Читать книгу The Mistress of Bonaventure - Harold Bindloss - Страница 3

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After relaxing its iron grip a little so that we hoped for spring, winter had once more closed down on the broad Canadian prairie, and the lonely outpost was swept by icy draughts, when, one bitter night, Sergeant Mackay, laying down his pipe, thrust fresh billets into the crackling stove. It already glowed with a dull redness, and the light that beat out through its opened front glinted upon the carbines, belts, and stirrups hung about the rough log walls.

"'Tis for the rebuking of evildoers an' the keeping of the peace we're sent here to patrol the wilderness, an' if we're frozen stiff in the saddle 'tis no more than our duty," said the sergeant, while his eyes twinkled whimsically. "But a man with lands an' cattle shows a distressful want o' judgment by sleeping in a snow bank when he might be sitting snug in a club at Montreal. 'Tis a matter o' wonder to me that ye are whiles so deficient in common sense, Rancher Ormesby. Still, I'm no' denying ye showed a little when ye brought that whisky. 'Tis allowable to interpret the regulations with discretion in bitter weather—an' here's a safe ride to ye!"

A brighter beam that shot out called up the speaker's rugged face and gaunt figure from the shadows. Although his lean, hard fingers closed somewhat affectionately on a flask instead of on the bridle or carbine they were used to, his profession was stamped on him, for Allan Mackay was as fine a sample of non-commissioned cavalry officer as ever patrolled the desolate marches of Western Canada—which implies a good deal to those who know the Northwest troopers. He was also, as I knew, a man acquainted with sorrow, who united the shrewdness of Solomon with a childish simplicity and hid beneath his grim exterior a vein of eccentric chivalry which on occasion led him into trouble. The blaze further touched the face of a young English lad sitting in a corner of the room.

"Some of us were sent here for our sins, and some came for our health when the temperature of our birthplaces grew a trifle high," he said. "I don't know that anybody except Rancher Ormesby ever rode with us for pleasure. Yet I'm open to admit the life has its compensations; and Sergeant Mackay has given me many as good a run as I ever had with—that is, I mean any man who must earn his bread might well find work he would take less kindly to."

The lad's momentary embarrassment was not lost on his officer, who chuckled somewhat dryly as he glanced at him. "I'm asking no questions, an' ye are not called on to testify against yourself," he said. "Maybe ye rode fox-hunting on a hundred-guinea horse, an' maybe ye did not; but ye showed a bit knowledge o' a beast, an' that was enough for me. Meantime ye're Trooper Cotton, an' I'll see ye do your duty. To some, the old country—God bless her—is a hard stepmother, an' ye're no' the first she has turned the cold shoulder on and sent out to me."

The worthy sergeant was apt to grow tiresome when he launched out into his reminiscences, and, seeing that Trooper Cotton did not appreciate the turn the conversation was taking, I broke in: "But you're forgetting the outlaw, Mackay; and I'm not here for either health or pleasure. I want to recover the mare I gave five hundred dollars for, and that ought to excuse my company. What has the fellow who borrowed her done?"

"Fired on a mortgage money-lender down in Assiniboia," was the answer. "Maybe he was badly treated, for ye'll mind that the man who takes blood money, as yon Lane has done, is first cousin to Judas Iscariot; but that's no' my business. It is not allowable to shoot one's creditors in the Canadian Dominion. What I'm wondering is where he is now; an' that will be either striking north for the barrens or west for British Columbia. It will be boot and saddle when Pete comes in, and meantime we'll consider what routes would best fit him!"

Mackay knew every bluff and ravine seaming a hundred miles of prairie; and another silent man, rising from his bunk, stood beside myself and Cotton as the sergeant traced lines across the table. Each represented an alternative route the fugitive might take, and the places where the hard forefinger paused marked a risky ford or lake on which the ice was yielding. Mackay spent some time over it, as much for his own edification as for ours, but I was interested, for I greatly desired to recover the blood mare stolen from me.

I was then five-and-twenty, fairly stalwart and tall of stature, and seldom regretted that after a good education in England I had gone out to Western Canada to assist a relative in raising cattle. The old man was slow and cautious, but he taught me my business well before he died suddenly and left me his possessions. Adding my small patrimony, I made larger profits by taking heavier risks, and, for fortune had favored me, and youth is no handicap in the Colonies, my homestead was one of the finest in that section of the country. Save for occasional risks of frost-bite and wild rides through blinding snow, the life had been toilsome rather than eventful; but the day which, while we talked in the outpost, was speeding westward across the pines of Quebec and the lakes of Ontario to gild the Rockies' peaks was to mark a turning-point in my history.

Suddenly a beat of hoofs rose out of the night, there was a jingle outside, and the cold set me shivering, when a man, who held a smoking horse's bridle, stood by the open door. "Your man tried to buy a horse from the reservation Crees, and, when they wouldn't trade, doubled on his tracks, heading west for the Bitter Lakes. I've nearly killed my beast to bring you word," he said.

