THE CHEERFUL
BLACKGUARD
_By_
ROGER POCOCK
_Author of_
A MAN IN THE OPEN, CAPTAINS OF ADVENTURE, ETC
Good people, since God alone, can make you wise
and kind, the jester's province is
merely to amuse you
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1915
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I The Glamour of Youth
II The Age of Knighthood
III The Swing of Events
IV The Passions of War
V The Wumps
VI Brat
VII A Ship Without a Rudder
VIII Mr. Rams
IX The Sacrifice
X The Ordeal by Torture
XI The Soul of La Mancha
XII Inspector Buckie's Narrative
THE CHEERFUL BLACKGUARD
CHAPTER I
THE GLAMOUR OF YOUTH
I
I, José de la Mancha y O'Brien, was born on the ninth day of
November, 1865, in Spain, of an Irish mother and a Spanish sire. Ten
years later my parents entered the service of God, my father from a
battle-field, my mother living in a convent.
With my brother, Don Pedro, the Brat, then eight years old, I was
sent away from Spain to Tita, a fat Irish aunt, whose highly
poisonous husband, Uncle Tito, was English, and lived in London.
From their house, when he was old enough, I took the Brat to my
school where I attended to his morals with a small strap. I had been
busy for several terms explaining to the other chaps at school that
they were heretics and doomed to hell, and as my skin was not large
enough to hold the lickings they supplied me, they paid the balance
to my little brother. He spoke as yet but very broken English and
could not understand why he should share with me the glories of an
early martyrdom. He shunned me.
Yet, when in 1883 I went to college, the Brat was not content to be
left alone. Indeed he ran from school, and when I next heard from
him, was in America, where he had gone to work for a man called Lane.
When the summer vacation left me free, Aunt Tita supplied me with
money and sent me off to collect my Brat. I was to bring him home
and place him at a private school in Oxford where I could always keep
him out of mischief. Thus I set out, determined to tear the Brat's
hide off over his ears when I caught him. Perhaps he expected as
much and was ungrateful, for when in due course I arrived in
Winnipeg--from whence his letter appeared to have been posted--I
could find no trace of my brother or of any man called Lane in
Manitoba. There the search ended in bitter disappointment.
When I had lost my brother, with nothing left in all the world to
love, a dog adopted me. Rich Mixed was named after a biscuit box
containing twenty-seven distinct species of biscuits. You will
realize that a dog must be of the noblest pedigree who had
twenty-seven quarterings on his coat of arms and showed unmistakable
descent from every possible kind of thoroughbred from daschund to
great Dane. I loved him dearly and was consoled for my brother's
loss.
Since I could not take Brat home, and would not return without him, I
had no use for the remaining funds. Most of the cash was disposed of
at a race-meeting where the wrong horses won. The rest of it merely
dispersed.
At that time, a laundress pursued me with a bundle of my washing and
a bill I could not pay. To dispose of this poor widow, I despatched
her with a note to the Presbyterian minister. My letter accused him
of deserting one whom he had sworn always to love and cherish. Mrs.
Minister appears to have been morbid, for she put the police after me
for attempting to levy blackmail. I could not safely remain in
Winnipeg.
And yet I had not then the means for flight until I thought of Tito's
dressing-case, a gift from His late Catholic Majesty to my fat uncle.
It proved good enough to pay for a farewell dinner, at which I
consulted my friends on the idea of flight from the city. Then just
as they began to give me good advice, the police became obnoxious. I
fled with my advisers in a cab beyond the city limits, and there we
found a bad house where wine was plentiful. At the door we left
cabby crowned with a chaplet of ham frill and crooning lullaby songs
to his aged horse. Indoors we drank more wine than we could carry.
Later in the evening Rich Mixed and I set forth to find my brother.
We had no place to go to, and no money, so we did not get very far
before I fell asleep out on the starlit prairie.
Once Rich Mixed woke me up to hear a terrible wailing close beside
us, a wolf-howl, but for its human throb a thing beyond all anguish
of the beasts, heartrending desolation keening star-high, while its
faint echoes throbbed on the horizon. The huskies at the mission
gave tongue in answer, the tame dogs bayed in distant Winnipeg. For
some time Rich Mixed and I lay listening, while above us the
star-blaze drowned in depths of the vast sky.
