By Right of Purchase

by Harold Bindloss

An almost intolerable cold had descended upon the prairie when Leland reached the coulee where Sergeant Grier was mustering his forces late at night. They were not a very strong body, three troopers of the Northwest Police, all of them rather young, two prairie farmers, Leland, Gallwey, and the Sergeant, but the latter had decided that they would be enough, for the purpose. He was aware that, in an affair of this kind, a few men who understand exactly what they have to do, and can be relied on to set about it quietly and collectedly, are apt to prove more efficient than a larger body. The unnecessary man, he knew, is usually busy getting in his comrade's way. There was also another reason which Leland had pointed out. Since his acquaintances had undertaken the business, it was advisable that they should carry it out without exposing themselves unnecessarily to the outlaws' vengeance. There were several bands of the latter acting more or less in concert, and it would lessen the risks if there were only three or four men liable to them in place of several times as many.

The Sergeant quite concurred in this, and, when Leland rode up stiff with frost, quietly sent the men out to their stations. Just there, the beaten trail that led south to the frontier dipped into one of the winding ravines, traversing the country with many a loop and bend. A sluggish creek flowed through its bottom beneath the ice, and a growth of willows and birches that there found shelter from the winds straggled up its sides. Trees fringed the crest of the dip, too, and in places overflowed into the prairie in scattered spurs. The trail ran through their midst, and there was no doubt that, if the outlaws came at all, which was not certain, they would come that way, since there are disadvantages attached to leading loaded horses through a thick birch-bluff in the darkness.

A farmer and one of the troopers were sent back to where the trees ran farther out into the prairie, and they were to lie hidden there and cut off the retreat in case the rustlers endeavoured to head back the way they had come. The main body lined the trail in the thickest of the bluff, just below the crest of the ravine, and Leland and one young trooper proceeded to the foot of the declivity. It would be their business to stop anybody who might succeed in breaking through the rest of the ambuscade. Each of them knew precisely what was expected of him, and the only uncertainty was whether the rustlers were coming, and if so, how many there would be of them.

It was a suitable night for their purpose, neither too dark nor too light. The heavens were barred with drifting wreaths of cloud, between which every now and then a half-moon and an occasional star shone down. The birches wailed as they shook their frail twigs beneath a bitter wind. Leland was sensible of a distressing tingling in his numbed feet and hands. The young trooper beside him limped and stumbled, a shadowy, indistinct figure in his furs, stiff with cold. Their softly moccasined feet made no sound. Both of them wondered whether they could use their slung rifles, if the necessity arose.

It is possible, without feeling desperately cold, to face the frost of the Northwest in a prairie waggon when one is packed about with hay and wrapped in big fur robes, but there are times when the man who travels on horseback runs the risk of freezing, and, because horses might be wanted, farmers and police troopers had ridden instead of driving. Leland was capable of moving, but the young trooper was in a far worse state, and sighed with relief when at last they stopped beside the creek, where a dense growth of willows kept off the stinging wind.

"I'm that cold I 'most can't hump myself," he said. "Seems to me I haven't got any feet on. I guess they're froze. Still, it's not quite so cruel as the night the corporal got one of his nipped. We were sleeping way back up Long Traverse trail in a pit in the snow, and were too played-out to waken when the fire got low. The frost had the corporal by the morning, but we'd most of twenty leagues to make, with two or three mighty cold camps on the way, and his moccasins opened up a wound. You couldn't have told he had a foot when I last saw him."

Leland said nothing. He was not inclined for conversation, and knew that instances of the kind were not uncommon. The wardens of the prairie probably know more about cold than anybody, except Arctic explorers, and they are expected to face it shelterless in the open for days together when occasion arises. They cannot always find a birch-bluff to camp in, and the snow is frequently too thin to throw up a bank between them and the wind. Only hard men continue in that service, and perhaps the prairie wolf alone knows what becomes of some of the unfit who try it.

The lad, however, seemed impelled to talk, and stamped up and down beating his mittened hands, with the swivel of his slung carbine jangling as he moved.

"One would 'most wonder why you folks took a hand in," he said. "I guess if I'd been a farmer, it's more than I'd have done myself. There seem to be a blame lot of the rustlers, and, so far as we can figure, they stand in together. The three or four of us can't be everywhere at once, and they might take a notion of getting even by playing the fire-bug when the grass is dry in harvest season. I'd plough my fire-guards twice as wide. It would be quite easy to burn up a ripening crop."

Leland was aware that there would, unfortunately, be no difficulty in doing this, but he was willing to take his chances, and did not answer the lad. Indeed, the probable loss of a crop appeared a comparatively small matter to him just then. He was sore and bitter, and a feud with the outlaws would have been almost a relief. He felt that Branscombe Denham had tricked him, but sincerely desired to stand well with his wife, in spite of her scornful attitude towards him. He did not blame her for that altogether, though her words still rankled, but he would not expose himself to her disdain again, and had decided that if things were to be different, the first advances must be made by her. In the meanwhile, it was singularly unpleasant to both of them, and that night he was in a very sensitive and somewhat dangerous mood as he stood shivering among the willows.