Part 8

The officer did not understand what Nance had said, but he realized that, whatever she intended to do, she had an advantage over him. With an unnecessary courage he had ridden on alone to make his capture, and, as it proved, without prudence. He had got his man, but he had not got the smuggled whiskey and alcohol he had come to seize. There was no time to be lost. The girl had gone before he realized it. What had she said to the prisoner? He was foolish enough to ask Lambton, and Lambton replied coolly: "She said she'd get you some supper, but she guessed it would have to be cold--What's your name? Are you a colonel, or a captain, or only a principal private?"

"I am Captain MacFee, Lambton. And you'll now bring me where your outfit is. March!"

The pistol was still in his hand, and he had a determined look in his eye. Lambton saw it. He was aware of how much power lay in the threatening face before him, and how eager that power was to make itself felt, and provide "Examples"; but he took his chances.

"I'll march all right," he answered; "but I'll march to where you tell me. You can't have it both ways. You can take me, because you've found me, and you can take my outfit, too, when you've found it; but I'm not doing your work, not if I know it."

There was a blaze of anger in the eyes of the officer, and it looked for an instant as though something of the lawlessness of the border was going to mark the first step of the Law in the Wilderness, but he bethought himself in time, and said, quietly, yet in a voice which Lambton knew he must heed:

"Put on your things--quick."

When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler's pistols, he said again, "March, Lambton!"

Lambton marched through the moonlit night toward the troop of men who had come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he went his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down toward the Barfleur Coulée. His heart thumped in his breast. This girl, this prairie-flower, was doing this for him, was risking her life, was breaking the law for him. If she got through, and handed over the whiskey to those who were waiting for it, and it got bundled into the boats going North before the redcoats reached Dingan's Drive, it would be as fine a performance as the West had ever seen; and he would be six hundred dollars to the good. He listened to the mules galloping, till the sounds had died into the distance, but he saw now that his captor had heard too, and that the pursuit would be desperate.

A half-hour later it began, with MacFee at the head and a dozen troopers pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact payment for their hardships and discouragement.

They had not gone a dozen miles when a shouting horseman rode furiously on them from behind. They turned with carbines cocked, but it was Abe Hawley who cursed them, flung his fingers in their faces, and rode on harder and harder. Abe had got the news from one of Nancy's half-breeds, and, with the devil raging in his heart, had entered on the chase. His spirit was up against them all: against the Law represented by the troopers camped at Fort Stay-Awhile, against the troopers and their captain speeding after Nancy Machell--his Nance, who was risking her life and freedom for the hated, pale-faced smuggler riding between the troopers; and his spirit was up against Nance herself.

Nance had said to him, "Come back in an hour," and he had come back to find her gone. She had broken her word. She had deceived him. She had thrown the four years of his waiting to the winds, and a savage lust was in his heart, which would not be appeased till he had done some evil thing to some one.

The girl and the Indian lad were pounding through the night with ears strained to listen for hoof-beats coming after, with eyes searching forward into the trail for swollen creeks and direful obstructions. Through Barfleur Coulée it was a terrible march, for there was no road, and again and again they were nearly overturned, while wolves hovered in their path, ready to reap a midnight harvest. But once in the open again, with the full moonlight on their trail, the girl's spirits rose. If she could do this thing for the man who had looked into her eyes as no one had ever done, what a finish to her days in the West! For they were finished, finished forever, and she was going--she was going East; not West with Bantry, nor South with Nick Pringle, nor North with Abe Hawley--ah, Abe Hawley! He had been a good friend, he had a great heart, he was the best man of all the Western men she had known; but another man had come from the East, a man who had roused something in her never felt before, a man who had said she was wonderful; and he needed some one to take good care of him, to make him love life again. Abe would have been all right if Lambton had never come, and she had meant to marry Abe in the end; but it was different now, and Abe must get over it. Yet she had told Abe to come back in an hour. He was sure to do it; and, when he had done it, and found her gone on this errand, what would he do? She knew what he would do. He would hurt someone. He would follow, too. But at Dingan's Drive, if she reached it before the troopers and before Abe, and did the thing she had set out to do; and because no whiskey could be found, Lambton must go free; and they all stood there together, what would be the end? Abe would be terrible; but she was going East, not North, and, when the time came she would face it and put things right somehow.

The night seemed endless to her fixed and anxious eyes and mind, yet dawn came, and there had fallen no sound of hoof-beats on her ear. The ridge above Dingan's Drive was reached and covered, but yet there was no sign of her pursuers. At Red Man's River she delivered her load of contraband to the traders waiting for it, and saw it loaded into the boats and disappear beyond the wooded bend above Dingan's.

Then she collapsed into the arms of her brother Bantry, and was carried, fainting, into Dingan's Lodge.

A half-hour later MacFee and his troopers and Lambton came. MacFee grimly searched the post and the shore, but he saw by the looks of all that he had been foiled. He had no proof of anything, and Lambton must go free.

"You've fooled us," he said to Nance, sourly, yet with a kind of admiration, too. "Through you, they got away with it. But I wouldn't try it again, if I were you."

"Once is enough," answered the girl, laconically, as Lambton, set free, caught both her hands in his and whispered in her ear.

MacFee turned to the others. "You'd better drop this kind of thing," he said. "I mean business." They saw the troopers by the horses, and nodded.

"Well, we was about quit of it anyhow," said Bantry. "We've had all we want out here."

A loud laugh went up, and it was still ringing when there burst into the group, out of the trail, Abe Hawley, on foot.

He looked round the group savagely till his eyes rested on Nance and Lambton. "I'm last in," he said, in a hoarse voice. "My horse broke its leg cutting across to get here before her--" He waved a hand toward Nance. "It's best stickin' to old trails, not tryin' new ones." His eyes were full of hate as he looked at Lambton. "I'm keeping to old trails. I'm for goin' North, far up, where these two-dollar-a-day and hash-and-clothes people ain't come yet." He made a contemptuous gesture toward MacFee and his troopers. "I'm goin' North--" He took a step forward and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Nance. "I say I'm goin' North. You comin' with me, Nance?" He took off his cap to her.

He was haggard, his buckskins were torn, his hair was dishevelled, and he limped a little; but he was a massive and striking figure, and MacFee watched him closely, for there was that in his eyes which meant trouble. "You said, 'Come back in an hour,' Nance, and I come back, as I said I would," he went on. "You didn't stand to your word. I've come to git it. I'm goin' North, Nance, and I bin waitin' for four years for you to go with me. Are you comin'?"

His voice was quiet, but it had a choking kind of sound, and it struck strangely in the ears of all. MacFee came nearer.

"Are you comin' with me, Nance, dear?"

She reached a hand toward Lambton, and he took it, but she did not speak. Something in Abe's eyes overwhelmed her--something she had never seen before, and it seemed to stifle speech in her. Lambton spoke instead.

"She's going East with me," he said. "That's settled."

MacFee started. Then he caught Abe's arm. "Wait!" he said, peremptorily. "Wait one minute."

There was something in his voice which held Abe back for the instant.