Again I woke, feeling the frosty crispness of the grass, breathing
delicious air scented with perfume of roses. The green dawn widened,
edged at the sky-line with clear topaz light. There, in the electric
air of the Great Plains, life was all delight, up from the perfumed
ground to those immensities of aerial splendor heralding the sun. I
had never felt so well, or half so happy. And I had been drunk. Is
the reader shocked? Why? If we poor moths were horrified by
candles, our wings would not get burned.
Through sleep itself, and from the very moment of awaking, I was
disturbed by the noise of the middle night, those agonized and
desolating howls. Who howled? And what the deuce was it howling
about? To see about that I got up, stretching myself and feeling
rather dizzy, as though from running in circles. Then I lurched
forward, tripped and sat down with a bang on a grave mound. The
place was full of graves!
And as I fell the mournful wailing in the twilight changed at
mid-howl into a funny chuckle. Then a soft voice said to me, "So.
You come!"
I looked up, and saw Rain.
You may remember Tennyson's words, about the Woman you, and I, and
all true men have loved:
"As I beheld her, ere she knew my heart,
My first, last love, the idol of my youth,
The darling of my manhood, and alas
Now the most blessed memory of mine age."
The wilderness has always been to me a visible expression of that
great Holy Trinity, of Power, Love and Truth, which we call God.
In Rain, the glamour of God's wilderness had taken human form as a
red Indian girl with youth's delicious gravity of bearing, the
childlike purity of the untainted savage, hale strength, athletic
grace and eyes derisive. Sorrow had made her at that time aloof,
remote from the world I lived in as a Madonna set above an altar, and
yet her smile seemed to make fun of me. I looked up at her with
reverence, with wonder, and if I loved, the love I offered to her was
sacred, not profane. Yet if I seemed to worship, she would ridicule,
so I had to pretend as a boy does to a girl. "Oh, don't mind me," I
stuttered. "Please go on with that howl!"
"Boy-drunk-in-the-morning," she answered. "My dream, he say you
come."
"So I have come," said I.
Years afterward, when I had learned her language, Rain told me in
Blackfoot the whole story of the adventure, which led her to that
meeting with me there on the plains at dawn.
She was a Blackfoot, of the Piegan or southern tribe, which settled
in Montana, and her father was Brings-down-the-Sun, a war chief and a
priest. In the winter before we met, the Piegan chiefs came to her
father's lodge. At their request, he opened the sacred bundle of the
Buffalo Mystery, whose ancient and solemn ritual engaged them for a
day and a night in prayer. Afterward, they held a meeting of the
council, to discuss the manifest wasting away of the bison herds on
which the people depended for their food.
For years, the Stone-hearts (white men) had been slaughtering bison
by millions for their hides, leaving the meat to rot. Now the last
herds were surrounded by hungry tribes, and the end was in sight when
the people must die of famine. So the chiefs sat in council.
Flat Tail had been told by his dream that all the buffaloes were
hidden in a cave. Iron Shirt believed that the Stone-hearts were
hiding the main herd in the country beyond the World-Spine (the Rocky
Mountains). But Brings-down-the-Sun spoke of an Ojibway from the far
East, who told him about the Man-it-o-ba or Land of the Great Spirit
near to the lodge where the Sun God lived, from whence he rose each
morning to cross the sky. "I am going," he told the council, "to
this Land of God, and there I will open again my sacred bundle. I
will speak to the Sun Spirit about our herds of bison, and How they
are being wasted by the Stone-Hearts. I will pray that hearts of
stone may be changed to flesh and blood lest all the people die."
So taking his daughter, Rain, to serve him in the ritual,
Brings-down-the-Sun set out from their home beside the World-Spine,
and traveled eastward for a thousand miles, crossing the plains to
Manitoba, which was the Land of God. There at the sunrise making his
prayer, he died, passing the threshold of God's house into the
presence.
Rain showed me the hole where the Stone-hearts had buried her father.
