The Land of Frozen Suns: A Novel, Page 6

  CHAPTER VI--SLOWFOOT GEORGE

  I retain some vivid impressions of that night ride. A mile or two fromthe Circle tents I crossed the Teton River, then just receding from theJune rise, and near swimming deep. After that I came out upon a greatspread of bench-land, dotted with silent prairie-dog towns. Here andthere a lone butte rose pinnacle-like out of the flatness. In all myshort life I had never known what it was to be beyond sound of a humanvoice, to be utterly alone. That night was my first taste of it, and tomy unaccustomed ears the patter of my horse's hoofs seemed to be echoingup from a sounding-board, and the jingle of the bit chains rang like abell, so profound was the quiet. I know of nothing that compares withthe plains for pure loneliness, unless it be the deserted streets of acity at four in the morning--or the hushed, ghostly woods of the North,which I was yet to know. Each hollow into which I dipped reeked ofmysterious possibilities. Every moon-bathed rise of land gave me a vaguefeeling that something sinister, some incomprehensible evil, lay in waitupon the farther side. Whatever of superstition lay dormant in mymake-up was all agog that night; my environment was having its will ofme. I know now that my nerves were all a-jangle. But what would you? Thedark brings its subtle, threatening atmosphere to bear on braver menthan I. For aught I knew there might be a price on my head. Certainly Iwas a fugitive, and flight breeds groundless, unreasoning fears.

  Bearing a little west of the North Star, I kept the red horse at asteady jog, and when the night was far spent and my bones aching fromthe ride I came to another river--the Marias--which Wall had told me Imust cross. Following his directions, a half-hour's journey upstreambrought me upon a trail; a few wagon-tracks that I near overlooked. Thisled to a ford, or what may once have been a ford. It no longer meritedthe term, for I got well soaked in the deep, swift stream. Red carriedme through, however, and when I gained the farther bank of the MariasValley a faint reddish glow was creeping up in the east. In a littlewhile it was broad day.

  Then I halted for the first time. My mettlesome steed I picketedcarefully, ate a little of the biscuits and boiled beef, and lay down tosleep in a grassy hollow, too tired to care whether Bax was hard on mytrail or not. The sunlight had given me a fresh access of courage, Ithink--that and the heady air of those crisp morning hours. Mydifficulties began to take on some of the aspects of an adventure. Oncein the Territories, with none to hound me, I could apprise Bolton and hewould forward money to get me home. That was all I needed. And if Icould not manage to eke out a living in the meantime I was not the sonof my father. I fell asleep with a wistful eye on three blue spires thatbroke the smooth sweep of the skyline to the northward--the Sweet GrassHills, touching on the Canadian boundary, if I remembered rightly whatWall had said.

  The hot noon sun beating on my unprotected face roused me at last. Itwas near midday. I had no liking for further moonlight travel, so Isaddled up and rode on, thinking to get somewhere near the Hills bydusk, and camp there for the night. I was now over my first fear ofbeing followed; but, oh, my hearers, I was stiff and sore! A forty orfifty mile jaunt is not much to a seasoned rider--but I lackedseasoning; however, I was due to get it.

  A little before sundown I rode into the long shadow of West Butte, inrare good humor with myself despite the ache in my legs, for by grace ofmy good red horse I had covered a wonderful stretch that afternoon, andmy nag was yet stepping out lightly. On either hand loomed the ruggedpyramids of the Sweet Grass--which in truth are not hills at all, butthree boulder-strewn, pine-clad mountains rising abruptly out of arolling plain. The breaks of Milk River, in its over-the-border curve,showed plainly in the distance. I was nearing the City of Refuge.

  There in that shadow-darkened notch between the lofty pinnacles I cameto a new fork in the Trouble Trail. I did not know it then, but later Icould not gainsay the fact. And the mile-post that directed my uncertainsteps was merely a strain of the devil in the blaze-faced sorrel Ibestrode. Had he been of a less turbulent spirit I doubt much if Ishould ever have fallen in with Slowfoot George.

