This
may be Lacey Amy’s (Luke Allan’s) first Western story and the real precursor to
the popular series of books that made him famous, Blue Pete. This was a difficult
and costly little story to acquire—it took about two months and over $50
Canadian dollars to get the Library of Congress to digitize a very poor
microfilm copy (5 pages). Anyhow I am pleased since it predates the Blue Pete, short story by almost a year./drf
Greater
Love
By W. Lacey Amy
From The Popular Magazine, 15 April 1910.
The
turning point in the life of Blue Pete, a half-breed mounted police detective.
He put his destiny in the hands of a judge; and the pity was that his Honor was
too small a man to recognize greatness of his opportunity
WHEN it
came to a matter of brands, Blue Pete, the half-breed mounted police
detective was in a class by himself. He never
told
all he knew about them. Indeed, it was doubtful if he could have explained how
he arrived at conclusions that were unerring. It was one of his stock exhibitions
before cattlemen, to examine a brand and tell to within a few months when it
had been made, the condition of the iron at the time, and the skill of the
brander.
Blue Pete could have
joined the outfit of any rancher in the Medicine Hat district, and drawn higher
pay than the police gave him. He could have made his fortune in rustling, with
his knowledge of brand manipulation. But he preferred casual employment with
liberty to leave at a moment’s notice, and secret pay from the mounted police.
Money was of very little use to him, but the excitement of man hunting and
horse tracking came up to his idea of a perfect existence.
Although for more than a
year he had been able to conceal his connection with the mounted police, the
inquest into the death of two rustlers whom he had been forced to shoot, had
made his position public. Thereafter the ranchers found little use for him, the
inconvenience of performing the spring round-up and branding under the keen
eyes of a police official, overbalancing his ability to assist in the work.
Their resentment and
their fear of what
Blue Pete might know
were all the
greater from the fact that for all these months they had been treating him as one
of themselves.
Inspector Parker,
therefore, sent word to the Lodge detachment, from which headquarters Blue Pete usually worked, to keep the half-breed engaged in regular rides around and into the Cypress
Hills,
a large tract of wildly wooded hills a hundred miles long and ten wide, whose devious paths and passages he knew as none other
in the country. Several times the half-breed was shot at from ambush,
but his recklessness seemed to save him, and
when he had brought in two cowboys from across the border and
had convicted them of attempted manslaughter, these attacks, ceased.
To tourists, his presence at the barracks in the city, was a source of entertainment. His
revolver shooting was little short of
marvelous.
His favorite amusement was a
startlingly dangerous
one. He would place the muzzle of his six-shooter in his mouth, his squint eyes wandering twinklingly
over the visitors, and almost as fast as he could work the trigger, would revolve the cylinder as long as you wanted to look at him. A hair’s breadth farther and the cartridge would explode,
but just at that point between the
revolving of the cylinder and the explosion, his finger would stop.
When the weak-nerved spectators
were closing their eyes in fear,
the revolver would ring out, and
the ensuing screams invariably brought a burst of laughter from the half-breed
as the bullet whizzed harmlessly past his ear.
Blue
Pete’s best friend—in fact, the only one he seemed really to care about,—was
Corporal Mahon, a young Englishman, who had worked with him on many of his most
difficult cases. The two men were the best of comrades, the young policeman
reading his weekly letters from his mother in England to the half-breed, the
latter listening reverently, and taking care that the son never neglected to
send the weekly answer.
On their long rides, or
when curled up behind a sagebush on the prairie. Mahon would read and reread the
last letter, Blue Pete listening with an intensity of interest that would have
surprised any one who knew the dusky-skinned half-breed only as a daring, illiterate
cowboy detective.
On Friday of each
week—the day when the little backboard drove up to the detachment door with the
few letters, papers, and parcels for the half dozen policemen stationed there—Blue
Pete usually contrived to do Mahon’s work as well as his own, in order to allow
the young man to be on hand when his mother’s letter arrived. And then as soon
as his duties were over the half-breed would seek him out, as if accidentally,
and hear the latest tokens of a fond mother’s fears and forebodings, her love
and hopes.