The ground spirits would catch him there, so she had torn up the
earth and taken out the body. She had built a scaffold, where now
her dead lay robed and armed in majesty, facing the sunrise. She had
shot her father's horse so that its ghost might carry his shadow to
the Sand Hills.
And afterward she had prayed.
"Oh, great Above-Medicine Person, Spirit in the Sun, I pray to you!
"All you Above Spirits and Under Spirits carry my prayer to the Sun!
"And all you holy Animals, wiser and stronger than I, have pity!
Pray for me.
"I have made sacrifice of my jewels, and my long braids of hair.
Great Sun God, take my father's shadow to the Sand Hills, that he may
be with our dead."
The Seven Persons, our stars of the Great Bear, were pointing to the
earth; the Lost Children, our Pleiades, were sleepy on their way to
bed, when Rain felt the spirit leaving her father's body to ride the
Wolf Trail, the milky way which leads to the hereafter.
And there was Morning Star. "Dear Morning Star," she pleaded, "don't
give long life to me, for I am all alone."
She threw herself upon the upturned soil. "Oh, mother," she sobbed,
"I'm all alone, and oh, so frightened. And you, dear Beaver Woman,
my Dream Helper, can't you send me help? Oh, send a man to take me
to my people."
The Piegan camp was a thousand miles away. What chance had she of
escaping death among the hostile tribes between, or outrage at the
hands of the Stone-hearts?
It was then she lifted up her voice in the Indian death-wail, and so
continued mourning until I came in the gray of dawn, sent by her
secret helper in answer to her prayer.
I saw the rifled grave, the scaffold and her dead. "The people,"
said I, "who run this graveyard will be so pleased!"
"You think so? My old man, he seeks the Mán-it-ou, but the Black
Robe," she pointed to the Mission of St. Boniface, "the sacred man,
he say 'The King of God is within you.' So my old man," this with a
great gesture sweeping toward the skies, "he go seek!"
Rain's talk was a compound of charm, French half-breed patois, two or
three English words, and the sign language. But, as we Spaniards
have it, she was _sympática_, her eyes, her smile, expressing all she
felt, and I have found love a great interpreter.
Her blanket, fallen wide apart, disclosed a beautiful tunic of white
antelope skin, set with the teeth of elk, which tinkled softly.
"You little duck!" I whispered. That was profane love, but it really
couldn't be helped.
"K'ya!" She drew back, folding the blanket across her breast.
"Boy-drunk-in-the-morning, you métis, es?"
"Half-breed!" said I, not at all pleased. "No. Español."
"Why you come?"
"Well, you see, my little brother, Brat, was at school."
"All same mission?"
"Yes, a place called Eton, mission school for half-breeds. He ran
away to be a pirate, and I ran after him to keep him out of mischief."
"Meescheef? I not understand. You catchum?"
"No, he's with a man called Shifty Lane."
"Bad Mouth, I know him. He dog-faced man." She darted forked
fingers from her mouth, the sign of snake tongue, meaning that Lane
was a liar.
"You come," she pleaded, "I take you to Dog-Face Lane. My dream, he
say I take you."
"That's awfully decent of you."
Day filled the sky, but as yet there was neither sunlight nor shadow,
only a clear fine radiance full of hushed fussiness of birds, a
growing blaze of color from goldenrod and prairie sunflower, and
fresh wild perfume.
Some little devil possessed me at that moment, for I flung my arms
about the girl, only to find I held an empty blanket, while at arms'
length the jolly little beggar stood flushed and panting, while she
mocked me. Had I plenty scalps? Was my lodge red with meat? How
many horses had I to buy Rain? "Oh, Little-boy-drunk-in-the-morning,
the quick fox catchum trap!"
Ah, me! I never could withhold the tribute due to women, which every
citizen must pay to her sovereign power. So long I pleaded mercy
that the sun burned the sky-line, and the whole east was one vast
glory before she would consent to be my mother. A girl who chaffs is
irresistible.
"Swear!" she said. "You touch me, you go hell plenty quick."
"I swear I love you."
"You love as the wind, eh? Too many."
"I'm frightfully nice when I'm kissed."
"Maybe so. Now you catchum horse."
My horse? I had no horse.
"You poor?" she asked.
"I'm all I've got," I told her.
