Man Size Part 18

"That's where you come in."

"Oh, I come in there, do I? I begin to hear Old Man Trouble knockin'

at my door like you promised. Break it kinda easy. Am I to go up an'

ask Bully West where he keeps his fire-water cached? Or what?"

"Yes. Only don't mention to him that you're asking. Your firm and his trade back and forth, don't they?"

"Forth, but not back. When they've got to have some goods--if it's neck or nothing with them--they buy from us. We don't buy from them.

You couldn't exactly call us neighborly."

Beresford explained. "West's just freighted in a cargo of goods. I can guarantee that if he brought any liquor with him--and I've good reason to think he did--it hasn't been unloaded yet. To-morrow the wagons will scatter. I can't follow all of 'em. If I cinch Mr. West, it's got to be to-night."

"I see. You want me to give you my blessin'. I'll come through with a fine big large one. Go to it, constable. Hogtie West with proof.

Soak him good. Send him up for 'steen years. You got my sympathy an'

approval, one for the grief you're liable to b.u.mp into, the other for your good intentions."

The officer's grin had a touch of the proverbial Ches.h.i.+re cat's malice. "Glad you approve. But you keep that sympathy for yourself.

I'm asking you to pull the chestnut out of the fire for me. You'd better look out or you'll burn your paw."

"Just remember I ain't promisin' a thing. I'm a respectable business man now, and, as I said, duckin' trouble."

"Find out for me in which wagon the liquor is. That's all I ask."

"How can I find out? I'm no mind reader."

"Drift over casually and offer to buy goods. Poke around a bit. Keep cases on 'em. Notice the wagons they steer you away from."

Tom thought it over and shook his head. "No, I don't reckon I will."

"Any particular reason?"

"Don't look to me hardly like playin' the game. I'm ferninst West every turn of the road. He's crooked as a dog's hind laig. But it wouldn't be right square for me to spy on him. Different with you.

That's what you're paid for. You're out to run him down any way you can. He knows that. It's a game of hide an' go seek between you an'

him. Best man wins."

The red-coat a.s.sented at once. "Right you are, I'll get some one else." He rose to go. "See you later maybe."

Tom nodded. "Sorry I can't oblige, but you see how it is."

"Quite. I oughtn't to have asked you."

Beresford strode briskly out of the store.

Through the window Morse saw him a moment later in whispered conversation with Onistah. They were standing back of an outlying shed, in such a position that they could not be seen from the road.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONSTABLE BORES THROUGH DIFFICULTIES

The early Northern dusk was falling when Beresford dropped into the store again. Except for two half-breeds and the clerk d.i.c.kering at the far end of the building over half a dozen silver fox furs Morse had the place to himself.

Yet the officer took the precaution to lower his voice. "I want an auger and a wooden plug the same size. Get 'em to me without anybody knowing it."

The manager of the C.N. Morse & Company Northern Stores presently shoved across the counter to him a gunny-sack with a feed of oats.

"Want it charged to the Force, I reckon?"

"Yes."

"Say, constable, I wancha to look at these moccasins I'm orderin' for the Inspector. Is this what he wants? Or isn't it?"

Tom led the way into his office. He handed the shoe to Beresford.

"What's doin'?" he asked swiftly, between sentences.

The soldier inspected the footwear. "About right, I'd say. Thought you'd find what you were looking for. A fellow usually does when he goes at it real earnest."

The eyes in the brown face were twinkling merrily.

"Findin' the goods is one thing. Gettin' 'em's quite another," Tom suggested.

The voice of one of the trappers rose in protest. "By gar, it iss what you call dirt cheap. I make you a present. V'la!"

"Got to bore through difficulties," Beresford said. "Then you're liable to b.u.mp into disappointment. But you can't ever tell till you try."

His friend began to catch the drift of the officer's purpose. He was looking for a liquor s.h.i.+pment, _and he had bought an auger to bore through difficulties_.

Tom's eyes glowed. "Come over to the storeroom an' take a look at my stock. Want you to see I'm gonna have these moccasins made from good material."

They kept step across the corral, gay, light-hearted sons of the frontier, both hard as nails, packed muscles rippling like those of forest panthers. Their years added would not total more than twoscore and five, but life had taken hold of them young and trained them to its purposes, had shot them through and through with hardihood and endurance and the cool prevision that forestalls disaster.

"I'm in on this," the Montanan said.

"Meaning?"

"That I buy chips, take a hand, sit in, deal cards."

The level gaze of the police officer studied him speculatively. "Now why this change of heart?"

"You get me wrong. I'm with you to a finish in puttin' West and Whaley out of business. They're a h.e.l.l-raisin' outfit, an' this country'll be well rid of 'em. Only thing is I wanta play my cards above the table.

I couldn't spy on these men. Leastways, it didn't look quite square to me. But this is a bronc of another color. Lead me to that trouble you was promisin' a while ago."

Beresford led him to it, by way of a rain-washed gully, up which they trod their devious path slowly and without noise. From the gully they snaked through the dry gra.s.s to a small ditch that had been built to drain the camping-ground during spring freshets. This wound into the midst of the wagon train encampment.

The plainsmen crept along the dry ditch with laborious care. They advanced no single inch without first taking care to move aside any twig the snapping of which might betray them.