"About twenty feet, I guess!" drawled Dunsmuir.
Near the bank, Donny flogged the plunging horses and called on them with the most lurid language in the calendar. A crashing collision with a sunken rock that almost turned them over, Hector throwing his weight in the right direction in the nick of time; a wild struggle on the part of the leaders to gain a footing on the slippery ground; Donaldson, responding to a fierce 'Give me the reins!' went overboard, neck-deep, to drag his horses round; a last upheaval; and they rolled out on dry land, out of the reluctant fingers of imminent death.
Hector gave Donaldson a nip of whiskey, and a short rest. Then the trap dashed forward anew.
Far off, on the horizon, as they advanced, they saw a long train of crawling, white-tilted wagons, belonging to one of the many parties of farmer-settlers now pouring into the country,—symbol of still another change, impending, when the stockmen's supremacy would be challenged by the growers of grain. A few years more and the plains would be fenced and agleam with acres and acres of wheat, the Territories would leap to Provinces and Western Canada would take her place as a great power in the land, providing those twin necessities, bread and meat, to the whole wide world.
A lifetime given to the furtherance of these changes—and was the evil force which had come with them to cut him down?
"Push on, Donaldson, push on!"
The river was five miles behind them now, the sun well risen. Suddenly the distances conceived a horseman, who came rapidly towards them, leading two horses.
It was Dandy Jack, one of Cranbrook's party for some weeks past. Cranbrook, anticipating his chief, had sent the young puncher to meet them with horses for the Superintendent and the Adjutant, so that they might get the sooner to the scene of action.
"What news, Jack?"
Hector shot out the question as the trap pulled up.