Blue Pete, alias1 Peter Maverick2, alias anything that seemed to suit the varied3 occasions of his checkered4 career, thrust aside the curtain of foliage5 covering the hiding place of his new raft. There was no reason why he should visit the raft just then; he could have no possible use for it until he had in his hands those two horses up in Torrance's stable. But ever since he had been forced to knock Koppy's pointing rifle from his hands to save Juno the half breed had been oppressed by a thousand fears.
He did not understand the bohunks--he did not want to. In his vivid life he had met most kinds of men, but the wild Continental7 scum that took to railway construction as its own special line of effort was beyond his experience. Hitherto he had been able to anticipate the villainies of his enemies--and in some of them he himself had revelled--but no one had yet charted the designs of creatures like Koppowski and his comrades.
Even as the foliage parted Blue Pete knew why he had looked. The raft was gone. He was not surprised, but his anger was none the less for that. With a muffled8 oath he let the foliage fall and dropped to the ground with the intuitive sense of the wild at evidence of an enemy.
A moment's thought raised him to his feet again, to strike recklessly back along the river's brink9 into the bush. Koppy and his crew, he knew, were busy about the bridge at that hour; the whole out-of-doors was his.
Blue Pete, a name once on the lips of every rancher and cowboy, sheriff and Mounted Policeman, from the Montana Badlands to Medicine Hat--once cowboy and rustler10, again cowboy and Mounted Police detective, then thrown back to rustling11 by the blindness of a political judge--was not now the model of physical fitness of a year ago when his rifle and rope were respected over a prairie Province and State. The bullet that had brought mistaken mourning to the Police, and particularly to Sergeant12 Mahon, the friend for whom it was intended, had come within a hair's breadth of avenging13 Bilsy and Dutch Henry, the Montana rustlers who had hated him so. What he had escaped was due to his wonderful physique and to the untiring care of Mira Stanton.
With her his sole nurse and doctor, he had lain in one of their many retreats in the Cypress14 Hills until he was strong enough to entrust15 himself to the pace of the faithful Whiskers for the slow and painful journey to more expert treatment across the border. There he recovered rapidly. But Bilsy's bullet had extracted its toll16. The blue-black face was darker now and more leathery, as if the blood behind were running more sluggishly17. His cheeks were fallen in, and great hollows showed beneath the squinting18 eyes. It made him more the Indian than ever in appearance. He had lost weight and bulk, and the shoulder above the wound was an inch lower than its mate.
Time would perhaps return him his old form, as it had his strength. But time was the very thing Blue Pete could not wait for.
Recklessly as he commenced his return along the banks of the river, instinct won; in a few steps he was moving with all the old soundlessness. Twigs19 and crackling leaves seemed to evade20 his feet; eye and ear were ever alert. Though he knew he was alone in the bush, the way of a lifetime refused to sleep within him. By a circuitous21 route he approached a tangle22 of trees that hung out from a steep projection23 in the rising sides of the ravine. His eyes were flitting now about at his feet, and sometimes he carefully passed a boot over marks only he could detect. Once, whistling in soft surprise, he scattered24 a handful of spruce needles.
Into the heart of the thickest clump25 of trees he disappeared. The green fell behind him, the woods was lifeless again.
In the dim light of the cave Mira knew he was worried, but he would tell her when it was good for her to know.
In their intimate way she understood.
"Perhaps it broke loose."
He looked his surprise that she should imagine he had not satisfied himself. She came to him and laid tender hand on his arm.
"I'm sorry, Pete, for your sake. Really it doesn't matter. We could go now--"
"Can't we buy them? They ain't worth the trouble and risk."
"Not now. They're after me--again."
There was a rending30 sadness about it, as if some overwhelming desire had escaped him forever, some dreaded31 fear returned.
"But you can give up the job on the trestle any time you like. They can't touch you for that, can they?"
He had told her of the incident at the trestle, and the hatred32 now boiling in the breasts of the bohunks. But of the scene in Torrance's shack33, of Sergeant Mahon, he had not said a word; he felt he dare not. That the Sergeant should be there oppressed and threatened him. Loving Mahon with the full strength of his wild nature, he vaguely34 foresaw the complications that might arise; and he wished to save Mira the worry of it as long as he could. He had no conscious thought that Mira's early infatuation for the Sergeant continued; he knew that he, halfbreed though he was, had her whole heart. The Sergeant's fancy for the prairie girl had been but the reaching out of his fine nature for the beautiful, where so little of the beautiful existed. His marriage to Mira's Eastern-trained cousin had spelled the end of that.
What the halfbreed dare not face was the discovery by the Police that he whom they thought dead was alive. He was still on the Police black-books; in spite of their affection for him, he had months of rustling--if it was rustling--to pay for.
"Got to git them two horses--somehow," he persisted. "Then we kin6 start all over agin, you 'n' me. The P'lice can't hev anythin' agin us, when the horses are all back whar they belong."
He searched her face anxiously. So often they had talked it over, and always neither was quite satisfied. A conflict of emotions was in her face now; her life's dream was there, her great fear.