"S'pose," said Rain gaily, "I make 'um Indian man?"
"What! You'll make me an Indian? Oh, what a lark! Come on!"
She led me through an aspen grove, all tremulous green and silver,
and in her little teepee, Rich Mixed and I had breakfast. Then she
left us to watch a copper pot of herbs which simmered on the fire,
and slid away to her father's burial scaffold. There, with some
quaint apology to the Sun God, she took back her braids of hair and
sacrificed instead the tip of her left little finger. When she
returned to the teepee, she showed me her bandaged hand, and said she
had cut her finger, but at the time I felt more interested in my
cigarette, the last. Then, while I sat with a shaving mirror before
me, she wove her braids of hair into my black thatch, so that the
long plaits came down in front of my shoulders almost to the waist.
I was delighted, especially when she set at the back of my head one
straight-up eagle plume.
My dress suit, which last night had astonished Winnipeg, seemed no
longer congruous. Rain bade me take it off, showing me the juice
from her pot of herbs, also a breech clout, at which I shied a
little. Still it was not long before I stripped, to play at red
Indians with the brown juice and the clout, until Rain came back to
see. She opened a trunk of parfleche (arrow-proof hide) to show me
her father's clothes, then squatting by the fire she burned sweet
grass for incense to cleanse us both.
To me, the dressing-up was a joke; to her, a sacred rite, the putting
on of manliness and honor. With each new garment, she recited
prayers: as I put on the buckskin leggings and war-shirt, with their
delicious perfume of wood smoke, the parfleche-soled moccasins, from
which the Blackfoot nation takes its name, and the broad belt studded
with brass carpet tacks. Then she gave me a painted robe of buffalo
cow-skin, and showed me how to carry myself with the medicine-iron, a
.45-70 Winchester.
Perhaps I should mention that Rich Mixed flew at and bit this Indian,
before he realized that the person inside was me. But I had never
been so pleased.
Let me confess most humbly to an unusual strength and grace of body,
the carriage of a gentleman, and a most lamentable face: the pinched
forehead and strong features of an Indian, the pointed ears, the
devilish eyes and brows, and wide flexible mouth of a faun. In
civilized clothing, I had been grotesque; but there was mystery in
the Indian dress, which made me for the first time real and natural.
I had always a passionate sick craving for all things beautiful, a
fierce delight in color, line, proportion, harmony, and now with the
change of dress was no longer hideous. I had come to my own, and
while Rain struck camp, ran yelling with delight to round up her herd
of ponies.
At this point, I should pause to be sententious with sentimental
comment on all the blessings I had left behind me:
_Item_. My worthy aunt, damp with many tears, but much relieved.
She had hopefully predicted my untimely end.
_Item_. My pernicious uncle, who in due time appeared before a judge
in Chambers asking leave to presume my brother's death and mine, so
that his wife might have our heritage.
_Item_. My prospects. Mine was the only kind of education which can
be guaranteed to turn out drunken wasters.
_Item_. Winnipeg. This city was supported at the time by the single
industry of cheating in real estate. I had been offered employment
as a cheat.
_Item_. The House of the Red Lamp, where my guests of the night
before awaited me.
II
Any reader who hates geography had better skip this passage. It is a
dull subject, only introduced when the writer wants to show off.
That should be enough to choke off the skipping reader, and so I may
safely divulge to the gentle reader that I allude to the geography of
love.
Rain led be along the boundary trail, which follows the main divide
between the land of boyhood and the domain of manhood. It is a
narrow trail, no wider than a tight rope, so we fell off on both
sides. Rain's adopted son was too old, you see, for motherly
caresses, too young for the other kind. And Rain herself set me a
bad example. She never could hit the motherly attitude without
exaggerating, but was usually about a hundred years old before
breakfast, and lapsed to five at the first cup of coffee. Then I
would waste time being her affectionate infant son when it was my
manly duty to murder a rabbit for supper. I was never traceable of a
frosty morning, when mother sent me off to my bath in an ice-filled
slough. That daily bathing in all weathers is a most gruesome habit
of the Blackfeet, whereas I like being warm. An adopted child, too,
ought not to cuddle mother while she is cooking, yet when she clouted
me, I would take offense. And how could Rain howl of an evening for
her poor father, while I sang ribald songs, such as "Obediah!
