Part 20

"What are ye goin' to do about it, Tug?" demanded Black Dan. "Hev ye got any kind of a reel clue, d'ye think, now?"

"Wait an' see," was Blackstock's noncommittal reply. He picked up the moccasins and mitten again on the point of his stick, scanned the bank sharply to make sure his quarry had not gone that way, and led the procession once more down along the rocky shore of the stream. "Seek him," he said again to Jim, and the dog, as before, trotted on ahead, sniffing along by the water's edge to intercept the trail of whoever had stepped ashore.

The party emerged at length upon the bank of the main stream, and turned upwards towards Brine's Rip. After they had gone about half a mile they rounded a bend and came in sight of a violent rapid which cut close inshore. At this point it would be obviously impossible for any one walking in the shallow water to avoid coming out upon dry ground. Tug Blackstock quickened his pace, and waved Jim forward.

A sharp oath broke from Black Dan's lips.

"I've been an' gone an' left my 'baccy-pooch behind, by the skunk's hole," he announced. And grumbling under his breath he turned back down the shore.

Blackstock ran on, as if suddenly in a great hurry. Just where the shallow water ended, at the foot of the rapid, Jim gave his signal with voice and tail. He raced up the bank to a clump of bushes and began thrashing about in them.

"What d'ye suppose he's found there?" asked Big Andy.

"Scent, and lots of it. No mistake this time," announced MacDonald. "Hain't ye caught on to Jim's signs yet?"

"Jim," said the Deputy, sharply but not loud, "fetch him!"

Jim, with nose in air instead of to the ground, set off at a gallop down the shore in the direction of the outlet.

The Deputy turned about.

"Dan," he shouted peremptorily. "Come back here. I want ye!"

Instead of obeying, Black Dan dashed up the bank, running like a deer, and vanished into the bushes.

"I knew it! That's the skunk, boys. Go home, you Billy!" cried Blackstock, and started after the fugitive. The rest followed close on his heels. But Jackson cried:

"Ye'd better call off Jim quick. Dan's got a gun on him."

The Deputy gave a shrill whistle, and Jim, who was just vanishing into the bush, stopped short. At the same instant a shot rang out from the bushes, and the dog dropped in his tracks with a howl of anguish.

Blackstock's lean jaws set themselves like iron. He whipped out his own heavy "Colt's," and the party tore on, till they met Jim dragging himself towards them with a wounded hind-leg trailing pitifully.

The Deputy gave one look at the big black dog, heaved a breath of relief, and stopped.

"'Tain't no manner o' use chasin' him now, boys," he decreed, "because, as we all know, Dan kin run right away from the best runner amongst us. But now I know him--an' I've suspicioned him this two month, only I couldn't git no clue--I'll git him, never you fear. Jest now, ye'd better help me carry Jim home, so's we kin git him doctored up in good shape. I reckon Nipsiwaska County can't afford to lose Mr. Assistant-Deputy Sheriff. That there skunk-oil on Dan's moccasins fooled both Jim an' me, good an' plenty, didn't it?"

"But whatever did he want o' my mitts?" demanded Big Andy.

"Now ye air a sap-head, Andy Stevens," growled MacDonald, "ef ye can't see that!"

IV. The Trail of the Bear

The Deputy-Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County had spent half an hour at the telephone. In the backwoods the telephone wires go everywhere. In that half-hour every settlement, every river-crossing, every lumber-camp, and most of the wide-scattered pioneer cabins had been warned of the flight of the thief, Dan Black, nicknamed Black Dan, and how, in the effort to secure his escape, he had shot and wounded the Deputy-Sheriff's big black dog whose cleverness on the trail he had such cause to dread. As Tug Blackstock, the Deputy-Sheriff, came out of the booth he asked after Jim.

"Oh, Black Dan's bullet broke no bones that time," replied the village doctor, who had tended the dog's wound as carefully as if his patient had been the Deputy himself. "It's a biggish hole, but Jim'll be all right in a few days, never fear."

Blackstock looked relieved.

"Ye don't seem to be worryin' much about Black Dan's gittin' away, Tug," grumbled Long Jackson, who was not unnaturally sore over the loss of his money.

"No, I ain't worryin' much," agreed the Deputy, with a confident grin, "now I know Jim ain't goin' to lose a leg. As for Black Dan's gittin' away, well, I've got me own notions about that. I've 'phoned all over the three counties, and given warnin' to every place he kin stop for a bite or a bed. He can't cross the river to get over the Border, for I've sent word to hev every bridge an' ferry watched. Black Dan's cunnin' enough to know I'd do jest that, first thing, so he won't waste his time tryin' the river. He'll strike right back into the big timber, countin' on the start he's got of us, now he's put Jim out of the game. But I guess I kin trail him myself--now I know what I'm trailin'--pretty nigh as well as Jim could. I've took note of his tracks, and there ain't another pair o' boots in Brine's Rip Mills like them he's wearin'."

"And when air ye goin' to start?" demanded Long Jackson, still inclined to be resentful.