It was Juno heard the speeders first. With a faint whimper she lifted her ears and sniffed to the east. It was sufficient for Blue Pete. In an instant he had picked out the purring sound and went back into the cave for blanket and moccasins and rifle. When he returned, the throbbing was booming through the woods, though the grade was a mile and a half away, and the speeders miles more.
At first he did not hurry. His move to closer quarters with the oncoming speeders was little more than instinct. He had no reason to be suspicious, but he always wanted to unravel the unknown that was tangible and audible and visible. If the speeders were going through there was no chance of his reaching the grade in time to satisfy his curiosity; if they were stopping at the trestle there was no hurry. With unerring sense he made straight for the trestle.
As he walked along he was conscious of rising concern, of more than ordinary personal connection with the visitors, and in a minute or two he was running in the long easy lope which carries the Indian over incredible distances in a space of time that challenges the ordinary horse.
So that when the rattle of the engines ceased with suspicious suddenness midway between the end-of-steel village and the trestle he was not far from the grade. He deflected his course and presently, with scarcely deepened breath to show the speed at which he had come, he was watching from the shadows a strange scene.
In a long line, soundless but for the hurried tramp of their heavy boots, dim figures emerged from the bush, lifted something from a speeder, and disappeared the way they had come. The first speeder, already unloaded, stood awaiting its companion. Blue Pete saw at first without grasping the meaning. Then a jangle of metal enlightened him.
Rifles—that was what these men were carrying away!
For an agonised moment he felt unequal to the occasion. He knew in a flash what arms portended among these foreign devils. But it was too late to do much to forestall it. One speeder load was gone, and the second was emptying fast. He might frighten the silent porters away and perhaps capture the remainder of their burdens, but that would, at best, rob them of a few dozen rifles, while scores—perhaps hundreds—were by this time secure. And the bohunks would be warned.
A plan developed.
If only he had brought Mira! She could trail almost as well as he, and her wits were quick. Danger or no danger, if only Mira were there to help! On the trail of the last figure he crept, and the chug of the flying speeders roared back to him in diminuendo.
The task he had set himself was an easy one. The man he followed, clumsy and stupid, was anxious only to make speed. In among the trees he led, though not far from the grade, and when at last he stopped and began to rustle among the leaves and dead boughs, Blue Pete knew he had reached the end of the trail. Yet even as the man worked feverishly the halfbreed visualised the spot; and he knew no great cache could be there. It puzzled him, alarmed him.