Once the half-breed begged
for one of the old letters to carry. Mahon handed
it to him wonderingly. Blue Pete felt an explanation necessary, and in a
sheepish tone, he stammered: “Kind uh think I’d like t’ have a letter on me
always. Ain’t never had no mother m’self.”
A few weeks later, he
had returned the letter minus the heading. “My dear boy,” which the young policeman noticed without a word. All the
home letters began with “my dear boy.” and the half-breed had taken to, calling
him “Boy” when they were alone.
When work was not
pressing, or when riding in the Hills, Blue Pete often took the corporal to a cave
which he had fitted up with pine needles for beds, two stalls for the horses, a
make-shift stove, and what was an apparently inexhaustible supply of canned
goods. The police detective’s, work sometimes took him away for weeks, and only
Mahon knew that he made this cave his headquarters.
One day in late summer a
rancher reported to the police the loss of a roan mare. He had purchased it
from a dealer out near Irvine and, missing it later, made inquiries. A cowboy
said he had seen it in a bunch being driven south by a young cowboy working for
the rancher who originally owned the mare.
The mounted police had
long had their eyes on a rancher named Peterson, and seized this evidence
gladly. Blue Pete received his instructions, and three weeks later rode into
the barracks corral with a roan mare dragging behind, and a glum-looking cowboy
riding in front. He had completed a bundle of evidence that meant sure
incarceration for Peterson.
Unfortunately, however,
the glowering individual, who snarled out a curse when ordered to dismount, had
been brought over the border by the half-breed at the point of a revolver.
The police were willing
to take chances on the horse forcibly taken, but the man was a different matter.
He was reluctantly allowed to go, and it became evident that conviction must
come from other quarters. The receiver of stolen horses would not appear
willingly at the trial.
The evidence rounded up
was sufficiently complete to convince any fair-minded judge. The young cowboy
who had driven the bunch south was in the hands of the police, but he was only
fourteen years old, and a good criminal lawyer like that employed by Peterson
might angle him so that his evidence would he of little use.
But the principal difficulty
lay in the fact that a new judge was to sit. Judge Ritchie had been lawyer and
insurance and real-estate agent. He had qualified for his position by some
political work that betrayed a conscience not over-sensitive. As a criminal
lawyer before his elevation he had often run foul of the police and bore them
no good will.
The cowboy who had seen
the roan mare in the bunch gave his evidence, and the purchase of the mare was
also sufficiently proven. Blue Pete was put on the stand to identify the stolen
mark. It was purely a matter of brands, and there the half-breed was at home.
“Your name?” asked the clerk.
“Pete.”
“But your whole name?”
The half-breed hesitated
a moment. “Blue Pete,” he answered.
“Here now!” interrupted
the judge with all the dignity of a new official. “We want your full name—your
surname.”
Blue Pete looked
helplessly around at Inspector Parker. “Pete Maverick,” he answered.
A titter ran through the
courtroom, and Blue Pete’s face wrinkled.
“Order! Order!” shouted
the sheriff. The lawyers—everybody but the self-important judge—had smiled.
The crown prosecutor
immediately plunged Blue Pete into a maze of detail on brands and brand detection:
The half-breed told of the colors of brands put on at different times, of the
state of the scar and the skin, the length of hair over it, the way the skin
would wrinkle, the various stamps of different branders and irons, and the
varieties of brands made by irons at different heats.
The judge looked very
learned, though he had no more knowledge of what was being explained than he
had of Blue Pete’s surname.
The half-breed told when
the original brand on the roan mare had been made, when the vent had been put
on, and when the alteration was branded on to conceal the original brand. The
police were delighted.
Then Paddy Nolan, the
big criminal lawyer from Calgary, rose.
“How long have you been
with the police?” he asked.
“ ‘Bout three years.”
“Where were you before
that?”
The crown
prosecutor objected, but the judge upheld Nolan.
“In th’ States,” came
the answer.
“What were you
doing there?”
Another objection refused consideration.
“Workin’ on
ranches.”
“What was your work on the ranches?”
