with their leader in
front of them, and the rasp of the knives, trample of hoofs, and clash
of the binders' wooden arms once more stirred her. She had heard those
sounds often before, and attached no significance to them, but now she
knew a little of the stress and effort that preceded them, she could
hear through the turmoil the exultant note of victory.
Then the wagon rolled more slowly up the rise, and had passed from view
behind it, when a mounted man rode up to Winston with an envelope in
his hand.
"Mr. Macdonald was in at the settlement and the telegraph clerk gave it
him," he said. "He told me to come along with it."
Winston opened the message, and his face grew grim as he read, "Send me
five hundred dollars. Urgent."
Then he thrust it into his pocket, and went on with his harvesting when
he had thanked the man. He also worked until dusk was creeping up
across the prairie before he concerned himself further about the
affair, and then the note he wrote was laconic.
"Enclosed you will find fifty dollars, sent only because you may be
ill. In case of necessity you can forward your doctor's or hotel
bills," it ran.
It was with a wry smile he watched a man ride off towards the
settlement with it. "I shall not be sorry when the climax comes," he
said. "The strain is telling."
In the meanwhile Sergeant Stimson had been quietly renewing his
acquaintance with certain ranchers and herders of sheep scattered
across the Albertan prairie some six hundred miles away. They found
him more communicative and cordial than he used to be, and with one or
two he unbent so far as, in the face of the regulations, to refresh
himself with whisky which had contributed nothing to the Canadian
revenue. Now the lonely ranchers have as a rule few opportunities of
friendly talk with anybody, and as they responded to the sergeant's
geniality, he became acquainted with a good many facts, some of which
confirmed certain vague suspicions of his, though others astonished
him. In consequence of this he rode out one night with two or three
troopers of a Western squadron.
His apparent business was somewhat prosaic. Musquash, the Blackfeet,
in place of remaining quietly on his reserve, had in a state of
inebriation reverted to the primitive customs of his race, and taking
the trail, not only annexed some of his white neighbors' ponies and
badly frightened their wives, but drove off a steer with which he
feasted his people.
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