CHAPTER IV
THE SHOTS FROM THE BUSHES
Presently the policeman gathered up his reins and came on, casting his eyes about him. While still some distance away, Stamford recognised Corporal Faircloth, his favourite in the local Force.
Their friendship was closer than the ordinary, especially in the West. A couple of months earlier, within a week of Stamford's arrival, the tenderfoot had yielded to the tug of the clear prairie evening and launched himself thoughtlessly on the great stretches of soft moonlight that looked so brilliant from the town, but altered every guide where landmarks were few. So effectively did he tear himself from the rude haunts of men that when he thought of bed he had not the least idea in which direction to seek it. It was an early lesson in the supreme helplessness of being lost on the prairie.
A dim light in the eastern sky was tinging the moonlight when a Mounted Policeman came on him seated hopelessly beside the Trail. Corporal Faircloth was riding in through the night from Medicine Lodge. From that meeting had sprung a friendship that helped to fill a want that now and then oppressed the editor in the unconventional and thoughtless friendships of the prairie. What a bearing the new companionship would have on his future never entered his head.
Now the Corporal rode slowly along the side of the stockades, staring into the four filled yards, and jogged across the track to leave his horse with the others. Returning on foot, he stopped a moment to greet the two spectators before mounting the gangways.
For a few minutes he stood on the fence, moving from gangway to gangway, making way for the cowboys in their work, but always keeping the operations under his eye. The brand-inspector studied him with covert envy, as the Corporal climbed along the outside of a gangway and placed himself close to one of the car doors. At intervals he strained forward to examine a passing steer, and for an obviously unsatisfied two minutes he lay at length on the roof, head extended over the gangway.
All the time Mary Aikens' eyes followed him as they had her husband a few minutes before.
Suddenly he dropped to the ground and hurried to the stockade fence. For what seemed hours to Stamford's rioting imagination he peered through the heavy rails, restrained excitement in every move. A couple of cowboys moved away, conversing in whispers.
With equally sudden purpose the Policeman climbed the fence, at the same time shouting to West, who, having found a post from which he had not been ousted for five minutes, obeyed reluctantly.
At that moment two rifle shots snapped from the shrub-filled coulee.
Corporal Faircloth straightened up on the fence, and dropped limply outside the pens.
Instantly every cowboy sank to cover, reaching for his gun. Only little Brand-Inspector West scorned danger. He leaped across to the fallen Policeman and raised his head.
The thing had happened so suddenly that Stamford was too bewildered to move, until the woman at his side dashed beneath the gangways to West's assistance. Stamford turned and ran across the tracks to the station telephone.
As he reached the platform a third shot cut the silence that had fallen about the stockades. Stamford could see the cowboys lying close to the pens glance anxiously about for trace of the third mysterious bullet, and then questioningly to each other. A pair of leather-chapped fellows squirmed round the corner, revolvers poised, and, crouching low, rushed the shrubbery from which the shots had come.
By the time Stamford was back at the tragic group Corporal Faircloth's eyes were opening—such hopeless eyes. He smiled up into the woman's face and seemed suddenly to remember what had happened.
"Tell the Inspector—stop——"
A gush of blood stilled his tongue for ever.
Stamford, staring incredulously into the face of his dead friend, grated his teeth, tears dropping down his cheeks.
"By God!" he hissed. "By God!" he repeated, gripping his fists. It was as if he were taking an oath of vengeance.
Mary Aikens turned her wet eyes up to his with a shudder and burst into violent sobbing.
A dozen cowboys, galloping up with the next herd for the stockades, dashed into the coulee, Dakota Fraley most eager of all. Stamford bent to the body of his murdered friend, and they carried him mournfully over the tracks to the station platform.
As they laid him down on the rough planks, his poor blind eyes turned to the sky he had worked under in every season with the glorious conscientiousness of the Mounted Police, a silent group of cowboys, hats in hand, crept across the tracks, bearing another body.
Back in the coulee they had come on him, one of themselves, Kid Loveridge, of the H-Lazy Z outfit, shot through the neck. Only one rifle had they found—for they carried rifles only on special work on the prairie—and it lay beside Kid's limp hand, an empty cartridge near.
Round the corner of the stockades Dakota Fraley dashed, pulling up as the second procession laid its burden beside the dead body of the Corporal. He leaned over and looked into the bloodless face of his comrade, seemingly dazed. Then he bit his lip and shifted his head, struggling to face down the grief and horror of it with the grimness fostered in the life he knew best.
