Man Size Part 19

From the beginning of the adventure until its climax no word was spoken. Beresford led, the trader followed at his heels.

The voices of men drifted to them from a camp-fire in the shelter of the wagons. There were, Tom guessed, about four of them. Their words came clear through the velvet night. They talked the casual elemental topics common to their kind.

There was a moonlit open s.p.a.ce to be crossed. The constable took it swiftly with long strides, reached a wagon, and dodged under it. His companion held to the cover of the ditch. He was not needed closer.

The officer lay flat on his back, set the point of the auger to the woodwork of the bed, and began to turn. Circles and half-circles of shavings flaked out and fell upon him. He worked steadily. Presently the resistance of the wood ceased. The bit had eaten its way through.

Beresford withdrew the tool and tried again, this time a few inches from the hole he had made. The pressure lessened as before, but in a second or two the steel took a fresh hold. The handle moved slowly and steadily.

A few drops of moisture dripped down, then a small stream. The constable held his hand under this and tasted the flow. It was rum.

Swiftly he withdrew the bit, fitted the plug into the hole, and pushed it home.

He crawled from under the wagon, skirted along the far side of it, ran to the next white-topped vehicle, and plumped out upon the campers with a short, sharp word of command.

"Up with your hands! Quick!"

For a moment the surprised quartette were too amazed to obey.

"What in Halifax--?"

"Shove 'em up!" came the crisp, peremptory order.

Eight hands wavered skyward.

"Is this a hold-up--or what?" one of the teamsters wanted to know sulkily.

"Call it whatever you like. You with the fur cap hitch up the mules to the second wagon. Don't make a mistake and try for a getaway. You'll be a dead smuggler."

The man hesitated. Was this red-coat alone?

Tom strolled out of the ditch, a sawed-off shotgun under his arm.

"I judge you bored through your difficulties, constable," he said cheerfully.

"Through the bed of the wagon and the end of a rum keg. Stir your stumps, gentlemen of the whiskey-running brigade. We're on the way to Fort Edmonton if it suits you."

If it did not suit them, they made no audible protest of disagreement.

Growls were their only comment when, under direction of Beresford, the Montanan stripped them of their weapons and kept guard on the fur-capped man--his name appeared to be Lemoine--while the latter brought the mules to the wagon pointed out by the officer.

"Hook 'em," ordered Morse curtly.

The French-Indian trapper hitched the team to the wagon. Presently it moved beyond the circle of firelight into the darkness. Morse sat beside the driver, the short-barreled weapon across his knees.

Three men walked behind the wagon. A fourth, in the uniform of the North-West Mounted, brought up the rear on horseback.

CHAPTER XIV

SCARLET-COATS IN ACTION

When Bully West discovered that such part of the cargo of wet goods as was in wagon number two had disappeared and along with it the four mule-skinners, his mind jumped to an instant conclusion. That it happened to be the wrong one was natural enough to his sulky, suspicious mind.

"G.o.ddlemighty, they've double-crossed us," he swore to his partner, with an explosion of accompanying profanity. "Figure on cleanin' up on the goods an' cuttin' back to the States. Tha's what they aim to do.

Before I can head 'em off. Me, I'll show 'em they can't play monkey tricks on Bully West."

This explanation did not satisfy Whaley. The straight black line of the brows above the cold eyes met in frowning thought.

"I've got a hunch you're barkin' up the wrong tree," he lisped with a shrug of shoulders.

Voice and gesture were surprising in that they were expressions of this personality totally unexpected. Both were almost womanlike in their delicacy. They suggested the purr and soft padding of a cat, an odd contradiction to the white, bloodless face with the inky brows.

The eyes of "Poker" Whaley could throw fear into the most reckless bull-whacker on the border. They held fascinating and sinister possibilities of evil.

"Soon see. We'll hit the trail right away after them," Bully replied.

Whaley's thin lip curled. He looked at West as though he read to the bottom of that shallow mind and meant to make the most of his knowledge.

"Yes," he murmured, as though to himself. "Some one ought to stay with the rest of the outfit, but I reckon I'd better go along. Likely you couldn't handle all of 'em if they showed fight."

West's answer was a roar of outraged vanity. "Me! Not round up them tame sheep. I'll drive 'em back with their tongues hangin' out.

Understand?"

At break of day he was in the saddle. An experienced trailer, West found no difficulty in following the wagon tracks. No attempt had been made to cover the flight. The whiskey-runner could trace at a road gait the narrow tracks along the winding road.

The country through which he traveled was the border-land between the plains and the great forests that rolled in unbroken stretch to the frozen North. Sometimes he rode over undulating prairie. Again he moved through strips of woodland or skirted beautiful lakes from the reedy edges of which ducks or geese rose whirring at his approach. A pair of coyotes took one long look at him and skulked into a ravine.

Once a great moose started from a thicket of willows and galloped over a hill.

West heeded none of this. No joy touched him as he breasted summits and looked down on wide sweeps of forest and rippling water. The tracks of the wheel rims engaged entirely his sulky, lowering gaze. If the brutish face reflected his thoughts, they must have been far from pleasant ones.

The sun flooded the landscape, climbed the sky vault, slid toward the horizon. Dusk found him at the edge of a wooded lake.

He looked across and gave a subdued whoop of triumph. From the timber on the opposite sh.o.r.e came a tenuous smoke skein. A man came to the water with a bucket, filled it, and disappeared in the woods. Bully West knew he had caught up with those he was tracking.

The smuggler circled the lower end of the lake and rode through the timber toward the smoke. At a safe distance he dismounted, tied the horse to a young pine, and carefully examined his rifle. Very cautiously he stalked the camp, moving toward it with the skill and the stealth of a Sarcee scout.

Camp had been pitched in a small open s.p.a.ce surrounded by bushes.

Through the thicket, on the south side, he picked a way, pus.h.i.+ng away each sapling and weed noiselessly to make room for the pa.s.sage of his huge body. For such a bulk of a figure he moved lightly. Twice he stopped by reason of the crackle of a snapping twig, but no sign of alarm came from his prey.

They sat hunched--the four of them--before a blazing log fire, squatting on their heels in the comfortable fas.h.i.+on of the outdoors man the world over. Their talk was fragmentary. None gave any sign of alertness toward any possible approaching danger.

No longer wary, West broke through the last of the bushes and straddled into the open.

"Well, boys, hope you got some grub left for yore boss," he jeered, triumph riding voice and manner heavily.

He waited for the startled dismay he expected. None came. The drama of the moment did not meet his expectation. The teamsters looked at him, sullenly, without visible fear or amazement. None of them rose or spoke.

Sultry anger began to burn in West's eyes. "Thought you'd slip one over on the old man, eh? Thought you could put over a raw steal an'

get away with it. Well, lemme tell you where you get off at. I'm gonna whale every last one of you to a frazzle. With a big club. An'