IV

IN THE BLUFF

It was very dark amid the birches where Trooper Shannon sat motionless
in his saddle gazing down into the denser blackness of the river
hollow. The stream ran deep below the level of the prairie, as the
rivers of that country usually do, and the trees which there alone
found shelter from the winds straggled, gnarled and stunted, up either
side of the steep declivity. Close behind the trooper a sinuous trail
seamed by ruts and the print of hoofs stretched away across the empty
prairie. It forked on the outskirts of the bluff, and one arm dipped
steeply to the river where, because the stream ran slow just there and
the bottom was firm, a horseman might cross when the water was low, and
heavy sledges make the passage on the ice in winter time. The other
arm twisted in and out among the birches towards the bridge, but that
detour increased the distance to any one traveling north or south by
two leagues or so.

The ice, however, was not very thick as yet, and Shannon, who had heard
it ring hollowly under him, surmised that while it might be possible to
lead a laden horse across, there would be some risk attached to the
operation. For that very reason, and although his opinion had not been
asked, he agreed with Sergeant Stimson that the whisky-runners would
attempt the passage. They were men who took the risks as they came,
and that route would considerably shorten the journey it was especially
desirable for them to make at night, while it would, Shannon fancied,
appear probable to them that if the police had word of their intentions
they would watch the bridge. Between it and the frozen ford the stream
ran faster, and the trooper decided that no mounted man could cross the
thinner ice.

It was very cold as well as dark, for although the snow which usually
precedes the frost in that country had not come as yet, it was
evidently not far away, and the trooper shivered in the blasts from the
pole which cut through fur and leather with the keenness of steel. The
temperature had fallen steadily since morning, and now there was a
presage of a blizzard in the moaning wind and murky sky. If it broke
and scattered its blinding whiteness upon the roaring blast there would
be but little hope for any man or beast caught shelterless in the empty
wilderness, for it is beyond the power of anything made of flesh and
blood to withstand that cold.

Already a fine haze of snow swirled between the birch twigs ev