Chapter XVII: At Five Hundred Yards

The two officers halted to scan the heights, towering shadowy above them. They stood in the middle of the broad plateau, with the horseshoe curve of the mountains hemming them in like the rising tiers of a vast amphitheater. The lower slopes were circled by a belt of dense-growing evergreens, but the open, snow-covered level stretched between, and the nearest sheltering thicket was at least a quarter mile distant. Any object moving against the white background of the snow-field must present a conspicuous target, but when Devreaux broke the momentary silence, he spoke without concern, and seemed in no haste to make for cover.

"Crill?" he inquired, with a ruminative glance towards the lower notch. "He had a rifle."

Dexter observed the line of long, narrow footprints that marked the direction of the outlaw's flight, and casually shook his head. "No. I don't think so. The shot came from higher up, I should say, and from the western slope--"

The spiteful _pi-n-g_ of a second bullet whipped the air behind him, and he briefly nodded. "Right!" he remarked. "From the timber somewhere on our left. That wouldn't be Crill. There are others about."

The colonel quizzed Alison Rayne with his chilly glance.

"If they're friends of yours," he remarked, "they haven't much regard for you. At such a distance they can only pitch 'em in for general results, and they're as apt to get you as they are a policeman."

The girl's delicate brows were bent in an expression that betokened curiosity rather than alarm. "We're really being shot at?" she asked. "I didn't hear any report."

"High power rifle, and six hundred yards' range at least," said the corporal. "Too far off to hear the crack." He lifted his head interestedly as another steel-jacketed missile shrieked across the meadow. "They aren't allowing enough windage," he added in expert criticism of another man's marksmanship. "And long shots from an elevation are always likely to overcarry."

"I don't agree with you," interrupted the colonel. "Not if you don't forget your table of trajectories." He wrinkled his forehead reminiscently as he warmed to a cherished hobby. "I remember last year when I got me an old ram. Conditions similar to this. Five hundred yards if an inch, and I was shooting down off a ridge. I fixed my leaf sight at five hundred, and held plumb in the vital circle. The point I'm making--"

"You're in danger of having your point proven for you, if we stick around here," Dexter respectfully submitted. He saw the girl looking from one to the other with anxious eyes. "If you don't mind," he finished, "Alison and I think we'd better be striking for cover."

"Come on," agreed the superintendent, and set forward once more towards the nearest strip of timber. He moved at his usual brisk stride, but without undue haste; a calm and dignified man who refuses to be pestered by small annoyances.

As they pushed onward across the plateau, a freezing gust of wind swept down suddenly through the mountain notch, bringing a momentary flutter of snowflakes. "At last!" Devreaux flung back over his shoulder. "The storm will spoil good shooting, but also it'll bury footprints. We'll have to get Crill quickly, before the slate's wiped clean."

"And before he takes on reinforcements," echoed Dexter.

The snow flurry lasted for seconds, and then there followed a brief lull, while the skin of the face seemed to draw tighter with the tension of heavy barometric pressures. The lower atmosphere had grown very still, but higher up Dexter could see the rush and scud of dark clouds breaking around the mountain peaks. His glance traveled aimlessly from one outstanding pinnacle to another, and then wandered down towards the edge of timberline, and reached the top of a knife-edged ridge stretching away to the left. He blinked his eyes, and gazed again, and made out a grouping of elongated objects, like little fingers poked against the skyline. There was no discernible movement. He counted--one--two--three--but at the distance was unable to decide whether the small dots were rocks, or beasts of some sort, or men.

Reaching behind him, he was fumbling at his binocular case, when his ears caught the far-off hum of another bullet. The sound broke through the air in wailing crescendo, reached its highest pitch, and then stopped short with a tearing thump.

Dexter saw Colonel Devreaux halt in mid-stride and look waveringly about him, like a man who had suddenly changed his mind about the direction he wanted to go. For a moment the square-built figure held erect, motionless, and then the sturdy legs bowed weakly and without a word the old man pitched forward and fell upon his face.

Simultaneously, the storm came howling down upon them. Dexter felt the lash of the fiercely driven wind, and as he bowed his head to the blast, the world about him was blotted out in swirling snow.

He plunged forward and dropped upon his knees beside his officer. Devreaux lay on his side, with head and face almost buried in the white drift. The corporal passed his arm under the fallen body, and his fingers were stained by a warm seepage of blood.

