The horses swung off the line, beating the sun-scorched grass with their iron-shod hoofs with a vigor that felt good to the riders.
The bronzed faces of the men were eager. Their widely gazing eyes were alert and watchful. They were trailing a hot scent, a pastime as well as a work that was their life. They needed no greater incentive to put forth the best efforts of bodily and mental energies.
The uniform of these riders of the western plains was unassuming. Their brown canvas tunics, their prairie hats, their black, hard serge breeches, with broad, yellow stripes down the thighs, possessed a businesslike appearance not to be found in a modern soldier’s uniform. These things were for sheer hard service.
The life of these men was made up of hard service. It was demanded of them by the Government; it was also demanded of them by the conditions of the country. Lawlessness prevailed on these fair, sunlit plains; lawlessness of man, lawlessness of Nature. Between the two they were left with scarce a breathing space for those comforts which only found existence in dreams that were all too brief and transitory.
Nominally, these men were military police, yet their methods were far enough removed from all matters martial. Theirs it was to obey orders, but all similarity ended there. Each man was left free to think and act for himself. Brief orders, with little detail, were hurled at him. For the rest his superiors demanded one result—achievement. A crime was committed; a criminal was at large; information of a contemplated breach of the peace was to hand. Then go—and see to it. Investigate and arrest. The individual must plan and carry out, whatever the odds. Success would meet with cool approval; failure would be promptly rewarded with the utmost rigor of the penal code governing the force. The work might take days, weeks, months. It mattered not. Nor did it matter the expense, provided success crowned the effort. But with failure resulting—ah, there must be no failure. The prestige of the force could not stand failure, for its seven hundred men were required to dominate and cleanse a territory in which half a dozen European countries could be comfortably lost.
Presently Sergeant McBain spoke again. His steady eyes were still fixed upon the horizon.
“Say, that’s her,” he said. “There she is. Coming right up like a mop head. That’s the pine at Rocky Springs. Further away to the left still, boys.”
He turned his horse, and the race against time was continued. Somewhere ahead, on the southern trail, a gang of whisky smugglers were plying their trade. Inspector Fyles had said, “Go, and—round them up.”
The odds were all against these men, yet no one considered the matter. Each, with eyes and brain alert, was ready to do all of which human effort was capable.
Now that definite direction over those wastes of grass had been finally located, the sergeant, a rough, hard-faced Scot, relaxed his vigilance. His mind drifted to the purpose in hand, and a dry humor lit his eyes.