“Takin’ care uh
cattle.” Another laugh in the courtroom.
“Now I want you to
tell the court whether you were or were not rustling over there.”
Blue Pete
hesitated. “I was.” he answered.
The criminal lawyer
looked at the judge.
“How
long were you rustling?”
Blue
Pete sat down lazily on the edge of the witness box. “Ten years I rustled for th’
biggest rustlers in th’ Bad Lands.”
“Who were you with?”
“Clark Brothers—Sidney
an’ Conn—Hughson—Nanton’s—Want t’ know any more?”
“No, that will do. So that
explains how you profess to know so much about brands! I suppose you did lots
of brand switching yourself?”
Blue-Pete grunted an
affirmative.
“And I suppose you could
change a horse by its brand and otherwise, so that its best friends could not know it. Tell us how you would do it apart
from the brands.”
The half-breed entered
willingly into the discussion. He told of the carbolic-acid marks, the effects
of ordinary scars in changing color, and even shape, of marking a horse’s face,
and changing the shape of its ears.
Then the judge stopped
him.
“I
do not think you need go farther,” he said. “Besides, it would be an unwise thing to permit such criminal
knowledges you possess to be disseminated. This court cannot accept the
evidence of a man who acknowledges that he has been a rustler for ten years.
The police have no right to employ such a man. I cannot convict on such
evidence.”
Blue Pete’s mouth opened
in bewilderment for a moment. Then he
stood straight up and looked at the judge. “Does yer honor mean I’m lyin’?”, he
asked.
“That’ll do.” the judge
answered. Turning to the lawyer, he asked: “Is there anything you want to ask
of this man.?”
Blue Pete spoke, “jedge,
f’r ten years I rustled with th’ biggest rustlers, not ‘cause I wanted t’ steal
cattle, but ‘cause every one ‘round me rustled. Three years ago I came t’ Canady,
an’ since then I’ve got hundreds uh horses an’ cattle back t’ their owners. I
like th’ work, an’ there’s this about it, jedge—just as long as I’m with th’
police; I’m straight. Ain’t got no reason for lyin’ now. I guess mebbe I’m a
little use t’ th’ country, but if yuh turn me down like that, jedge, I may’s
well go back t’ rustlin’. Got to live ‘mong th’ cattle an’ horses. Or’nary cow-boyin’s
too tame fer me. D’yuh want me t’ be a detective or a rustler? Yuh have it in
yer hands, jedge."
“Next witness.” said
Judge Ritchie briefly.
Blue Pete strode
silently out of the courtroom. Corporal Mahon laid a detaining hand on his arm.
“Don’t take it that way, Pete.” he said sympathetically. “We believe you, and
we know Judge Ritchie.”
The half-breed walked on
unheedingly, his lips working, and his hands clinched.
The next morning a boy
brought into the barracks Pete’s horse and saddle, his Stetson hat, and his
shoes—everything he possessed that had been supplied by the mounted police. The
inspector read the message, and roundly cursed the judge. He gave orders to his
men to send Blue Pete to him as soon as they could find him.
But it was months before
they found him—and then they brought him in reverently.
The week after the
trial, rancher after rancher began to come in with reports of lost animals. The
police scoured the prairie, but the rustlers knew Blue Pete was no longer on their
track, and for weeks, until winter set in, the police had hardest riding they
had ever known. Then in the spring the inspector himself was forced to join the
chase. It was evident that rustlers from across the line were laughing at the
police and Canadian law. By tireless riding, several bunches of horses were
captured and, stiff sentences meted out to a few of the rustlers who were
captured.
But still there was
rustling that baffled the police. A constant patrol south of the Hills led to
no discoveries, and for a time the N. W. M. P. were at a loss to know how the
horses were slipped out of the country.
One day a rancher who
had taken a lease of land away north on the Red Deer, came to town, and in
conversation with the police, spoke of a couple of bunches of horses he had
seen going north. At first the police were inclined to disbelieve him, for the
north trail led through two hundred miles of unknown prairie where no man
lived. Then beyond it was the line of towns and farm lands along the Canadian.
