CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE TEST.
After a fierce struggle Ambrose was securely bound and gagged. He managed to get to his feet again. His soul sickened at the tragedy it forecast, yet he had to look.
To his overwhelming relief he saw that the redcoats had halted in the lower entrance to the valley. Evidently the possibility of an ambush in so favored a spot had occurred to their leader. The baggage was sent back.
His relief was short-lived. Presently the advance was resumed at a walk, and a pair of skirmishers sent out on either side to mount the hills. Ambrose counted sixteen redcoats in the main body, and a man in plain clothes, evidently a native guide.
One skirmisher on the left was headed all unconscious straight for a rifle pit. Ambrose, suffocated by his impotence, tugged at his bonds and groaned under the gag. "Turn back! Turn back!" shouted his voiceless tongue.
There was a shot. Ambrose closed his eyes expecting a fusillade to follow. It did not come. From his pit, Watusk hissed a negative order.
Ambrose heard a shrill whistle from the bottom of the valley, and opening his eyes, he saw the skirmishers riding slowly back to the main body. Even at the distance their nonchalant air was evident.
The main body had quietly halted in the middle of the valley. After a moment's pause, one of their number raised a rifle with a white flag tied to the barrel.
The Indians surrounding Ambrose, lowered their guns, and murmured confusedly among themselves. Ambrose looked at Watusk.
The chief betrayed symptoms of indecision, biting his lip, and pulling his fingers until the joints cracked. Ambrose took a little encouragement from the sight.
To Ambrose's astonishment he saw the troopers dismounting. Flinging the lines over their horses' heads, they allowed the beasts to crop the rich grass of the bottoms.
The men stood about in careless twos and threes, lighting their pipes.
Only their leader remained in the saddle, lolling comfortably sidewise.
The breeze brought the sound of their light talk and deep laughter.
The effect on the Indians was marked. Their jaws dropped, they looked at each other incredulously, they jabbered excitedly.
Plainly they were divided between admiration and mystification. Watusk was demoralized. His hand shook, an ashy tint crept under his yellow skin, an agony of impotent rage narrowed his eyes.
Ambrose's heart swelled with the pride of race. "Splendid fellows!" he cried to himself. "It was exactly the right thing to do!"
Presently a hail was raised in the valley below; a deep English voice whose tones gladdened Ambrose's ears. "Ho, Watusk!"
Every eye turned toward the leader. Watusk had the air of a wilful child called by his parent. He pished and swaggered, and made some remark to his men with the obsequious smile with which child—or man—asks for the support of his mates in his wrong-doing.
The men did not smile back; they merely watched soberly to see what
Watusk was going to do about it.
The hail was repeated. "Ho, Watusk! Inspector Egerton orders you to come and talk to him!"
So it was Colonel Egerton, thought Ambrose, commander of B district of the police, and known affectionately from Caribou Lake to the Arctic as Patch-pants Egerton, or simply as "the old man." He was a veteran of two Indian uprisings. Ambrose felt still further reassured.
Watusk, still swaggering, nevertheless visibly weakened. In the end he had to go, just as a child must in the end obey a calm, imperative summons.
He issued a petulant order. All the men except Ambrose's guard of six took their guns and filed out through the back of the pit.
Watusk went last. Glancing over his shoulder and seeing that those left behind were busily watching the troopers in the valley, he produced a flask from his pocket and took a pull at it. Ambrose caught the act out of the corner of his eye.
A few minutes later, Watusk and his followers rode over the edge of the hill to the left of the rifle pit, and down into the valley. The policemen scarcely looked up to see them come.
Inspector Egerton and Chief Watusk faced each other on horseback. The other Indians remained at a respectful distance. Ambrose mightily desired to hear what was being said on either side. He learned later.
"Watusk!" cried the peppery little inspector. "What damn foolishness is this? Rifle pits! Do you think you're another Louis Riel?"
Watusk, glowering sullenly, made no answer.
"Have you got Ambrose Doane here?" the officer demanded.
"Ambrose Doane here," said Watusk.
"I want him," said Egerton crisply. "I also want you, Watusk,
Myengeen, Tatateecha, and three others whose names I can't pronounce.
I have a clerk belonging to the Company store who will pick them out.
"I've got to send you all out for trial before the river closes, so there's no time to lose. We will start back to-day. I will leave half my men here under Sergeant Plaskett to look after your people. You will instruct your people to bring in all the goods stolen from the Company store.
"Plaskett will have a list of everything that was taken and will credit what is returned. The balance, together with the amount of damage done the store will be charged in a lump against the tribe, and the sum deducted pro rata from the government annuities next year. They're lucky to get off so easy."
"We get pay, too, for our flour burn up?" muttered Watusk.
"That will be investigated with the rest," the inspector said. "Bring in your people at once. Look sharp! There's not an hour to lose!"
Watusk made no move. The fiery spirit he had swallowed was lending a deceitful warmth to his veins. He began to feel like a hero. His eyes narrowed and glittered. "Suppose I don' do it?" he muttered.
