The long arm of the Mounted

An inanimate monument of whitewashed stones glistened in the moonlight as though each boulder was of pure platinum.

Not much to enthuse about, especially were you the one who had helped in its erection in the years of your youth; yet sight of it gripped John Childress, sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, much in the same way as Miss Liberty, down in New York harbor, takes hold of the immigrant entering the alleged promised land. For the moment he forgot that he had ever had a part in long-ago boundary-line marking. A touch of spur, a lunge of willing horse and he was on--he was across "Medicine Line," thus giving, as did the non-com in his thoughts, the Indian name to that more-or-less mythical smear which separates all King George's American acres from all of Uncle Sam's.

Childress was riding a draw in the hills which gave from the States into the Fire Weed Country of Canada's marvelous West. He wore the scarlet-blue-gold uniform that knows no stain. The horse he rode, a gray stallion whose coat glistened like silver in the moonlight, might have looked white under sun-glare, but in any light he was somebody's horse.

At the heels of the gray tailed a brindle hound. Poison was his name--just that all may know his disgrace and have it over with. Childress had bought the horse down in Missoula, when his service mount had gone painfully lame from the hard riding of a scouting trip on the star-spangled side of that mythical boundary line. Poison, the pup, who had grown to believe that the big gray and he were kennel-mates, had followed along, in that faithfulness of beast to beast which passeth human understanding. The sergeant possessed no bill-of-sale for or to the dog. Repeatedly, in his severest regimental manner, he had ordered the queer-looking canine home. But always a snort from the silver beast had countermanded orders. At that, after closer inspection of Poison, the sergeant decided none would make pursuit for recovery.

Although Luna was silvering that she'd be gone and night-dark soon would be there, Childress was not hurrying into the Fire Weed Country. To be sure, there were ranch-houses where he might have spent a comfortable night, but, no matter how soft the bed, he must have suffered because of his uniform. Give him just a week or two, a visit to a cache already made, and he'd be as plain a looking citizen as ever forked a horse. He was going into mufti, the penalty for secret service in the "Royal." To-night he meant to skirt the region, seeing no one of the local ranchmen. But he was coming back a plain cow-punch in an effort to solve the problem of stock that must have been exceedingly sick to drift so regularly across "Medicine Line."

Childress was a mile beyond the border when the hit-hit-hit of a horse coming at race-track speed caused him to draw rein and wheel the silver bulk of his mount across the trail. Came at once a whine from Poison.

"What's the matter, pup?" he asked, as the hound lofted himself against the stirrup. "Do you think they've missed you over in the States and are needing sausage-meat?"

Poison, perhaps realizing his limitations, did not say.

"Don't worry, brute," he said laughing. "You're an alien now and The Force'll look after you."

As Poison licked the man's rein-tired hand, there came streaking through the moonlight what looked to be a slender lad astride a rangy bay. The horse had gone lame in its right forefoot, but was making speed despite any handicap of pain.

"Pull up a bit, kid!" Childress shouted in time to prevent being run down by any blind rush. "What's the moonlit hurry."

The bay slid to a stop, almost within touch of the silver and scarlet apparition which blocked the narrow trail.

"Let me pass--let me pass!" The cry was in a treble that pronounced the rider either exceeding young, or something else again.

"Sure, you can pass," said Childress. "I don't own this trail. But you might tell me just what's the all-fired hurry?"

At the moment a fleck of cloud shrugged one side of the moon, putting all the silver spot-light upon the uniformed sergeant.

"A Mountie!" cried the rider. "Thank God for a Mountie!"

"No desire to deny the uniform of the service," said the sergeant. "What can I do for you, son?"

For answer, a concealing hat of black felt was swept off and hung upon the saddle. The cloud took itself still farther from out the orbit of the moon, which then played all its light upon the reddest strands of braided hair that ever a girl wrapped around her head. Such was the trust of the uniform that, honestly worn, never has failed woman, beast or mere man.

"Son!" laughed Childress. "One on me. What can I do for you, sister, that you're willing to thank God about in advance?"

