blue pete, alias peter maverick, alias anything that seemed to suit the varied occasions of his checkered career, thrust aside the curtain of foliage covering the hiding place of his new raft. there was no reason why he should visit the raft just then; he could have no possible use for it until he had in his hands those two horses up in torrance's stable. but ever since he had been forced to knock koppy's pointing rifle from his hands to save juno the half breed had been oppressed by a thousand fears.
he did not understand the bohunks--he did not want to. in his vivid life he had met most kinds of men, but the wild continental scum that took to railway construction as its own special line of effort was beyond his experience. hitherto he had been able to anticipate the villainies of his enemies--and in some of them he himself had revelled--but no one had yet charted the designs of creatures like koppowski and his comrades.
even as the foliage parted blue pete knew why he had looked. the raft was gone. he was not surprised, but his anger was none the less for that. with a muffled oath he let the foliage fall and dropped to the ground with the intuitive sense of the wild at evidence of an enemy.
a moment's thought raised him to his feet again, to strike recklessly back along the river's brink into the bush. koppy and his crew, he knew, were busy about the bridge at that hour; the whole out-of-doors was his.
blue pete, a name once on the lips of every rancher and cowboy, sheriff and mounted policeman, from the montana badlands to medicine hat--once cowboy and rustler, again cowboy and mounted police detective, then thrown back to rustling by the blindness of a political judge--was not now the model of physical fitness of a year ago when his rifle and rope were respected over a prairie province and state. the bullet that had brought mistaken mourning to the police, and particularly to sergeant mahon, the friend for whom it was intended, had come within a hair's breadth of avenging bilsy and dutch henry, the montana rustlers who had hated him so. what he had escaped was due to his wonderful physique and to the untiring care of mira stanton.
with her his sole nurse and doctor, he had lain in one of their many retreats in the cypress hills until he was strong enough to entrust himself to the pace of the faithful whiskers for the slow and painful journey to more expert treatment across the border. there he recovered rapidly. but bilsy's bullet had extracted its toll. the blue-black face was darker now and more leathery, as if the blood behind were running more sluggishly. his cheeks were fallen in, and great hollows showed beneath the squinting eyes. it made him more the indian than ever in appearance. he had lost weight and bulk, and the shoulder above the wound was an inch lower than its mate.
time would perhaps return him his old form, as it had his strength. but time was the very thing blue pete could not wait for.
recklessly as he commenced his return along the banks of the river, instinct won; in a few steps he was moving with all the old soundlessness. twigs and crackling leaves seemed to evade his feet; eye and ear were ever alert. though he knew he was alone in the bush, the way of a lifetime refused to sleep within him. by a circuitous route he approached a tangle of trees that hung out from a steep projection in the rising sides of the ravine. his eyes were flitting now about at his feet, and sometimes he carefully passed a boot over marks only he could detect. once, whistling in soft surprise, he scattered a handful of spruce needles.
into the heart of the thickest clump of trees he disappeared. the green fell behind him, the woods was lifeless again.
in the dim light of the cave mira knew he was worried, but he would tell her when it was good for her to know.
"it's gone," he growled, after a long silence.
in their intimate way she understood.
"perhaps it broke loose."
he looked his surprise that she should imagine he had not satisfied himself. she came to him and laid tender hand on his arm.
"i'm sorry, pete, for your sake. really it doesn't matter. we could go now--"
he moved away from her, not irritably; he just could not trust himself to refuse her anything.
"thar's them two horses yet 'fore we got 'em all back."
"can't we buy them? they ain't worth the trouble and risk."
he shook his head doggedly.
"not now. they're after me--again."
there was a rending sadness about it, as if some overwhelming desire had escaped him forever, some dreaded fear returned.
"but you can give up the job on the trestle any time you like. they can't touch you for that, can they?"
he had told her of the incident at the trestle, and the hatred now boiling in the breasts of the bohunks. but of the scene in torrance's shack, of sergeant mahon, he had not said a word; he felt he dare not. that the sergeant should be there oppressed and threatened him. loving mahon with the full strength of his wild nature, he vaguely foresaw the complications that might arise; and he wished to save mira the worry of it as long as he could. he had no conscious thought that mira's early infatuation for the sergeant continued; he knew that he, halfbreed though he was, had her whole heart. the sergeant's fancy for the prairie girl had been but the reaching out of his fine nature for the beautiful, where so little of the beautiful existed. his marriage to mira's eastern-trained cousin had spelled the end of that.
what the halfbreed dare not face was the discovery by the police that he whom they thought dead was alive. he was still on the police black-books; in spite of their affection for him, he had months of rustling--if it was rustling--to pay for.
