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Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, a fiction by James Oliver Curwood |
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Chapter 16. A Lock Of Golden Hair |
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_ Chapter XVI. A Lock Of Golden Hair As the sun was rising in a burning August glare over the edge of the parched prairie, Philip saw ahead of him the unpainted board shanty that was called Bleak House Station, and a few moments later he saw a man run out into the middle of the track and stare down at him from under the shade of his hands. It was Billinger, his English-red face as white as he had left Gunn's, his shirt in rags, arms bare, and his tremendous blond mustaches crisped and seared by fire. Close to the station, fastened to posts, were two saddlehorses. A mile beyond these things a thin film of smoke clouded the sky. As the jigger stopped Philip jumped from his seat and held out a blistered hand. "I'm Steele--Philip Steele, of the Northwest Mounted." "And I'm Billinger--agent," said the other. Philip noticed that the hand that gripped his own was raw and bleeding. "I got your word, and I've received instructions from the department to place myself at your service. My wife is at the key. I've found the trail, and I've got two horses. But there isn't another man who'll leave up there for love o' God or money. It's horrible! Two hours ago you'd 'ave heard their screams from where you're standing--the hurt, I mean. They won't leave the wreck--not a man, and I don't blame 'em." A pretty, brown-haired young woman had come to the door and Billinger ran to her. "Good-by," he cried, taking her for a moment in his big arms. "Take care of the key!" He turned as quickly to the horses, talking as they mounted. "It was robbery," he said--and they set off at a canter, side by side. "There was two hundred thousand in currency in the express car, and it's gone. I found their trail this morning, going into the North. They're hitting for what we call the Bad Lands over beyond the Coyote, twenty miles from here. I don't suppose there's any time to lose--" "No," said Philip. "How many are there?" "Four--mebby more." Billinger started his horse into a gallop and Philip purposely held his mount behind to look at the other man. The first law of MacGregor's teaching was to study men, and to suspect. It was the first law of the splendid service of which he was a part--and so he looked hard at Billinger. The Englishman was hatless. His sandy hair was cropped short, and his mustaches floated out like flexible horns from the sides of his face. His shirt was in tatters. In one place it was ripped clean of the shoulder and Philip saw a purplish bruise where the flesh was bare. He knew these for the marks of Billinger's presence at the wreck. Now the man was equipped for other business. A huge "forty-four" hung at his waist, a short carbine swung at his saddle-bow; and there was something in the manner of his riding, in the hunch of his shoulders, and in the vicious sweep of his long mustaches, that satisfied Philip he was a man who could use them. He rode up alongside of him with a new confidence. They were coming to the top of a knoll; at the summit Billinger stopped and pointed down into a hollow a quarter of a mile away. "It will be a loss of time to go down there," he said, "and it will do no good. See that thing that looks like a big log in the river? That's the top of the day coach. It went in right side up, and the conductor--who wasn't hurt--says there were twenty people in it. We watched it settle from the shore, and we couldn't do a thing--while they were dying in there like so many caged rats! The other coach burned, and that heap of stuff you see there is what's left of the Pullman and the baggage car. There's twenty-seven dead stretched out along the track, and a good many hurt. Great Heavens, listen to that!" He shuddered, and Philip shuddered, at the wailing sound of grief and pain that came up to them. "It'll be a loss of time--to go down," repeated the agent. "Yes, it would be a loss of time," agreed Philip. His blood was burning at fever heat when he raised his eyes from the scene below to Billinger's face. Every fighting fiber in his body was tingling for action, and at the responsive glare which he met in Billinger's eyes he thrust his hand half over the space that separated them. "We'll get 'em, Billinger," he cried. "By God, we'll get 'em!" There was something ferocious in the crush of the other's hand. The Englishman's teeth gleamed for an instant between his seared mustaches as he heeled his mount into a canter along the back of the ridge. Five minutes later the knoll dipped again into the plain and at the foot of it Billinger stopped his horse for a second and pointed to fresh hoof-marks in the prairie sod. Philip jumped from his horse and examined the ground. "There