Northern.
One of the policemen
suggested that the horses were driven north to go east or west by a roundabout
way and then down into the States. The entire police force in the west was
notified to be on the lookout, and the Medicine Hat patrol spread itself out to
cover more territory. But nothing resulted.
Mahon, who was now a
sergeant, reached one conclusion that later became a clue—instead of the horses
disappearing in bunches, only the larger ones were selected. This seemed to be
invariably the case, and the sergeant spent many days, as he wandered up and down
the prairie, trying to make out what it meant.
Blue Pete had not been heard
from since the day of the trial. The police had been constantly on the search
for him, at first to assist them, and later it had been forced upon them that
the half-breed had accepted the alternative which he put squarely up to the
judge.
The inspector and
Sergeant Mahon were reluctant to believe that Blue Pete had gone back to
rustling. That he was in the district was attested by information collected
from several cowboys who had seen him. Once or twice Mahon, had even suspected
that the capture of bands on the way across the border had been rendered easier
by some third party who had placed clues with what looked like studied
carelessness.
A raw young recruit who
was lost in the Cypress Hills had been piloted on his way by a half-breed, whom
they readily recognized from the description as Blue Pete, and once Mahon, himself,
after four days of almost ceaseless riding, had found three cans of meat and a
loaf of rough bread beside him when he arose famished from his grass couch on
the morning of the fifth day.
He had never visited the
cave which he knew had been Blue Pete’s home in the Hills. Somehow he felt that
he should not take advantage of the knowledge gained on those little trips of
theirs. If any other member of the force discovered it, it would not be through
any hint from him. If Blue Pete were rustling, he would have to be taken in the
open, and in fair fight. Mahon would help in that, as was his duty. He knew,
too, that Blue Pete would feel that the location of his cave would not be
exposed by the man who had gained his knowledge through the kindness of the
occupant.
Sergeant Mahon’s biggest
surprise came when a dirty piece of paper was found under the detachment door
with the word “Boy” scrawled on the outside, and inside a rough drawing of a
cowboy with a pointed revolver. Underneath was the word “Billsy.” Mahon knew it
was a warning from Blue Pete that “Billsy,” a notorious Bad Land’s rustler,
would shoot him on sight. The sergeant had captured a bunch of cattle from
Billsy only a short time before, and had almost taken the rustler with them.
The surprise of the warning was that the half-breed was learning to write. The
next month he received three notes from Blue Pete that showed advancement in
his writing, and gave the police valuable clues on stolen animals.
Why the half-breed, who
had scorned letters, was now passing through the intricacies of the alphabet
and writing, Mahon could not guess. That it would not be so hard for the man
who could read brands where other men could decipher nothing, he knew, but he
also felt sure that the latest acquirement was for some definite purpose.
Another
report of horses going north led to the dispatch of three mounted police away
up to the Red Deer. As they
worked north they came upon unmistakable signs that the reports were true. Old
camp fires, trodden mud around drinking pools and fords, and here and there
temporary corrals showed that the route was regularly organized. Any plainsman
could tell without the corrals that the bunch were under direction.
Mahon, who was at the
head of the expedition, had by this time learned many of the tricks of
tracking. He was aware that the tracks were all too old to warrant following.
But, being on the frequented track, he knew he had but to wait until another
band would come. So he crossed the Red Deer, and camped beside a small stream,
where the trees would hide him and his men from view.
For three days they waited.
Then Mahon riding back over the trail found evidences that showed that a bunch
had been driven north since they had pitched their camp. In chagrin he returned
to his men after following for a short distance the trail which ran around them.
Evidently the rustler was an old hand who had been aware of the police, and had
simply ridden around. The sergeant was in doubt whether to follow the new trail
to the end or trust to waiting. Then his course was decided for him.
A lone rider appeared on
a rise far to the south east. He was sitting quietly in his saddle and appeared
to be gazing at something. It was too distant to make out whether he was
looking toward them or away from them. A horseman so far from civilization
could mean only one thing.
