“It isn’t worth it. That Injin would have died if you’d been in my place, I guess. Between you and me, I expect to give Jules the slip before we get there.” And he laughed at the Inspector, who laughed a little austerely too, and in his heart wished that it was anyone else he had as a prisoner than Val Galbraith, who was a favourite with the Riders of the Plains.
Sergeant Tom had been standing in the doorway regarding this scene, and working out in his mind the complications that had led to it. At this point he came forward, and Inspector Jules said to him, after a curt salutation:
“You were in a hurry last night, Sergeant Gellatly. You don’t seem so pushed for time now. Usual thing. When a man seems over-zealous—drink, cards, or women behind it. But your taste is good, even if, under present circumstances”—He stopped, for he saw a threatening look in the eyes of the other, and that other said: “We won’t discuss that matter, Inspector, if you please. I’m going on to Fort Desire now. I couldn’t have seen you if I’d wanted to last night.”
“That’s nonsense. If you had waited one minute longer at the barracks you could have done so. I called to you as you were leaving, but you didn’t turn back.”
“No. I didn’t hear you.”
All were listening to this conversation, and none more curiously than Private Waugh. Many a time in days to come he pictured the scene for the benefit of his comrades. Pretty Pierre, leaning against the hitching-post near the bar-room, said languidly:
“But, Inspector, he speaks the truth—quite: that is a virtue of the Riders of the Plains.” Val had his eyes on the half-breed, and a look of understanding passed between them. While Val and his father and sister were saying their farewells in few words, but with homely demonstrations, Sergeant Tom brought his horse round and mounted it. Inspector Jules gave the word to move on. As they started, Gellatly, who fell behind the others slightly, leaned down and whispered: “Forgive me, Jen. You did a noble act for me, and the life of me would prove to you that I’m grateful. It’s sorry, sorry I am. But I’ll do what I can for Val, as sure as the heart’s in me. Good-bye, Jen.”
She looked up with a faint hope in her eyes. “Goodbye!” she said. “I believe you... Good-bye!”
In a few minutes there was only a cloud of dust on the prairie to tell where the Law and its quarry were. And of those left behind, one was a broken-spirited old man with sorrow melting away the sinister look in his face; one, a girl hovering between the tempest of bitterness and a storm of self-reproach; and one a half-breed gambler, who again sat on the bar-counter smoking a cigarette and singing to himself, as indolently as if he were not in the presence of a painful drama of life, perhaps a tragedy. But was the song so pointless to the occasion, after all, and was the man so abstracted and indifferent as he seemed? For thus the song ran:
“Oh, the bird in a cage and the bird on a tree
Voila! ‘tis a different fear!
The maiden weeps and she bends the knee
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
But the bird in a cage has a friend in the tree,
And the maiden she dries her tear:
And the night is dark and no moon you see
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
When the doors are open the bird is free
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!”