  It happened very simply. Ambling along with eyes for little but the wildland that surrounded, with reins held carelessly in lax fingers, I wasan easy victim. As before remarked, I can put forward no betterexplanation than a streak of "cussedness" in my red mount. Suffice it torelate, that all at once I found my steed performing a series ofdiabolic evolutions, and in some mysterious manner he and I partedcompany in a final burst of rapid-fire contortions. I have since heardand read much of the Western horse and his unique method of unseating arider, but never yet have I seen justice done the subject. Nor shall Idescant long on such an unpleasant theme. Let me simply record the factthat I came to earth ungracefully, with a jarring shock, much as animportunate suitor might be presumed to descend the front steps of hisinamorata's home, when assisted therefrom by the paternal toe. And whenI sat up, a freshly-bruised and crestfallen youth, it was to behold Redclattering over a little hillock, head up, stirrups swinging wide. Heseemed in hot haste. Like a fool I had knotted the reins together foreasier holding; with them looped upon his neck he felt as much atliberty as though stripped clean of riding-gear.

  It looked like a dubious prospect. Upon second thought I decided that itcould easily have been worse. A broken leg, say, would have been achoice complication. My bones, however, remained intact. So I soughtabout in the grass for the pistol that had been jolted from its placeduring the upheaval, and when I found it betook myself upon the way myerratic nag had gone.

  It was no difficult matter for me to arrive at the conclusion that I wasin a fair way to go into the Northwest afoot--should I be lucky enoughto arrive at all. Red seemed to have gone into hiding. At least, heremained unseen, though I ascended divers little eminences and stared myhardest, realizing something of the hopelessness of my quest even whileI stared. That Sweet Grass country is monstrously deceptive to theunsophisticated. Overlooking it from a little height one thinks he seesimmense areas of gently undulating plain; and he sees truly. But when hecomes to traverse this smooth sea of land that ripples away to a farskyline, it is a horse of another color, I assure you. He has not takenthought of what tricks the clear air and the great spaces have playedwith his perspective. The difference between looking over fifty miles ofgrassland and crossing the same is the difference between viewing astretch of salt water from a convenient point ashore and being out in atwo-oared skiff bucking the sway-backed rollers that heave up from thesea.

  So with the plains: that portion of which I speak. Distance smoothed itsnative ruggedness, glossed over its facial wrinkles, so to say. Theillusion became at once apparent when one moved toward any given point.The negligible creases developed into deep coulees, the gentleundulations proved long sharp-pitched divides. Creeks, flood-wornserpentine water-courses, surprised one in unexpected places.

  I had not noticed these things particularly while I rode. Now, as Itramped across country, persuading myself that over each succeeding hillI should find my light-footed sorrel horse meekly awaiting me, it seemedthat I was always either climbing up or sliding down. I found myselfdeep in an abstract problem as I plodded--trying to strike a balancebetween the illusory level effect and stern topographical realities.Presently I gave that up, and came back to concrete facts. Whereupon,being very tired and stiff from a longer ride than I had ever takenbefore, and correspondingly ill-tempered, I damned the red horse forbucking me off and myself for permitting any beast of the field to serveme so, and then sat down upon the peak of a low hill to reflect whereand how I should come by my supper.

  A smart breeze frolicked up from that quarter where the disappearing suncast a bloodshot haze over a few tumbled clouds. This, I daresay,muffled sounds behind me to some extent. At any rate, I was startled outof my cogitations by a voice close by--a drawly utterance which evoked asudden vision of a girl with wind-raveled hair, and a lean, dark-facedman leaning over a deck railing on the _Moon_.

  "Magnificent outlook, isn't it?"

