streets, incorporated as a part of the plan of the original village only becausethe helter-skelter builders knew no other plan for a village, were moreill-defined than ever because less used. Where nothing but pedestrianspassed, where the "Mayor" was merely proprietor of the leadingdance-hall, where there was no to-morrow, there had never beenside-walks. Now the space from ruined shack to tumble-down shop wasovergrown with weeds. Yet down the length of it, meandering drunkenlyto avoid butts of stumps as solid as the day they were axed, andsteering clear of creeping decay in the buildings themselves, a narrowpath felt its way. 

The two Policemen were not the sole occupants of Mile 127, as thevillage had been known in its day. Murphy's train crew, lessparticular than the Mounted Police, had satisfied themselves with minorrepairs to the most reputable of the shacks. Murphy himself, and hisforeman friend 'Uggins, more exclusive even than the Police, had drawntheir skirts aside from anything savouring of the swift but gay life ofthe days of grade construction, and erected for themselves a tent wherethe only real comfort was the opportunity it gave to sneer at theirmore lowly companions, and a fond but scarce justified hope that theywere immune from the torments of formerly inhabited buildings. Murphyopenly scored anything "any damned bohunk ever scratched himself in, "and, after days of quarreling with 'Uggins about a site, during whichthey struggled miserably along beneath separate ground-sheets, a commontent was decided upon far from the former selection of each and closeto the new siding where "Mollie, " the engine, slept at nights. 

Helen Mahon was smiling back into her husband's eyes, shyly buthappily, for she was proud of him--proud, too, of the loving littletrick she had played on him by riding up to the barracks only a coupleof hours ago, when he thought her still in Medicine Hat. Having beenmarried to him only a few months, she was still a little shy with herhappiness. 

"Helen, " he exclaimed for the tenth time, "I don't believe it's true. Williams is going to dig his heel into me and tell me I'm snoring. Ialways do when I dream. "

"And you don't like dreaming?" she asked slyly. 

"As a dream, " he corrected, "it's a ripper. At the same time I'd liketo have some help to realise it. How did you manage it? Of courseevery one knows you have Inspector Barker in the hollow of your hand, but there were others to win over. "

She gurgled joyously and seized his hand to press it against her cheekand nibble lovingly at the finger tips. 

"Inspector Barker did it all. He's got a way with him, and I just madehim pull the wires right up to the Commissioner, I guess. Anyway, hereI am, and there's nobody defied by it. I suppose they reckoned thatany wife who thinks enough of her husband to travel two days by train, then two more on horseback, is worth encouraging for the salvation ofhis soul. To sum up: I'm here for a month, if you'll let me stay. "

The laugh with which he greeted it was not so free and spontaneous asshe hoped to hear. "In less than that, " he said fervently, "I hopewe'll be back in Medicine Hat. Torrance is giving orders to start thefill-in, and there won't be more than two or three weeks after that. Truth to tell, there are lots of other reasons than home that make mewant to get out of it in a hurry. It isn't that we have much todo--too little, indeed; I'd grow rusty and evil-tempered with anotherseason of this--but I confess to a great mental blank in consideringthe bohunk . . . And I've no ambition to understand him better. Themore I know him, the more I think Providence was experimenting withoutencouragement when he created a few of those Continental countries thatsend their scum over here to build railways. Really there hasn't beena thing happen since I came worth writing about. Of course there arestrange little incidents--"

He broke off abruptly and his head went up. From the east drifted apurring sound that swelled with startling speed. Faster than theirthoughts, it grew to a roar. Helen was alarmed. 

"Only gasoline speeders, " he explained. "You must ride on one. Torrance has a rather grubby specimen. They're the wildest form ofslimpsy-skimpsy flight you ever saw. About forty miles an hour, withjust a board and a tremendous sputter between you and the flying rails. It makes your hair curl, yet you look forward to the next time. "

Lightly as he spoke, he had risen to his feet and gone to the doorway. 

"Some of the big moguls of construction, I suppose, " he shouted backabove the echoing din. "Perhaps to pass on Torrance's trestle beforethe fill-in commences. Holy mackinaw! they're scorching. I ought toarrest them for exceeding the speed limit. . . . They're withoutlights, too!" he exclaimed suddenly. 

Two dim objects flew past in the darkness like shadows, not forty yardsaway, a space of less than fifty yards between them. 

"They must be drunk!" he muttered. "They're taking awful chances torun as close as that at such a speed. Look as if they're loaded. Rushstuff, I suppose, for the line further west. . . . I hope they don'ttry to take Torrance's trestle at that gait; it would be an awfulplunge. " He returned thoughtfully to the table. "First time I've seena speeder along here, except Torrance's and the contractor's at Mile190. . . . I don't understand it. "

Helen closed the door firmly. The roar dimmed into the trees. 

"This is my night, " she declared. "What you don't understand aboutrailway construction doesn't need to be worried about. Anyway they'regone. It isn't often a man's wife drops in on him from four days ofwandering, when he thinks her two hundred miles away as the crow flies. "

He looked about the room with an apologetic smile. "It isn't the placeI'd choose to bring you to, Helen, though Williams has done a lot inthe couple of hours since you arrived. It doesn't seem the same oldroom. If you'd believe me, he wants four days off to scare up someluxuries worthy of the event down at Saskatoon . . . And I can'tconvince myself it's part of our duties. He got quite huffy when Irefused. That's the worst of marrying a woman every man falls in lovewith. The only redeeming feature is that we've lots of room; there'sbedroom space enough for half Medicine Hat--though I wouldn't recommendit to my friends. . . . I believe bohunks do bathe--they must have ahuman trait or two--but I've never happened to see it. The nearestapproach was two semi-civilised fellows down at the river one eveningsheepishly dipping their hands in the water and wiping them on adiscarded shirt. And shirts aren't discarded here until they're pastwearing. It wasn't promising for results, but it showed good will. "

He pushed across a plate of abnormal raspberries. "Try another sample. Our mutual friend, 'Uggins, hand-selected them from a thousand miles ofladen bushes. I believe he and Murphy almost came to blows over thembecause, after finding fault with the china in which they were to bepresented, Murphy contended that he knew a spot where larger ones grew. 'Uggins was undecided whether to look for the spot and give Murphy achance to forestall him, or to insult you by offering you something notreputed to be the best. "

She nibbled at the berries that, ever since the seed had been bornehither on the winds, had been reserved for birds and bears. But herhusband was not at ease. Twice in the next ten minutes he went to thedoor and listened up the track. 

"They must be stopping at Torrance's, " he said, throwing wide the doorand leaning against the side as he talked. "It'll make someexcitement, at any rate, for a nice little girl who's going a bit toseed. No . . . They're coming back!" He paused to listen, his browwrinkling. "That's quick work, whatever they did. "

The roaring putter was rushing back toward them at a speed that soundedfoolishly desperate. 

"There's no sense in going like that, " he said irritably. "I wonderwhat they were doing. I'll find out. "

He ran into the darkness and stood on the track between the rails, flashing an electric torch toward the approaching speeders. But theycame on without a sign that they saw. He shouted. Fifty yards awaythe noise of the engines burst into a louder torrent of sound, and hehad but time to leap out of their way as they whizzed past, the secondspeeder so close to the first that he could do nothing to stop it. 

Before Mahon, thoroughly angry, could think of anything worth doing, Helen stood beside him, thrusting into his hand his Police revolver. Almost with the touch he fired above the retreating speeders. 

Two spurts of flame jabbed at him through the darkness in reply, andMahon jerked his wife to the ground. 

"I think, dear, " he said, as he gravely lifted her to her feet, "thatyou shouldn't have come. "

CHAPTER XXIII

RIFLES!

Mira and Blue Pete rested on the ground in the shadows of the clump ofspruce that concealed the entrance to their cave, watching the flickerof the setting sun on the smooth surface of the sluggish river. Exceptfor moccasins and blankets they always wore now the Indian disguise inwhich Torrance and his friends knew them. In the semi-darkness of thetrees the old corncob pipe sparked rapidly, sweeter to the halfbreedthan nectar, for Mira had held the match that lit it. 

Night after night he was content to sit like that, her small handcuddled in his; but in the evening hours there were so many things todo toward the fulfilment of their dream. 

"Jest a coupla weeks more, Mira, " he murmured. "Mebbe a few dayslonger. "

"And the last two horses?"

"I'll git 'em somehow. It gits harder every time the bohunks dothings, 'cause somebody's allus watchin'. But I never was fooled yet, an' no tenderfoot's goin' to start. . . . Only I don't want noshootin'. "

"Perhaps he'll sell now when the time's so near. "

Blue Pete laughed mirthlessly. "Yuh don't know Torrance. He said hewudn't, an' that's better'n a million dollars to him. "

"But you think he's going to give them to us when he's through?"

She leaned forward anxiously to catch a glimpse of his swarthy face inthe dim light, and he did not reply until he had considered it. 

"If I was sartin! But if, when I'd lef' 'em to the las' minute, if hetook it in his head to pull out with 'em! I dassent take no chances. I gotta have them horses. "

He knew by her silence that she was contemplating the possibility offailure. 

"If yuh say so, Mira, mebbe I cud git myself to take 'em now an' pullout. "

She was fighting the stern battle which in his innocence he had rousedin her hungry mind, and for a moment he trembled for the result. Vaguely he felt that he had done something unfair in shifting theresponsibility to her shoulders, but whatever her answer he knew whathis duty was; and only her wishes could drown that duty. 

"Bert is waiting for us down in the Hills, " she sighed, not to unsettlehis convictions but merely as a fact to be considered. 

"Mebbe yuh'd bes' run down an' tell him we'll be a while yet, " hereplied, understanding her perfectly. "I don't see no way out neither. I'll come 'long soon's I can. Whiskers an' me can git the horses down. "

She gurgled softly into the darkness, and clasped his arm with both herhands. Nothing more was necessary. A thrill ran through his bigframe, and almost reverently he pressed his dark cheek against her hair. 

Thus they sat, until the gleam faded from the water and only a dim glowremained; and the pale sky peeped down through the trees with the chillof a clear moon. High up in the unseen trails of the air a flight ofwild geese honked its weary way southward, and the halfbreed read thewarning of approaching winter. Some creature splashed into the waterstraight before them with a noise that awakened the forest echoes anddeepened the enveloping silence afterwards. Juno lifted her head andsniffed, and nosed into her mistress. She longed to get into the openand howl, and this was how she fought the instinct. Deepest peaceclosed down on them with the night. 

It was Juno heard the speeders first. With a faint whimper she liftedher ears and sniffed to the east. It was sufficient for Blue Pete. Inan instant he had picked out the purring sound and went back into thecave for blanket and moccasins and rifle. When he returned, thethrobbing was booming through the woods, though the grade was a mileand a half away, and the speeders miles more. 

At first he did not hurry. His move to closer quarters with theoncoming speeders was little more than instinct. He had no reason tobe suspicious, but he always wanted to unravel the unknown that wastangible and audible and visible. If the speeders were going throughthere was no chance of his reaching the grade in time to satisfy hiscuriosity; if they were stopping at the trestle there was no hurry. With unerring sense he made straight for the trestle. 