The men quietly led
their horses farther into the trees in the hope that they
had not been seen, and in a few minutes were riding along the stream toward the
Red Deer. As they topped a roll in the prairie the rider was more plainly
visible, looking straight toward them. Not a move did he make. Even when they
splashed through the river with the unknown less than half a mile away, he
maintained his immobility. He was looking down on them almost absently.
With a pang of something
like disappointment, Mahon recognized Blue Pete. At the same moment the horseman
rose in his stirrups, and waved his hat in the air. Then whirling his horse around
on its hind legs, he disappeared over the edge.
Mahon had long dreaded
having to participate in the actual chase of his old friend, but when the time
came, he determined to do his duty.
For
an hour they rode hard without a glimpse of the half-breed. Then, as they
mounted an elevation, they saw him sitting quietly on his horse nearly a mile
to the southwest. The pursuit was renewed, only to find at the end of another
hour that the half-breed was still keeping his distance. Mahon saw the
uselessness of wildly pursuing a man who knew the country like Blue Pete. He spread his men out,
and for rest of the day pursuer and pursued bore directly south. As it grew
dusk the half-breed drew away, and when last seen was several
miles to the south and riding hard.
Mahon drew his men in for
the night, and setting the proper changes of guard, went to sleep. There were
only about four hours of luminous darkness at this time of the year, so the
guard was directed to take his stand on a ridge close at hand with a pair of
night glasses. Not a sound disturbed the night.
In the morning, Mahon
rose early. On his blanket was a square of paper, and on it
the words, “ef i hed been Billsy.” Mahon looked at the note
and then to where one of his companions lay a few feet distant and just waking
up. Only fifty yards to the right the guard sat lazily stretching, and
preparing to come down. Blue Pete was still protecting him—Blue Pete, the man
his duty called him to follow to the death, the man for whose capture a good
price would be paid as soon as he could return to headquarters and report what
he now knew.
It seemed terrible to be
forced to capture, dead or alive, a man who was systematically guarding his
pursuer. For a moment it came into his head to call off the pursuit. After all,
he had nothing definite about the half-breeds horse stealing, and certainly the
police had been assisted in preventing rustling by Blue Pete’s scarcely legible
notes. But he was morally certain, and the hot pursuit of yesterday verified
his suspicions.
Breakfast was hurriedly
eaten, and an early start made southward. Mahon knew Blue Pete would turn to
the Cypress Hills as naturally as a gopher makes for its hole. There was no
hurry, therefore, and the capture of a man so well acquainted with every hollow
and hill in the country would be impossible with his present small force.
As they crossed the
railway between Medicine Hat and Irvine, one of Mahon’s companions, glancing
back over the trail, observed a rider galloping furiously toward them. He
became visible as a fellow policeman, and in a few minutes had told his story.
He had been sent out from the city to bring them back, and, meeting their trail,
had turned and followed it, Mahon was to report with his men at
the Lodge. A band of rustlers had driven off some cattle from the Reversed 3 Bar
ranch, and had taken to the Hills pursued by four mounted police.
Reinforcements had been rushed to there, but further help was needed to
surround the hills as far as possible and make a desperate attempt to stop the
rustling for good.
By nightfall, Mahon and
his men had arrived at the Hills on fresh mounts and had spread out over a
directed course. During the night, shots were heard to the south, showing that
the rustlers knew their predicament and were making an effort to escape across
the border.
In the morning, Mahon
rode around and received the report that his men had been successful in driving
the rustlers back into the Hills. Blood marks showed where one of them had been
hit, but the danger of sharpshooting from the trees prevented following the
trail immediately.
Mahon, as the policeman
to whom the Hills were best known, determined to take one of his men, and to
work his way in, and thus try to get the drop on the rustlers. It was a risky
piece of work, but success from lying around the Hills seemed impossible with
the small force at his command. They had kept the rustlers back one night, but
the attempt would probably be renewed on the following evening at some unguarded
spot. He selected a coulee some distance east of the blood trail, intending to
work back to the trail when he got into the cover of the Hills.