"got to git them two horses--somehow," he persisted. "then we kin start all over agin, you 'n' me. the p'lice can't hev anythin' agin us, when the horses are all back whar they belong."
he searched her face anxiously. so often they had talked it over, and always neither was quite satisfied. a conflict of emotions was in her face now; her life's dream was there, her great fear.
"they shouldn't be hard for you to get," she marvelled. "far easier than the camp stables."
"i lef 'em to the last. the boss is cuter'n a thousand bohunks. i wanted to be able to git clear away 'fore he got thinkin' too hard. . . . las' night the stable was locked. suthin's scared 'em."
"i don't understand why he hasn't told the police. but i guess he knew they were stole--stolen when he bought them."
juno lifted her head, ears pointing, and rumbled in her throat. blue pete grabbed the revolver he had discarded on his entry and thrust it into his belt. then he vanished into the trees that covered the entrance.
worming along the ground, another clump a stone's throw distant swallowed him. there in the darkness of a second cave he pressed the noses of the two horses, the familiar command to silence, and a moment later he was outside again.
somewhere above on the hillside was a sound only he and juno could hear. blue pete looked through the leaves and saw sergeant mahon.
the policeman was bent over the ground. presently he moved slowly onward, eyes ever at his feet, dropping yard by yard down the tree-lined slope. evidently dissatisfied with what his eyes told him, he stooped at times until his face was within a few inches of the dead leaves and moss; often he rose to full height and looked away toward the camp with a puzzled frown.
lower and lower he sank toward the river's edge.
blue pete glided away before him. he himself had taught this man to trail, had roused in mahon the quick eye of suspicion that questioned every turned leaf; and now he was to pay for it. silently he cursed the luck of things. he was satisfied no prying eye about the camp could follow his tracks, but he had not counted on the sergeant.
down, step by step, moved mahon, a zig-zag course that missed nothing. nearer and nearer he approached the cave home of the one who was watching him with fevered eyes.
blue pete pictured the penalty he must pay were he taken now. another week or two and it would be different. there were still the two horses in the boss's stable before his name was clear, and the bunch down in the cypress hills was waiting to be returned to their rightful owners. he could not face what the law would demand of him--mira would not live through it. imprisonment--disgrace--death to all the hopes that had sustained them both since his recovery!
on the trail of the unsuspecting policeman he crept, and his face was grim and gaunt.
where the river bottom ran more level, mahon halted and looked about with a more general interest. the halfbreed felt safer, for he had taken greater precautions nearer the caves. but there was always the chance of a mistake, none knew it better than he who had profited so often from the mistakes of others. and mira's horse might fail them at the vital moment; he had no fear of whiskers.
sergeant mahon let his eyes fall to the ground again and started. dropping to his knees, he bent close above the spot where the halfbreed had scattered the spruce needles not an hour before. with careful breath the policeman blew. after a time he sank back on his heels and passed a hand across his forehead. all about him he peered with piercing eyes.
blue pete slowly drew the revolver from his belt.
mahon came to his feet and moved forward, bent over the tell-tale moss and half overgrown sand. he was making straight for the cave.
the arm of the halfbreed lifted. perspiration was breaking out on his swarthy face, and his left hand opened and closed. but his teeth were gritted, and the hand that held the gun was steady as steel. at least his old friend would never know who killed him.
a short ten yards from the cluster of trees that hid the cave mahon stopped, a perplexed, self-deprecatory twist to his face, like a man who has been dreaming. then he edged off toward the river, carelessly, smiling reflectively. the halfbreed wriggled after him. for several minutes the sergeant stood looking out across the water, then, shrugging his shoulders, skirted to the east and slowly climbed the bank.
blue pete threw himself on the ground, dark face pillowed in a shaking arm.
mira came to him and touched his shoulder.
"i saw, pete," she whispered huskily. "i, too, had him covered. . . . we'll have to move again."
he looked up into the loving face, his heart thumping so fiercely that his ears drummed. suddenly he realised how much it meant to him that now he was the only one that counted; she would have pulled the trigger rather than risk his capture by the police.
"you knew he was here?" there was no reproach in her voice.
"i didn't want to skeer yuh," he replied weakly.
she smiled: she could read him so well.
"we must cross the river and find a place over there," she decided. "the construction raft at the trestle will get the horses over. . . . if the sergeant caught only a glimpse of whiskers he'd know."
blue pete laughed. "when i git through with the ole gal her own mother wudn't know her. i ain't bin in the rustlin' game all these years not to pick up a few tricks to make a woman pinto look like a blood stallion."
"but if he ever saw us--either of us."
the halfbreed spent the evening pondering on that.