As he walked along he was conscious of rising concern, of more thanordinary personal connection with the visitors, and in a minute or twohe was running in the long easy lope which carries the Indian overincredible distances in a space of time that challenges the ordinaryhorse. 

So that when the rattle of the engines ceased with suspicioussuddenness midway between the end-of-steel village and the trestle hewas not far from the grade. He deflected his course and presently, with scarcely deepened breath to show the speed at which he had come, he was watching from the shadows a strange scene. 

In a long line, soundless but for the hurried tramp of their heavyboots, dim figures emerged from the bush, lifted something from aspeeder, and disappeared the way they had come. The first speeder, already unloaded, stood awaiting its companion. Blue Pete saw at firstwithout grasping the meaning. Then a jangle of metal enlightened him. 

Rifles--that was what these men were carrying away!

For an agonised moment he felt unequal to the occasion. He knew in aflash what arms portended among these foreign devils. But it was toolate to do much to forestall it. One speeder load was gone, and thesecond was emptying fast. He might frighten the silent porters awayand perhaps capture the remainder of their burdens, but that would, atbest, rob them of a few dozen rifles, while scores--perhapshundreds--were by this time secure. And the bohunks would be warned. 

A plan developed. 

If only he had brought Mira! She could trail almost as well as he, andher wits were quick. Danger or no danger, if only Mira were there tohelp! On the trail of the last figure he crept, and the chug of theflying speeders roared back to him in diminuendo. 

The task he had set himself was an easy one. The man he followed, clumsy and stupid, was anxious only to make speed. In among the treeshe led, though not far from the grade, and when at last he stopped andbegan to rustle among the leaves and dead boughs, Blue Pete knew he hadreached the end of the trail. Yet even as the man worked feverishlythe halfbreed visualised the spot; and he knew no great cache could bethere. It puzzled him, alarmed him. 

When the man was gone, and Blue Pete feverishly tore away the brush andleaves, he realised with a pang of shame and alarm how he had beenoutwitted. The rifles had been removed armful by armful. And armfulby armful they had been hidden, each in its own hiding place. Therewas no common cache to rob, no possibility now of laying hands on thelot. 

In deep dejection the halfbreed returned to the cave with his burden. Mira met him at the door without even a murmur of surprise. And as hedumped the load noisily on the stone floor, she pointed to anotherlittle pile in a distant niche. 

"They've beat us, Pete. It was Werner I trailed. I just banged himover the head with a stick and he dropped everything and bolted. "

And Blue Pete chuckled. He could see only one picture: Werner, runningand tumbling through the forest, squealing with more fright than pain, preparing as he ran a tall story for his leader. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHEMES OF A LEADER

Ignace Koppowski, lazily rolling a cigarette, stood before his shack onthe hill, apparently absorbed in the camp scene at his feet. Inreality he was watching Torrance and Conrad watching him from the shackbeside the trestle. After a time he returned inside, picked up his hatfrom the bunk and, rolling another cigarette, strolled out, pulling thedoor behind him. 

From the shaded side of the hut he put his fingers to his nose andwaggled them in the direction of the grade, then he climbed backthrough the window. Inside, every vestige of impudence deserted him. A grave frown puckered his forehead as he seated himself thoughtfullyon the solitary chair to sit like a statue staring at the floor. Certain sudden twistings of his clumsy frame revealed the vagrantmeanderings of his mind, now satisfied and determined, now uncertainand reflective. Plainly it was a mind that refused to settle. 

Thus he missed the first three low taps on the wall of his hut. Whenit was repeated he jerked his head nervously, stared for an appreciablemoment at an upper corner of the room, gripped his fists and teeth, andwhispered a soft response. 

Werner's head appeared in the window space, smiled, pushed through, followed by a scrambling body. After him came Morani, Heppel, andeighteen villainous-looking companions. Werner, first to enter, asusual, selected the bunk, throwing himself on it with a cunning smile. He always thought too quickly for the others. His companions litteredthe floor, Koppy retaining the seat of state. Twenty-two vile-featuredconspirators gathered in solemn conclave. 

A twenty-third, not so vile-featured but swarthier of skin, sank softlyagainst the logs at the rear of the shack, one ear pressed to a chink. 

"You've gone the rounds?" demanded Koppy, probing each face in turn. 

One of the men spoke hesitatingly: "Simoff's rifles gone. We findplace--all gone. "

Koppy turned on him. "Sure?" He knew the craven hearts and becloudingimaginations of these companions of his. 

"We saw marks. It was the place. "

The frown on their leader's forehead deepened, and for a long time hewas wrapped in thought. "Yours, too, Werner!" he muttered, shaking hishead. 

Werner read censure into the three words. "That dirty redskin caughtme a clump on the coco from behind, and then a whole lot of Indiansjumped on me. See, there's the lump. " He felt tenderly of the crownof his head, but made no advance to enable his friends to verify hisclaim; it was too sore for that. "I just dropped. When I came round, the rifles were gone. "

"You saw the Indian?"

"Sure I saw him. " In time he recalled the darkness and added hastily, "with my nose. You can't fool this guy when an Indian's within a mile. I know when they're inside the township. I guess I ought to: I used tosteal with 'em, out further west, trapping we was--or stealing from theother fellow's traps. Smell 'em? Well, I guess. "

"Do you smell one now?" asked Koppy suddenly. 

Twenty-one pair of eyes went swiftly to the window. Blue Pete, at hischink behind the shack, held his ground, but his muscles were tense. 

Werner grinned at the little joke. 

"There ain't much chance to smell anything else with this bunk of yoursunder my nose. When they burn this shack down--and they got to ifthey're going to live in the country--somebody's going to beasphyxiated. I hope I'm five hundred miles away about then. "

Koppy, struggling with anger and scorn, frowned on the would-behumourist, who hastily grinned. 

"Course you know it's only a joke of mine, Koppy. "

"Better so, " returned the leader coldly. "Many Indians about?" He wassearching Werner's eyes. "You saw--or smelt them. "

Werner wilted under that stare. Volubly he struggled to support hisstory with convincing details, but his face was flushed and his eyeswere anywhere but on his leader's. And Koppy smiled inscrutably. 

"Anyway, we still got ninety-two rifles, " stammered Werner. "Thatsurely ought--"

Koppy struck him to sudden silence by a peremptory hand. "You talk toomuch, " he said acidly. 

"Just let me fire the first shot, that's all I want, " babbled Werner, reading the disfavour under which he rested. "I'll blow the wholebunch to hell. "

Morani's long knife passed slickly back and forth on the side of hisboot; and they watched with staring eyes. A dirty, moistened fingertested the keen edge, the dark, cruel face lit up with satisfaction, and the weapon slid unobtrusively out of sight somewhere in theItalian's clothing. 

Werner shuddered. "It's a wonder your vittles don't sour on yourstomach, Chico. Every time I dream I can feel that stiletto spidingdown my spine. "

And then, by a stealthy, apparently innocent movement, the knife wasout again, sliding along the leather of the boot. 

"If you don't put that sticker where it belongs, " protested Werner, "I'm going to carry a gun. I suppose you got to be carving something. Well, go out and tackle a log. You was brought up on a knife insteadof a spoon. "

"Saturday night!" Koppy announced suddenly. 

"Er--what's that?" Werner had straightened on the bunk and wasregarding his leader with fearful eyes. "Ah--yes--Saturday night. Butdon't you think a week from now, say next Tuesday--"

"Saturday night, " repeated Koppy. 

"If you wouldn't be so swift, Koppy, I was going to point out that themoon will be darker a few days later. I'm a regular nightingale whenit comes to the dark. "

"Some bird!" sneered Koppy. "Maybe you flew from the Indians. "

"Look here, old chap, " Werner bridled, "you don't think I ran aboutlooking for that Indian and threw the damn things at him?"

"You run-a spry away from him, " jeered Morani. 

Werner made a furious movement, but noticed the Italian's knife-hand intime. 

"I wish to blazes I'd run spryer before he hit me. Anybody's welcometo this knob on my nut. Trouble was I was too heavily armed to fight. Ask me my private opinion and I'd say Mavy's brought his tribe down tobother us. I'm game to butt up against anything that wears boots. Butthem Indians don't even wear pants--not what you'd notice. "

"Indians got-a you--they wear pants, no?" leered Morani. 

Koppy interrupted what promised to develop into a row. 

"At one o'clock Saturday night, " he announced in a loud voice. "Tillthen no touch rifles. Say nothing till the day. That's all. "

He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. The half breed liftedhimself from the ground behind the shack and slunk away. 

Half the conspirators were already through the window when Koppy made amovement of his hand toward the camp. Creatures of his will, theyobeyed without a word and wound away, later to drop down to the camp. Koppy followed. Straight through the unkempt cluster of buildings theywent until they were out in the open river bottom far from the nearestgroup of gamblers, who turned dull eyes on them between plays. 

Koppy seated himself and waved to his followers to do the same. Up atthe end of the trestle the light from the boss's shack twinkled throughthe gloom. Close beside them the gurgle of the waters was soft andsoothing, and the colour-touched clouds above the setting sun cast anunreal glow over the edges of the river bank. Koppy moved his eyesabout uncomfortably on the day's good-night. The mumblings of Wernerbrought him to the task in hand. 

"We attack to-morrow night at midnight!" he announced. 

A gasp went up from the lips about him. Fanatic and bloodthirsty asthey were, the imminence of the ordeal that was to requite their wrongsstartled them. Their preference was to curse their bosses and spurothers to dangerous revenge. In moments of carefully developedhysteria they were reckless enough--when the hour came they wouldprobably go forward blindly, with the foolhardiness of theignorant--but Koppy's methods to-night were singularly unenflaming. 

Werner expressed himself first:

"Like hell we do!"

Koppy ignored their agitation; for some reason he did not choose toexercise then the petty arts of the leader. 

"Perhaps some one hear up there, " he explained, jerking an impatientthumb toward the shack they had left. "I fool him. "

"You fool us, too, " grumbled Werner. 

"To-morrow night at midnight we strike. Boss asleep, everybody asleep. Police asleep, too. Sure thing!"

"I be blowed!" Werner snarled to himself. "Here I been counting on aweek or so to live--or make a getaway. Now I'm to be shot at midnight!A dog would get a fairer chance. "

"At supper to-morrow tell the men, " ordered Koppy. "Morani getdynamite. Werner take ten men and watch Mr. Conrad--perhaps a knife. Heppel tear up track and stop Police. Lomask take ten rifles back ofboss's shack. Hoffman smash boss's speeder. One-Eye Sam takerock-hogs to trestle. Dimhoff cut wires. "

Silence was over the group. Even in their trepidation the completenessof their leader's programme over-awed them. Werner alone, driven byhis fears, forgot to await the formal dismissal that was the mainfeature of the ritual, and started away. Koppy waved him back angrily. 

"One thing--remember!" He glared about on them. 