Leaving two policemen
near the edge of the Hills to rush to his assistance if shots were heard, and
selecting the most experienced of his men, he followed the ravine into the
silence of the great wildness, and carefully crawled back to the trail. Only
his training under Blue Pete enabled him to discover the faint blood marks
among the dead leaves and branches that covered the ground everywhere.
Giving his companion
orders to confine his attention ahead and around, Mahon settled down to
trailing the spots that here and there showed on the leaves. Deeper and deeper
into the Hills they led, and down to the edge of a small lake. Here they
vanished, and Mahon could find no traces that afforded him any clue.
Under the circumstances
it might have been wiser to withdraw, for any tree might hide the enemy, and
there would be no mercy for the police. Once or twice as he stopped suddenly to
verify his course, Mahon imagined that he heard a slight rustle in the leaves
to his right, but careful scrutiny had revealed nothing.
The position of the two
men was an unenviable one. They could not free themselves of the feeling of a
presence following, and they knew no rustler would spare them.
They sat down on
opposite sides of a tree to decide upon a course, every nerve alert to detect
an enemy. Mahon’s companion was a dare-devil young fellow equal to any risk and
possessing implicit confidence in himself and his superior. Neither was for
turning back. The lake lay in front of them, peaceful as any mountain lake. Not
a sound was to be heard near at hand, and only an occasional call from an
unknown bird from a great distance broke the dense silence. That silence
increased the belief in the presence of men around them, and an overpowering
feeling of helplessness impelled both men to action.
Mahon determined to take
one direction, and Forbes the other, meeting at the opposite side of the lake. A
shot from either would summon the other, and bring help from the two companions
listening for that signal at the edge of the Hills.
Mahon crawled carefully
through the brush at the edge of the lake, his eyes more to his right than in front.
He could not shake off the feeling that there was something alive there within a
few yards, something deliberately stalking him. But in spite of all his moves,
his sudden stops, his intense listening, he could hear nothing. He thought of
rushing toward the point, but his good sense showed him that the noise would
expose him to every enemy within five hundred yards.
He had
proceeded halfway around the end of the lake, when he heard a distinct hiss of
warning coming from a clump of bushes where his sensitive nerves told him that
the stalker was concealed. Instinctively he crouched low. Then surprise at his
action, and at the noise, made him raise his head—to look in front of him
straight into the barrel of a rifle,
and a yellow hair above it. His heart beat fast as he recognized the anger-distorted
visage of Billsy, his sworn enemy.
At the same instant a
figure leaped into the open from the clump of bushes, and two rifles spoke
almost as one. A cry of a man mortally wounded came from in front, and the one
on his right fell slowly to his knees, then sank lower and lower, and rolled
down the bank. With a gasp of surprise, Mahon recognized the dark face of Blue
Pete. He knew it all now. The half-breed had jumped into the open to draw
Billsy’s shot, and he had fired just as he was himself hit.
Mahon rushed to him.
Billsy’s nearness did not trouble him; he knew Blue Pete’s shot had gone home.
The half-breed was lying on his side, his eyes closed, and a stain growing
larger on his breast. As Mahon bent down, the squint eyes opened, and a smile
went over the dark face.
“Guess Billsy got me—that
time,” he murmured, not a quiver showing any feeling.
“Pete, old boy, why did
you do it?” Mahon asked, his voice quivering. He turned the half-breed over carefully, and commenced to unfasten his shirt.
“No use, Boy,” said Blue
Pete, smiling up in the anxious sergeant’s face. “Know when I’m done fer.
Better get out uh here. Billsy’s mates too many fer yah.”
Mahon interrupted, but
Blue Pete went on. “Don’t stop me.” he said. “Can’t talk much. Seems t’ leak
out here.” He held his hand over the wound. “Billsy’s
bunch is under th’ big pine in Pine Coulee. Get ‘round them at night.” He
stopped for a moment. “Rustlin’s over fer me, Boy. Hed yuh goin’ though—eh?
Took ’em up north t’ Grand Trunk Pacific 'struction camps. Sold’em up thar.”
Another pause while
Mahon raised himself to bring water from the lake. There was a noise at the top
of the bank, and something hit him heavily on the head.