The stricken man tried to sit up as his comrade raised his head from the ground; but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back limply in the corporal's arms. "Back and lungs!" he choked with a sound of leaking breath. His white mustache lifted, and he showed his teeth for an instant in a dauntless smile. "Like that old bighorn ram, David. He weathered a lot of hard years--but somebody got him at last--fine cleanshot--at five hundred--" He broke off in a painful coughing fit, and the light of consciousness faded from his steely eyes, and he slumped forward, a limp, insensate weight in Dexter's arms.

The corporal hastily examined the sagging body. A bullet, he found, had drilled its course through the dorsal muscles; had broken a rib and plowed deeper into the cavity of the lungs. As he pillowed the grizzled head against his shoulder he heard a soft crunching step beside him and was aware that Alison Rayne was bending above.

"Is it bad?" she asked.

He nodded without speaking.

"I'm very sorry," she said.

Dexter crouched silent for a moment, gazing vacantly towards the invisible heights, his face beaten by the driving snow. For the present, nothing further was to be feared from the distant sharpshooter. The rush of snow filled the air, blinding the vision. It was impossible to see a dozen feet beyond him. The dry, hissing flakes battered his eyes and obliterated the landscape. An army might have marched past him unobserved. He sighed thankfully, scarcely feeling the sting of the blizzard. At least he was vouchsafed the privilege of caring for his fallen comrade.

But what was he to do, where could he go? He must make his decision instantly. The wounded man could not be left exposed in the open. Prompt surgical attention was needed, but even more pressing was the need of shelter--a place to hide, to huddle protected from the white death that rode with the storm. His questing glance wandered off towards his right, where, he recalled, the nearest stretch of timber grew. It would be in that direction somewhere that he must search for his nook of safety.

He was bending down to gather the wounded body in his arms, when Alison Rayne spoke in a quick, low voice behind him. "If I could do anything to help, I'd stay," she said. "But I'd only add to your responsibilities now, and so--good-by."

"One moment!" he commanded sharply. "I hadn't heard any one tell you to go."

"It's an ugly thing to do--taking advantage of your misfortune," she returned. "But you leave me no choice. You and Colonel Devreaux intended to drag me to the fort with you, to accuse me of I don't know what, to put me through your legal tortures, as though I were some criminal. You had no mercy. And now I--the tables have turned through no act of mine. You think I'm going to wait until you're ready to work your will with me?" Her eyes gleamed, and she shook her head rebelliously. "I'd kill myself before I'd let you do what you mean to do with me. I'd rather die."

"You will die if you go blundering off in this blizzard," he assured her.

"So be it then!" She took a step away, but the next instant turned back impulsively to face him. "I know what you think," she declared with a shudder. "You think I shot those two men in that cabin back there. I didn't--I swear I had nothing to do with that horror. But I can't prove that I didn't do it, and you--you want to prove that I did." She measured him with a tragic glance. "You won't leave Colonel Devreaux to try to hold me. You'll save your officer if you can."

"Stop!" he thundered as she started to turn away into the storm.

She looked back and saw that he was supporting Devreaux with his left arm, while his right hand had dropped to touch the butt of his pistol. "Yes," she said. "You'll have to shoot me to stop me. Rather that than go to the fort with you." She gave a short, mirthless laugh. "But I've heard that the men of the mounted never fire first. I'll find out if it's true."

His hand left his holster, and he fixed her with a stony gaze. "You're right," he said. "We're not like your people up there who crawl and slink and pot their victims from behind. Go! Go find your friends." He smiled contemptuously, and his words fell with the sharpness of whip strokes. "Tell 'em Corporal Dexter's still alive, and advise 'em when they see him again to shoot on sight, to kill. There's no truce after this. I'm more than ever set on getting them--and you too, Alison!" He pointed with his thumb towards the mountain slope, hidden behind the welter of snow. "Meanwhile there's nothing to keep you. Why don't you go?"

A dull flush suffused her cheeks and temples, and as he spoke her lips fell tremulously apart and her open hand moved towards him in a faint gesture of appeal. "I--" she began, and stopped. She drew a harsh breath that was almost a sob, and her lashes drooped for an instant to touch her snow-wet cheeks. "Good-by!" she cried suddenly in a breaking voice. Then she walked away and the next moment had vanished in the white swirl of the storm.