"There's a hundred and one I'm trying to remember before I kick thebucket, " murmured Werner. "But all I seem to get is a picture of athousand bullets meanderin' about loose to-morrow night in the dark atmidnight, and the worst of them's not going to be going away from us. "

The leader closed the mouth of the fearful one with a look. 

"Remember"--the grimness of Koppy's tone was a threat--"the girl'smine. "

"First catch your fish, " muttered Werner. 

"All the others, kill. But the girl--must not--be hurt! Understand?"

"Not till you get your ugly paws on her!" said Werner with asignificant leer. 

CHAPTER XXV

BLUE PETE AND WHISKERS TO THE RESCUE

All the way back to the cave Blue Pete pondered over the situation. The attack was four days off. There was little time if the I. W. W. Plans were to be defeated with certainty and completeness. Reinforcements must be brought from other Police posts--therein alonelay certain safety. 

The halfbreed hesitated before the idea of more Mounted Police aboutuntil he had completed his work; and they might be summoned any time bywire from the gravel pit at Mile 135, where a ticker had just beeninstalled for the work of filling in the trestle. Also he pausedbefore the indignity of calling in reinforcements to defeat a lot ofblundering fools and cowards. Deep within him was the conviction thatnothing more was required than his own unerring rifle. Only the matterof those ninety-two rifles and the presence of Tressa Torrance forcedhim to consider the situation worthy of prolonged thought. He decidedto take the night to think it over. To-morrow after dark would beample time to carry out any plan that seemed wise. 

The result of a wakeful night was the decision to carry the story toTorrance and leave the rest in his hands. That plan, too, fitted inwith certain undefined ambitions of his own. He did not want thePolice to know far enough ahead to nip the whole affair in the bud. Blue Pete loved a scrap; he had also certain definite debts to pay toKoppy, and the thought of a lot of bohunks within range of a licensedrifle made him smile happily. An inborn decency craved to teach thesebrutes decency in the only way he knew. 

All day long he fought a crowding impatience. He had early come to thedecision to keep Mira in the dark. She would take the threatenedattack more seriously than it deserved, and perhaps forestall hisplans--probably run to the Police right away. Besides, he did not wanther to be involved in the battle that promised. 

Certain fantastic schemes popped in and out of his head during the day, and one of them he discussed with Mira, without letting her know itsimmediate origin. If he shot the leaders of the bohunkshimself--picked them off from hiding, as he easily could--trouble wouldcease. The work would run through to completion with greater certaintyand speed, and he and Mira would be starting back for freedom in afortnight. But Mira killed the plan in a few words; Blue Pete was everapt to ignore the law in his dislike of certain forms of lawlessness. 

At one stage he thought it would be sufficient to appear at Torrance'sshack just before the attack and add his rifle to the defence. 

On the other hand, were the story taken to the Police they would ignoreeverything in the pursuit of the leaders of the promised battle; andthat might well mean the postponement of the completion of the trestleto the following summer. And Blue Pete could not face that. Besides, those rifles must be captured. 

The halfbreed accordingly determined to make his report to Torrance, and if the contractor treated it too lightly, he could then inform thePolice. 

With that in view he set out late in the evening for the trestle. Hehad delayed until the shadows were deep enough to protect him fromprying eyes. Mahon's evident suspicions demanded extra precautions inapproaching the shack. For no reason of which he was conscious hechose to follow the edge of the river bank. 

By the time he reached the height overhanging the camp the lightedcanvas and open doorways were brilliant spots in the darkness. Yetinstantly he experienced a feeling of discomfort. And feelings likethat were always his guiding motives. He could not explain the causeof his worry, for the sounds of camp life seemed little less thanusual, but he paused a long time above the dotted scene, eyes and earsalert. Feverishly he sought Koppy's shack. When he found it empty, the light burning and the door open, he dropped back into the shrubberyand began to climb swiftly downward toward the camp. He knew now thatmore lights than usual burnt there, that the few discordant instrumentsstrumming and blowing were overexerting themselves. Certainly thebohunks were not in bed. 

Crawling rapidly about, avoiding patches of light, a thrill like fearflooded him. With a stifled exclamation he leaped up and retraced hissteps to the higher level, climbing with the assurance and agility of amountain goat. 

No longer did he think of silence. The lifelong instinct fell from himlike a cloak. Speed--speed--that was everything. When the treesclosed him in he realised that he was not alone. Other moving formseverywhere enabled him to run openly. 

A group came toward him, and Blue Pete threw himself flat. And as theypassed he caught their outline against the lighter western sky, wherestill remnants of day lingered. 

Every one carried a rifle!

He waited for nothing more. As he had never run before he sped throughthe bush, bearing due south-east toward the deserted end-of-steelvillage, avoiding trees and fallen logs with uncanny ease. Some heardhim and paused in their course, but they were keyed up to serious work, and there were so many of their friends abroad. Probably a messengerof their leader's on pressing duty. 

Half a mile to the east Blue Pete pulled up. Two piercing whistles hesent in rapid succession into the night, and in a moment repeated them. Then he resumed his running, shifting direction toward the grade, wherethe course would be clearer. At intervals he whistled the shrilldouble blast. 

Many a bohunk heard the whistle and shivered without knowing why. Conrad, returning from the trestle down the long slope to his shack, stopped and wondered, though it was dim and far away by then. Koppyand his immediate friends lifted guilty heads and questioned eachother. Werner, nerves jangling, thoughtlessly pleaded the superioradvantages of next Tuesday; and then bethought himself and advised moreprecipitous action. Nothing within a day's hard ride could stop Koppynow--one hundred rifles against four or five. 

Blue Pete was running steadily now. Rifle hanging loose, he swung inand out among the trees as if every obstacle were limned in daylight. Early in the race he had discarded his blanket. His feet shrank fromthe rough way in their unaccustomed moccasins. Only once did hefalter: a vagrant thought pulled him up, to feel anxiously at hiscartridge belt. Smoothly, without panting, stooping in the loose lopeof the Indian, he swung along. 

He was whistling less frequently, conserving his breath for a possiblethree-mile race; but his head kept turning to listen. 

Presently a great sigh of relief, like a sob, fluttered between hislips. Almost at the edge of the clearing along the grade he sloweddown. 

And then, running so quietly, the ugly little pinto, Whiskers--themarks of the pinto long since gone before the half breed's doctoringhand--was cantering at his side. Without a break in his stride BluePete leaped to the bare back, one hand dropping to pat the arched neck. 

"Bully ole gal, Whiskers! I knowed yuh'd hear. Yer ears is allusskinned fer the whistle, ain't they--an' eyes like a cat's, same as yerboss, eh? Yuh got to git some now, ole gal. Yuh ain't had a real runfer so long mebbe yuh're gittin' a bit seedy, like me. Well, yuh got acoupla miles right on yer tip-toes. Git goin', ole gal. "

Close along the grade the little pinto lay low to its stride, and thehalfbreed's feet seemed to be brushing the ground as he leaned forwardto whisper encouragement in the flicking ears. 

CHAPTER XXVI

SERGEANT MAHON'S VISION

For the fifth time Sergeant Mahon and Helen had firmly expressed theirintention of retiring; the hour, they agreed, was unseemly, when nowweeks of almost unbroken association stretched ahead of them. Yet forthe fifth time they had failed to act on their convictions. 

For one thing they were impressed with the selfishness of retiring whilestill Constable Williams sat with never a flicker of sleep in his eyes. They owed him a lot for his attentions of the past few days, and therewere few opportunities of squaring the account. In the rude chair he hadsalved from the village wreckage the big fellow was content to sit to anyhour of the night, merely smoking and listening, face beaming, pleased asa child when he found something to say. For two years he had been lockedthere in the wilds, with never a woman but Tressa Torrance to whom hecould speak without a blush. And, looking into the clear eyes of Mrs. Mahon, he blushed a little now at memories of her predecessors in thatinfamous end-of-steel village--blond-haired, flashing eyed, bejewelled, strident voiced hussies who had worn out their welcome in society lessbase. 

For the sixth time Mahon consulted his watch and shook his headself-reprovingly. 

"Half-past eleven! Dissipation. And to-morrow we must dive deeper intothe records of those two speeders. I don't know that I'm quite fair, Williams, but I imagine Torrance hasn't been taking us completely intohis confidence, though he seems thoroughly stirred over this. They haveme guessing--the most unlikely things, even to some silly club wager. But there isn't a club within three hundred miles. I'm off to-morrow toMile 135. Torrance says the ticker is set up there. I want to talk toSaskatoon. "

Constable Williams shrugged his shoulders. "Those speeders were up tosomething they're not telling Saskatoon or any one else that we're apt toget any information from. "

"That's what I'm going to find out. They couldn't go far without beingseen, and they'd have to stick to the railway. There's still a gangclearing up at Mile 63, I think. "

"That was where I spent the night, wasn't it?" asked his wife. "There'san engineer there with his whole family and two women besides. It's along way to be from neighbours. "

"One never speaks of neighbours out here, Mrs. Mahon, " smiled ConstableWilliams. "It makes one homesick. It's so long since we had neighboursthat we've gone a bit rusty on the amenities of society. There's solittle we can do for the first woman--"

"Williams, you're fishing. " Mahon shook his head affectionately at hissubordinate. "If you'd heard my wife this morning--"

"If you don't mind, dear, " interrupted Helen, "I prefer to give my ownthanks. "

"But you just said this morning you couldn't--"

"Don't try, please, " said Williams, with a grin. He drew a sigh. "Isuppose now I ought to forego a selfish pleasure and let you go to bed. If I could only look sleepy! But I feel as if bed were an interruption, a nasty, bad-dispositioned, irritating kill-joy. And you'll be heavywith the chloroform of this rare air. Ah, me! Just when life begins--"

"It won't go down, Williams, " teased Mahon. "The air up here has nothingon Medicine Hat. Not even its wildest booster would claim for the Hatthe poison of a manufacturing town. Meteorologically it must be as farfrom civilisation as Mile 127. The worst up here is trying to competewith the sun in the matter of sleep. In the summer one would get aboutthree hours; in the winter there wouldn't be time to prepare meals. Winter must be eerie. Even now I scent it--"

He shifted suddenly in his chair. Then with a dash he and Williams werecrowding through the open door with drawn revolvers. 

Through the night came the thunder of racing hoofs. 

Mahon knew that speed. Many a time he had ridden thus, the windwhistling past his ears and the horse's mane flicking his stinging face. He knew, too, that a master-hand directed the horse he heard. 

Without a word the two Policemen separated and dropped into the shadowson either side of the shaft of light from the doorway. 

"Go into the other room, Helen. " Mahon's order was sharp and low. 

On came the racing horse, the pound of its hoofs echoing through thetrees like the charge of a troop, filling the vast silence with piercingfancies. Echo and hoof-beats grew louder and louder; there was no othersound. At the edge of the village the horse turned from the clearingalong the grade into the main street, and the echo, sharpened now bycrowding walls, sent the blood tingling through the Sergeant's veins. 