  Notwithstanding the surprise of finding him at my elbow in suchunexpected fashion
, I faced about with tolerable calmness. Thatintuitive flash had been no false harbinger, for it was Barreau sureenough. The angular visage of him was not to be confounded with that ofany casual stranger, even though his habiliments were no longerbroadcloth and its concomitants of linen and polished shoes. Instead, agray Stetson topped his head, and he was gloved and booted like acowboy. Lest it be thought that his plight was twin to my own, I willsay that he looked down upon me from the back of a horse as black asmidnight, a long-geared brute with a curved neck and a rolling eye. Bestof all, at the end of a lariat Barreau held my own red horse.

  "That," said I, "depends on how you look at it. I'll admit that theoutlook is fine--since you have brought me back my runaway horse."

  "I meant _that_," he nodded to the glowing horizon. "But I daresay a mangets little pleasure out of a red sky when he is set afoot in ahorseless land. It will pay you, my friend, to keep your horse betweenyour legs hereafter."

  "He threw me," I confessed. "Where did you catch him? And how did youfind me?"

  "I thought he had slipped his pack, by the tied-up reins," said Barreau."As for catching him and finding you, that was an easy matter. He ranfairly into me, and I had only to look about for a man walking."

  "Well," I returned, taking my sorrel by the rope, "I'm properly gratefulfor your help. And I have another matter to thank you for, if I am notbadly mistaken."

  He made a slight gesture of deprecation. "Never mind that," said he. Hisattitude was no encouragement to profuse thanks, if I had contemplatedsuch.

  I turned then to inspect my saddle, and found fresh cause forperplexity. By some means my supply of bread and beef had been shakenfrom its fastening. The bit of sack hung slack in the strings, but thefood was gone. He looked down inquiringly, at my exclamation.

  "More of my luck," said I, and explained.

  "Might I ask," said he, after a moment of thoughtful scrutiny, "whereyou are bound for?"

  "It's no secret," I replied. "I'm for the MacLeod country; over theline."

  "Then you may as well ride with me this evening," he invited. "It isonly a few miles to the Sanders ranch; you will be that much farther onyour way. I can vouch for their hospitality."

  I hesitated, for obvious reasons. He smiled, as if he read my mind. Andall in a breath I yielded to some subtle confidence-compelling qualityof the man, and blurted out my story; the killing of Tupper, that is,and how the Circle men had aided me.

  "I guessed at something of the sort," he remarked. "You are new at thegame, and you bear the ear-marks of a man on the dodge. We are a rowdylot out here sometimes, and we can't always settle our disputes by wordof mouth; so that I think you will find most of us inclined to looklightly on what seems to you a serious affair indeed. Tupper had it instore for him; Speer too, for all of that, and many another brute onthose river craft. You haven't much to worry about. Very likely Bentonhas forgotten the thing by now--unless Bax and Matt Dunn's men lockedhorns over it. Of course there is the chance that the Benton and St.Louis Company may hound you for killing one of their officers. Butthere's no fear of their coming to Sanders' after you--not to-night; andto-morrow, and all the other to-morrows, you can take things as theycome. That's the best philosophy for the plains."

  He swung a half-mile to the east, and picked up a pack-horse he had leftwhen he took after my mount. Thereafter we loped north in the fallingdusk, Barreau riding mute after his long speech, and I, perforce,following his example. At length we drew up at the ranch, a vague huddleof low buildings set in the bend of a creek. Barreau appeared to bequite familiar with the place. Even in the gloom he went straight to thebars of a small, round corral. In this we tied our horses, throwing themhay from a new-made stack close by. Then he led the way to a lightedcabin.

  Barreau pushed open the door and walked in without ceremony. Two menwere in the room; one lying upon a bunk, the other sitting with hisspurred heels on the corner of a table. Each of them looked up at mycompanion, and both in one breath declared:

  "I'll be damned if it ain't Slowfoot!"

  After that there was more or less desultory talk, mostly impersonal--noquestions pertinent to myself troubled the tongues of either man. Onebuilt a fire and cooked us a hot supper. The other made down a bed inone corner of the cabin, and upon this, at the close of the meal Barreauand I lay down to rest.