are five in the gang, Billinger," he said shortly--"All of them were galloping--but one." He looked up to catch Billinger leaning over the pommel of his saddle staring at something almost directly under his horse's feet. "What's that?" he demanded. "A handkerchief?" Philip picked it up--a dainty bit of fine linen, crumpled and sodden by dew, and held it out between the forefinger and thumb of both hands. "Yes, and a woman's handkerchief. Now what the devil--" He stopped at the look in Billinger's face as he reached down for the handkerchief. The square jaws of the man were set like steel springs, but Philip noticed that his hand was trembling. "A woman in the gang," he laughed as Philip mounted. They started out at a canter, Billinger still holding the bit of linen close under his eyes. After a little he passed it back to Philip who was riding close beside him. "Something happened last night," he said, looking straight ahead of him, "that I can't understand. I didn't tell my wife. I haven't told any one. But I guess you ought to know. It's interesting, anyway--and has made a wreck of my nerves." He wiped his face with a blackened rag which he drew from his hip pocket. "We were working hard to get out the living, leaving the dead where they were for a time, and I had crawled under the wreck of the sleeper. I was sure that I had heard a cry, and crawled in among the debris, shoving a lantern ahead of me. About where Berth Number Ten should have been, the timbers had telescoped upward, leaving an open space four or five feet high. I was on my hands and knees, bareheaded, and my lantern lighted up things as plain as day. At first I saw nothing, and was listening again for the cry when I felt something soft and light sweeping down over me, and I looked up. Heavens--" Billinger was mopping his face again, leaving streaks of char-black where the perspiration had started. "Pinned up there in the mass of twisted steel and broken wood was a woman," he went on. "She was the most beautiful thing I have ever looked upon. Her arms were reaching down to me; her face was turned a little to one side, but still looking at me--and all but her face and part of her arms was smothered in a mass of red-gold hair that fell down to my shoulders. I could have sworn that she was alive. Her lips were red, and I thought for a moment that she was going to speak to me. I could have sworn, too, that there was color in her face, but it must have been something in the lantern light and the red-gold of her hair, for when I spoke, and then reached up, she was cold." Billinger shivered and urged his horse into a faster gait. "I went out and helped with the injured then. I guess it must have been two hours later when I returned to take out her body. But the place where I had seen her was empty. She was gone. At first I thought that some of the others had carried her out, and I looked among the dead and injured. She was not among them. I searched again when day came, with the same result. No one has seen her. She has completely disappeared--and with the exception of my shanty there isn't a house within ten miles of here where she could have been taken. What do you make of it, Steele?" Philip had listened with tense interest. "Perhaps you didn't return to the right place," he suggested. "Her body may still be in the wreck." Billinger glanced toward him with a nervous laugh. "But it was the right place," he said. "She had evidently not gone to bed, and was dressed. When I returned I found a part of her skirt in the debris above. A heavy tress of her hair had caught around a steel ribbing, and it was cut off! Some one had been there during my absence and had taken the body. I--I'm almost ready to believe that I was mistaken, and that she was alive. I found nothing there, nothing--that could prove her death." "Is it possible--" began Philip, holding out the handkerchief. It was not necessary for him to finish. Billinger understood, and nodded his head. "That's what I'm thinking," he said. "Is it possible? What in God's name would they want of her, unless--" "Unless she was alive," added Philip. "Unless one or more of the scoundrels searching for valuables in there during the excitement, saw her and carried her off with their other booty. It's up to us, Billinger!" Billinger had reached inside his shirt, and now he drew forth a small paper parcel. "I don't know why--but I kept the tress of hair," he said. "See--" From between his fingers, as he turned toward Philip, there streamed out a long silken tress that shone a marvelous gold in the sun, and in that same instant there fell from Philip's lips a cry such as Billinger had not heard, even from the lips of the wounded; and before he could recover from his astonishment, he had leaned over and snatched the golden tress from him, and sat in his saddle staring at it like a madman. _ |
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