“Yes, sir, Fyles. Yes, at the Town Station. I’m coming up to barracks right away. It’s most important. I must see you. The whisky-runners have – doubled on us.”

CHAPTER V
BOUND FOR THE SOUTHERN TRAIL

Three uniformed men rode hard across the tawny plains. They rode abreast. Their horses were a-lather; their lean sides tuckered, but their gait remained unslackening. It was a gait they would keep as long as daylight lasted.

Sergeant McBain’s horse kept its nose just ahead of the others. It was as though the big, rawboned animal appreciated its rider’s rank.

Quite abruptly the non-commissioned officer raised an arm and pointed.

“Yon’s the Cypress Hills, boys,” he cried. “See, they’re getting up out of the heat haze on the skyline. We’re heading too far south.”

He spoke without for a moment withdrawing the steady gaze of his hard blue eyes.

One of the troopers answered him.

“Sure, sergeant,” he agreed. “We need to head away to the left.”

The horses swung off the line, beating the sun-scorched grass with their iron-shod hoofs with a vigor that felt good to the riders.

The bronzed faces of the men were eager. Their widely gazing eyes were alert and watchful. They were trailing a hot scent, a pastime as well as a work that was their life. They needed no greater incentive to put forth the best efforts of bodily and mental energies.

The uniform of these riders of the western plains was unassuming. Their brown canvas tunics, their prairie hats, their black, hard serge breeches, with broad, yellow stripes down the thighs, possessed a businesslike appearance not to be found in a modern soldier’s uniform. These things were for sheer hard service.

The life of these men was made up of hard service. It was demanded of them by the Government; it was also demanded of them by the conditions of the country. Lawlessness prevailed on these fair, sunlit plains; lawlessness of man, lawlessness of Nature. Between the two they were left with scarce a breathing space for those comforts which only found existence in dreams that were all too brief and transitory.

Nominally, these men were military police, yet their methods were far enough removed from all matters martial. Theirs it was to obey orders, but all similarity ended there. Each man was left free to think and act for himself. Brief orders, with little detail, were hurled at him. For the rest his superiors demanded one result – achievement. A crime was committed; a criminal was at large; information of a contemplated breach of the peace was to hand. Then go – and see to it. Investigate and arrest. The individual must plan and carry out, whatever the odds. Success would meet with cool approval; failure would be promptly rewarded with the utmost rigor of the penal code governing the force. The work might take days, weeks, months. It mattered not. Nor did it matter the expense, provided success crowned the effort. But with failure resulting – ah, there must be no failure. The prestige of the force could not stand failure, for its seven hundred men were required to dominate and cleanse a territory in which half a dozen European countries could be comfortably lost.

Presently Sergeant McBain spoke again. His steady eyes were still fixed upon the horizon.

“Say, that’s her,” he said. “There she is. Coming right up like a mop head. That’s the pine at Rocky Springs. Further away to the left still, boys.”

He turned his horse, and the race against time was continued. Somewhere ahead, on the southern trail, a gang of whisky smugglers were plying their trade. Inspector Fyles had said, “Go, and – round them up.”

The odds were all against these men, yet no one considered the matter. Each, with eyes and brain alert, was ready to do all of which human effort was capable.

Now that definite direction over those wastes of grass had been finally located, the sergeant, a rough, hard-faced Scot, relaxed his vigilance. His mind drifted to the purpose in hand, and a dry humor lit his eyes.

“Eh, man, but it’s a shameful waste, spilling good spirit,” he said, addressing no one in particular. “Governments are always prodigal – except with pay.”

One of the troopers sniggered.

“Guess we could spill some of it, sergeant,” he declared meaningly.

“Spill it!” The sergeant grinned. “That isn’t the word, boy. Spill don’t describe the warm trickle of good liquor down a man’s throat. Say, I mind – ”

The other trooper broke in.

“Fyles ’ud spill champagne,” he cried in disgust. “A man like that needs seeing to.”

The sergeant shook his head.

“Fyles would spill anything or anybody that required spilling, so he gets his nose to windward of the game. He’s right, too, in this God-forgotten land. If we didn’t spill, we’d be right down and out, and our lives wouldn’t be worth a second’s purchase. No, boys, it breaks our hearts to spill – but we got to do it – or be spilt ourselves.”

The man shook his reins and bustled the great sorrel under him. The animal’s response was a lengthening of stride which left his companions hard put to it to keep pace.

The brief talk was closed. It had been a moment of relaxed tension. Now, once more, every eye was fixed on the shimmering skyline. They were eagerly looking out for the southern trail.