Obediah! Oh, be damned!"
I fancied myself as an Indian warrior, and expected Rain to admire me
in the part. Play up? Of course I did. Had I been rigid English,
forcing the world to fit me, too proud to make a fool of myself, too
austere to see the fun, but I am not. I am human, Spaniard with a
touch of Irish, fluid to fit my surroundings. I riotously overplayed
so wild a burlesque redskin that Rain would laugh, ache, sob and have
hysterics.
We played at the hand talk, until we could converse. We played at
the Blackfoot language, until I understood when she didn't gabble. I
learned my roping, packing, tracking and sign quicker than she could
teach me. Yet what was the use of Rain playing the teacher, when her
pupil would chase her round the camp-fire, then rumple her with
infant hugs and kisses as a reward for having been too good. In
vain, she reminded me of my oath that I would go to hell if ever
again I touched her.
"Me Injun now," said I. "White man's hell too full: no room for
Injun."
She could not teach me the craft of warriors, and my ideas of finding
water led always to dry camps. I liked a nice big fire in the
evening, and by day delighted in riding along the sky-line firing off
my gun--in that land the Crees, Dakotas, Grosventres and Absarokas
collected scalps as you do postage stamps.
My notion of hunting was to ride down wind and miss the game on the
wing, which suited the antelope and the jack rabbit. As to the
prairie chickens and ducks, they sat out my rifle shooting in perfect
confidence at no risk whatever. Even before I fired my last
cartridge, Rain was obliged to add my work to her own, and had she
not snared ground game, we should have starved to death. Her
religion forbade the eating of fish and ground game, so in her most
pious moods I ate for both. And since I was neither of use nor
ornament, Rain mothered me. Mothering is the play of girls, the life
of women. Rain enjoyed me, too, as a comic relief to life.
I would have you understand that we were boy and girl together, not
man and woman. We played at love as one of many games, but lived
apart. We played at mother and son, teacher and pupil, but not at
husband and wife. I thought my honor must be a thing heroic, sacred,
absolute, like a great fortress, while Rain trusted me.
A gentleman, I suppose, is one who expects much of himself, little of
others. He is liable to be disappointed with himself if ever he
betrays a woman's trust, fails to live by his own resources and
opportunities, or marries for money, or finds himself kept by a
woman. Yet he may engage to be a woman's servant, be she queen or
peasant, and fight for her defense without loss of honor. I was
content for the time to be Rain's servant while she was in danger.
And afterward? Boys do not worry about afterward.
From the Red River to the Rocky Mountains, the Canadian Plains form
three steps, the lower or Manitoban, the middle or Saskatchewan, and
the upper or Albertan, in all about one thousand miles across. At
the time of our journey, these lay in almost unbroken solitude. In
many districts, the bison skulls lay like the white tombstones of a
graveyard, reaching in all directions beyond the sky-line. The herds
were gone, the hunters had followed, and the land lay void, a
desolation such as our world has never known and never may again.
Rain steered us clear of the few and scattered homes of frontiersmen,
wide of the camp grounds used by possibly hostile savages, and at the
end of the tenth week, led me to the high western scarp of the
Cypress Hills.
Beneath us the grass, with many a tawny ridge and faint blue vale,
reached away into golden haze, and like a cloud belt far above soared
the gray World-Spine, streaked and flecked with snow. Yonder, beside
the Rockies, lived her people. Here at our feet was the
Writing-on-Stone by Milk River, where my young brother worked for
Shifty Lane.
For that day's rations we chewed rabbit skins, and at sundown came to
Lane's trading post, expecting after we make camp to barter for
provisions. But while Rain unloaded the ponies, and I composed
myself upon a robe to watch her, Miss Lane rode over from the house.
The trader's half-breed daughter was eager to show off in her dress
of cotton print, a sunbonnet, real shoes of leather and jewelry of
rolled gold set with gems of glass, insignia of her grandeur and
importance.