Over the pounding hoofs broke a muttering voice. 

In another five seconds the horse would cross the shaft of light. Mahonand Williams raised their guns. The former edged out toward the narrowpath. He had no thought of warning the man--he wished to see him dashinto that shaft of light, that eyes might come to the aid of ears. Another moment. . . . 

With a slithering of hoofs the horse pulled up in mid-flight at the veryedge of the beams. A voice, husky with anxiety, shouted:

"Sergeant, Sergeant Mahon! Quick! For God's sake!"

At the first sound Mahon felt the blood rush to his head. His kneesshook. His left hand groped to his forehead. Then he wrenched himselfback to his duty. 

"What is it?" His voice was quiet, but he avoided the light. 

Slowly and soundlessly he was moving down the other edge of the light, revolver poised, eyes straining into the darkness beyond. In the dimfringe he made out the figure of a tall man leaning toward him, a pair ofIndian braids falling over his shoulders. Mahon's eyes moved on to thehorse. He started, and his teeth clicked. Surely there was somethingfamiliar. . . . But his brain was tumbling madly--he would not trust it. 

The Indian, blinded by the light, spoke rapidly:

"They're attackin'--right away--a hundred rifles--blow up thetrestle--kill the girl an' th' others!"

Neither the ride nor the run was making him pant like that. 

The Sergeant leaped across the light and struck. With digging heels theIndian swung the pinto on its hind legs, at the same time striking at theoutstretched hand. But he was too late. Mahon's open palm fell onWhiskers' rump, and in the very midst of rearing about she leaped forwardinto the light. 

Mahon rubbed his eyes. A wild laugh came to his lips. This was nopinto. No ugly blotches there--only a dead brown. Whiskers? Asridiculous as his other fancies of late. But it must be Whiskers' twinsister. 

The Indian and his horse were gone, racing back at full speed. Mahon ranto the barracks. Once more he was the Mounted Policeman. In the doorwaystood Helen. 

"Whiskers!" she breathed in an awed voice. 

"Blue--"

"Don't be foolish, " he scoffed. "You saw the broncho. Not a blotch onit. For God's sake, don't start my dreams again, Helen. "

Williams was already cramming his bandolier with cartridges and bucklingit over his shoulder. Helen seized a flashlight and hurried through theback door to the stable. In thirty seconds they followed. They saw herreappear--they heard her startled call:

"Gone!"

Mahon stared past her into the empty stalls. 

CHAPTER XXVII

AN IRISHMAN AND AN ENGLISHMAN

Constable Williams cursed fervently, forgetting Helen. It was his wayof rendering first aid. Mahon's mind was too busy for his lips. Therein lay the foundation of their respective ranks. In ten secondshe was running for the street. 

Throwing the flash ahead of him as he ran, he wriggled at top speeddown the winding path that led through the village; and ConstableWilliams stumbled behind. As the last of the deserted shacks fellbehind, a luminous spot ahead led them straight to Murphy's tent. Fromforty yards Mahon shouted:

"How long to get steam up, Murphy? It's life and death, and we needthe engine. "

A bewhiskered face thrust itself through the opening, carefully pullingthe flap below to cut off a fleeting glimpse of bare legs and looseshirt. 

"What ye take us for? Night nurses? Think we're taking shifts keepingMollie snuggled up warm o' nights? Go away and change yeer dhrinks. What's the hullabaloo anyway? Short o' tobacco? Or has the newesttenderfoot discovered the one lone flea in all this lousy village?"

"The bohunks are attacking the trestle! They've stolen our horses. "

Murphy asked no more foolish questions; he was busy with his overalls. 

"Dunno about getting you there right away, " he grunted, tugging at asuspender, "but sure the next instant. Glory be! ain't we afthergetting in late to-noight--and me blasting the hide o' me crew and oldman Torrance? And 'Uggins didn't draw the fires, he was that lazy andcantankerous himself--"

"Call the crew!" ordered Mahon. "We'll need them. "

"'Ere's 'Uggins, " said a small voice from the edge of the cot. 

The fireman was pulling on his second sock. He waited for nothingmore. Shirt flapping about his short legs, he ran into the night, shouting at the top of his voice. 

"Have you arms?" Mahon enquired of Murphy. 

"Wish I had about three more o' thim for this collar-button, " grumbledthe engineer before the mirror. 

"Have you a gun, I asked?"

"Well, " said Murphy carefully, "if ye're enquir-ring to enfor-rce thelaw agin carrying arms, nary a jack-knife even. If it's help ye nade, I guess we might be able to scrape up a shooter apiece. We lug 'emalong for ballast, ye understand, in the absence o' fire-water. Ifit's a foighter ye're talking like, ivery devil of a mother's son of uscan make a bang like a gun, with a bullet t'rowed in--though for meselfI prefer a shillalah. I'm going to be in this foight if I have to usea lead pencil. Ain't I Oirish?"

"For heaven's sake, let the collar and tie go!" groaned Mahon. 

Murphy turned a disgusted face on the Policeman. "Niver go into afoight excited-like. It's dangerous. I wouldn't enjoy meself if it'stoo scrambly a show. 'Tain't ivery day a fellow has a chance out hereto get into one. Anyway, 'Uggins has to get steam up. . . . Now I'mready for anything from dam-sels to any other damn thing. "

As they ran from the tent, the shacks the crews had taken to themselveswere bustling with activity. Four half-clothed figures, pulling onjackets as they ran, fell in behind them and made for the siding wheregreat gusts of flame revealed Huggins' frantic struggle with the engine. 

The half-naked fireman was firing recklessly, madly. Limitless drywood was at his hand, and from the live coals that remained from theday's work a mass of flame was already throwing heavy sparks againstthe smokestack guard. But Huggins was a fuming thing of cursingimpatience. Mouthing unlisted oaths, his wet shirt lashing against hisbare legs, he was repeatedly filling a small pail from a nearby barreland, standing on the cab steps, was tossing its contents into theblazing fireplace. Great gushes of fire roared out in response, revealing him, face streaming perspiration, lips moving ceaselessly, one sock hanging in tatters, already swinging about for the next pail. 

Murphy looked on in anxious admiration. 

"Holy smoke! Here I been wor-rking five years to get a hustle on thatEnglishman, and him arguing coal oil was made for wiping engines andlighting lamps and smelling up a grocery store. . . . That's what Icall a medal job. Anyway, " he added, as a greater gush than usualburst out and seemed to lick about the frantic fireman, "there ain'tmuch o' him to catch fire, if he don't tumble down them steps in time. . . . Poof! That must have been half the barrel. For the love ofMike!" he bawled, wiping the soot from his eyes, "Here, you crazy bat, go aisy. The cab'll be catching fire. "

"Garn!" yelled Huggins, reaching for a fresh supply. "Look arfter yerown blinkin' cab, yu blighter!"

"Blighter, is it?" Murphy was dancing excitedly about--until he got inthe fireman's way, to receive such a furious push that he wentsprawling on his back. He lifted himself to his feet as if somethingnew had entered his experience, and stood agitatedly chewing his beard. 

"When this foight's over, " he announced solemnly, "there's going to beanother that'll make the one at the threstle look like a Sunday Schoolpicnic; and Oireland's going to put England over her knee and spank theplace yeer shirt don't cover dacent. . . . Stop it, ye loon! Make apair o' pants o' the rest o' the ile and look respectable. Ye don'tseem to remember Mollie's sex. I'm ashamed o' ye. . . . Climb aboard, ye fools--and ithers. She'll do five miles on what she has, and inthree miles she'll be cutting' out twenty. . . . For the sake o' medead and buried mother, somebody sit on that barrel or we'll be oneshort in the foight! I got to work in this cab! He's gone daffy!He'll miss the fireplace some time and set the bush on fire!"

Huggins' blind haste was deaf to everything but the clang of thestarting lever and the grind of the big wheels. Grabbing the rail, heswung aboard, a half-filled pail clutched tight. And Murphy had onlytime to knock it from his hand to save the seven of them from one lastgush of flame. Huggins swore deeply, swept a black arm across hisdripping eyes, and leaned out to estimate their speed. 

Engine and tender chugged out from the siding. And Murphy leanedthrough the window and broke all traffic rules. 

"Jump on, ye loon!" he yelled to the brakesman standing by the openswitch. "Think I'm going to waste steam stopping for you?" Thebrakesman swung aboard. "All the specials are cancelled to-noight forthe foight. We got three miles o' clear track. Go on, Mollie!"

But he was wrong. Lack of steam pressure alone saved them. Murphy, staring ahead into the beam of the headlight, suddenly grabbed a leverin either hand, yelling a warning:

"Hang on, b'ys!"

The wheels scraped the rails. Mahon unsupported, fell against thefireplace but rolled clear without injury. There was a sickeningthump, and the engine sagged forward and stopped abruptly. 

"Missed it, be the powers!" snarled Murphy. "Another foot and we'dhave kept the rails. They've put one over on us. Bally fools we werenot to look for it. How far's the foight away, it's hoofing it we arenow. "

A sputter of rifle fire burst from the woods and bullets rattled on themetal of engine and tender. No one was hurt, and the two Policemensilenced the fire immediately by returning it with surprisingprecision. A yell from the darkness told of a nip at least. 

"Out behind the grade!" ordered Mahon. "I'll keep them down tillyou're covered. "

A blaze from the trees, and he fired twice at it in rapid succession. 

"And lave Mollie?" protested Murphy. "Not by a jugful!"

"To blazes with Mollie!" Mahon exploded, and threw the engineer throughthe cab door. 

Murphy slowly picked himself up. "I see two foights on afther thisone, " he declared joyously. "And I'll lick the bohunk that stops a oneo' thim, I will. "

"Somebody st'ys with the engine, any'ow, " muttered 'Uggins stubbornly. "'Ere, Murphy, we'll toss. "

"What good's that?" asked Mahon. "It's human lives we're savingto-night, not engines. "

"Gor lumme! Wots the use o' losin' the engine, too, I says. Any'ow, them rifles in there is more use to us 'ere than there at the trestle. An' I can't be savin' 'uman lives, women ones, in these togs. "

Murphy climbed back into the cab. His purpose was the innocent one ofletting off the rapidly accumulating steam; but Huggins was suspiciousand followed closely. 

"It's a toss, I tell yu, " he insisted. "'Ere, len' me a tanner; Iforgot my wallet. "

Murphy extracted a coin from his pocket, and Huggins opened thefireplace door for light. There were to be no tricks in this toss. Three bullets thudded into the metal about them, but Murphy and hisfireman were intent on a falling copper. 

Huggins pulled his shirt back from the sucking draft of the flames. "'Eads!" he called. 

The coin rattled to the floor and both men dropped to their knees. Another rifle tried for them. 

"An' 'eads it is. I st'ys. Any'ow, it's warmer 'ere. Blimey, if thempants o' mine wasn't somethink to blow about after all. Sometimes it'sthe wind, then it's the bloomin' fire. I'll keep a bit o' steam up;looks as if I'll maybe need a bath when I get 'ome. S'long, ole sport!Tell Miss Tressa--" He broke into a convulsive chuckle, which anotherburst of rifle fire tried to interrupt. "Cripes! Wouldn't I 'a' beena d'isy for rescuin' lidies? Not 'arf!"

