It was a somewhat irregular mode of procedure, but men were sorely needed at the Macleod post and the Commissioner had an eye that took in not only the lines of a man's figure but the qualities of his soul.
“That chap will make good, or I am greatly mistaken,” he said to the Inspector as Cameron went off with the orderly to select his uniform.
“Well set up chap,” said the Inspector. “We'll try him out to-night.”
“Come now, don't kill him. Remember, other men have something else in them besides whalebone and steel, if you have not.”
In half an hour the Inspector, Sergeant Crisp and Cameron, with the three American citizens, were on their way to the Blood reserve.
Cameron had been given a horse from the stable.
All afternoon and late into the evening they rode, then camped and were early upon the trail the following morning. Cameron was half dead with the fatigue from his experiences of the past week, but he would have died rather than have hinted at weariness. He was not a little comforted to notice that Sergeant Crisp, too, was showing signs of distress, while District Attorney Sligh was evidently in the last stages of exhaustion. Even the steel and whalebone combination that constituted the frame of the Inspector appeared to show some slight signs of wear; but all feeling of weariness vanished when the Inspector, who was in the lead, halted at the edge of a wide sweeping valley and, pointing far ahead, said, “The Blood reserve. Their camp lies just beyond that bluff.”
“Say, Inspector, hold up!” cried Mr. Cadwaller as the Inspector set off again. “Ain't yuh goin' to sneak up on 'em like?”
“Sneak up on them? No, of course not,” said the Inspector curtly. “We shall ride right in.”
“Say, Raimes,” said Mr. Cadwaller, “a hole would be a blame nice thing to find just now.”