The boy-clad girl plunged. "I'm Bernice Gallegher from the Lazy G Ranch. Some of that damn Yankee bunch down at Crow's Nest has been running off our stock. Thought I could get away with the boy stuff. One of our old punchers, the darned renegade, recognized me and chased me out."

She paused for breath. Sergt. Childress waited anxiously for her next word. The Crow's Nest renegades over in Montana and their particular connection with the rustling of stock out of Fire Weed was the detail which would take him into mufti in the next few days.

"Running me out of the Nest wasn't enough," went on the girl whose mane looked like flaming gold in the moonlight. "I went to the nearest county-seat of that State they call Montana. The Nesters followed, charged me with horse stealing, although this poor beast has been mine since he was a colt. They got up a posse of roughs that stood in. Been chasing me all afternoon--running me ragged. They're right behind me now, and my horse is all in. Any wonder I thanked the good God for meeting up with a Mountie?"

Years of training in emergency had made Childress a man of instant decision. For no part of a second did he doubt the girl's story. And there came confirmation thereof in the distant thud of many hoofs. To get the flame-haired youngling out of danger zone became his first consideration.

"We'll swap horses," he suggested, swinging from the silver beast's saddle. "Off that bay, miss, and on your way. Meet me at Soda Springs anytime to-morrow and we'll trade back."

The girl tried to obey. But evidently there had been too much previous strain. As she kicked a boyish leg over the saddle horn, she collapsed in his arms--absolutely out, in a dead faint.

With suddenly terrified tenderness the sergeant--known throughout The Force as absolutely "hard boiled"--held her from any possibility of a fall. The flame head fell against his chest, pillowed upon the honor ribbons which, through luck and utter unconsciousness of death-fear, he had brought back from the World War. Her lips were parted, her eyes closed. But he noticed, as his arms tightened about her and he leaned to utter anxious words into the fragrance of her hair, that a rich, healthful color began to spread upward into the creamy-tan of her cheeks. Recent years in Arctic patrol, where Eskimo squaws didn't know how to pass out of any picture except from over-feeding on blubber, hadn't sharpened his experience, but he would have taken King's oath that no fainting girl ever looked so much like a blush-rose at dawn.

"Bernice!" he demanded, remembering the name she had given.

As suddenly as she had passed did she snap out of the faint. There was a more or less spasmodic hold upon him as she caught herself together.

"Mount the silver beast--quick!" he directed.

"But, sergeant, there are five of them!" she cried. "I counted, looking back from the top of the hill, just the other side of the boundary."

"You heard me, girl," he snarled, a tone that few had dared disobey. "Make a dust away from here."

Bernice Gallegher watched his square-shouldered back, upon the scarlet coat on which the moon was playing so vividly, as he strode down the road to face, single-handed, the wild, rough-riding quintet who had followed the supposed boy, intent upon a necktie-party. For no fraction of a second had she thought of accepting his generous offer--considered making a "dust" away from her Providence-sent protector. Like a streak, she took after him.

The galloping horses of the outlaw posse pounded nearer and nearer. Sergt. Childress set himself squarely in the road, ready for King's-name confrontation. The pad-pad of the girl's rushing feet caused him to turn.

"You--here?" he grumbled, as though disbelieving that his order had been disobeyed. "Thought I told you--"

"Two guns are better than one against five," she said, panting. "It's my battle you're fighting and I've the right to help you shoot it out." From somewhere about her boy clothes she whipped an automatic.

"Too late," the sergeant groaned, as he saw the lead rider of the posse top the rise of Medicine Line. "Too late for a get-away. Behind me, woman!"

Childress would have made a perfect target as he stood mid-trail, the moon multiplying the brilliance of his uniform. But the weird light also showed the raiders what he was. Perhaps some of the band had felt the steel of the Mounted before. At any rate, his sharp "Who goes?" brought the girl's pursuers to a stop.

"We're chasing a hawse thief," drawled one of the interlopers, possibly the leader. "Let us pass an' we'll get him."

"Describe the stolen horse and the man you're after," said Childress. "The Mounted will get him for you."

There was momentary discussion in tones too low to carry to the ears of the uniformed obstruction.