The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail Part 9

As these convictions grew in clearness she found herself brought suddenly and sharply to face the issue. With a swift contraction of the heart she realized that she must send her husband on this perilous duty.

Ah! Could she do it? It was as if a cold hand were steadily squeezing drop by drop the life-blood from her heart. In contrast, and as if with one flash of light, the long happy days of the last six months pa.s.sed before her mind. How could she give him up? Her breathing came in short gasps, her lips became dry, her eyes fixed and staring. She was fighting for what was dearer to her than life. Suddenly she flung her hands to her face and groaned aloud.

"What is it, Mandy?" cried her husband, starting from his place.

His words seemed to recall her. The agonizing agitation pa.s.sed from her and a great quiet fell upon her soul. The struggle was done. She had made the ancient sacrifice demanded of women since ever the first man went forth to war. It remained only to complete with fitting ritual this ancient sacrifice. She rose from her seat and faced her husband.

"Allan," she said, and her voice was of indescribable sweetness, "you must go."

Her husband took her in his arms without a word, then brokenly he said:

"My girl! My own brave girl! I knew you must send me."

"Yes," she replied, gazing into his face with a wan smile, "I knew it too, because I knew you would expect me to."

The Inspector had risen from his chair at her first cry and was standing with bent head, as if in the presence of a scene too sacred to witness.

Then he came to her, and, with old time and courtly grace of the fine gentleman he was, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

"Dear lady," he said, "for such as you brave men would gladly give their lives."

"Give their lives!" cried Mandy. "I would much rather they would save them. But," she added, her voice taking a practical tone, "sit down and let us talk. Now what's the work and what's the plan?"

The men glanced at each other in silent admiration of this woman who, without moan or murmur, could surrender her heart's dearest treasure for her country's good. This was a spirit of their own type.

They sat down before the fire and discussed the business before them.

But as they discussed ever and again Mandy would find her mind wandering back over the past happy days. Ever and again a word would recall her, but only for a brief moment and soon she was far away again.

A phrase of the Inspector, however, arrested and held her.

"He's really a fine looking Indian, in short a kind of aristocrat among the Indians," he was saying.

"An aristocrat?" she exclaimed, remembering her own word about the Indian Chief they had met that very evening. "Why, that is like our Chief, Allan."

"By Jove! You're right!" exclaimed her husband. "What's your man like, again? Describe him, Inspector."

The Inspector described him in detail.

"The very man we saw to-night!" cried Mandy, and gave her description of the "Big Chief."

When she had finished the Inspector sat looking into the fire.

"Among the Piegans, too," he mused. "That fits in. There was a big powwow the other day in the Sun Dance Canyon. The Piegans' is the nearest reserve, and a lot of them were there. The Superintendent says he is somewhere along the Sun Dance."

"Inspector," said Allan, with sudden determination, "we will drop in on the Piegans to-morrow morning by sun-up."

Mandy started. This pace was more rapid than she had expected, but, having made the sacrifice, there was with her no word of recall.

The Inspector pondered the suggestion.

"Well," he said, "it would do no harm to reconnoiter at any rate. But we can't afford to make any false move, and we can't afford to fail."

"Fail!" said Cameron quietly. "We won't fail. We'll get him." And the lines in his face reminded his wife of how he looked that night three years before when he cowed the great bully Perkins into submission at her father's door.

Long they sat and planned. As the Inspector said, there must be no failure; hence the plan must provide for every possible contingency. By far the keenest of the three in mental activity was Mandy. By a curious psychological process the Indian Chief, who an hour before had awakened in her admiration and a certain romantic interest, had in a single moment become an object of loathing, almost of hatred. That he should be in this land planning for her people, for innocent and defenseless women and children, the horrors of ma.s.sacre filled her with a fierce anger.

But a deeper a.n.a.lysis would doubtless have revealed a personal element in her anger and loathing. The Indian had become the enemy for whose capture and for whose destruction her husband was now enlisted. Deep down in her quiet, strong, self-controlled nature there burned a pa.s.sion in which mingled the primitive animal instincts of the female, mate for mate, and mother for offspring. Already her mind had leaped forward to the moment when this cunning, powerful plotter would be at death-grips with her husband and she not there to help. With intensity of purpose and relentlessness of determination she focused the powers of her forceful and practical mind upon the problem engaging their thought.