The inspectors white eyebrows went up. "Then I will go and take the men I want," he said coolly.
"You dead before you gone far," said Watusk. He swept his arm dramatically around the hills. "I got five hundred Winchesters point at your red coats!" he cried. "When I give signal they speak together!"
"That's a lie," said the inspector. "You've only a few over two hundred able men in your tribe."
"Two hundred is plenty," said Watusk unabashed. "That is ten bullets for every man of yours. They are all around you. You cannot go forward or back. Ask Company man if Kakisas shoot straight!"
Inspector Egerton's answer was a hearty laugh. "Capital!" he cried.
"Laugh!" cried Watusk furiously. "You no harder than ot'er man. You got no medicine to stop those bullets you sell us! No? If bullets go t'rough your red coats you die lak ot'er men I guess!"
"Certainly!" cried the old soldier with a flash of his blue eyes. "That's our business. But it won't do you any good. We're but the outposts of a mighty power that encircles the world. If you defy that power you'll be wiped out like the prairie grass in a fire."
"Huh!" cried Watusk. "White man's bluff! White man always talk big about the power behind him. I lak see that power, me! I will show the red people you no better than them!
"When it was known Watusk has beat the police, as far as the northern ocean they will take arms and drive the white men out of their country! I have sent out my messengers!"
"What do you expect me to say to that?" inquired the officer quizzically.
"Tell you men lay their guns on the ground," said Watusk. "They my prisoners. I treat them kind."
Inspector Egerton laughed until his little paunch shook. "Come," he said good-naturedly, "I haven't got time to exchange heroics with you. Run along and bring in your people. I'll give you half an hour."
The inspector drew out his watch, and took note of the time. He then turned to address his sergeant, leaving Watusk in mid air, so to speak.
There was nothing for the Indian leader to do but wheel his horse and ride back up the hill with what dignity he could muster. His men fell in behind him.
They had understood nothing of what was said, of course, but the byplay was sufficiently intelligible. The whole party was crestfallen.
Observing this air on their return to the rifle pit, Ambrose's eye brightened. Watusk seeing the keen, questioning eye, announced with dignity.
"We won. The red-coats surrendered."
This was so palpably a falsehood Ambrose could well afford to smile broadly behind his gag.
The half hour that then followed seemed like half a day to those who watched. Ambrose, ignorant of what had occurred, could only guess the reason of the armistice.
The police had taken down their white flag. He could see the inspector glance at his watch from time to time. Wondering messengers came from the other pits presumably to find out the reason of the inaction, to whom Watusk returned evasive replies.
Bound and gagged as he was, it was anything but an easy time for Ambrose. He had the poor satisfaction of seeing that Watusk was more uneasy than himself.
To a discerning eye the Indian leader was suffering visible torments.
Egerton, the wily old Indian fighter, knew his man.
If he had made the slightest move to provoke a conflict, raged, threatened, fired a gun, the savage nature would instantly have reacted, and it would have all been over in a few moments. But to laugh and light a cigarette! Watusk was rendered impotent by a morale beyond his comprehension.
The longest half hour has only thirty minutes. Inspector Egerton looked at his watch for the last time and spoke to his men. The policemen caught their horses, and without any appearance of haste, tightened girths and mounted.
They commenced to move slowly through the grass in the track of Watusk's party, spreading out wide in open formation. The inspector was in the center of the line. He carried no arms. His men were still joking and laughing.
They commenced to mount the hill, walking their horses, and sitting loosely in their saddles. Each trooper had his reins in one hand, his rifle barrel in the other, with the butt of the weapon resting on his thigh.
They were coming straight for the rifle pit; no doubt they had marked the bushes masking it. Ambrose saw that they were young men, slim-waisted and graceful. The one on the right end had lost his hat through some accident. He had fair hair that caught the sun.
This was the critical moment. The fate of the nineteen boys and their white-haired leader hung by a hair. Ambrose held his breath under the gag. A cry, an untoward movement would have caused an immediate slaughter.
The Indians' eyes glittered, their teeth showed, they fingered their rifles. A single word from their leader would have sufficed. Watusk longed to speak it, and could not. The sweat was running down his yellow-gray face.
One of the horses stumbled. The Indians with muttered exclamations flung up their guns. Ambrose thought it was all over.
But at that moment by the grace of God, one of the troopers made a good joke, and a hearty laugh rang along the line. The Indians lowered their guns and stared with bulging eyes. They could not fight supermen like these.
Watusk, with the groan of total collapse, dropped his gun on the ground, and turned to escape by the path out of the pit.
Instantly there was pandemonium in the narrow place. Some tried to escape with their leader; others blocked the way. Ambrose saw Watusk seized and flung on the ground. One spat in his face. He lay where he had fallen.
Thus ended the Kakisa rebellion. The Indians had no further thought of resistance. The butts of their guns dropped to the ground, and they stared at the oncoming troopers with characteristic apathy.