  A jolt in the ribs and the flash of a light in my eyes brought me to asitting posture later in the night. Sleep-heavy, what of the strenuousevents that had gone before, it took me a full half-minute to get mybearings. And then I saw that three men in scarlet jackets held the twoSanders under their guns, while Barreau stood backed against the cabinwall with his hands held above his head. Even so it seemed to me that hewas regarding the whole proceeding with a distinct curl to his lip.

  "Come alive now, old chap, and don't cut up rusty--it won't do a bit o'good," one of these oddly dressed strangers was admonishing; and itdawned upon me that I, too, was included in the threatening sweep oftheir firearms. "Get into your clothes, old chap."

  It is astonishing--afterward--how much and how quickly one can reflectin a few fleeting seconds. A multitude of ideas swarmed in my brain.Plans to resist, to escape, half formed and were as instantaneouslydiscarded. Among the jumble it occurred to me that I could scarcely bewanted for that Benton affair--my capture could scarcely be the cause ofsuch a display. No, thought I, there must be more to it than that.Otherwise, Barreau and the two Sanders would not have been meddled with.Of course, I did not come to this conclusion of deliberate thought; itwas more of an impression, perhaps I should say intuition, and yet Iseemed to have viewed the odd circumstance from every angle in the brieftime it took me to lay hold of my clothes. The queer sardonic expressionlingered about Barreau's lips all the while I dressed.

  Presently I was clothed. Then the red-coated men mustered the four of usoutside, by the light of a lantern. And two of them stood by the doorwayand snapped a pair of handcuffs about the wrists of each of us as wepassed out.

  "Now," said one of them, "you Sanders chaps know what horses you'd careto ride, and what stock Slowfoot George has here. So one of you can cometo the stable wi' me and saddle up."

  He took the youngest man, and went trailing him up in the uncertainlight till both of them were utterly gone. After something of a waitthey appeared, leading Barreau's horse and mine and two others. In theinterim I had had time to count noses. There was a man apiece for thefour of us, and one off behind the cabin holding the raiders'saddlestock. We stood there like so many pieces of uncouth statuary, noone seeming to have any inclination for talk, until the saddled horsescame up. Then both the Sanders found their tongues in behalf of me.

  "Look a-here, sergeant," said the one, "yuh ain't got any business overhere, and yuh know it. Even if yuh did, this kid don't belong in thecrowd. You're after us and yuh got us, but you've no call to meddle withhim."

  "That's right," his brother put in. "I don't know him from Adam. He justdrifted in and camped overnight at the ranch."

  "I say y'know, that's a bit strong," the sergeant returned. "'Birds of afeather,' y'know. I shan't take any chances. You're too hard a lot,Sanders; you and your friend Slowfoot George."

  Thus he left no room for argument; and in a few minutes the four of uswere in the saddle and on the move, a Mounted Policeman jogging at theelbow of each man.

  At the end of half an hour's progress, as we crossed a fairly levelstretch of plain, we came to a little cairn of rocks; and when we hadpassed it the sergeant pulled up his horse and faced about. The moon wasup, and the earth and the cairn and even our features stood out clear inthe silvery glow.

  "John Sanders, Walter Sanders, George Brown alias Slowfoot George, andone John Doe, in the Queen's name I arrest you," he addressed usperfunctorily.

  A trooper snickered, and Barreau laughed out loud.

  "Routine--routine and red tape, even in this rotten deal," I heardSlowfoot murmur, when his laugh hushed. And on the other side of me WaltSanders raised in his stirrups and cri
ed hotly:

  "You dirty dogs! Some day I'll make yuh damned sorry yuh didn't keepyour own side of the line to-night."

  Of this the sergeant took no notice. He shook his horse into a trot, andprisoners and guard elbow to elbow, we moved on.