Told In The Hills Part 42

"Just so."

"Then, since you refuse to answer a very necessary question, you may--until I have an opportunity of investigating an absence that is, to say the least, suspicious--you may consider yourself under arrest."

"What in--"

"For horse-stealing," finished the Captain calmly.

Genesee's hand dropped to his belt in a suggestive manner, and from the door two guards stepped forward. He turned to look at them, and the ridiculous idea of his arrest quelled the quick rage that had flashed up in his face.

"You needn't have troubled yourself with these protectors," he remarked, "for I reckon there isn't much I'd want to do that they would stop me from; and as for you--this is a piece of dirty work for some end. I'm ready to be put under arrest, just to see some fun when your commander gets back. And now may be you'll just tell me whose horse I stole?"

"It is not one horse, but one-half the stock belonging to the company, that was run off by your Kootenai friends last night," replied Captain Holt grimly; "and as your disappearance was likely helpful to them, and a matter of mystery to the command, you will be debarred from visiting them again until the matter is investigated. Even the explanation is more than your insolence deserves. You can go back to your quarters."

"It's an infernal lie!" burst out Genesee wrathfully. "No Kootenai touched your stock. It's been some thieving Blackfeet and their white friends; and if you interfere with the Kootenais, and try to put it on their shoulders, you'll get yourself in trouble--big trouble."

"When I want your advice, I will ask for it," was the natural reply to the contradiction and half threat. Genesee walked to the door with the guards, and turning, came back.

"Captain Holt," with more of appeal in manner than one would look for in him, "I'm ready to take my chances in this business, and I'm not trying to give advice, but I'm going to ask you, on the reputation you know I have in Indian matters, to be mighty careful what you do or what you let the men do toward the Kootenai people. They're only waiting the Major's return to send word to camp that their arms and fighting braves are willing to help the troops against the Blackfeet if they're needed. I know it. Their messenger is likely to come any day; and it will be a bad thing for our cause if their friendliness is broken by this suspicion."

"Your cause?"

"No, I haven't got any," he retorted. "I'm not talking for myself--I'm out of it; but I mean the cause of lives here in the valley--the lives on both sides--that would be lost in a useless fight. It's all useless."

"And you acknowledge, then, that you don't consider the cause of the whites as your own cause?" asked the Captain quietly.

"Yes!" he burst out emphatically, "I'll own up to you or anyone else; so make me a horse-thief on that, if you can! I'd work for the reds quicker than for you, if there was anything to be gained by fighting for them; but there isn't. They'd only kill, and be killed off in the end. If I've worked on your side, it's been to save lives, not to take them; and if I've got any sympathies in the matter, it's with the reds. They've been dogged to death by your d.a.m.ned 'cause.' Now you've got my ideas in a nut-sh.e.l.l."

"Yes," agreed the Captain sarcastically, "very plainly expressed. To establish entirely your sympathy with your red friends, it only remains for you to be equally frank and report your movements of last night."

"Go to h.e.l.l and find out;" and with this climax of insubordination, the scout left the presence of the commanding officer and marched back to his shack, where he took possession of the bunk and was sound asleep in five minutes, and altogether undisturbed by the fact that a guard was stationed at the door of the impromptu prison with orders to shoot him if an attempt to escape was made.

Captain Holt's leniency with the scout, who simply ignored military rule and obedience in a place where it was the only law, was, for him, phenomenal.

The one thing in Genesee's favor was his voluntary return to camp; and until he learned what scheme was back of that, the Captain was obliged, with the thought of his superior officer in mind and the scout's importance, to grant him some amenities, ignore his insolence, and content himself with keeping him under guard.

The guard outside was not nearly so strong in its control of Genesee as the bonds of sleep that held him through the morning and well-nigh high noon. He had quickly summed up the case after his interview with Holt, and decided that in two days, at most, the Major would be back, and that the present commander would defer any decided movement toward the Kootenais until then. As for the horses, that was a bad business; but if they chose to put him under arrest, they plainly took from him the responsibility of hunting for stock. So he decided, and in the freedom from any further care, dropped asleep. Once a guard came in with some breakfast, which he ate drowsily, and turned again to his pillow.

"When that fool, the commanding officer, concludes to let up on this arrest, there's likely to be some work to do--I'll fortify myself while I have the chance;" and that determination, added to his exhaustion, served to make his rest a very deliberate affair, not to be disturbed by trifles.

Several things occurred during that winter's morning that were far from trifling; yet no sound of them came to him, not even when a shot on the ridge echoed across the valley, and ten minutes later was followed by several more, accompanied by yells, heard faintly, but clearly enough to tell that a skirmishing party was having a shooting-match with someone across the hills. In three minutes every horse left in camp was mounted and scurrying fast as their feet could carry them through the drifts, while the horseless ones, whose stock had been run off in the m.u.f.fled silence of the snow-storm, remained unwillingly behind.