The farewell of the two men who ceaselessly fought and loved each otherwas nothing more than a pat on the back, Murphy's the more exuberantbecause it smacked louder on the thin shirt of the fireman. Then thelatter was alone. "Mollie sends 'er love, " he called into the darknessafter the engineer. 

For several minutes Huggins searched the tender for a comfortable spotfor his unprotected body, but scratchy, knobby pieces of wood, with afoundation of sharp chunks of coal, was not conducive to rest. Abullet rattling against the engine added to his irritation, and helooked over the edge and fired his revolver petulantly. 

"That'll larn 'em I'm no blinkin' Irishman with a stick. "

He crawled painfully to the very back of the tender and fired again. 

"In case they thort the first was a misfire, " he growled, "or fright. "After a minute or two he began to grin. "Unless them bohunks is biggerfools than they need be, I guess yer friend 'Uggins is due for a rosywreath from his friend Murphy when the sky clears. "

He busied himself with a sputtering return fire to show he was stillalive and prepared to exchange compliments. Between intervals of avain search for something smooth and soft he expressed his feelings bya blind banging into the trees. At last he carefully wiped over thefloor, settled himself against the entrance to the tender, and began todoze. A bullet struck close to his ear. 

"Always the w'y, " he groaned, moving back to safer quarters. "There'sa fly in every hointment. An' we're as apt to 'it each other as awoman at a cokernut shy. "

A distant burst of firing came down the breeze from toward the trestle. Huggins leaped to his feet and climbed to the pile of wood, andrecklessly on to the top of the water tank. 

"'Urray!" he yelled, dancing in the cold night air and blazing threeshots into the woods. "The charge o' the light brigade! Waterloo!Lidysmith! The Camperdown an' orl the rest! Yu got no traditions, yusneakin' pups! If I 'it one o' yu yu'd think of nothink but thequickest w'y 'ome. "

A bullet whistled past either ear, and he tumbled back into the tender, barking several fresh places on his sore body. 

"Wots the use?" he growled. "They don't understand. . . . Lidysmithdon't 'elp none if they 'it me, though she's orl right for--fortradition. I better lie low an' stop gassin' 'istory. . . . Any'ow, 'Uggins wouldn't sound right in 'istory. "

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SIEGE OF THE SHACK

'Uggins' historical chatter was but a by-play. The others crept alongunder protection of the grade until they were clear of stray shots fromthe gang that had waylaid the engine. There they broke into a run, though Murphy complained bitterly at turning his back to a sure fightfor one that might never come off. Four hundred yards from the trestleMahon ordered them to wait. 

He had no idea what might be happening in and about the shack, but herealised that only within its walls was his small force formidable. Only he and Williams possessed rifles. The revolvers of the otherswere of small service except at closer range than was apt to offer. Heknew the bohunks well enough to feel certain that an attack at closequarters would be attempted only when defence was practically beatendown. 

The silence told him that no immediate danger threatened; he did notdoubt that the Indian was somewhere on guard. Uncertain, however, howclosely the shack was invested, he crept carefully forward toreconnoitre. 

It gave him time to canvass the situation. As far as the curve of theriver behind the shack were too few trees to cover serious attack fromthat direction. Probably the survey for the grade had chosen this lineof contact between prairie and forest because of the small expense ofclearing the right of way. 

It was certain, therefore, that the danger lay in front, where theforest across the grade, and the elevation of the grade itself, protected the besiegers. The bohunks would be slow to exposethemselves. Indeed, there was no need that they should, since escapewas impossible. Not only was there nowhere to flee, but without itsdefenders the trestle would be at the mercy of the I. W. W. 

Mahon did not trouble to speculate as to the end of the affair. Hisduty was to fight to the last, to protect life first and then the workof the contractors. Only when he remembered Tressa did his thoughtspass beyond the immediate future. Fortunately his wife, alone threemiles away, did not enter his mind as a matter for anxiety. 

Arrived within a stone's throw of the shack, and having heard no sound, he knew that his conclusions as to the disposition of the bohunks werecorrect. Swinging out wide of the grade, he skirted about in thedarkness in search of isolated prowlers. The stable was reachedwithout incident. 

The late moon was rising, low still but clear enough to throw a dimlight and touch the tops of the evergreen trees with a cold radiance sowild and pure that Mahon found it hard to believe in the perils urginghim on. In an hour the light would be strong enough to expose movementwithin the danger zone, though the size of the moon and a thin autumnmist limited it; and the low arc promised long shadows. Far to thesouth drifted the running echo of coyotes on the hunt, a shriek and ahowl that never failed to stir the Sergeant's blood though he had livedwith it for years. For a moment he longed for the old prairielife--the coyotes--the feeding cattle--the cowboys and the sweepingopen spaces. 

As he crawled from the stable to the back door a dim shadow moved roundthe corner of the shack and disappeared toward the trestle. Though nosound went with it, he was not alarmed. He challenged in a low voice. No reply. He stood erect to expose his uniform and called again. Butthe thing he had seen filtered into the vague moon shadows and was gone. 

Knocking at the door, he waited for a reply. Not a sound reached him, yet he felt that ears were listening. He tried the latch, found itcaught, and whispered his name. Immediately the door opened and TressaTorrance seized his arm. 

"All right here?" he enquired. 

"Where's Adrian?" Calm and undisturbed was the tone, but he could feelher hand tremble on his arm. 

"He'll be all right, " he replied cheerily. "No mere bohunk ever gotthe better of Adrian Conrad. Who went out just now?"

"The Indian. He's been waiting for you. "

"Oh!"

"Tell me, is it true--what he told us?"

"Only too true. They fired on us up the track. "

She heaved a deep breath. "That was what we heard. Nothing more. Iwas afraid--Conrad hasn't come. . . . And the Indian wouldn't let anyone leave the shack. "

He took her hands in his and held them tight. "Miss Torrance, much ofthe outcome of to-night depends on you. We're going to fight harderfor you than for everything else lumped together. I must ask you toforget Adrian for the time being. May we trust you?"

Her reply was a return squeeze to the hands that held hers. 

"I'll not flinch, " she said. "But I'm not giving up hope. "

He laughed. "Adrian will be proud of you. "

He dropped her hand and turned back to the door. "Lock it behind me, "he ordered. "In fifteen minutes exactly I'll knock twice. Openwithout a word. I have Williams and the train crew. "

He found his companions lying where he had left them. Certainunmistakable signs of life among the trees over the grade they hadheard, but that was all. Murphy was growling into the loose sandbeneath his chin. 

"Mother o' Mike! Why don't ye rush thim? There's bunches jist overthere. Fir-rst thing ye know they'll get away. A good scr-rap goingto waste, it is. And sure why are we lying here like a gang o'thieves? I got hould of a shillalah that fits me hand like a glove, glory be! The Lord put it there, He did. Sure He intinds me to useit. Mollie'd be ashamed o' me. "

"You'll have your stomach full of fighting before you're through, "promised Mahon. 

"Be gad, I don't belave ye know an Oirishman's appetite at all. "

"Keep low, " ordered Mahon, crawling forward, "and quiet. "

"The m'anest koind o' foighting I iver took a hand in, it is, " grumbledMurphy, shaking the sand from his whiskers. But he fastened his eyesto the dim movement of Constable Williams' heels and crawled after him. 

Thirty yards they had advanced on hands and knees, and Mahon wassearching for a depression to lead off back of the shack, when Murphywhispered huskily:

"Any chance up there, Sergeant, o' nading a gun? 'Cause I left mineback there. But, praise be, I got the shillalah, " he added brightly. 

Mahon sighed. "You idiot! Lord"--to Constable Williams--"I'll be gladwhen I have him locked in. . . . "

A string of muttered oaths told them of Murphy's return. 

"Another mouthful o' sand! Darn their hides! If iver I get me handson a bohunk in this wor-rld again--" He spat noisily. "And all for agun I don't know how to use. But it'll make a n'ise. Maybe it'll doto disthract their attintion till I get me shillalah swinging. "

Torrance received them with a burst of joy, shaking each by hand inturn, scarce knowing what he was doing. 

"Keep an eye on Tressa, " he cried, and made for the front door. 

Mahon grabbed him. "Here, they have that door covered. Conrad will beall right. Anyway, it's throwing yourself away searching for him now. "

"Conrad!" The contractor's bull voice was full of disgust. "Conrad tohell! It's the trestle. "

Mahon swung him away with a rougher thrust than was necessary. "Damnthe trestle! It's life we have to think of first. "

"But it's the trestle they want. They're only keeping us in here--"

"Do as you're told. I'm in charge. "

A rifle shot split the silence without. There followed a sharp cry ofpain and a fusillade from the trees beyond the grade. The Indian wasin action. 

"Praise be!" chortled Murphy. "Somebody got it where it hurts. ThatIndian, he's a man afther me own hear-rt. Oh, mother, for me shillalahabout the heads o' thim!"

Ten minutes of complete silence--fifteen. Murphy's impatience wasbecoming vociferous; he began to be jealous of Huggins up there withMollie, with a fight at hand any time he wanted it. Torrance wasscarcely less clamorous. 

Relief came from a second shot from beside the trestle. And after it acry as before, and a volley of wild firing. The Indian was wasting noshots; his night eyes were exacting toll. 

Mahon decided to investigate. Also he wished to meet the Indian--tohear his voice--to touch him. Leaving Williams in charge, withdefinite instructions as to Torrance and Murphy, he crept from the backdoor to the edge of the trestle. The Indian was not there. Mahonwondered how much of it was dream. Then the redskin was swept from hismind by the sound of life far below about the base of the trestle. Thebohunks were attacking there. 

He became aware of a strange creaking among the timbers reaching downinto the blind depths. Suddenly a spurt of flame from their midstdarted to the valley below. Mahon felt himself shiver at thedeath-shriek that replied. The Indian, somewhere far below his eye, was shooting now to kill. A dash of hasty feet told of momentarilydefeated plans. A storm of bullets rattled from the trees among thetimbers and whistled above Mahon's head as he lay under cover of thegrade. Then a new peril startled him. Three rifles cracked in rapidsuccession from behind the stable. 

For a moment Mahon thought of stalking them, but reflection decided himagainst it. It was a risk too great to justify exposing his life. Forall it would gain at the best he, in charge of the defence, must notundertake it. And there was really no extra danger to the shack, sinceit could not be taken from the rear. 

He wormed his way back more carefully through the kitchen door andreported what he had seen. Torrance, far from feeling gratitude forthe Indian's defence of the trestle, fumed that it should be left tothe care of any one but himself. In the midst of his grumbling thefirst bullets struck the shack. They penetrated door and window andembedded themselves in the rear walls. But Mahon had disposed of thedefenders with that peril in mind. 

