The colonel (I'd heard of him before; I knew when MacRae spoke his name that he was Commander-in-Chief of the Northwest Mounted Police, the biggest gun of all) favored us with another appraising stare.
"These men, I take it, are prisoners?" he said, pointing to Hicks and Bevans.
"You bet your sweet life them's prisoners," Piegan broke in with cheerful assurance. "Them gentlemen is candidates for a rope necktie apiece—nice perfessional assassins t' have in the Police!"
Allen turned to the orderly. "A detail of four from the guardhouse on the double-quick," he commanded.
Captain Stone stood by gnawing his mustache while Allen listened unmoved as MacRae pointed out the horse on which was packed the bulk of the loot, and gave him a brief outline of the abduction and the subsequent fight at the mouth of Sage Creek. The orderly returned with the detail, and Allen courteously sent him to escort Lyn to the hospitality of Bat Perkins' wife, as MacRae asked. After which the guard marshaled Piegan, MacRae, and me, along with Hicks and Bevans, into the room where MacRae and Lessard had clashed that memorable day. Then they carried in the two bodies and laid them on the floor, and last of all the pack that held Hank Rowan's gold and the government currency.
While this was being done an orderly flitted from house to house on officers' row; the calm, pleasant-voiced, shrewd old Commissioner gathered his captains about him for a semi-official hearing. The dusk faded into night. Here and there about the post lights began to twinkle. We stood about in the ante-room, silent under the vigilant eye of the guard. After an uncertain period of waiting, the orderly called "Gordon MacRae," and the inquisition began.
One at a time they put us on the rack—probing each man's story down to the smallest detail. It was long after midnight when the questioning was at an end. The finale came when a trooper searched the bodies of Lessard and Gregory, and relieved Hicks and Bevans of the plunder that was still concealed about their persons. They counted the money solemnly, on the same desk by which Lessard stood when MacRae flung that hot challenge in his teeth, and lost his stripes as the penalty. Outside, the wind arose and whoo-ee-ed around the corner of the log building; inside, there was a strained quiet, broken only by the occasional rattle of a loose window, the steady chink—chink of coin slipping through fingers, the crisp rustle of bills, like new silk. And when it was done Allen leaned back in his chair, patting the arm of it with one hand, and surveyed the neatly piled money and the three buckskin sacks on the desk before him. Then he stood up, very erect and stern in the yellow lamplight.
"Take those men to the guardhouse," he ordered curtly, pointing an accusing finger at Hicks and Bevans. "Iron them securely—securely!"
He turned to me. "I regret that it will be necessary for you to wait some little time, Flood, before your money can be restored to you," he said in a pleasanter tone. "There will be certain formalities to go through, you understand. You will also be required as a witness at the forthcoming trial. We shall be glad to furnish you and Smith with comfortable quarters until then. It is late, but MacRae knows these barracks, and doubtless he can find you a temporary sleeping place. And, in conclusion, I wish to compliment all three of you on the courage and resource you displayed in tracking down these damnable scoundrels—damnable scoundrels."
He fairly exploded that last phrase. I daresay it was something of a blow to his pride in the Force to learn that such deviltry had actually been fathered by one of his trusted officers; something the same sorrowful anger that stirs a man when one of his own kin goes wrong. Then, as if he were half-ashamed of his burst of feeling, he dismissed us with a wave of his hand and a gruff "That's all, to-night."