I was duly made acquainted with Bat, and later with his wife, who, if she did have a trace of Indian blood in her, could certainly qualify as the patron saint of hungry men. Good cooks were a scarce article on the frontier then. Bat, I learned, was attached to the Force in a civilian capacity.
We ate, smoked a cigarette apiece, and then it was time for us to "repawt." So we betook ourselves to the seat of the mighty, to unload our troubles on the men who directed the destinies of the turbulent Northwest and see what they could do toward alleviating them.
This time the orderly passed us in without delay, and once more we faced the man of rank, who, after taking our measure with a deliberate stare, ordered MacRae to state his business.
As Mac related the unvarnished tale of the banked fire in the canyon, the hold-up, and the double murder, a slight sound caused me to turn my head, and I saw in a doorway that led to another room the erect figure of Major Lessard listening intently, a black frown on his eagle face. When MacRae had finished his story and the incapable blockhead behind the desk sat there regarding the two of us as though he considered that we had been the victims of a rank hallucination, Lessard slammed the door shut behind him and strode into the room.
"I'll take charge of this, Captain Dobson," he brusquely informed the red-faced numskull.
Taking his stand at the end of the desk, he made MacRae reiterate in detail the grim happenings of that night. That over, he quizzed me for a few minutes. Then he turned loose on MacRae with a battery of questions. Could he give a description of the men? Would he be able to identify them? Why did he not exercise more precaution when investigating anything so suspicious as a concealed fire? Why this, why that? Why didn't he send a trooper to report at once instead of wasting time in going to Stony Crossing? And a dozen more.
With every word his thin-lipped mouth drew into harder lines, and the cold, domineering tone, weighted heavy with sneering emphasis, grated on me till I wanted to reach over and slap his handsome, smooth-shaven face. But MacRae stood at "attention" and took his medicine dumbly. He had to. He was in the presence, and answering the catechism, of a superior officer, and his superior officer by virtue of a commission from the Canadian government could insult his manhood and lash him unmercifully with a viperish tongue, and if he dared to resent it by word or deed there was the guardhouse and the shame of irons—for discipline must be maintained at any cost! I thanked the star of destiny then and there that no Mounted Police officer had a string attached to me, by which he could force me to speak or be silent at his will. It was a dirty piece of business on Lessard's part. Even Dobson eyed him wonderingly.
"Why, damn it!" Lessard finally burst out, "you've handled this like a green one, fresh from over the water. You are held up; this man is robbed of ten thousand dollars; another man is murdered under your very nose—and then you waste thirty-six hours blundering around the country to satisfy your infernal curiosity. It's incredible, in a man of your frontier experience, under any hypothesis except that you stood in with the outlaws and held back to assure their escape!"
At first MacRae had looked puzzled, at a loss. Then under the lash of Lessard's bitter tongue the dull red stole up into his weather-browned cheeks, glowed there an instant and receded, leaving his face white under the tan. His left hand was at its old, familiar trick—fingers shut tight over the thumb till the cords stood tense between the knuckles and wrist—a never-failing sign that internally he was close to the boiling-point, no matter how calm he appeared on the surface. And when Lessard flung out that last unthinkable accusation, the explosion came.
"You lie, you——!" MacRae spoke in a cold impersonal tone, and only the flat strained note betrayed his feeling; but the term applied to Lessard was one to make a man's ears burn; it was the range-riders' gauntlet thrown squarely in an enemy's face. "You lie when you say that, and you know you lie. I don't know your object, but I call your bluff—you—you blasted insect!"