Of the eight Constable Williams and Murphy were stationed in thekitchen, with its one window and door. In Tressa's room, the point ofleast exposure, two of the crew were established. Torrance and anotherof the crew held the contractor's bedroom at the front. The livingroom Mahon himself, assisted by the last member of the crew, took incharge. Tressa carried messages, under strict orders to avoid exposureto window or door. One man in each pair was told off to co-operatewith the defenders of any threatened point. 

The weakness of the defence was the number of rifles. Torrance hadtwo, the Policemen two. One rifle was given to each room; each of theeight had a revolver. Mahon was almost satisfied that the ammunitionwould last out any siege the bohunks were likely to undertake. 

A few minutes' contemplation of the stable exposure convinced him thatthe attackers could gain nothing there. To fire the stable would onlyrob them of the sole protection to the rear, and, with what wind therewas against it, fire would not spread to the house. 

Standing to the left of the living room window while he reflected, heimagined a movement far down the grade. Immediately he fired. FromTorrance's room came the thunder of his rifle. Evidently the bohunkswere crossing the grade in numbers. 

Thereafter nothing happened for half an hour but pointless anddesultory potting. It promised nothing to the attackers and thedefence was still intact. The windows were shattered, and by thetinkle of glass every picture and ornament in the room must have beensmashed. From the trestle the silence was broken only twice. TheIndian was saving his cartridges. 

Suddenly a burst of five shots in quick succession warned Mahon thatthe Indian was alarmed. Recklessly the Sergeant looked through thewindow. From just beneath the sleepers that held the rails a jabbingflight of flashes pierced the darkness, pointing along the edge of thebank above the path leading up from Conrad's shack. A pause of only amoment--the Indian was filling his magazine--then another burst of themost rapid firing Mahon had ever heard from one rifle. Not a shotreplied from the trees along the bank. 

Mahon was puzzled. Was a big attack forming? Did the Indian see somethreat of which those in the shack were unaware? Mahon issued sharporders for increased vigilance. But why shoot in that direction toward off concentrated attack?

The Indian's bullets continued to pour along the edge of the forest. 

Mahon saw the idea. For some reason the bohunks were being driventemporarily to cover. Something--

The moon had moved a little over the top of the dark mass of trees. The grade was lit up. Mahon's eyes ran back and forward along the twinbands of dimly reflecting steel. 

A man leaped to the top of the grade from the other side, swayed alittle, and plunged forward toward the shack. With the moon full onhim in that first moment he loomed unnaturally huge. In a bound Mahonreached the door and threw it open. 

"Conrad!" he shouted. "Quick!"

Adrian Conrad stumbled over the doorstep, laughed, and fell to thefloor. 

"'S all right, " he cheered with a mad laugh. "Haven't got AdrianConrad yet. Easy--there, Mahon! They've chewed me up--a bit--thatrifle at the trestle--saved me. " Then he fainted. 

A voice that jerked Mahon erect came grimly from the grade. 

"Shut that door, durn yuh! I can't keep 'em down all night. "

Mahon was obeying mechanically when the Indian dashed through. 

"Gor-swizzle, if he ain't the spunkiest chap I ever set eyes on. Jes'swaggered up that path like he was out fer a walk. . . . But plumbloco'ed! An' whistlin'! Oh, gor!"

The Sergeant leaned heavily against the table, staring into thedarkness toward the familiar voice. He knew he was dreaming again, that haunting grief for his dead half breed friend had mastered him atlast in a moment of excitement. 

A cry of alarm from Torrance's room, and a succession of rifle shots, brought him to his senses. He hastened to investigate. Torrance hadseen several men running across the grade. One dark lump on the groundgave proof. When he returned to the front room the Indian was stillthere. 

"Any spare cartridges? I'm about cleaned out. Jes' two left. Gottasave them. "

Mahon dropped a dozen in the extended hand. The Indian worked withthem in the darkness for a moment and slammed them on the table with acurse. 

"Shud 'a' knowed they wudn't fit. Where's Torrance's?"

But Torrance's likewise were the wrong size, and the Indian disappearedinto Tressa's room. The brakesman entrusted with a rifle in that roompaid no attention until a strong hand wrenched it from him. 

"Yuh'll hurt yerself, sonny, playin' with a real gun. Yuh can have allI shoot to eat. "

When he returned to the living room, Mahon laid a hand on his shoulder. 

"My God, who are you?"

A moment of silence, then: "Me Indian; no pale-face name. "

Torrance rushed from the bedroom. 

"Is that the Indian? Good Heavens! The trestle--the trestle!"

He had thrown wide the front door and gone before they could interfere. A hail of bullets came through. Keener eyes among the trees picked outTorrance's running bulk, but their eyes were keener than their aim. The contractor reached the grade and threw himself between the rails, and with head overhanging the abyss below stared through the sleepersinto the thinning darkness about the feet of his beloved trestle. 

Mottled clouds were dimming the moon. Mahon, peering from the window, could make out only the slight bulk above the rails that marked theplace where the contractor lay. A moment later a spot of light sankfrom beneath him--lower and lower, until it dropped beyond the edge ofthe bank. 

"Me go too, " muttered the Indian. 

A volley greeted the opening of the door, but the Indian chose themoment when it had dropped away and crawled out. 

Torrance was lying on his face, an electric flash dropping at the endof a long cord. As it fell, the bones of the trestle came into viewstage after stage and passed upward. 

The Indian chuckled. "Durn good!"

"Somebody's got to do something durn good, " Torrance returned sulkily. 

"Somebody looks as if he'll do some dyin' durn good. Yuh're a bitthick in the breadbasket fer them rails, ain't yuh?"

Torrance flattened himself until he grunted, for bullets weresplattering about the dropping light. In a few moments the bohunksunderstood. They turned their attention then to the top of the trestle. 

CHAPTER XXIX

RETRIBUTION BEGINS

As long as Torrance held himself flat on the sleepers he was safer thanthe Indian supposed. The grade was several feet above the forestfloor, and the hundred-pounds rails were almost sufficiently high toprovide what further protection was necessary so long as he did notraise any part of his body. But lying still was against everyprecedent. Torrance felt an uncontrollable desire to curse the bohunkswith appropriate gesture, to jeer at them when they missed him, toreturn their fire when the bullets struck unpleasantly close to hisears on the ringing steel. 

But when one made a rumpling dart through his hair, and another exactedtribute from a vengeful finger, he concluded that vengeance might wellawait a safer opportunity. So he hugged the rails, though his face wasred with shame. 

When two hours of aimless fighting had spent themselves and daylightwas promising, Mahon began to take stock. Would the light of dayimpose an end? He was not hopeful. The bohunks knew there was norelief for the besieged, day or night, unless a supply train camethrough. That contingency Koppy would no doubt have provided for bytearing up the track to east and west. And to drop the siege would notsave the leaders. The Sergeant knew now that the attack had long beenin plan, and every chance would be provided for. Daylight would makeno difference, except that the bohunks would be more careful of theircover. Chagrin that he had not read their plans, and concern for theeffect of daylight, were not his only emotions. Also there came forthe first time twinges of uncertainty as to the outcome. It was amatter of life and death to the leaders of the attack to see that itwas maintained until accidental hits, lack of ammunition, fear, or thehopelessness of prolonged resistance, induced the defenders tosurrender. The Sergeant wished now that he had sent Williams off totry and reach the ticker at Mile 135, or to make a break for help fromthe western camps. But Koppy would certainly have cut the wires, andany attempt to go for help would only have weakened the defence. ThePole had proven his brains by the precautions they already knew of; hewould probably omit few. 

The Indian called to him from the grade, and Mahon unlatched the doorand let him in. Grabbing another handful of cartridges, the Indian gotthe stable key and dashed away through the back door. A moment afterhe disappeared in the stable the two defenders of the kitchen saw apair of bohunks run out into the dim morning light and make at madspeed for the few trees that grew in the bend of the river. Even asConstable Williams was taking aim, the man covered fell to a bulletfrom the stable. The other, apparently beyond the angle of theIndian's range, seemed certain to escape. The Policeman rested hisrifle on the window sill. But Murphy gave a joyous whoop and startedfor the door. 

"Glory be, I see some one to foight at last!"

Williams was forced to drop his rifle and catch the excited Irishman inhis arms. And the bohunk disappeared into the dimness of the morning. 

The Indian, having freed the stable of lurkers, returned to thekitchen. But not for long. A burst of rifle fire in a new directionsent him hastily out again beside the trestle. The men who had retiredfrom the stable before his rifle had discovered a way to the riverbottom in the rear and were now from below potting at the recumbentcontractor through the sleepers. 

Daylight had come suddenly, as it does in the West. The glare of thesun was rising above the trees, and over the snap of the rifles rangthe songs of birds. The shack stood fully exposed in the open, whilethe attackers slunk in the protection of the trees. 

As the Indian ran for his old place beside the grade at the end of thetrestle bullets whistled about him. Peering over the edge, he saw abohunk kneeling below, taking careful aim through the sleepers at theoutstretched form of the contractor. A bullet from the Indian's riflecaught him full in the neck, and his companions hauled his limp bodyback under the bank. Thereafter they fired with greater circumspectionand poorer aim. 

Mahon set his mind seriously now to the problem that faced them. Tolie there seemed fruitless; to attack supreme folly. Yet, in the wayof the Police, he did not lose hope. Had there been no helpless girlto consider! And that, combined with a growing hunger, brought hismind round again to Helen. Strange how far away she seemed, how much apart of another life! And yet she was only three miles distant. Shewould be worrying, wondering. If the bohunks should decide to explorethe village now! He fought his fears with a memory of Helen'scompetence to protect herself. She could outshoot any bohunk. 

A volley of curses from Torrance directed Mahon's eyes to the trestle. The bohunks had attacked at last! The contractor was struggling madlywith two of them! Mahon searched anxiously for the Indian, but he wasfar up the grade now, shooting among the trees. Torrance was fightingit out alone on that dizzy height. 

As the light broke, Ignace Koppowski, too, took stock. He knew he hadonly to maintain the siege long enough to win; but he also realisedthat his followers had little stomach for a long struggle. The risingsun, too, was against every precedent as a time to attack authority. The doctrine of his kind was to stab in the dark, to hit and run--afoundation on which was based the successes of his organisation. 

As he reviewed the risk of failure through nothing but the cowardice ofhis men, he found himself hating them with an intensity he couldscarcely conceal. The transition from that to an appreciation of hisown superiority was natural enough. Perhaps not so natural, a returnof the twinges of conscience that had been afflicting him of late atinopportune moments. When he realised the existence of these thoughts, he read in them only weakening nerve, and to steady himself he movedabout among his followers, cheering them on. But the glowering, vacillating looks he received here and there succeeded in impressinghim only with the extent of his responsibility. Success in this, hisgrandest effort, assumed monstrous proportions. He dare not fail. Present and future demanded that. 

Grimly he summoned his lieutenants to a hasty conference, not to hearquakings or objections, but to give and receive the stimulus necessaryto wage the battle to the bitter end. 

