We managed to secure a buffalo steak for breakfast. No man
needed to starve in that country during those days of plentiful game;
but we were handicapped by the necessity of doing our hunting in a very
surreptitious manner. However, we didn't starve; the worst we
experienced was an occasional period of acute hunger, when we didn't
dare fire a shot for fear of revealing our whereabouts.
Nor can I see, now, where we accomplished anything beyond killing time
the following day. To be sure, we scouted faithfully, and once or twice
came perilously near being caught by squads of Mounted Police appearing
from unexpected quarters. Our scouting was so much wasted energy. We got
nowhere near the Police camp; we failed to get a glimpse of any of our
men; and so, for all we knew to the contrary, they might have loaded the
plunder and decamped for other regions. When night again spread its
concealing folds about us, we had only one tangible fact as a reward for
our exertions--Lessard had returned to Fort Walsh--presumably. Early
that morning, escorted by four troopers, he had crossed Lost River and
disappeared in the direction of the post. Of his identity the
field-glasses assured us. But that was the sum total of our acquired
knowledge, and it brought us no nearer the breaking up of the
Goodell-Gregory combination or the recovery of the loot.
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