Ranching for Sylvia Part 18

"You want to get back to your homestead and lie quiet a while. I didn't miss you until I'd got out of the bluff, and then the wagon was close ahead."

"How was it you avoided falling in after me?"

"That's easy understood in the daylight. The trail twists sharply and runs along the edge of the ravine. I stuck to it; instead of turning, you went straight on."

"Yes," said George, and mentioned having seen the Indian who left the wagon. Then he asked: "But what about the fellow you followed?"

His companion hesitated.

"Guess I've been badly fooled. I came up with him outside the bluff when it was getting light, and he stopped his team. Said he was quietly driving home when he heard somebody riding after him, and as he'd once been roughly handled by mean whites, he tried to get away.

Then as I didn't know what to do, I allowed I'd keep him in sight until Constable Flett turned up, and by and by we came to a deserted shack.

There's a well in the bluff behind it, and the buck said his team wanted a drink; they certainly looked a bit played out, and my mare was thirsty. He found an old bucket and asked me to fill it."

"You didn't leave him with the horses!"

"No, sir; but what I did was most as foolish. I let him go and he didn't come back. See how I was fixed? If I'd gone into the bluff to look for him, he might have slipped out and driven off, so I stood by the beasts quite a while. It strikes me that team wasn't his. At last Flett rode up with another trooper. It seems Steve met them on the trail."

George nodded. Flett had arrived before he was expected, because Grant's messenger had been saved a long ride to his station.

"Well?" he said.

"When we couldn't find the buck, Flett sent his partner off to pick up his trail, and then said we'd better take the team along and look for you. I left where the trail forks; he was to wait a bit. Now, do you think you can get up?"

George did so, and managed with some a.s.sistance to climb the slope, where his companion left him and went off for the constable. Flett arrived presently, and made George tell his story.

"The thing's quite plain," he said. "The fellow you saw jumped off with the liquor, though one wouldn't expect him to carry it far. You say he was tall; did he walk a little lame?"

"It was too dark to tell. I'm inclined to think I would know him again."

"Well," explained Flett, "this is the kind of thing Little Ax is likely to have a hand in, and he's the tallest buck in the crowd. I'll stick to the team until we come across somebody who knows its owner. The first thing we have to do is to find that case of liquor."

Half an hour later the teamster came back carrying it, and set it down before the constable with a grin.

"Guess it's your duty to see what's in these bottles," he remarked.

"Shall I get one out?"

"You needn't; I've a pretty good idea," answered Flett; adding meaningly, "besides, it's the kind of stuff a white man can't drink."

Then he turned to George. "I'd better take you home. You look kind of shaky."

"What about my horse?" George asked.

"Guess he's made for home," said the teamster. "I struck his trail, and it led right out of the woods."

George got into the wagon with some trouble, and the teamster rode beside it when they set off.

"You haven't much to put before a court," he said to Flett.

"No," the constable replied thoughtfully. "I'm not sure our people will take this matter up; anyway, it looks as if we could only fix it on the Indians. This is what comes of you folks fooling things, instead of leaving them to us."

"The police certainly like a conviction," rejoined the teamster, grinning. "They feel real bad when the court lets a fellow off; seem to think that's their business. Guess it's why a few of their prisoners escape."

Flett ignored this, and the teamster turned to George.

"I'll tell you what once happened to me. I was working for a blamed hard boss, and it doesn't matter why I quit without getting my wages out of him, but he wasn't feeling good when I lit out behind a freight-car. By bad luck, there was a trooper handy when a train-hand found me at a lonely side-track. Well, that policeman didn't know what to do with me. It was quite a way to the nearest guard-room; they don't get medals for corraling a man who's only stolen a ride, and he had to watch out for some cattle rustlers; so wherever he went I had to go along with him. We got quite friendly, and one night he said to me, 'There's a freight that stops here nearly due. I'll go to sleep while you get out on her.'"

The teamster paused and added with a laugh:

"That's what I did, and I'd be mighty glad to set the drinks up if I ever meet that man off duty. We'd both have a full-size jag on before we quit."

"And you're one of the fellows who're running Hardie's temperance campaign!" Flett said dryly.

CHAPTER XI

DIPLOMACY

Flett left the team at George's homestead. Bidding him take good care of it, and borrowing a fresh team, he drove away with the wagon. When he reached Sage b.u.t.te it was getting dusk. He hitched the horses outside of the better of the two hotels and entered in search of food, as he had still a long ride before him. Supper had long been finished, and Flett was kept waiting for some time, but he now and then glanced at the wagon. It was dark when he drove away, after seeing that the case lay where he had left it, and he had reached his post before he made a startling discovery. When he carried the case into the lamplight, it looked smaller, and on hastily opening it he found it was filled with soil!

He sat down and thought; though on the surface the matter was clear--he had been cleverly outwitted by somebody who had exchanged the case while he got his meal. This, as he reflected, was not the kind of thing for which a constable got promoted; but there were other points that required attention. The subst.i.tution had not been effected by anybody connected with the Queen's; it was, he suspected, the work of some of the frequenters of the Sachem; and he and his superiors had to contend with a well-organized gang. News of what had happened in the bluff had obviously been transmitted to the settlement while he had rested at Lansing's homestead. He had, however, made a long journey, and as he would have to ride on and report the matter to his sergeant in the morning, he went to sleep.

The next day George was setting out on a visit to Grant when a man rode up and asked for the team.

"Flett can't get over, but he wants the horses at the post, so as to have them handy if he finds anybody who can recognize them," he explained.

That sounded plausible, but George hesitated. The animals would be of service as a clue to their owner and a proof of his complicity in the affair. As they had not been identified, it would embarra.s.s the police if they were missing.

"I can only hand them over to a constable, unless you have brought a note from Flett," he replied.

"Then, as I haven't one, you'll beat me out of a day's pay, and make Flett mighty mad. Do you think he'd get anybody who might know the team to waste a day riding out to your place? Guess the folks round here are too busy, and they'd be glad of the excuse that it was so far.

They won't want to mix themselves up in this thing."

George could find no fault with this reasoning, but he thought the fellow was a little too eager to secure the horses.

"Well," he said, "as I'm going to call on Mr. Grant, I'll see what he has to say. If I'm not back in time, Mr. West will give you supper."

"Then Grant's standing in with you and the temperance folks?"

It struck George that he had been incautious, but he could not determine whether the man had blundered or not. His question suggested some knowledge of the situation, but an accomplice of the offenders would, no doubt, have heard of the part Grant's hired man had played.

"I don't see how that concerns you," he replied. "You'll have to wait until I return if you want the team."

He rode on, but he had not gone far when he met Beamish, of the Sachem.

"I was coming over to see you," the man told him. "You bought that young Hereford bull of Broughton's, didn't you?"

George was surprised at the question, but he answered that he had done so.