The Luck of the Mounted Part 11

Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he.

Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering unholy delight.

Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--"

"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . .

_Isch ga bibble_, anyway!"

"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!" "'Tis so they name each other--now!

Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply.

They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.

"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut happened?"

Redmond made affirmative response.

"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.

"Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!

Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"

He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick, seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. Enlightenment came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder.

"D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere! It's 'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse. Tchkk! this must be him. My G.o.d!"

"Shure!" snapped Slavin testily. "Wake up! Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man?

One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!" He tenderly pocketed the clippers. "Yes! ye shud know him!"--dryly--"lukked troo th' bottom av a gla.s.s wid him often enough."

"Let's see'f he's got any letters or anything in his pockets--to make sure!" began Redmond eagerly. Suiting the action to the word he bent down to investigate. But Slavin intruded a huge arm. "Hould on, bhoy!"

he said, with all an old policeman's fussiness over rightful procedure.

"Du not touch! That is th' coroner's bizness. Did they not dhrill that inta yeh at Regina?"

He stared thoughtfully at the corpse. "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah!

dhrink an' th' divil!"--sadly. "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . .

shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man." Austerely he glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this same dhrink!"

"How do you know the poor beggar was drunk?" queried the latter, a trifle sulkily. "He may have been as sober as you or I."

"Shpeak for yehsilf!" retorted Slavin dryly, "Ah! this must be Docthor c.o.x comin' now!"

A cutter containing two men was approaching them rapidly. Presently it drew up alongside the group and a short, rotund gentleman, clad in furs, sprang out and came swiftly, bag in hand. He was middle-aged, with a gray moustache and kind, alert, dark eyes. Greeting the policemen quietly, he turned to the broken body.

"Tchkk! good G.o.d!" He shook his head sadly. Redmond thought he had never seen a medical man so unprofessionally shocked. Presently he straightened up and turned to Slavin. "Can you identify him, Sergeant?"

That worthy nodded. "Eyah! 'tis Larry Blake, I'm thinking Docthor. Best frisk him now an' see, I guess. Maybe he has letthers."

Hastily diving into his bag the coroner produced a pair of long keen scissors and slit the short, frozen sheepskin coat. In the breast-pocket of the coat underneath, amongst other miscellany two old letters rewarded his search. He glanced at the superscriptions and handed them up to Slavin.

"Larry Blake it is," he said. He felt the soggy, pulped head. "Skull's stove right in. Any one of these smashes would have sufficed to kill him." He clipped the hair around a ghastly gaping crevice at the base of the head.

Suddenly he peered closely, uttered an exclamation, peered again and drew back. "Sergeant!" he said sharply, "D'ye see that?--No need to ask you what that is!" In an unbroken portion of the back of the skull he indicated a small, circular orifice. The trio craned forward and made minute examination. Slavin e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed an oath and glanced up at Yorke--almost remorsefully.

"I take ut all back," he said. Meeting the coroner's blank, enquiring stare he added: "Booze, Docthor--we thought ut might be. . . . Yeh know Larry!"

The physician of Cow Run nodded understandingly. Slavin bent again and made close scrutiny of the bullet-hole. "_Back_ av th' head, no powdher marks!" He straightened up. "Docther, are ye thru? All right, thin!

Guess we'll book up an' start in."

Methodically they all produced note-books and entered the needful particulars. The lanky individual who had driven the coroner out brought forward a tarpaulin and spread it on the ground. With some difficulty the over-shoed foot was disengaged from the imprisoning stirrup, the body rolled in the tarpaulin and deposited in the rear of the doctor's cutter.

The saddle and bridle were flung into the Police cutter. They then rolled the dead horse clear of the trail.

That night the coyotes held grim, snarling carnival.

Slavin turned to Redmond. "Ye've located th' place, eh?" The latter nodded. "All right, thin, get mounted, th' tu av yez, an' lead on!"

Keeping needfully wide of the broad, claret-bespotted swath in the snow, the party started trailing back. Yorke and George rode ahead. The latter glanced around to make sure of being out of earshot of their sergeant.

"We-ll of all the hardened old cases! . . . Slavin sure does crown 'em!"

he muttered to his comrade.

"Hardened!" Yorke laughed grimly. "You should have seen him up in the Yukon! The man's been handling these rotten morgue cases 'till he'd qualify for the Seine River Police. He's got so he ascribes well-nigh everything now to 'dhrink an' th' divil.'" His face softened, "but I know the real heart of old Burke under it all."

About two miles down the trail Redmond halted.

"Here it is!" he said. And he indicated an irregular, blood-soaked, clawed-up patch in the snow where the sanguinary swath ended. They dismounted. Slavin drawing up alongside the coroner's cutter handed over his lines to the teamster.

"Now!" said he, "let's shtart in! . . . Ye must have 'shpotted this on yeh way up, Docthor?" He pointed to the patch.

The latter nodded. "Yes! we thought it must have happened here."

For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at their surroundings. The frozen landscape at this point presented a singularly lonely, desolate aspect. Flat, and for the greater part absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible.

Far to the right-hand, more than a mile away, stretched the first of the shelving benches, where the high ground sloped away in irregular jumps, as it were, to the river.

"Best ye shtay fwhere ye all are," cautioned the sergeant, "'till I size up th' lay av things a bit. I du not want th' thracks fouled up. H-mm!

let's see now!" He remained in deep, thoughtful silence a s.p.a.ce.

"Thravellin' towards us," he muttered--"th' back av th' head!"

Hands clasped behind bent back, and with head thrust loweringly forward from between his huge shoulders he paced slowly down the trail for some hundred yards. That grim, intent face and the swaying gait reminded Redmond of some huge bloodhound casting about for a scent.

Halting irresolutely a moment, Slavin presently faced about and returned.

"Wan ha.r.s.e on'y!" he vouchsafed to their silent looks of enquiry. "He had not company. Must have been shot from lift or right av th' thrail."

He stared around him at the bare sweep of ground. "Now fwhere cud any livin' man find cover here in th' full av th' moon, tu get th' range wid a small arm? He wud show up agin' th' snow like th' ace av shpades an'

he thried."

Suddenly his jaw dropped and he stiffened. "Ah-hh!" His eyes rivetted themselves on some object and his huge arm shot out. "Fwhat's yon?"

They all stared in the direction he indicated. Plastered with frosted snow, until it was all but undiscernible against its white background, lay an enormous boulder--a relic, perchance, of some vast pre-historic upheaval. It was situated at an oblique angle to the trail, about a hundred yards distant.