Half an hour later its yellow, sandy surface lay beneath their feet, an open book for the reading.

All three leaped from the saddle and began a close examination of it, while their sweating horses promptly regaled themselves with the ripe, tufty grass at the trail side.

Sergeant McBain narrowly scrutinized the wheel tracks, estimating the speed at which the last vehicle to pass had been traveling. The blurred hoofmarks of the horses warned him they had been driven hard.

“We’re behind ’em, boys,” he declared promptly, “an’ their gait says they’re taking no chances.”

Further down the trail one of the troopers answered him:

“There’s four saddle horses with ’em,” he said thoughtfully. “Two shod, and two shod on the forefeet only. Guess, with the teamster, that makes five men. Prairie toughs, I’d guess.”

The sergeant concurred, while they continued their examination.

Then the third man exclaimed sharply —

“Here!” he cried, picking something up at the side of the trail.

The others joined him at once.

He was quietly tearing open a half-burned cigarette, the tobacco inside of which was still moist.

“Prairie toughs don’t smoke made cigarettes around here. It’s a Caporal. Get it? That’s bought in a town.”

“Ay,” said McBain quickly. “Rocky Springs, I’d say. It’s the Rocky Springs gang, sure as hell. It’s the foulest hole of crime in the northwest. Come on, boys. We need to get busy.”

Two minutes later a moving cloud of dust marked their progress down the trail in the direction of Rocky Springs. Presently, however, the dust subsided. The astute riders of the plains were giving no chances away; they had left the tell-tale trail and rode on over the grass at its edge.

The westering sun was low on the horizon. The air was still. Not a cloud was visible anywhere in the sky. The world was silent. The drowsing birds, even, had finished their evensong.

Low bush-grown hills lined the trail where it entered the wide valley of Leaping Creek, which, six miles further on, ran through the heart of the hamlet of Rocky Springs.

It was a beauty spot of no mean order. The smaller hills were broken and profuse, with dark woodland gorges splitting them in every direction, crowded with such a density of foliage as to be almost impassable. Farther on, as the valley widened and deepened, its aspect became more rugged. The land rose to greater heights, the lighter vegetation gave way to heavier growths of spruce and blue gum and maple. These too, in turn, became sprinkled with the darker and taller pines. Then, as the distance gained, a still further change met the eye. Vast patches of virgin pine woods, with their mournful, tattered crowns, toned the brighter greens to the somber grandeur of more mountainous regions.

The breathless hush of evening lay upon the valley. There was even a sense of awe in the silence. It was peace, a wonderful natural peace, when all nature seems at rest, nor could the chastened atmosphere of a cloister have conveyed more perfectly the sense of repose.

But the human contradiction lay in the heart of the valley. It was the abiding place of the hamlet of Rocky Springs, and Rocky Springs was accredited with being the very breeding ground of prairie crime.

Just now, however, the chastened atmosphere was perfect. Rocky Springs, so far away, was powerless to affect it. Even the song of the tumbling creek, which coursed through the heart of the valley, was powerless to awaken discordant echoes. Its music was low and soft. It was like the drone of the stirring insects, part of that which went to make up the atmosphere of perfect peace.

The sun dropped lower in the western sky. A velvet twilight seemed to rise out of the heart of the valley. Slowly the glowing light vanished behind a bluff of woodland. In a few minutes the trees and undergrowth were lit up as though a mighty conflagration were devouring them. Then the fire died down, and the sun sank.

But as the sun sank, a low, deep note grew softly out of the distance. For a time it blended musically with the murmuring of the bustling creek and the wakeful insect life. Then it dominated both, and its music lessened. Its note changed rapidly, so rapidly that its softer tone was at once forgotten, and only the harshness it now assumed remained in the mind. Louder and harsher it grew till from a mere rumble it jumped to a rattle and clatter which suggested speed, violence, and a dozen conflicting emotions.

Almost immediately came a further change, and one which left no doubt remaining. The clatter broke up into distinct and separate sounds. The swift beat of speeding hoofs mingled with the fierce rattle of light wheels, racing over the surface of a hard road.

All sense of peace vanished from the valley. Almost it seemed as if its very aspect had changed. A sense of human strife had suddenly possessed it, and left its painful mark indelibly set upon the whole scene.