Horses stood ready in the sod stable behind the dwelling, and in less than three minutes we were in the saddle and flitting in single file across the prairie. It was about five o'clock in the morning, and, though winter should have been over, it was very bitter. The steam from the horses hung about us, our breath froze on our furs, but a Chinook wind had swept the prairie clear of snow, and, though in the barer places the ground rang like iron beneath us, the carpet of matted grasses made moderately fast traveling possible. No word was spoken, and, when the silent figures about me faded as they spread out to left and right and only a faint jingle of steel or dull thud of hoofs betokened their presence, I seemed to have ridden out of all touch with warmth and life.

The frost bit keen, the heavens were black with the presage of coming storm, and the utter silence seemed the hush of death. Beast and bird had long fled south, and I started when once the ghostly howl of a coyote rose eerily and faintly from the rim of the prairie.

By daylight we had left long leagues behind us, and I was the better pleased that the fugitive's trail, of which we found signs, led back towards my own homestead. For a brief five minutes the Rockies, seen very far off across the levels, flushed crimson against the sky. Then the line of spectral peaks faded suddenly, and we were left, four tiny crawling specks, in the center of a limitless gray circle whose circumference receded steadily as the hours went by. But the trail grew plainer to the sergeant's practiced eyes, and, when we had crossed the Bitter Lakes on rotten and but partially refrozen ice, he predicted that we should come up with the fugitive by nightfall if our horses held out. Mine was the best in the party, and, though not equal to the stolen mare, the latter had already traveled fast and far. It was a depressing journey. No ray of sunlight touched the widespread levels, and there was neither smoke trail nor sign of human life in all that great desolation. Hands and feet lost sense of feeling, the cold numbed one's very brain; but the wardens of the prairie, used alike to sleep in a snow trench or swim an icy ford, care little for adverse weather, and Mackay held on with a slow tenacity that boded ill for the man he was pursuing.

The light showed signs of failing when Trooper Cotton shouted, and we caught sight of our quarry, a shadowy blur on the crest of a low rise that seamed the prairie. "Ye may save your breath, for ye'll need it," said Mackay. "It's a league from yon rise to the Sweetwater, an' there's neither ice-bridge nor safe ford now. If he's across before we are we'll no' grip him the night, I'm thinking—and there's ill weather brewing."

Whip and heel were plied, and the worn-out beasts responded as best they might. The man who had taught me stock and horse breeding knew his business, and when my beast raced across the edge of the rise the troopers were at least two hundred yards behind. Then the exultation of the chase took hold of me, and my frozen blood commenced to stir as the staunch beast beneath me swept faster and faster down the long gray incline. At every stride I was coming up with the horse thief. A dusky ridge of birches loomed ahead, shutting off the steep dip to the river. Beyond this, there were thicker trees; and the light was failing; but while all this promised safety for the pursued, I was gaining fast and the troopers were dropping further behind. The fugitive had just reached the timber when a light wagon lurched out from it, and I yelled to the man who drove it to hold clear of my path. There was a hoarse shout away to the left, and, when no answer came back, the crack of a carbine. A repeating rifle banged against my back, and, feeling that its sling lay within easy reach, I drove my heels home as I raced past the wagon.

There was scarcely time for a side glance, but the one I risked set my heart beating. Two feminine figures wrapped in furs sat within it, and one smiled at me as I passed. The face that looked out from beneath the fur cap was worth remembering, though it was several years since I had last seen it in England. Haldane had brought his daughters with him when he came out from Montreal to visit his Western possessions, it seemed; but my horse was over the brink of the declivity before I could return the greeting, and, bending low to clear the branches, I drove him reeling and blundering down and down through willow undergrowth and scattered birches on the track of the fugitive. I was but a plain rancher, and it seemed presumptuous folly to neglect my lawful business for a smile from Beatrice Haldane.

It was growing dark among the birches, and flakes of feathery snow sliding down between the branches filled my eyes, but I could see that the distance between us was shortening more rapidly and that the man in front of me reeled in his saddle when a branch smote him. The mare also stumbled, and I gained several lengths. The drumming of hoofs and the moan of an icy wind which had sprung up seemed to fill all the hollow. White mist that slid athwart the birches hung over the Sweetwater in the rift beneath, and—for the river had lately burst its chains of ice—I felt sure that the man I followed would never make the crossing. Yet it appeared certain that he meant to attempt it, for he rode straight at the screen of willows that fringed the water's edge, vanished among them, and I heard a crackling as his weary beast smashed through the shoreward fringe of honeycombed ice. Then I saw nothing, for rattling branches closed about me as the horse feebly launched himself at the leap, while a denser whiteness thickened the mist. So far fortune had favored me throughout the reckless ride; but it is not wise to tempt fate too hardly, and the beast pitched forward when his hoofs descended upon bare frozen ground.

Had I worn boots my neck might have paid the penalty, but the soft moccasins slipped free of the stirrups in time, and when I came down the horse rolled over several yards clear of me. He was up next moment, but moved stiffly, and stood still, trembling, when I grasped the bridle. The saddle had slipped sideways, as though a girth buckle had yielded, and I felt faint and dizzy, for the fall had shaken me. Nevertheless, I unslung the rifle mechanically, when a hail reached me, and, turning, I saw the man we had followed sitting still in his saddle, some twoscore yards away, with the steam frothing white to his horse's knees. The daylight had almost gone, the snow was commencing in earnest, but I could make out that he was bareheaded and his face smeared with crimson, perhaps from a wound the branch had made. It looked drawn and ghastly as he sat stiffly erect against a background of hurrying water and falling snow, with one hand on his hip and the other raised as though to command attention.