He fell like a log, but
in a semi-conscious helplessness felt Blue Pete lean over him and feel his face
and pulse. Then crashing in the bushes, and the half-breed disappeared.
Forbes, who had rushed
around at the sound of the shots, found Mahon unconscious and bleeding from a
head wound inflicted by a large stone that lay near. In a few minutes the two
policemen who had been placed to listen for shots arrived, and between them
they carried the wounded sergeant out, his senses coming gradually back to him
under cold water and chafing. That night the big pine was the scene of an
almost bloodless capture of four rustlers, the remainder of Billsy’s band.
As the police left the scene
they were mystified by a rifle shot back in the Hills, but they dared not stop.
Mahon was placed under a
doctor’s care at the Lodge, while policemen searched the Hills near the scene
of the tragedy for Blue Pete’s body. On the second day they returned to report
failure. Mahon, with the bandages around his head rose from the couch where he
lay, saddled his horse, and with Forbes entered the Hills. Straight to Blue Pete’s
cave he led the way. He pulled back the screen of leaves and Forbes entered.
On the pine bed was a
stain and nothing more. Yes! Held down by the corner of a box was a sheet of
paper, and in the daylight, with his eyes streaming until he could scarcely
see, Mahon found stuck across the sheet the heading of his mother’s letter:
My
Dear Boy.
The corner of it was
stained with blood, roughly wiped off. Below it Blue Pete had scrawled, in a
trembling, wandering hand:
i no youl find me. Ken trust you to tek care of
blue Peets boddy. larned to rit for you Boy. gled i did now. you dout think i
hit you with that stun do you. Bilsy got me whar it hurts en i kent last it out
long kent breeth rit.
The writing scrawled off
crookedly over the paper. Then down near the bottom it became more readable, as
if the writer had become stronger:
i
heer shots neer big pin. hop our oil rit. dont
get shot Boy dont.
Then a firmer hand had written:
Tel
your muther i sevd you agen, wish i could live now for a while and ill try for
it. ef i scent good by Boy.
It ended there. Mahon
leaned blindly against the big stone at the door of the cave.
But where was the poor half-breed now? It scarcely seemed possible that any man
could have lived till night with such a wound. Then the heedless devotion of
Blue Pete gave him a clue. Together the two men rode rapidly down the coulee
toward the big pine. Just a few yards from the cave they came upon it.
The half-breed, whom a
simple mother’s letter turned into a hero, heedless of his own life, lay on his
side, the last of his life’s blood congealed on his breast which he had bared
in an effort to stop the flow. The old rifle with an empty cartridge was
clasped in his hands, one finger on the trigger and bent so hard that the rifle
could scarcely be removed. The face was fixed in a look of anxiety that went to
Mahon’s heart. The day had been too much for the battered head, and the
grief-stricken sergeant tumbled limply beside his protector.
It was simple story
Mahon wrote that week to his mother, whose little notes to Blue Pete had always
been faithfully delivered until he left the police. It was a story of devotion
that comes to few men, of love that passes the love of man for women, of unselfishness
that led to death, of misapplied justice that threw a man back to his
instincts, of regret for the life that sacrificed itself so willingly.
Mahon read the agony and
weakness that had stopped Blue Pete’s last note before the big-pine capture. He
saw the waning life flicker up at the sound of the shooting—a flicker that
strengthened his hand for the farewell to his mother and himself—the awful
struggle as the torn and dying half-breed dragged himself out of the cave and
toward the big pine, in a last vain effort to be on hand to protect the man he
was dying for. And then the rush of blood, the ebb of life, and, the last shot
as the ugly, cross-eyed half-breed sent his dying message of attempted succor
to the mother’s boy.
In Windy Coulee, just
where it enters the Hills, there is a handmade slab that only the police and a
few cowboys, ever see. On it are the words “Greater Love” and nothing more.
Mahon would have spent all his earnings on a stone, but he knew the rustler,
detective, rustler again, always hero, would sleep better under the work of the
hand of “My Dear Boy.”
