Silk nodded.
"For stealing my mare, yes," he answered, bringing his hat into its proper shape, "and for an offence yet more serious than your old game of horse stealing. And you may consider yourself lucky that I did not shoot you at sight just now."
"It is probable you tek me to Bankhead?" questioned the half-breed. "It is de nearest depot of de police."
"It is the nearest, sure," returned the sergeant. "But as the way to it lies across the neighbourhood of your Indian friends, who would no doubt attempt to rescue you, I take you to a stronger lock-up, see? I take you to Fort Canmore."
"But dat was a two-day journey," exclaimed Roche, "across de prairie!"
"If it were twenty days it would be all the same to me, now that I have you," Silk retorted.
He tied the mare's bridle over her neck, fastened a rope to the bit ring, and led her behind the heavy bay mustang, which he continued to ride.
As the sun rose above the hills the air became oppressively hot, and Pierre Roche appealed many times to have his hands liberated, if only that he might wipe the perspiration from his forehead and fend off the midges and mosquitoes; but all that the police sergeant would do for his comfort was to give him a drink of water whenever they came to a creek, and, at midday, to let him dismount for a rest and to feed him with a share of the remaining contents of his haversack.
By the afternoon they had left the foothills behind in the blue distance, and were ambling slowly, wearily, over the parched prairie, miles and miles away from any human habitation.