Ambrose's heart swelled with the pride of race. "Splendid fellows!" he cried to himself. "It was exactly the right thing to do!"
Presently a hail was raised in the valley below; a deep English voice whose tones gladdened Ambrose's ears. "Ho, Watusk!"
Every eye turned toward the leader. Watusk had the air of a wilful child called by his parent. He pished and swaggered, and made some remark to his men with the obsequious smile with which child—or man—asks for the support of his mates in his wrong-doing.
The men did not smile back; they merely watched soberly to see what
Watusk was going to do about it.
The hail was repeated. "Ho, Watusk! Inspector Egerton orders you to come and talk to him!"
So it was Colonel Egerton, thought Ambrose, commander of B district of the police, and known affectionately from Caribou Lake to the Arctic as Patch-pants Egerton, or simply as "the old man." He was a veteran of two Indian uprisings. Ambrose felt still further reassured.
Watusk, still swaggering, nevertheless visibly weakened. In the end he had to go, just as a child must in the end obey a calm, imperative summons.
He issued a petulant order. All the men except Ambrose's guard of six took their guns and filed out through the back of the pit.
Watusk went last. Glancing over his shoulder and seeing that those left behind were busily watching the troopers in the valley, he produced a flask from his pocket and took a pull at it. Ambrose caught the act out of the corner of his eye.
A few minutes later, Watusk and his followers rode over the edge of the hill to the left of the rifle pit, and down into the valley. The policemen scarcely looked up to see them come.