Then he commenced his crawl.
A pale, watery, three-quarter moon had climbed listlessly up the eastern sky changing the sombre prairie into a vast spirit land, draping With ghostly garments bush and shrub.
Purposely Carney had tethered the buckskin down wind from where he and the Wolf lay. Jack had not read anything out of this action, but Carney knew the sensitive wariness of his horse, the scent of the stranger in his nostrils would keep him restless, and any unusual move on the part of the prisoner would agitate the buckskin. Also he had only pretended to drive the picket pin at some distance away; in the dark he had trailed it back and worked it into the loose soil at his very feet. This was more a move of habitual care than a belief that the bound man could work his way, creeping and rolling, to the picket-pin, pull it, and get away with the horse.
At the Wolf’s first move the buckskin threw up his head, and, with ears cocked forward, studied the shifting blurred shadow. Perhaps it was the scent of his master’s clothes which the Wolf wore that agitated his mind, that cast him to wondering whether his master was moving about; or, perhaps as animals instinctively have a nervous dread of a vicious man he distrusted the stranger; perhaps, in the dim uncertain light, his prairie dread came back to him and he thought it a wolf that had crept into camp. He took a step forward; then another, shaking his head irritably. A vibration trembled along the picket line that now lay across Carney’s foot and he stirred restlessly.
The Wolf flattened himself to earth and snored. Five minutes he waited, cursing softly the restless horse. Then again he moved, so slowly that even the watchful animal scarce detected it.
He was debating two plans: a swift rush and a swing of his slung shot, or the silent approach. The former meant inevitably the death of one or the other—the crushed skull of Carney, or, if the latter were by any chance awake, a bullet through the Wolf. He could feel his heart pounding against the turf as he scraped along, inch by inch. A bare ten feet, and he could put his hand on the butt of Carney’s gun and snatch it from the holster; if he missed, then the slung shot.
The horse, roused, was growing more restless, more inquisitive. Sometimes he took an impatient snap at the grass with his teeth; but only to throw his head up again, take a step forward, shake his head, and exhale a whistling breath.
Now the Wolf had squirmed his body five feet forward. Another yard and he could reach the pistol; and there was no sign that Carney had wakened—just the steady breathing of a sleeping man.
The Wolf lay perfectly still for ten seconds, for the buckskin seemingly had quieted; he was standing, his head low hung, as if he slept on his feet. Carney’s face was toward the creeping man and was in shadow. Another yard and now slowly the Wolf gathered his legs under him till he rested like a sprinter ready for a spring; his left hand crept forward toward the pistol stock that was within reach; the stone-laden handkerchief was twisted about the two first fingers of his right.
Yes, Carney slept.
As the Wolf’s finger tips slid along the pistol butt the wrist was seized in fingers of steel, he was twisted almost face to earth, and the butt of Carney’s own gun, in the latter’s right hand, clipped him over the eye and he slipped into dreamland. When he came to workmen were riveting a boiler in the top of his head; somebody with an augur was boring a hole in his forehead; he had been asleep for ages and had wakened in a strange land. He sat up groggily and stared vacantly at a man who sat beside a camp fire smoking a pipe. Over the camp fire a copper kettle hung and a scent of broiling bacon came to his nostrils. The man beside the fire took the pipe from his mouth and said: “I hoped I had cracked your skull, you swine. Where did you pick up that thug trick of a stone in the handkerchief? As you are troubled with insomnia we’ll hit the trail again.”
With the picket line around his waist once more Jack trudged ahead of the buckskin, in the night gloom the shadowy cavalcade cutting a strange, weird figure as though a boat were being towed across sleeping waters.
The Wolf, groggy from the blow that had almost cracked his skull, was wobbly on his legs—his feet were heavy as though he wore a diver’s leaden boots. As he waded through a patch of wild rose the briars clung to his legs, and, half dazed he cried out, thinking he struggled in the shifting sands.
“Shut up!” The words clipped from the thin lips of the rider behind.
They dipped into a hollow and the played-out man went half to his knees in the morass. A few lurching steps and overstrained nature broke; he collapsed like a jointed doll—he toppled head first into the mire and lay there.
The buckskin plunged forward in the treacherous going, and the bag of a man was skidded to firm ground by the picket line, where he sat wiping the mud from his face, and looking very all in.
Carney slipped to the ground and stood beside his captive. “You’re soft, my bucko—I knew Sergeant Heath had a yellow streak,” he sneered; “boasters generally have. I guess we’ll rest till daylight. I’ve a way of hobbling a bad man that’ll hold you this time, I fancy.”
He drove the picket-pin of the rope that tethered the buckskin, and ten feet away he drove the other picket pin. He made the Wolf lie on his side and fastened him by a wrist to each peg so that one arm was behind and one in front.
Carney chuckled as he surveyed the spread-eagle man: “You’ll find some trouble getting out of that, my bucko; you can’t get your hands together and you can’t get your teeth at either rope. Now I will have a sleep.”
The Wolf was in a state of half coma; even untethered he probably would have slept like a log; and Carney was tired; he, too, slumbered, the soft stealing gray of the early morning not bringing him back out of the valley of rest till a glint of sunlight throwing over the prairie grass touched his eyes, and the warmth gradually pushed the lids back.
He rose, built a fire, and finding water made a pot of tea. Then he saddled the buckskin, and untethered the Wolf, saying: “We’ll eat a bite and pull out.”
The rest and sleep had refreshed the Wolf, and he plodded on in front of the buckskin feeling that though his money was gone his chances of escape were good.
At eight o’clock the square forms of log shacks leaning groggily against a sloping hill came into view; it was Hobbema; and, swinging a little to the left, in an hour they were close to the Post.
Carney knew where the police shack lay, and skirting the town he drew up in front of a log shack, an iron-barred window at the end proclaiming it was the Barracks. He slipped from the saddle, dropped the rein over his horse’s head, and said quietly to the Wolf: “Knock on the door, open it, and step inside,” the muzzle of his gun emphasizing the command.
He followed close at the Wolf’s heels, standing in the open door as the latter entered. He had expected to see perhaps one, not more than two constables, but at a little square table three men in khaki sat eating breakfast.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Carney said cheerily; “I’ve brought you a prisoner, Bulldog Carney.”
The one who sat at table with his back to the door turned his head at this; then he sprang to his feet, peered into the prisoner’s face and laughed.
“Bulldog nothing, Sergeant; you’ve bagged the Wolf.
The speaker thrust his face almost into the Wolf’s. “Where’s my uniform—where’s my horse? I’ve got you now—set me afoot to starve, would you, you damn thief—you murderer! Where’s the five hundred dollars you stole from the little teacher at Fort Victor?”
He was trembling with passion; words flew from his lips like bullets from a gatling—it was a torrent.
But fast as the accusation had come, into Carney’s quick mind flashed the truth—the speaker was Sergeant Heath. The game was up. Still it was amusing. What a devilish droll blunder