CHAPTER XIV.
A CLOSE CALL.
We were standing in a brushy pocket on the side of a hill, and as there was no immediate danger of our being seen, MacRae continued, by the aid of the glasses, to follow the movements of our would-be captors.
"D'you know that plunder can't be far away; those fellows haven't had much time to make their cache," he reflected, more to himself than to me. "I wonder how they accounted to Lessard for us. Just think of it—somewhere within twenty miles of us there's in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars of stolen money, planted till they can get it safely; and the men that got away with it are helping the law to run us down. That's a new feature of the case; one, I must say, that I didn't look for."
He lowered the glasses, and regarded me soberly.
"They fight fire with fire in a grass country," he observed. "The Mounted Police are a hard formation to buck against—but I've a mind to see this thing to a finish. How do you feel about it, Sarge? Will you go through?"
"All the way and back again," I promised recklessly. I wasn't sure of what he had in mind, but I knew him—and seeing that we were in the same boat, I thought it fitting that we should sink or swim together.
"We'll come out on top yet," he confidently asserted. "Meantime we'd better locate some secluded spot and give our nags a chance to fill up on grass and be fresh for to-morrow; we're apt to have a hard day."
"It wouldn't be a bad scheme to fill ourselves at the same time," I suggested. "I'm feeling pretty vacant inside. The first bunch of buffalo that has a fat calf along is going to hear from me."
"If we can get over this ridge without being seen, there's a canyon with some cottonwoods and a spring in it. That will be as good a place to hole up for the night as we can find," Mac decided. "And there will likely be some buffalo near there."