Werner hesitatingly advised raising the siege. In former tilts withthe Mounted Police during his trapping days he had experienced theirintrepidity, the hopelessness of winning against them in the long run. 

"Oh?" Koppy gloomed at him beneath heavy eyebrows, giving little clueto the thoughts behind. "What next?"

What he really meant was of what profit to the leaders to yield now. Werner's keen wits read it. Volubly he suggested a rearguard of thebetter fighters to cover the retreat of the leaders and the rest; thebesieged would not dare press them. 

In reality a personal inspiration lay behind it all. Werner himselfwould creep away west and join himself to one of the construction gangswhere questions were not asked. He could await his chance of slippingacross the border to the States. His idea of geography was somewhathazy. 

Koppy listened to the end with veiled eyes. He read Werner much moreaccurately than Werner read him. But most poignantly of all herealised the hopelessness of submission, at least for the leaders. There was nothing now but to carry the fight through--no other hope forhimself. Also he discovered a fresh goad in his hatred of Werner. 

When the latter had completed his plan, Koppy suddenly dropped his handfrom his face. Werner saw and collapsed. For several seconds Koppyheld the coward's faltering eyes, then turned with disgust to theothers. 

"What will we do with him?"

Morani's knife slid down his wrist and swished across his boot leg. And the others looked agreement. 

Werner shuddered--began to bluster. 

"You asked what I thought. I told you. I didn't mean to give thewhole thing up--not much I didn't. " He drew his hand across hisdripping forehead. "We'll get the trestle yet--and it's that we want, isn't it? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lie around and blowit up myself, if I have to spend the whole winter here. "

Koppy broke into an insulting laugh. "You! And the trestle ain't allwe want. Who pays for last night's deaths? You blow up the trestle!What about Mr. Conrad? You let him escape. "

Werner saw difficulties accumulating beyond his oft-tried powers ofevasion. He stammered a disconnected tale of bad luck, wiping his facerepeatedly. Koppy waved it aside. 

"Morani, " he ordered solemnly, "watch him. If he tries to escape--" Aswift downward stroke completed the command. "We'll settle with himlater. "

Werner paled. He knew what the settlement would be, and the justice ofit. He knew, too, the folly of protesting under the strain of themoment. So he tried to look aggrieved at their suspicions. When theconference broke up, and Morani attached himself to his heels, hesmiled ingratiatingly and sauntered to the edge of the bank overlookingthe camp. There he seated himself to consider his position. Escape?Even if he succeeded in evading immediate doom by giving his guard theslip, the I. W. W. Would never give up the chase till he had paid thepenalty of his treason. 

As he sat he could see the end of the trestle through the brush. Aslight bulge above the rails marked the place where the contractor layguarding his pet. At the sight a wave of fury against Torrance sweptover Werner. The boss was to blame for everything. But for hisvigilance the trestle would long ago have been down. 

"Chico, " he snarled, "watch me pink him. "

He lay along the ground and rested his rifle on a rock. But Morani, having suffered helplessly for a whole season at the hands of thisnimble-tongued comrade, saw his chance. Before Werner realised hisplan, the Italian laid one long supple hand on the stock and wrenchedit away. In his left hand gleamed the hovering stiletto. 

"No rifle, " he rasped. "I watch-a you better. " He held the gun behindhis back. 

For a mad moment Werner thought of hurling himself on his leeringenemy, but the knife waved before his eyes. No chance there. Anoverwhelming sense of hopelessness, of friendlessness, sent himcringing to Morani's feet. The Italian, gloating, leaned forward andprodded with the stiletto. Werner, beside himself now with terror, leaped up and ran a few yards. But the smirking face of the Italianfollowed. In that direction lay speedy death. 

Trembling, Werner sank to his knees like a whipped dog. On his kneeshe crept on and on. And above him hung those gloating eyes and thethreatening stiletto. Urged by that smirk of death the cowering mancrept forward. There was blood now on his torn knees and hands, but hedid not feel it. Only he must crawl on and on before the horribleNemesis at his back. 

Neither noticed where their path led. They reached the end of thetrees. The open ahead promised Werner greater freedom of flight. Morani was blind to everything but the terror of his old enemy. Withtwisted head Werner moved out from the trees. Something loomed beforehim, blocking the way. A wall of loose sand! With a gasp he raisedhis eyes. 

Above him loomed the five-foot grade, protecting them from the shack. Werner shifted his horror-stricken eyes only a little--and lookedstraight into those of the contractor staring through the sleepers. Torrance was moving his rifle to take aim. 

Below Werner fell a dizzy depth. Above him the rifle of one who had noreason to spare. The double peril added the touch that makes cravenspirits desperate. 

With a scream of mad fury he leaped to his feet and charged up theloose sand of the grade. And Morani, suddenly conscious of where hewas, and of Werner's chance of escape, gripped his stiletto and dug histoes into the pits Werner had made. 

CHAPTER XXX

KOPPY PAYS

Koppy, under the impetus of the conference, set his mind more firmly tothe problem facing him. Under the present method of attack the outcomewas a question of endurance. And in endurance the disposition of thebesieged was an enormous factor to offset the hopelessness of rescue orescape. So long as they remained within the shack they could come tolittle harm, if food, water, and ammunition held out. 

Exposed to the rifles of the besiegers were, however, two of theirprincipal foes. The Indian dashed recklessly from post to post. Sooner or later he would pay for it. The continued impunity of theboss was more maddening. Above the rails Koppy could see the slightbulge on which so many shots had been wasted. Probably it was onlyTorrance's clothing. From the floor of the forest he seemed to bereasonably protected. 

Koppy raised his eyes. With a smile he selected a thick-stemmed treeand, with the aid of willing and suddenly excited hands, lifted himselfto the lower boughs. There, leaning against the trunk, a circle ofprojecting boughs about him, he laughed. Torrance lay in full view. Gloatingly Koppy slid his rifle along a convenient branch, took aim, and fired. The ring of metal told how close he was. 

On his followers below he bent malignantly joyful eyes. It was only aquestion of time now. 

The next bullet must have touched Torrance's shoulder, for he wincedand edged closer to the near rail. Koppy cheered and recklessly wavedhis rifle. 

A shot snapped from over the grade, and a piece of bark flickedstingingly into the Pole's face. The surprise of it almost tumbled himfrom his perch. And before he could cover himself completely with thetrunk of the tree a second bullet whipped through the leaves so closeto his eyes that he felt the wind of it. 

Across the grade the Indian jerked in his rifle with an oath and ran tothe shack. 

"Dang rotten toy!" he sputtered, slamming the borrowed gun on thetable. "Gi' me my own. I got two cartridges left. One'll do. Tharain't no better place for it. "

The crowd beneath Koppy's perch was growing fast. The Pole could heartheir whispered exclamations, see the whites of their faces turned upto him for the report of each shot. In a wave of anger and misgivinghe realised the rashness of adding another responsibility to those ofleadership. Only too eagerly they were piling on his solitaryshoulders the whole burden of the fight. 

He must kill the boss! He must kill the boss!

It ran through his head like a threat--a dirge. His aim wavered. Bullet after bullet sped harmlessly about Torrance. A cold sweat brokeout on the Pole. He leaned out to order others into the surroundingtrees--but realised as he glowered into their upturned faces that thiswas no time for orders, but for action. 

He reported a hit--boasted, shouted, forced himself to laugh exultantly. 

Where would it all end?

He gripped his fists until the nails bit into his palms, and took afresh hold of himself. With set teeth, steadier than he had ever been, he thrust the rifle out again along the branch. 

At that instant Werner clambered up the grade--and close behind himMorani. 

Koppy gasped. A flash of pride at the unexpected temerity of two ofhis lieutenants. But it faded swiftly before two driving fears. Torrance had risen to meet them; and Koppy knew the force of that greatfist. But if his own men won! Koppy had a vision of vanishedglory--of lost leadership. Morani and Werner had taken their lives intheir hands to accomplish that which he was failing to do from theprotection of a tree. 

Snapping his teeth together, he put his eye coolly to the rear sight. If his own men were in the way--well, that was their lookout. He wasaiming at Torrance. 

A hush fell over the forest. From the foot of the tree the bohunksread crucial drama in Koppy's manner. . . . 

With a bellow of rage Torrance was on his feet. A single blow hestruck at Werner's mad eyes. The head before him snapped back, thebent legs crumpled. As if he had been shot, Werner's limp body slidbackwards down the sand. For a moment it hung balanced over the edge, then bent slowly over and plunged out of sight. 

Morani, alone now but forced to carry it through, struck swiftly. Torrance managed to take the point of the stiletto on his left arm. With his right he grabbed the Italian's arm and jerked sideways anddown. A sickening snap, and Morani's dark face went a sickly cream. Without changing his hold, Torrance flung out sideways, as a petulantchild discards a doll that has lost favour. Morani had never a chance. Lifted clear of the trestle, he pitched headlong into the chasm. 

But in the effort Torrance's foot slipped. He tried to drop to savehimself, but too late. Clawing at the ends of the sleepers, he fellover the way Morani had gone. The breath in a hundred throats held. Mahon closed his eyes. 

But in the scramble the contractor's right leg fell between thesleepers, and as his body turned for the final plunge, his foot caughtand held. The leg snapped, but it held. Torrance's head, swingingdown outside the trestle, crashed into one of the supports. And therehe hung, unconscious. 

In the fleeting moments of the triple tragedy Koppy could not pull thetrigger. But as the boss lay motionless in the open, an evil smilecame to the Pole's face. Closing his left eye, he took firm hold ofthe stock of his rifle and set his finger to the trigger. 

Something passed swiftly across the sights. He opened both eyes andraised his head. Tressa Torrance was climbing fearlessly out on thetrestle supports to her father's assistance, calling for help. 

Koppy gasped. A veil seemed to fall over his eyes. A drop of sweatfell to his rifle butt. When he could see once more he slowly drewback the gun, eyes staring. Slowly he turned to the expectant facesbelow him. They knew nothing of what had happened--was happening--outthere on the trestle. But they felt in some vague way that he wasfailing them. 

With deliberation Koppy shifted his rifle about, reversing it. Wonderbegan to dawn on the faces at the foot of the tree, but not a soundcame from them. Coolly and firmly the butt slid out along the branchwhere the barrel had been. 

He felt steadier now--no nerves--no fears. With unhurried care hecaught the trigger over a twig and let it rest there. His head turnedslowly about in a half circle, not toward the crowd below but out overthe green forest and up into the brightening sky. Then he leaned outand peered at the shack. Moving back in the arc, his eyes rested onTressa supporting her father's head, though a false step meant certaindeath. 

And Ignace Koppowski smiled--a cleaner, more human smile than hadcrossed his face for many a year. 

"Good girl!" he shouted. "I'll help. Listen. "

With the smile still on his lips he jerked the barrel of the rifletoward him. 

With the explosion came another from across the grade. And before thefirst echo two others from the forest behind. 

Koppy's body crashed through the branches and fell among his gapingfollowers. 

There was blood now, more than they wished. It spurted over them fromtheir fallen leader. It welled from a shrieking companion who laytwisting on the ground beside their dead leader. 