The climax was reached as a hard driven team and wagon, escorted by four mounted men, precipitated themselves into the picture. They came over the shoulder of the valley and plunged headlong down the dangerous slope, regardless of all consequences, regardless both of life and limb. The teamster was leaning forward in his seat, his arms outstretched, grasping a rein in each hand. He was urging his horses to their utmost. In his face was that stern, desperate expression that told of perfect cognizance of his position. It said as plainly as possible, however great the danger he saw before him, it must be chanced for the greater danger behind.

Two of the horsemen detached themselves from the escort and remained hidden behind some bush at the shoulder of the hill. They were there to watch the approach to the valley. The others kept pace with the racing vehicle as the surefooted team tore down the slope.

Rocking and swaying and skidding, the vehicle seemed literally to precipitate itself to the depths below, and, as the horses, with necks outstretched and mouths beginning to gape, with ears flattened and streaming flanks, reached the bottom, the desperate nature of the journey became even more apparent. There was neither wavering nor mercy in the eyes of the teamster and his escort as they pressed on down the valley.

One of the escort called sharply to the teamster.

“Can we make it?” he shouted.

“Got to,” came back the answer through clenched jaws. “If we got twenty minutes on the gorl darned p’lice they won’t see us for dust. Heh!”

The man’s final exclamation came as one of his horses stumbled. But he kept the straining beast on its legs by the sheer physical strength of his hands upon the reins. The check was barely an instant, but he picked up the rawhide whip lying in the wagon and plied it mercilessly.

The exhausted beasts responded and the vehicle flew down the trail, swaying and yawing the whole breadth of the road. The dust in its wake rose up in a dense cloud. Into this the escort plunged and quickly became lost to view behind the bush which lined the sharply twisting trail.

Faster and faster the horses sped under the iron hand of the teamster, till distance took hold of the clatter and finally diminished it to a rumble. In a few minutes even the rising cloud of dust, like smoke above the tree tops, thinned and finally melted away, and so, once more, peace returned to the twilit valley.

A wagon was lumbering slowly toward Rocky Springs. It was less than a mile beyond the outskirts of the village, and already an occasional flash of white paint through the trees revealed the sides of some outlying house in the distance ahead.

The horses were dejected-looking creatures, and their flanks were streaked with gray lines of caking sweat. They were walking, and the teamster on the wagon sat huddled down in the driving seat, an exquisite picture of unclean ease.

He was a hard-faced, unwashed creature, whose swarthy features were ingrained with sweat and dirt. He was clad in typical prairie costume, his loose cotton shirt well matching the unclean condition of his face. One cheek was bulging with a big chew of tobacco, while the other sank in over the hollows left by absent back teeth.

He certainly was unprepossessing. Even his contented smile only added to the evil of his expression. His contentment, however, was by no means his whole atmosphere. In fact, it was rather studied, for his eyes were alight and watchful with the furtive watchfulness so easy to detect in those of partial color. They suggested that his ears, too, were no less alert, and now and again this suggestion received confirmation in the quick turn of the head in a direction which said plainly he was listening for any unusual sound from behind him.

One of these turns of the head remained longer than usual. Then, with quite a sharp movement of the body, he swung one of the great pistols hanging at his waist, so that its barrel rested across his thigh, and its butt was ready to his hand. Then, with a malicious chuckle, he took a firmer grip of his reins, and his jaded horses raised their drooping heads.

The object of his change of attitude quickly became apparent, for, a few moments later, the distant sound of hoof-beats, far behind him, echoed through the still valley.

He checked his horses still more, and it became evident that he wished those who were behind him to come up before he reached the village. The smile on his evil face became more humorous, and he spat out a stream of tobacco juice with great enjoyment.

The sounds grew louder, and he turned about and peered down the darkening valley. There was nothing and no one in sight yet amid the woodland shadows. Only the clatter of hoofs was growing with each moment. He finally turned back and resettled himself. His attitude now became one of even more studied indifference, but his gun remained close to his hand.

The sounds behind him were drawing nearer. His tired horses pricked their ears. They, too, seemed to become interested. The pursuers came on. They were less than a hundred yards behind. In a few moments they were directly behind. Then the man lazily turned his head. For some moments he stared stupidly at the three uniformed figures who had descended upon him. Then he suddenly sat up and brought his horses to a standstill. The policemen were surrounding his wagon.

Sergeant McBain was abreast of him on one side, one trooper drew up his horse at the other side, while the third came to a halt at the rear of the wagon and peered into it.

“Evenin’, sergeant,” cried the teamster, with deliberate cheeriness. “Makin’ Rocky Springs?”