"K'ya!" she cried, when Rich Mixed had finished barking, then reining
her roan cayuse, surveying our beggarly camp. "Kyai-yo." She patted
her lips with one hand, so that the exclamation came out in broken
gusts. "Ky-ai-i-yo-o! You poor, hungry ones!"
"I have a horse," said I, "to trade for food." But she ignored me,
pattering in Blackfoot. "Don't," she chattered, "don't think of
trading horses to my father. All people try to trade them off for
food, but we haven't enough grub for winter, and he gets mad. So
then they go away and eat a pony."
"My rifle," said I, "won't he take that in trade?"
"No buffalo left," said Miss Lane, "and the people can't find any
deer. Why, Flat Tail's band are reduced to fish, and you know that
the Sun God forbids them to eat fish."
"Don't you hear?" asked Rain. "Oh, Got-Wet, we'll sell the rifle."
But Got-Wet stared at me, then turned to Rain with a grin as she
declared in English, "He sham Injun!"
Rain bribed the girl to silence with a gift from St. Boniface
Mission, a pincushion cover made of Berlin wool, which represented a
blue cat on a green sky, seated, head at right turn, eyes of pink
beads. In excruciating raptures, Got-Wet promised a supper after
dark. Meanwhile, she stayed for a gossip, advising Rain in the art
of pitching camp, with now and again a peep at the sham Indian,
followed by great pantomime of fright. As for me, I was too proud to
be routed out of camp by a girl's impudence, too hungry to search for
my brother, too shy to interview the trader and buy food. How could
I, with Rain's last streak of yellow face-paint across my lordly
nose, confront a white man? I sat in high gloom, disdaining to
notice Got-Wet.
And in excited whispers, Got-Wet divulged to Rain how Pedro, a white
boy of marvelous incompetence, had run away with her cow. Yes, only
last night he had stolen her cow and run for the Medicine Line
(United States-Canada boundary).
Oh, so handsome, too! And how he admired her. Why, once, the rest
was told in whispers, and must have been a secret I was too young to
hear.
Pedro, of course, was my Brat, but I could hardly imagine a La Mancha
stealing a mere cow. Still, this could be none other than my brother.
Yet, according to Got-Wet, my brother had skipped the country, and a
rider had been sent in haste to fetch the pony soldiers. I had not
heard of any mounted troops. Who were these pony soldiers?
I could see that, whoever the soldiers were, Got-Wet was thoroughly
frightened lest they should catch my brother. She began to plead
with Rain to ride at once, to ride hard all night, to catch my Brat,
and bring home the stolen cow. Yes, she would pay us a sack of flour
and a side of bacon, if we would fetch the cow. And while we were
about it, we might just as well warn the foolish boy to hide himself
in the rocks, until the soldiers passed.
Rain gave me a glance, to show that she understood my brother's
danger. Yes, she would ride with me, as soon as we finished supper
and had the flour and bacon for our journey. But who was the
messenger who had gone to fetch the soldiers?
"Why, Tail-Feathers-round-his-neck. Who else could go?"
I saw Rain flush. "But," she said, "Tail-Feathers went to the
buffalo hunting."
"There were no buffaloes," said Got-Wet. "So Tail-Feathers came
back. You know, he's the greatest rifle-shot that ever-- Well,
that's how he got a job, with rations and big pay. He's
scout-interpreter now to the pony soldiers."
With nods and winks, Got-Wet would have us understand that
Tail-Feathers also adored her. Not that she would stoop to marry a
mere Indian. "Oh, no," she simpered. "Die first. Still, he adores
me, and rode off at once when I told him to fetch the soldiers."
"How far had he to go to fetch the soldiers?"
"Only to Slide-out. They'll be here by daybreak. Oh, Rain, you'll
ride and warn that boy to-night? Promise me, dear."
"Shall I tell Pedro you love him?" asked Rain demurely.
But Got-Wet shouted, "No," then swung her pony and galloped homeward,
calling over her shoulder, "Tell him I'm going to marry your sham
Indian. There!"