"You are Rancher Ormesby, whose horse I borrowed, I presume?" he said. "Well, if you are wise you will give up the chase before worse befalls you. I am armed, and I give you fair warning that I do not mean to be taken. Go home to your stove and comforts. You have no quarrel with me."

The clean English accent surprised me, and the rifle lay still in the hollow of my left arm as I answered him: "Do you forget you are sitting on the best mare I possess? The loss of several hundred dollars is more than I can put up with; and your warning sounds rather empty when I could hardly fail to pick you off with this rifle."

I listened for the troopers' coming, but could hear only the fret of the river and the moaning of the blast, for the wind was rising rapidly. It was evident that the beast whose bridle I held was in no fit state to attempt the crossing, and yet, though the stranger's cool assurance was exasperating, I began to be conscious of a certain admiration and pity for him. The man was fearless. He had been hunted like a wolf; and now, left, worn out, wounded, and doubtless faint from want of food, to face the wild night in the open, he had, it seemed, risked his last chance of escape to warn me when he might have taken me at a disadvantage.

He laughed recklessly. "Still, I hardly think you will. The mare is done, and I pledge my word I'll turn her loose as soon as I'm clear of the troopers. I have no grudge against you, but if you are wise you will take no further chances with a desperate man. Go home, and be thankful you have a place to shelter you."

There would have been no great difficulty in bringing the man down at that range, even in a bad light, and it is probable that nobody would have blamed me; but, though I should willingly have ridden him down in fair chase, I could not fire on him as he sat there at my mercy, for if he was armed it must have been with a pistol—a very poor weapon against a rifle. I might also have shot the horse; but one hesitates to sacrifice a costly beast, even in the service of the State, and, strange to say, I felt inclined to trust his promise. Accordingly, I did neither; and when a great ice cake came driving down, and, raising his hand again as though in recognition of my forbearance, he wheeled the mare and vanished into a thicker rush of snow, I stood motionless and let him go. Then, feeling more shaken and dizzy than before, I seized the bridle and led the horse into the whirling whiteness that drove down the slope. Darkness came suddenly. I could scarcely see the trees, and it was by accident I stumbled upon the troopers dismounted and picking their way.

"Have ye seen him?" asked an object which looked like a polar bear and proved to be the sergeant.

"Yes," I answered shortly, deciding that it would not be well to fully explain how I had let our quarry slip through my fingers. "If he has not drowned himself in the river he has got away. I was close upon him when my horse fell and threw me badly. Are you going to try the crossing, too?"

There are few bolder riders than the Northwest troopers, but Mackay shook his head. "I'm thinking it would be a useless waste of Government property an' maybe of a trooper's life," he said. "No man could find him in this snow, and if he lives through the night, which is doubtful, we'll find his trail plain in the morning. We'll just seek shelter with Haldane at Bonaventure."

I do not know how we managed to find the Bonaventure ranch. The wind had suddenly freshened almost to a gale, and, once clear of the river hollow, we met the full force of it. The snow that whirled across the desolate waste filled our eyes and nostrils, rendering breathing difficult and sight almost impossible; but it may be that the instinct of the horses helped us, for, making no effort at guidance, I trudged on, clinging to the bridle of my limping beast, while half-seen spectral objects floundered through the white haze on each side. Nevertheless, the pain which followed the impact of the flakes on one side of my half-frozen face showed that we were at least progressing in a constant direction, and at last Trooper Cotton raised a hoarse halloo as a faint ray of light pierced the obscurity. Then shadowy buildings loomed ahead, and, blundering up against a wire fence, we staggered, whitened all over, to the door of Bonaventure.

It was flung wide open at our knock, banged to again, and while a trooper went off with the horses to the stable the rest of us, partly stupefied by the change of temperature, stood in the lamp-lit hall shaking the white flakes from us. A man of middle age, attired in a fashion more common in the cities than in the West, stretched out his hand to me.

"I am glad to see you, Ormesby; and, of course, you and your companions will spend the night here," he said cordially. "My girls told me they had met you, and we were partly expecting your company. Apparently the malefactor got away, Sergeant Mackay?"

"We did not bring him with us, but he'll not win far this weather," was the somewhat rueful answer. The master of Bonaventure smiled a little.

"He deserves to escape if he can live through such a night; and I'm inclined to be sorry for the poor devil," he said. "However, you have barely time to get into dry things before supper will be ready. We expect you all to join us, prairie fashion."

The welcome was characteristic of Carson Haldane, who could win the goodwill of most men, either on the prairie or in the exclusive circles of Ottawa and Montreal. It was also characteristic that he called the evening meal, as we did, supper; though when he was present a state of luxury, wholly unusual on the prairie, reigned at Bonaventure.