Sergeant Silk the Prairie Scout Part 19

Instantly, also, the band divided itself into two sections to right and left and sped onward in separate lines, firing wildly as they rushed past like a raging whirlwind.

As the last of them flashed by, firing backward at him, Silk turned to take up a new position, knowing that they would double and renew their attack. But as he moved, the hollow dog mound on which he knelt gave way beneath his weight; he lost his balance and rolled over.

Maple Leaf saw him fall, and, believing that a bullet had struck him, she caught up the revolver, pressed the cold ring of its muzzle against her forehead, and closed her eyes. She heard the Indians galloping back, bullets were dropping around her. She was sure now that the end had come.

"One--two--three!" she counted and pressed the trigger.

But Sergeant Silk had already leapt to his feet.

"Stop!" he cried, flinging out his hand. He was in time to thrust the girl's elbow aside, but the trigger had been pressed, the weapon had been fired, and Maple Leaf fell backward.

He glanced at her hurriedly and saw a splash of red across her face.

Then he raised his rifle and with steady, deliberate aim, fired four shots in succession.

As the warriors pa.s.sed abreast of him, now at a greater distance, four of their horses ran riderless. Again they had swerved, curving off into a circle and riding round and round as before. He watched them and saw their circle suddenly break. Their yells of defiance were turned into shouts of alarm, and as they scattered there came to him the shrill notes of a bugle.

"Thank Heaven!" he exclaimed as half-a-dozen of his comrades of the Mounted Police galloped into sight over the rising ground. "The boys have followed on our trail! We shall be all right now."

He turned to Maple Leaf. She was on her knees, supported by her outstretched hands, staring at him while the crimson trickle from her face and hair and chin dripped upon the sand.

"I thought they'd got you," she said feebly. "I'd have done it sure if you hadn't stopped me."

He looked at the ugly score that the bullet had made across her temple.

"It's just a flesh wound," he told her. "We can soon patch it up when we get back into camp."

"It will leave a mark," she said, overcoming her faintness.

"Why, cert'nly," he smiled, returning the pistol to its holster. "But your hair will 'most hide it--if you want it to be hidden."

"But I don't," she faltered weakly, closing her eyes. "I shall be proud of it--as long as I live."

CHAPTER XIII

THE MAN WHO WAS GLAD

There was just the slightest sound of a foot-tread down by the creek.

None but an attentively alert ear could have detected it amid the soughing of the wintry wind and the murmur of the stream over its stony bed.

Young Dan Medlicott raised himself on his elbow and listened, directing his searching gaze across the moonlit gra.s.s towards the deep shadows of the bluff of birch and poplar that lay between him and his home on Rattlesnake Ranch.

His rifle was behind him, propped against a post of the stout corral gate. His hand went round to it cautiously, but only to touch it and a.s.sure himself that it was still there, ready for use in case it should presently be needed.

There were Indians about--Indians and rebel half-breeds, who coveted the horses in the corral which he was watching, and who during the past month had made more than one attempt to break through the palisade and stampede the animals across the valley into their own encampment.

Dan was only seventeen years old, but he was no tenderfoot. In spite of his youth, he had already had many a brush with the Redskins of Western Canada, and he knew their subtle ways and how to deal with them.

He had been lying in wait for three weary hours, and nothing had happened until now. The night was very cold, there was a sharp frost, and a cutting wind from the mountains in the north moaned dismally in the trees. He lay with his blanket over his knees and his coat collar turned up about his ears. He listened for a long time, but the sound which had alarmed him for a moment was not repeated.

"Some scavenger dog prowlin' around, I reckon," he decided, and leant back, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes.

He did not allow himself to fall asleep. To do so would have been neglecting his duty as a scout; but he might at least keep himself bodily comfortable, and he knew that even if he should sink into slumber no enemy would approach the gate of the stockade without arousing him.

He was still in the same position half-an-hour afterwards, betraying by no sign that he was aware that he was not alone.

A shadow moved across his closed eyes, he heard a very cautious footstep quite near to him, but he did not stir.

He remained silent and motionless for many minutes, until he became conscious of a warm breath in his face and of a hand stealing behind him towards his rifle. But before the fingers closed upon the weapon, Dan had swiftly seized the intruding arm.

"No, you don't!" he objected, with a laugh, and he looked up into the moonlit face of a man in the familiar uniform of the North-West Mounted Police, who was sitting on the end of a pine log only a few inches away from him. "Guess you figured I was asleep, did you, Sergeant?" he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Looked some like it," returned the sergeant. "You showed no sign of being awake, and you never challenged me as you ought to have done. Say, it might have been an Indian sneaking up."

"I sure knew that it wasn't," affirmed Dan. "An Injun doesn't wear top boots and clinkin' spurs, nor a Stetson hat, nor a scarlet tunic. And he wouldn't have made a bee-line across that patch of moonlit gra.s.s, as you did just now. I knew it was you all the time. If I hadn't known it, you might have had a bullet in you. A nice thing it would have been if I'd had to go to the fort and report that I'd shot Sergeant Silk in mistake for a Redskin. I should have been some sorry."

"Dare say," reflected Silk, speaking hardly above a whisper. "Folks generally are some sorry after they've taken a human life. I never knew but one man who was real glad."

"Glad?" echoed Dan.

"Yes. Lean Bear was glad when he killed Tough Kelly."

"H'm! Indian, eh?" said Dan. "But Indians are usually glad when they've rubbed out a Paleface. Lean Bear?" He repeated the name. "Why, wasn't that the chap you spared last week in the skirmish back of the fort? I saw what happened. I was ridin' behind you. I saw him tumble from his horse. You had the upper hand of him, and just as you were goin' to pull the trigger he yelled out to you, and you lowered your weapon, lettin'

him escape, as if he'd been an old pal of yours 'stead of a deadly enemy."

Sergeant Silk leant forward with an elbow on his knee.

"Yes, that was the chap," he acknowledged. "But any other trooper would have done the same, and let him live."

"Why?" questioned Dan. "Wasn't he the same as all other Injuns--a rotten, ungrateful brute?"

Sergeant Silk did not answer at once. He slowly took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them beside him on the pine log before b.u.t.toning up his overcoat. He was silent for a long time--silent and thoughtful.

Dan Medlicott knew that this mood meant a story.

"Fire away," he urged, "I'm listenin'. I hope it's goin' to be a yarn about yourself, and none of your second-hand snacks about some fellow who isn't half so good and brave."

Silk shrugged his shoulders.

"It's just about Lean Bear himself," he resumed. "Lean Bear and--and a young trooper who had charge of the post at Rosetta's Crossing. Corporal Pretty John was what he was commonly called, though he wasn't pretty and John wasn't his name.

"Lean Bear was well known on the Rosetta Patrol. He was just an idle, good-for-nothing loafer of the plains, picking up a poor living by trapping on the creeks, doing odd jobs, sponging on people who had more of this world's goods than himself, and drinking, drinking whenever he could get hold of a drop of firewater to flush down his scraggy throat.

"The missionaries could do nothing with him; they gave him up. The Hudson's Bay Company wouldn't trade with him. His own people, the Cree Indians, wouldn't admit him into their wigwams; they said his tongue was forked, it was crooked.

"The Mounted Police always kept a close watch on him, suspecting him of theft, though they never could bring anything home to him. He was too cunning to be caught. And yet it was said that he'd once led an honest, respectable life, as far as a Redskin can contrive to be honest and respectable.