No longer did he think of silence. The lifelong instinct fell from him like a cloak. Speed—speed—that was everything. When the trees closed him in he realised that he was not alone. Other moving forms everywhere enabled him to run openly.
A group came toward him, and Blue Pete threw himself flat. And as they passed he caught their outline against the lighter western sky, where still remnants of day lingered.
Every one carried a rifle!
He waited for nothing more. As he had never run before he sped through the bush, bearing due south-east toward the deserted end-of-steel village, avoiding trees and fallen logs with uncanny ease. Some heard him and paused in their course, but they were keyed up to serious work, and there were so many of their friends abroad. Probably a messenger of their leader's on pressing duty.
Half a mile to the east Blue Pete pulled up. Two piercing whistles he sent in rapid succession into the night, and in a moment repeated them. Then he resumed his running, shifting direction toward the grade, where the course would be clearer. At intervals he whistled the shrill double blast.
Many a bohunk heard the whistle and shivered without knowing why. Conrad, returning from the trestle down the long slope to his shack, stopped and wondered, though it was dim and far away by then. Koppy and his immediate friends lifted guilty heads and questioned each other. Werner, nerves jangling, thoughtlessly pleaded the superior advantages of next Tuesday; and then bethought himself and advised more precipitous action. Nothing within a day's hard ride could stop Koppy now—one hundred rifles against four or five.
Blue Pete was running steadily now. Rifle hanging loose, he swung in and out among the trees as if every obstacle were limned in daylight. Early in the race he had discarded his blanket. His feet shrank from the rough way in their unaccustomed moccasins. Only once did he falter: a vagrant thought pulled him up, to feel anxiously at his cartridge belt. Smoothly, without panting, stooping in the loose lope of the Indian, he swung along.
He was whistling less frequently, conserving his breath for a possible three-mile race; but his head kept turning to listen.
Presently a great sigh of relief, like a sob, fluttered between his lips. Almost at the edge of the clearing along the grade he slowed down.
And then, running so quietly, the ugly little pinto, Whiskers—the marks of the pinto long since gone before the half breed's doctoring hand—was cantering at his side. Without a break in his stride Blue Pete leaped to the bare back, one hand dropping to pat the arched neck.