McBain’s hard blue eyes looked straight into the half-breed’s face. He was endeavoring to fix and hold those dark, furtive eyes. But it was not easy.

“Maybe,” he said curtly.

Then he glanced swiftly over the outfit. The sweat-streaked horses interested him. The nature of the wagon. Then, finally, the contents of the wagon covered with a light canvas protection against the dust.

“Where you from?” he demanded peremptorily.

“Just got through from Myrtle,” replied the man, quite undisturbed by the other’s manner.

“Fourteen miles,” said McBain sharply. “Guess your plugs sweated some. What’s your name, and who do you work for?”

“Guess I’m Pete Clancy, an’ I’m Kate Seton’s ‘hired’ man. Been across to Myrtle for fixin’s for her.”

“Fixings?”

The sergeant’s eyes at last compelled the other’s. There was something like insolence in the way Pete Clancy returned his stare. There was also humor.

“Sure,” he returned easily. “Guess you’ll find ’em in the wagon ef you raise that cover. There’s one of them fakes fer sewin’ with. There’s a deal o’ fancy canned truck, an’ say, the leddy’s death on notions. Get a peek at the colors o’ them silk duds. On’y keep dirty hands off’n ’em, or she’ll cuss me to hell for a fust-class hog.”

McBain signed to the trooper at the rear of the wagon and the man stripped the cover off. The first thing the officer beheld was a sewing machine in its shining walnut case. Beside this was an open packing case filled with canned fruits and meats, and a large supply of groceries. In another box, packed under layers of paper, were materials for dressmaking, and a roll of white lawn for other articles of a woman’s apparel.

With obvious disgust he signed again to the trooper to replace the cover. Then Clancy broke in.

“Say,” he cried ironically, “ain’t they dandy? I tell you, sergeant, when it comes to fancy things, women ha’ got us skinned to death. Fancy us wearin’ skirts an’ things made o’ them flimsies! We’d fall right through ’em an’ break our dirty necks. An’ the colors, too. Guess they’d shame a dago wench, an’ set a three-year old stud bull shakin’ his sides with a puffic tempest of indignation. But when it comes to canned truck, well, say, prairie hash ain’t nothin’ to it, an’ if I hadn’t been raised in a Bible class, an’ had the feel o’ the cold water o’ righteousness in my bones, I’d never ha’ hauled them all this way without gettin’ a peek into them cans. I – ”

“Cut it out, man,” cried the officer sharply. “I need a straight word with you. Get me? Straight. Your bluff’ll do for other folks. You haven’t been to Myrtle. You come from White Point, where you helped hold up a freight. You ran a big cargo of liquor in this wagon, which is why your plugs are tuckered out. You’ve cached that liquor in this valley, at the place you gathered up this truck. I don’t say you aren’t ‘hired man’ to Miss Seton in Rocky Springs, but you’re playing a double game. You fetched her goods and dumped ’em at the cache, only to pick ’em up when you were through with your other game.”

The man laughed insolently.

“Gee! I must be a ter’ble bad feller, sergeant,” he cried. “Me, as was raised in a Bible class.” His eyes twinkled as he went on. “An’ I done all that? All that you sed, sergeant? Say, I’m a real bright feller. Guess I’ll get a drink o’ that liquor, won’t I? It ’ud be a bum trick – ”

The sergeant’s eyes snapped.

“You’ll get the penitentiary before we’re through with you. You and the boys with you. We’ve followed your trail all the way, and that trail ends right here. We’re wise to you – ”

“But you ain’t wise where the liquor’s cached,” retorted the man with a chuckle.

Then he looked straight into the officer’s eyes.

“Say,” he cried with his big laugh. “You can talk penitentiary till you’re sick. Ther’ ain’t no liquor in my wagon, an’ if there ever has been any, as you kind o’ fancy, it’s right up to you to locate it, and spill it, an’ not set right there keepin’ me from my work.”

As he finished speaking, with elaborate display, he shook his reins and shouted at his horses, which promptly moved on.

As the wagon rolled away he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder.

“You can’t spill canned truck an’ sewin’ machines, sergeant,” he called back derisively. “That penitentiary racket don’t fizz nothin’. Guess you best think again.”

The officer’s chagrin was complete. It was the start the outlaws had had that had beaten him. This was the wagon; this was one of the men. Of these things he was convinced. There were others in it, too, but they – . He turned to his troopers.

“I’d give a month’s pay to get bracelets on that feller,” he said with a grin that had no mirth in it. Then he added grimly, as he gazed after the receding wagon: “And I’m a Scotchman.”