At the end of the avenue Lieutenant Murray caught sight of Stuart and Hardy, riding toward camp. There was a hallooed invitation to join, another of acceptance, and the civilians joined the irregular cavalcade and swept with them over the hill, where the sounds of shots were growing fainter--evidently a retreat and a chase--toward which they rode blindly.

Through all of it their chief of scouts slept unconcernedly; a solid ten hours of rest was taken possession of before he aroused himself to care whether it was daylight or darkness.

"Major come yet?" was the first query.

"No."

"Am I still under arrest?"

"Yes."

"Then bring me something to eat. Past chuck?"

On being informed that the midday meal had been ended two hours before, his next query was whether anyone from the ranch had been to camp; but the guard thought not--a reply most grateful to the prisoner.

"Suppose you tell me something about the horses being run off," he suggested. "Oh, yes, I reckon I'm supposed to know all about it," he added; "but, just to pa.s.s the time, suppose you tell me your side of it."

There was not much to tell. Hardy's men had been riding around after stray stock until late; had pa.s.sed camp after ten o'clock. About one in the morning the snow was falling thick; a little racket was heard in the long shed where the horses were tied, and the sentry, thinking some of Hardy's stray stock had wandered in there, tramped around with a light to see what was wrong. He had barely reached the end of the corral when someone from behind struck him over the head. In falling, his gun was discharged; and when investigations were made, it was found that nearly half the horses, about forty head, had been quietly run off through the snow, and the exploded gun was all that saved the rest.

The trail was hot, and pursuit began, but the thieves evidently knew the country, while the troops did not; and every moment lost in consultation and conjecture was gained by the people ahead, until the wind rose and the trail was buried in the snow.

The followers had only returned to camp a few minutes before Genesee was reported back; but the man surmised that if the troops did not get the horses, they were taking their pay out of the hides of the red-skins.

"How's that?" demanded Genesee, with the quick, perplexed frown that was as much anxiety as displeasure.

"Well, a young cub of a Siwash came a-riding along to camp about noon, as large as life and independent as a hog on ice, and Denny Claflin--you know him, his horse was roped in by them last night--well, he called the buck to halt, as he'd a perfect right to do, and got no more notice than if the wind had whistled. Denny hates an Injun as the devil does holy water, and being naturally riled over last night, he called to halt, or he'd fire. Well, Mr. Siwash never turned his head, and Denny let him have it."

"Killed him?"

"Dead as a door-nail. Right over the ridge north. Our boys were just coming in, after skirmishing for signs from last night. They heard the shot, and rode up; and then, almost before they saw them, some ambushed Injuns burst out on them like all-possessed. They'd come with the young one, who was sent ahead, you see. Well, there was a go-as-you-please fight, I guess, till our men got out from camp, and chased them so far they haven't showed up since. Some of us went out afoot to the ridge, and found the dead buck. We buried him up there, and have been keeping an eye open for the boys ever since."

"Did Captain Holt go?"

"You bet! and every other man that had a horse to go on; even that Mr.

Stuart and Hardy from the ranch went."

"And they haven't showed up?"

"Naw."

No more questions were asked, and the guard betook himself to his pipe and enjoyment of the warm room, for intense cold had followed in the wake of the snow.

And the prisoner? The man on watch eyed dubiously the dark face as it lounged on the bunk. Aroused and refreshed by rest, he drifted away from the remembrance of his prison by living over with tender eyes the victory of the night before. Once he had seen it was possible for her to care for him--that once of a year ago, before she knew what he was; but lately--well, he thought her a plucky, cool-headed girl, who wouldn't go back on a friend, and her stanchness had shown that; but the very frank and outspoken showing had taken from him any hope of the warmer feeling that had existed in the old days, when she had likened him to a Launcelot in buckskin. The hope? His teeth set viciously as he thought of it as a hope. What right had he for such a wish? What right had he to let go of himself as he had done, and show her how his life was bound up in hers? What a hopeless tangle it was; and if she cared for him, it meant plainly enough that he was to repay her by communicating its hopelessness to her.

If she cared! In the prosaic light of day he even attempted to tell himself that the victory of the night might have been in part a delusion; that she had pitied him and the pa.s.sion she had raised, and so had stooped from the saddle. Might it not have been only that? His reason told him--perhaps; and then all the wild unreason in the man turned rebel, and the force of a tumultuous instinct arose and took possession of him--of her, for it gave her again into his arms, and the laws of people were as nothing. She was his by her own gift; the rest of the world was blotted out.

CHAPTER III.

"THE SQUAW WHO RIDES."

At the ranch a strange cloak of silence hung around the household in regard to the horse-stealing. The men, hearing of the night raid, had endeavored to keep it from the women for fear of giving them uneasiness, but had not altogether succeeded. Jim had frustrated that attempt by forgetting, and blurting out at the dinner table something about Genesee's arrest.