第2章

"Go in!" he said sharply."Get a move on! What are you waiting for?"The half-breed threw him a sidelong glance of contempt and passed quickly into the "Beeg Chief's" presence.

Superintendent Strong was a man prompt in decision and prompt in action, a man of courage, too, unquestioned, and with that bulldog spirit that sees things through to a finish.To these qualities it was that he owed his present command, for it was no insignificant business to keep the peace and to make the law run along the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Kicking Horse Pass during construction days.

The half-breed had been but a few minutes with the Chief when the orderly was again startled out of his military decorum by the bursting open of the Superintendent's door and the sharp rattle of the Superintendent's orders.

"Send Sergeant Ferry to me at once and have my horse and his brought round immediately!" The orderly sprang to attention and saluted.

"Yes, sir!" he replied, and swiftly departed.

A few minutes' conference with Sergeant Ferry, a few brief commands to the orderly, and the Superintendent and Sergeant were on their way down the steep hillside toward the tote-road that led eastward through the pass.A half-hour's ride brought them to a trail that led off to the south, into which the Superintendent, followed by the Sergeant, turned his horse.Not a word was spoken by either man.It was not the Superintendent's custom to share his plans with his subordinate officers until it became necessary."What you keep behind your teeth," was a favorite maxim with the Superintendent, "will harm neither yourself nor any other man."They were on the old Kootenay Trail, for a hundred years and more the ancient pathway of barter and of war for the Indian tribes that hunted the western plains and the foothill country and brought their pelts to the coast by way of the Columbia River.Along the lower levels the old trail ran, avoiding, with the sure instinct of a skilled engineer, nature's obstacles, and taking full advantage of every sloping hillside and every open stretch of woods.Now and then, however, the trail must needs burrow through a deep thicket of spruce and jack pine and scramble up a rocky ridge, where the horses, trained as they were in mountain climbing, had all they could do to keep their feet.

Ten miles and more they followed the tortuous trail, skirting mountain peaks and burrowing through underbrush, scrambling up rocky ridges and sliding down their farther sides, till they came to a park-like country where from the grassy sward the big Douglas firs, trimmed clear of lower growth and standing spaced apart, lifted on red and glistening trunks their lofty crowns of tufted evergreen far above the lesser trees.

As they approached the open country the Superintendent proceeded with greater caution, pausing now and then to listen.

"There ought to be a big powwow going on somewhere near," he said to his Sergeant, "but I can hear nothing.Can you?"The Sergeant leaned over his horse's ears.

"No, sir, not a sound."

"And yet it can't be far away," growled the Superintendent.

The trail led through the big firs and dipped into a little grassy valley set round with thickets on every side.Into this open glade they rode.The Superintendent was plainly disturbed and irritated;irritated because surprised and puzzled.Where he had expected to find a big Indian powwow he found only a quiet sunny glade in the midst of a silent forest.Sergeant Ferry waited behind him in respectful silence, too wise to offer any observation upon the situation.Hence in the Superintendent grew a deeper irritation.