Sergeant Silk the Prairie Scout Part 17

"Yes," she said to herself with a thrill of satisfaction. "It's sure Sergeant Silk." And he in his turn was as quick to recognise the Indian girl who did the ch.o.r.es at Rattlesnake Ranch.

"How do, Maple Leaf?" he cried in greeting, drawing rein in front of her as she stood up. "Alone, eh? We came upon your trail 'way back there on the plains. Been west somewhere near b.u.t.terfly Creek, I reckon?"

"Yes," she responded. "Been along to take things to father and Rip."

He glanced at her pony nibbling at the fresh gra.s.s, then at the preparations she had made for her bivouac.

"Say, aren't you a bit afraid to be camping out all alone so far from home?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Why should I be?" she returned. "There's no danger. What could happen?"

"You might lose your pony, for one thing," he smiled. "For another thing, there are Indians knocking about--hostile Indians, who have broken bounds. That is why we are here." He nodded in the direction of his companions of the Mounted Police. "We are out on their trail, to drive them back into their Reservation. There might be danger from them, even for you, who are yourself an Indian; though there's not much to be afraid of while our fellows are at hand to look after you."

"I shall be all right," she a.s.sured him.

"Have you everything you want?" he inquired. "I'll bring you some cooked meat presently, and an extra blanket. It'll be cold after sundown. And in the morning you may as well fall in with our outfit, see? We shall be going along the Rattlesnake trail, after we've rounded up the Indians."

"I should only hinder you," she replied. "I'm not needing any sort of help. I shall not take any. I am going to quit."

Sergeant Silk had already moved to go away, and amid the roar of the neighbouring waterfall he did not hear her last words.

CHAPTER XII

A PERILOUS MOMENT

When he returned to his comrades the teamsters had brought their wagons down the hill, the mounted men had formed up and were unsaddling. The wagons made a second line in their rear, and a rope was stretched from wheel to wheel, to which each trooper tied his horse before the teams were unharnessed.

Three of the men had chosen a spot by some bushes where an iron bar was set on a pair of uprights five feet apart, and before the sound of the axes had ceased in the bush three full kettles were swinging over a roaring fire.

A bell tent was pitched for the officer in command; the horses were watered, groomed, and fed, then at a merry call from the bugle there was a dash to the wagons for plates and cups, while knives were whipped from belt or bootleg ready for a general a.s.sault on fried bacon, hard biscuit, and scalding tea.

After the meal, when the men were beginning to cut up their plug tobacco and load their pipes, Sergeant Silk gathered some food into a blanket and filled a flagon with hot tea. His chums watched him, curious concerning his preparations.

"You going out on scout duty then, Sergeant?" one of them inquired.

"This grub isn't for myself," he explained, nodding in the direction of Maple Leaf's camp beyond a projecting corner of the ravine. "I'm taking it to a girl bivouacking alone farther up the canon."

"Alone?" one of them exclaimed in surprise. "Must be an Indian. No white girl would camp out all alone in a place like this."

"That's so," nodded Silk. "She's just an Indian--the ch.o.r.e girl from Rattlesnake Ranch, daughter of The Moose That Walks. Guess you know her, most of you. She once saved me from being scalped and roasted. I owe her some special attention."

"Say, Sergeant," suggested a trooper from the far side of the fire, "mightn't you have brought her into camp? We'd have fixed up a nice, homelike, comfortable room for her in one of the wagons. And I'd have mounted guard outside to keep away the mosquitoes. No mosquito'll go near any one else while I'm around."

Sergeant Silk had saddled his broncho and was about to mount when he turned sharply at the sound of hoofs.

"Here's Denis Murphy coming in," he announced. "I'll wait and hear if he's seen anything of those Redskins. Something has kept him."

Murphy was descending from the heights by the tracks made by the wagon wheels. As he approached along the level ground the commanding officer strode out from his tent, smoking a cigar. Murphy came to a halt in front of him and saluted.

"I've struck the trail of those Indians, sir," he reported. "Three miles beyond the far end of the canon, west by south. I calculate there's between thirty and forty of them--bucks, on the warpath."

"How do you make out that they are bucks?" questioned the commandant.

"You didn't see them?"

"I didn't see them, sir," Murphy answered, "but I found no marks of any teepee poles, and I reckon they're the lot we're looking for."

"No doubt," nodded the officer, puffing at his cigar. He turned to Silk.

"You had better persuade that girl to come into camp, Sergeant," he said. "And then I shall want you to go out scouting, and discover where the Redskins have located themselves for the night. Take Stikeman along with you and send him back with the girl."

"Yes, sir," returned Silk.

He mounted, taking his carbine with him, and Trooper Stikeman followed, carrying the blanket of provisions.

They went down the ravine at an easy trot with their faces to the west, where the sun was setting in a glory of red and gold. When they came within sound of the waterfall, the sergeant looked about for Maple Leaf's pony and the smoke from her camp fire, but he saw neither.

"Seems to me the girl has vamoosed," he said uneasily. "I see no sign of her."

He led the way to the trees and halted over the blackened ashes of the fire. In their midst was a large, round stone, with a smaller stone beside it. "Yes," he ruminated, "she's quitted and left that sign to let us know that she has made westward, out of the canon. Say, Stikeman, you'd best turn back to camp and tell the major I've gone on the girl's trail."

He started off at once at a hand gallop, knowing that Maple Leaf could get out of the ravine only by one way, for the sides were too steep for any pony to climb.

But when he came out upon the open plain he slowed down, riding to and fro, searching until he came upon the trail indicated by a faint line to be seen through the tall gra.s.ses. He followed the track quickly and unerringly, always looking for it forty or fifty yards ahead.

Once he drew rein and listened. From behind him came the notes of a bugle sounding First Post. As they ceased he heard the regular quick pad of hoofs in advance of him, borne to him by the evening breeze. The sound died away as the breeze fell, but it had told him the direction in which the girl had gone, and that she was not far away from him.

He urged his broncho forward, hardly needing to watch the trail, and at length, just for a moment, he caught sight of Maple Leaf as she crossed the crest of an old sand-drift and went over into the hollow beyond.

He expected to see her reappear on the next slope, but as he reached the top of the drift he discovered her still in the hollow, seated quietly on her horse in the midst of a colony of prairie dogs, amusing herself watching the lively little animals as they scampered about, barked, and peeped out at her from their burrows.

She seemed to be aware that he had been following her, for she turned without surprise and raised her hand in salute to the brim of her wide hat.

"How!" she called to him in Indian greeting.

Sergeant Silk rode up to her, carefully guiding his horse among the dog holes.

"You've given me a needless journey," he said to her reprovingly. "Why did you strike camp? You were safe and comfortable back there in Emerald Canon. Here you can be neither comfortable nor safe."

She looked at him with a frown of annoyance.

"There's no occasion for you to worry about me," she objected. "I'm all right left alone. I'm no tenderfoot. You needn't have come after me.

Don't just know why you did."

"I've come to take you back to our outfit," he explained. "The major sent me. You're to come back right now." He paused a moment, looking about him curiously, almost as if he were conscious of some impending danger. "Come," he urged, "we must get into camp before dark. I've got to go out on a big scout."