With mind whetted to its keenest she listened to the men as they made and unmade their plans. In ordinary circ.u.mstances the procedure of arrest would have been extremely simple. The Inspector and Cameron would have ridden into the Piegan camp, and, demanding their man, would have quietly and without even a show of violence carried him off. It would have been like things they had each of them done single-handed within the past year.

"When once we make a start, you see, Mrs. Cameron, we never turn back.

We could not afford to," said the Inspector. There was no suspicion of boasting in the Inspector's voice. He was simply enunciating the traditional code of the Police. "And if we should hesitate with this man or fail to land him every Indian in these territories would have it within a week and our prestige would receive a shock. We dare not exhibit any sign of nerves. On the other hand we dare not make any movement in force. In short, anything unusual must be avoided."

"I quite see," replied Mandy with keen appreciation of the delicacy of the situation.

"So that I fancy the simpler the plan the better. Cameron will ride into the Piegan camp inquiring about his cattle, as, fortunately for the present situation, he has cause enough to in quite an ordinary way.

I drop in on my regular patrol looking up a cattle-thief in quite the ordinary way. Seeing this strange chief, I arrest him on suspicion.

Cameron backs me up. The thing is done. Luckily Trotting Wolf, who is the Head Chief now of the Piegans, has a fairly thorough respect for the Police, and unless things have gone much farther in his band than I think he will not resist. He is, after all, rather harmless."

"I don't like your plan at all, Inspector," said Mandy promptly. "The moment you suggest arrest that moment the younger men will be up. They are just back from a big brave-making powwow, you say. They are all worked up, and keen for a chance to prove that they are braves in more than in name. You give them the very opportunity you wish to avoid.

Now hear my plan," she continued, her voice eager, keen, hard, in the intensity of her purpose. "I ride into camp to-morrow morning to see the sick boy. I promised I would and I really want to. I find him in a fever, for a fever he certainly will have. I dress his wounded ankle and discover he must have some medicine. I get old Copperhead to ride back with me for it. You wait here and arrest him without trouble."

The two men looked at each other, then at her, with a gentle admiring pity. The plan was simplicity itself and undoubtedly eliminated the elements of danger which the Inspector's possessed. It had, however, one fatal defect.

"Fine, Mandy!" said her husband, reaching across the table and patting her hand that lay clenched upon the cloth. "But it won't do."

"And why not, pray?" she demanded.

"We do not use our women as decoys in this country, nor do we expose them to dangers we men dare not face."

"Allan," cried his wife with angry impatience, "you miss the whole point. For a woman to ride into the Piegan camp, especially on this errand of mercy, involves her in no danger. And what possible danger would there be in having the old villain ride back with me for medicine? And as to the decoy business," here she shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, "do you think I care a bit for that? Isn't he planning to kill women and children in this country? And--and--won't he do his best to kill you?" she panted. "Isn't it right for me to prevent him?

Prevent him! To me he is like a snake. I would--would--gladly kill him--myself." As she spoke these words her eyes were indeed, in Sergeant Ferry's words, "like little blue flames."

But the men remained utterly unmoved. To their manhood the plan was repugnant, and in spite of Mandy's arguments and entreaties was rejected.

"It is the better plan, Mrs. Cameron," said the Inspector kindly, "but we cannot, you must see we cannot, adopt it."

"You mean you will not," cried Mandy indignantly, "just because you are stupid stubborn men!" And she proceeded to argue the matter all over again with convincing logic, but with the same result. There are propositions which do not lend themselves to the arbitrament of logic with men. When the safety of their women is at stake they refuse to discuss chances. In such a case they may be stupid, but they are quite immovable.

Blocked by this immovable stupidity, Mandy yielded her ground, but only to attempt a flank movement.

"Let me go with you on your reconnoitering expedition," she pleaded.

"Rather, let US go, Allan, you and I together, to see the boy. I am really sorry for that boy. He can't help his father, can he?"

"Quite true," said the Inspector gravely.

"Let us go and find out all we can and next day make your attempt.

Besides, Allan," she cried under a sudden inspiration of memory, "you can't possibly go. You forget your sister arrives at Calgary this week.

You must meet her."

"By Jove! Is that so? I had forgotten," said Cameron, turning to study the calendar on the wall, a gorgeous work of art produced out of the surplus revenues of a Life Insurance Company. "Let's see," he calculated. "This week? Three days will take us in. We are still all right. We have five. That gives us two days clear for this job. I feel like making this try, Mandy," he continued earnestly. "We have this chap practically within our grasp. He will be off guard. The Piegans are not yet worked up to the point of resistance. Ten days from now our man may be we can't tell where."