"I lef 'em to the last. The boss is cuter'n a thousand bohunks. I wanted to be able to git clear away 'fore he got thinkin' too hard. . . . Las' night the stable was locked. Suthin's scared 'em."
"I don't understand why he hasn't told the Police. But I guess he knew they were stole--stolen when he bought them."
Juno lifted her head, ears pointing, and rumbled36 in her throat. Blue Pete grabbed the revolver he had discarded on his entry and thrust it into his belt. Then he vanished into the trees that covered the entrance.
Worming along the ground, another clump a stone's throw distant swallowed him. There in the darkness of a second cave he pressed the noses of the two horses, the familiar command to silence, and a moment later he was outside again.
Somewhere above on the hillside was a sound only he and Juno could hear. Blue Pete looked through the leaves and saw Sergeant Mahon.
The Policeman was bent37 over the ground. Presently he moved slowly onward38, eyes ever at his feet, dropping yard by yard down the tree-lined slope. Evidently dissatisfied with what his eyes told him, he stooped at times until his face was within a few inches of the dead leaves and moss39; often he rose to full height and looked away toward the camp with a puzzled frown.
Lower and lower he sank toward the river's edge.
Blue Pete glided40 away before him. He himself had taught this man to trail, had roused in Mahon the quick eye of suspicion that questioned every turned leaf; and now he was to pay for it. Silently he cursed the luck of things. He was satisfied no prying41 eye about the camp could follow his tracks, but he had not counted on the Sergeant.
Down, step by step, moved Mahon, a zig-zag course that missed nothing. Nearer and nearer he approached the cave home of the one who was watching him with fevered eyes.
Blue Pete pictured the penalty he must pay were he taken now. Another week or two and it would be different. There were still the two horses in the boss's stable before his name was clear, and the bunch down in the Cypress Hills was waiting to be returned to their rightful owners. He could not face what the law would demand of him--Mira would not live through it. Imprisonment--disgrace--death to all the hopes that had sustained them both since his recovery!
On the trail of the unsuspecting Policeman he crept, and his face was grim and gaunt.
Where the river bottom ran more level, Mahon halted and looked about with a more general interest. The halfbreed felt safer, for he had taken greater precautions nearer the caves. But there was always the chance of a mistake, none knew it better than he who had profited so often from the mistakes of others. And Mira's horse might fail them at the vital moment; he had no fear of Whiskers.
Sergeant Mahon let his eyes fall to the ground again and started. Dropping to his knees, he bent close above the spot where the halfbreed had scattered the spruce needles not an hour before. With careful breath the Policeman blew. After a time he sank back on his heels and passed a hand across his forehead. All about him he peered with piercing eyes.
Blue Pete slowly drew the revolver from his belt.
Mahon came to his feet and moved forward, bent over the tell-tale moss and half overgrown sand. He was making straight for the cave.
The arm of the halfbreed lifted. Perspiration42 was breaking out on his swarthy face, and his left hand opened and closed. But his teeth were gritted43, and the hand that held the gun was steady as steel. At least his old friend would never know who killed him.
A short ten yards from the cluster of trees that hid the cave Mahon stopped, a perplexed44, self-deprecatory twist to his face, like a man who has been dreaming. Then he edged off toward the river, carelessly, smiling reflectively. The halfbreed wriggled45 after him. For several minutes the Sergeant stood looking out across the water, then, shrugging his shoulders, skirted to the east and slowly climbed the bank.
Blue Pete threw himself on the ground, dark face pillowed in a shaking arm.
Mira came to him and touched his shoulder.
"I saw, Pete," she whispered huskily. "I, too, had him covered. . . . We'll have to move again."
He looked up into the loving face, his heart thumping46 so fiercely that his ears drummed. Suddenly he realised how much it meant to him that now he was the only one that counted; she would have pulled the trigger rather than risk his capture by the Police.
"You knew he was here?" There was no reproach in her voice.
"I didn't want to skeer yuh," he replied weakly.
She smiled: she could read him so well.
"We must cross the river and find a place over there," she decided47. "The construction raft at the trestle will get the horses over. . . . If the Sergeant caught only a glimpse of Whiskers he'd know."
Blue Pete laughed. "When I git through with the ole gal48 her own mother wudn't know her. I ain't bin49 in the rustlin' game all these years not to pick up a few tricks to make a woman pinto look like a blood stallion."
"But if he ever saw us--either of us."
The halfbreed spent the evening pondering on that.
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1
alias
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| n.化名；别名；adv.又名 | |
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maverick
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| adj.特立独行的；不遵守传统的；n.持异议者，自行其是者 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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checkered
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| adj.有方格图案的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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rustler
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| n.[美口]偷牛贼 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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entrust
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| v.信赖，信托，交托 | |
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toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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sluggishly
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| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
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squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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circuitous
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| adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的 | |
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22
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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30
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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40
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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41
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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42
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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43
gritted
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的过去式和过去分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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44
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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45
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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46
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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47
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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48
gal
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| n.姑娘，少女 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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