One incredulous moment--then, clutching and clawing, but silent as everin their fears, they ran for the camp, the only haven they knew. Thepanic spread through the rest out among the trees. And a trail ofweapons marked their course. 

From a growth of shrub a woman in an Indian blanket peered toward thegrade. She saw the Indian standing there furiously snapping his emptyrifle after the fleeing bohunks. And with a smile she faded away. 

Westward, along the grade, from the shadows Helen Mahon stepped, riflein hand. In a puzzled way she looked first toward the spot where thesquaw had fired from. Then she ran for the trestle. 

When she reached it Torrance's body lay on the grade. Mahon, at thesound of her feet, swung about and held out his arms. 

"Darling, " he murmured, "you saved us. You haven't lost your aim. "

But she shook her head. "I fired to frighten. Some one else--"

They carried the limp body within the shack and laid it tenderly on thecouch. There was still life, and they worked with prayers on theirlips. . . . 

From outside broke two sharp whistles. Mahon, with a puzzled frown, looked from the front door. An awkward little broncho was trottingpast the corner of the house toward the stable. 

Williams came to him. "I'm afraid it's no use, sir, " he whispered. "Nothing could stand up under that. "

Mahon appealed to his wife. "Help us, Helen, it's got past us. "

The sudden thunder of hoofs along the river side of the shack drew thetwo Policemen to the door. Three horses, the broncho in the lead, wereclimbing the grade. The broncho started out on the trestle, head bent, measuring each step, moving from sleeper to sleeper. And at its heels, obedient as sheep, were Torrance's two horses. 

Six hundred yards of open trestle before the fill-in at the other side!Mahon held his breath. . . . 

"Mother o' Mike!" The horses had trotted out to safety, and Murphy wascapering gleefully about. 

Mahon rushed to the corner of the shack and looked about. The Indianwas nowhere in sight. 

Helen, with wet cheeks, was bathing the white face of the contractor. Tressa, searching Helen's eyes for hope, saw it vanish in those tears. With a crooning cry she sank beside the couch and lifted her father'shead in her arms. 

"Daddy! Daddy, speak to me!"

But the face was the face of the dead. 

Stooping, she gently brushed her father's lips with her own, as hermother had done in the days of long ago. 

"'Jim!'" she whispered. "'Jim!'"

The eyelids quivered and parted, and the eyes beneath looked vaguelythrough. 

"Mary!" he murmured. Then a sigh. "It hurts--so. " One limp handtrembled to his bruised head. "All right, Mary!" Then in a strongervoice: "All right, Mary, I'll stay. "

The film passed from before his sight. 

"By hickory, Tressa, I thought I was dead--and Mary was taking me inhand. She can get along without me, she says, but you can't. But youneedn't tell Adrian. Where's my pipe?"

Murphy was capering about the room, whooping and rubbing his eyes. Theinjured man fixed him with stern gaze. 

"Murphy, what are you doing here, making a fool of yourself at thishour? Don't you know you're due at the gravel pit in less than twohours? That fill-in commences to-day--no matter what's happened. "

But Murphy was already far up the grade, brandishing his shillalah andshouting at the top of his voice:

"'Uggins! 'Uggins! I'm coming. "

CHAPTER XXXI

BLUE PETE RETURNS

Inspector Barker drummed on his desk. 

"Bert, of the 3-bar-Y, has turned up, Priest tells me. "

Sergeant Mahon managed to stifle outward evidence of the thrill thatsent his blood tingling. He did not reply. "Don't mangle your brainsover it, Boy. You've been in the Police long enough to add two andtwo. "

Still no reply. 

"While you're digesting it, bite on this: Most of the horses DutchHenry and Bilsy stole last fall are back in their owners' hands. "

Mahon began to laugh happily. "I'll stake my life that every one BluePete stole--every one that's alive, anyway--is among them. "

"You're coming along, Boy . . . But just a bit too fast. Try and takethis standing: Blue Pete never stole a horse after he left the Police!"

Mahon's brows met in surprise. 

"No, I'm not crazy, " grinned the Inspector. "I'm not even trying todelude myself. . . . And he never was such a friend of mine as youthought he was of yours. "

Mahon controlled himself to formality. "I'll go out and find him, sir, if you say so, and let him tell his own story. "

"You'll find him when it pleases him to be found. "

"If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to get back to the Lodge right away. I feel as if I need ranchers and cowboys to remove the taste of thatnorth country from my mouth. "

A slow smile crept into the Inspector's face. 

"I imagine it'll please him to be found--and by you, " he said. 

As the door was closing behind the Sergeant, the grey-haired man threwa parting word: "Take my advice, Boy, and don't do any adding till BluePete gives you the figures. If the addition's unpleasant then . . . Wait till I add for you. "

Mahon covered the thirty miles to the Police post at Medicine Lodgewithout a rest. A fever of uncertainty was consuming him. TheInspector's faith in the halfbreed made the whole uncanny affair adeeper mystery than ever. For eight months Blue Pete had been "on therun, " and then had come the great sacrifice they had all believed--atleast all but the Inspector--to be his death. During those eightmonths the Sergeant himself had traced northward the horses thehalfbreed had stolen. He had actually caught Mira Stanton, Blue Pete'spartner, in the act of rustling. 

Yet, insisted the Inspector, the halfbreed was not rustling. Mahongave it up. 

Ahead of him loomed the dark line of the beloved Hills, swelling as hecantered along. Over the yellow glare of the dead prairie grass hiseyes rested on the deep green with the affection of a long-absentfriend. There swept over him an irrepressible longing to dash into thecool shadows and feast his eyes on the maze of hill and dell, rockyheight and grass-grown bottom, mirrored lake and whispering stream; tohear the leap of fish and the rustle of creeping things unseen, the cryof distant birds and the howl of prowling wolf. There he would be intouch with the spirit of his old friend, wherever he might be now. 

Some day--he felt certain of it--he would grasp the hand of Blue Petesomewhere within the Hills. 

Constable Priest was not at the post when he pushed open the barracksdoor. He was glad of that. Leaving a short note, he galloped offsouth-east toward the Hills. His horse, with memories of many a freerun there, made straight for Windy Coulee, the familiar westernentrance to the mysteries of the Cypress Hills. 

Mahon did not direct. When the sloping trail leading up into the treesrose before him, he smiled. With Windy Coulee the halfbreed's memorywas bound by a hundred incidents. There they had entered their firstgreat adventure together; there they had dived into the shadows on thetrail of many a rustler. And there he had erected the rough stone thatmarked his grief when he thought Blue Pete had given his life for him. 

Wrapped in the past, Mahon gave the horse his head. 

At the top of the hollowed trail, just where the trees began, the horsecame to a halt so suddenly that Mahon jerked against the pommel andlifted his eyes in surprise. 

Not thirty yards ahead stood the granite column with its simpletribute, "Greater Love. " But Mahon did not notice it. All he saw wasa man slouched on its pedestal. He was smiling at him--a twisted, awkward smile of embarrassed affection. 

Mahon's lips parted, but he could not speak. With unsteady hand hequieted the impatient horse--blinking incredulously. There were thehigh cheek bones, the bluish tinge--darker now--the pleading smile, theleather chaps and dirty Stetson and polka dot neckerchief and hugespurs, there the coarse brown hands hanging limply over theleather-clad knees. Two changes had come--one shoulder hung lower thanits mate, and the stiff black hair was tidier. The first, he knew, wasthe result of the old wound; the last the outward token of a woman'scare. 

"Pete!"

He breathed the beloved name without knowing that he spoke. 

The grin on the dusky face widened, the big hands rubbed each other inconfusion. For several seconds they faced each other thus. Suddenlythe half breed whistled twice, and out from the trees trotted an uglylittle pinto. Its right ear turned forward for Mahon's familiarwelcome, the left, struggling to follow, fell away grotesquely in itsupper half. But the weirdly coloured blotches that made it a pintowere unlike any colour of living hide; and the pinto seemed to feel it. 

"Whiskers ain't quite got back 'spectable yet, Boy, " grinned Blue Pete. "I sure dosed her fer fair up thar among them bohunks, an' she'shangin' her head a bit. But she's the same ole gal, ain't yuh, Whiskers?"

He whistled again. The pinto sank to the ground and lay as motionlessas the rocks about. 

"Ain't lost a trick, not a dang one. An' she knows yuh, Boy. Yuhain't changed--not 's much as me. . . . But I'm sure the same old BluePete. "

Mahon dug cruel spurs into his horse's sides. Throwing himself fromthe saddle, he seized the half-breed's hand and held it in both his ownwithout a word. A great tear gathered on either eyelid. Blue Petelaughed in shamefaced happiness and dropped his squinting eyes. 

And the pinto tore to shreds the rule of a lifetime: she clambered toher feet without orders and reached up to nibble at the edge of Mahon'sStetson. The Sergeant threw an arm about her neck and pressed his faceto the yellow blotch below the left eye. . . . 

As the evening shadows from the Hills lay long across the prairie, andthe birds chirped sleepily, Mahon stood up with a sigh. 

"You'll have to come in to the barracks, Pete. I--I can't help it. "

"Get goin', " grinned the halfbreed. 

The Sergeant bent over his girth with flushed face. 

"I have no idea what's in store for you, Pete. The Inspector has a lotof faith in you. "

Blue Pete studied him quizzically. "More'n you have?"

"I don't know. Oh, I don't understand. "

A shadow of pain came into the halfbreed's face. "I wudn't try then, "he said shortly. And Mahon remembered that the Inspector had advisedthe same. 

When they had been riding a long time the half-breed spoke wistfully. "I wasn't rustlin', Boy. All I did was to take from Duchy and Bilsysome o' the horses they rustled. If I hadn't, yuh wudn't 'a' seed 'emever again. I've got 'em all back--all I took from them. . . . An' Iain't chargin' nothin' fer it neither. "

Mahon thought it all out laboriously. 

"But you stole them again from Torrance. "

"Sure! Torrance knowed they was stole. He wudn't 'a got any otherkind fer ten bucks. Yuh don't call that rustlin'?"

Mahon smiled--the halfbreed's code was so simple. 

"Tell it to the Inspector like that, " he pleaded. 

"Sure I will! An' I know dang well _he'll_ see. "

Inspector Barker lifted frowning eyes to the opening door. Stiff, waiting for permission to enter, Sergeant Mahon stood looking at himfrom the hall. A brown hand reached forward from behind and pushed himaside. And there was the grinning face of the half-breed. 

The Inspector cleared his throat huskily. The proper thing, he knew, was to look severe, but the lines wouldn't form in the right places. Hungrily the halfbreed's eyes roamed to the tobacco pouch spilled onthe blotter; the old corncob pipe was fumbling expectantly in his bigfist. 

"Same baccy, Inspector?" he enquired innocently, stepping through thedoor. 

The lines in the Inspector's face were getting out of hand entirely. In another moment--

He swung fiercely on the Sergeant. 

"Get out!" he snapped; and slammed the door in his face.