"Who did it?" he demanded fiercely. "Who murdered the Kid?"
His revolver was clenched in his hand, pointing skyward. They only looked at him sadly and sympathetically.
"The Kid!" he whimpered, his lip trembling.
Brand-Inspector West spoke:
"Back in that coulee two rifle shots and one pistol shot. We've found only one empty rifle cartridge, a Winchester."
That was the problem that faced the Police when they arrived—Sergeant Prior and Constable Woolsey—riding like mad up the steep trail from Medicine Hat. Not five minutes behind them came Inspector Barker on a light engine, having commandeered it in the station yards as a quicker means of transportation, and as an ambulance for the Corporal, whose death Stamford had not telephoned.
For hours the Policemen ranged the hills, searching, searching. If they found any clue they said nothing of it, but the Inspector's face was ominously grave.
They told their stories, but in the crowding tragedy of it much was omitted, much of no consequence included. Dakota Fraley swore before them that he himself would find the murderer of Kid Loveridge, if the Police failed.
"The Kid and I," he burst out, "went along together there just before the shooting to where we'd left our horses, and there wasn't a blessed sign of anyone. The Kid struck back for our own bunch, and I climbed the rise to join the drivers. Nobody out there seemed to hear the shots, what with the shouting and the rush of the cattle.... And—and there's the Kid!" His face twisted, ana he struggled to hide it with a curse.
Inspector Barker listened without a word.
"Why was Loveridge carrying a rifle?"
"I didn't know he was. I don't believe it's his."
"That's easily proved," said the Inspector. Dakota said nothing more.
Cockney Aikens had ridden in with the Police from their search. He reported that Kid Loveridge had never reached the H-Lazy Z outfit, of course; but his replies were sullen and brief, and Inspector Barker did not press him. At the end Cockney addressed his wife.
"This is less than ever a place for a woman. Go in to town now. I'll be spending the night at the Provincial."
She flinched before the tone of command.
"I'd rather stay here, Jim. I'm not tired. I can get enough to eat at the mess-wagon till you're ready to come with me."
"Best go to town, Mrs. Aikens," Dakota broke in. "We haven't much to spare out there. The boys'll be hungry."
She frowned slightly on him, surprised as much as annoyed. Cockney, too, was watching the foreman.
"Yes, Mary," he said. "I'll be in during the afternoon."
"You shore might as well go too, boss," began Dakota. "There ain't nothing you'd be——"
"Mind your own damn business, Dakota!" Cockney exploded furiously.
Stamford, riding back the down trail to Medicine Hat, was so wrapped in the mystery of the double murder that he forgot next day was publication day. That night his sleep was broken in the cramped little bedroom in the Provincial. When the last form was on the press and everything ready for the newsboys and the mailing, he hired again the unimpeachable horse and good enough buggy and drove out to Dunmore Junction.
The last cars were facing the gangways. A cloud of cowboys was clustered about the stockades, wearily watching the thinning lines move up the gangways, their desultory conversation constantly reverting to the tragedies of the previous day. A thousand times they had reviewed and discussed every phase of it, but the excitement still clung.
Dakota Fraley, raw of temper and untidier than ever, was making notes. With a sigh of relief he snapped the notebook shut and looked out over the prairie. From the low hills was streaming down a line of rocking wagons, their drivers lashing the horses and shouting defiance at each other.
The ranchers from the Red Deer were grouped at one gangway comparing notes—all except Cockney Aikens, who was lolling on a station bench, smoking hard, speaking to no one. He seemed to have aged during the night; in his eyes was a gaunt, wild look, and his clothes were seedy. Stamford read the record of one man's night in town.
The wagons rattled up. Dakota singled one out, stopped it with a peremptory wave, and engaged the driver in low conversation. Stamford moved carelessly nearer. The driver was expostulating, pleading—Dakota obdurate.
"You'll take the north trail right here, see?" he jerked, pointing to where a dim break in the dead grass announced the direct trail to the Red Deer, avoiding the town.
"An' ain't I to have no time in town?" whined the driver. "It ain't my fault that——" His voice sank away.
"You've had two nights of it already. Now git that wagon away as fast as you know how."
The last picture in Stamford's mind of the Red Deer shipping was a stream of swaying wagons rattling down the deep trail to town to the cheers and whip-cracking of their drivers. And off to the north one lone wagon rolled silently and slowly northward over the dead grass toward the lonely stretches of the Red Deer. And Stamford wondered.