However hungry, I always liked to see Rain pitching camp. She took
the four key-poles of her teepee and lashed them together near their
smaller ends; then set their butts four square upon the ground, so
that they made a pyramid. Next, she laid the spare poles against the
crotch of the key-poles, so that their butts made of the square a
circle. Taking the skin cover of the tent, she draped it round the
cone of poles, mounting its ears on the ear-poles to hoist it up into
position, so that the ears, or wind-vanes, and the door opened down
wind. She had cut the lodge down small as a sign of mourning, with
barely room for our two back rests and sets of robes beside the
middle fire. It was none the less snug for being small, so when I
saw its lighted smoke in the dusk, I crept in to sulk at home. I
found Rain laughing softly, while she laid down the beds, and
bubbling over at intervals, she explained to me all the news of how
my brother had stolen a cow, and how his enemy, the Blackfoot
warrior, Tail-Feathers, had gone to fetch pony soldiers. Rain
blushed to the roots of her hair, and told me then about
Tail-Feathers. She was to be Mrs. Tail-Feathers as soon as she got
home to the Piegan camp.
"Then," said I, "why does Tail-Feathers flirt with that fool?"
Got-Wet, Rain told me, was artful, and a liar.
I sulked. The time was in sight when I must part with Rain or marry
her. It did not seem right in those days that my father's son should
marry a mere squaw, and yet the thought of parting hurt me very
sorely. I hated Tail-Feathers the worse because I saw Rain loved
him. And I was so hungry.
At dark came Got-Wet, her pony loaded with flour and bacon, which she
made us hide at once because it was stolen out of her father's store.
She had also a dish of scrapings, cold fried potatoes and bacon, with
soggy slapjacks and a can of tepid coffee, good enough for Indians.
She squatted in the teepee to watch our ravenous eating, while she
gave trail directions in a gale of talk. So came a gray and
long-haired frontiersman, old Shifty Lane, shaggy and roaring, who
cursed his daughter for feeding Indian beggars, and drove her
homeward storming through the darkness. Rain wanted to talk, but I
who had been empty was now full, and snored with intention.
Presently the fire fluttered out.
When Rain awoke, a slender ray of moonlight was creeping across the
darkness near where I lay, and seated in the chief's place, she saw
her father's spirit. He was always there to guard her through the
night, perhaps to hear her sigh of deep content when she changed
dreams.
III
At midnight, Rain bustled me out to round the ponies up while she
struck camp. Why should she be so eager to warn my Brat? She would
not spare me time to water the ponies, but drove the outfit hard,
wasting whole hours in bad ground by starlight which in the morning
we could have crossed at ease. Day broke at last, and we took up the
tracks of the stolen cow. Beside them went the marks of a white
man's boots, just large enough for Brat and too small for any one
else. Rain trailed her travois of lodge poles and our loose ponies,
to blot out those telltale signs, while I rode well ahead down the
Milk River Valley, under long cliffs of castellated rock. There were
orchards of wild ripe fruit, but Rain insisted on a racking pace,
while the sun climbed up the eastern and down the western sky. So
when the sun was waning down the west, we came upon our quarry, El
Señor Don Pedro de la Mancha, with his arms round the cow's neck,
sobbing bitterly.
Such was the heat, that I rode in breech clout and moccasins, the
Indian war-dress. Add to that the devilish Indian war screech, and
the charging horse, and you will realize that poor Brat had scarcely
time to jump out of his skin with fright, before a wild and naked
roaring savage galloped over him.
He sat up, quite prepared for death, and yet, his nose being crushed,
and his heart full of indignation, he resolved to sell his life
dearly. Heroes, he remembered, in redskin fiction, always sell their
lives dearly, but are never seriously killed because that would spoil
the plot. The proper thing was to lug out his .44 Colt revolver with
its eight and a half inch barrel and thus be prepared for great deeds
of war. It was a pity that all his cartridges should be .45. Had
they only fitted the gun, what a scene of blood!
"What d'ye mean by stealing cows?" I asked him. "Eh, you dirty
rotter? Stand up and have yer head punched! I'll teach you to get
into mischief! Now, Brat, I'm going to give you the durnedest
hiding."
Yet, though I addressed the Brat in my very best Eton manner, the
tone of the public schools, as proceeding from a naked savage,
entirely failed to convince. It was not until I dismounted, and
diligently performed my promise, and having given him a jolly good
hiding, proceeded to give him some more, that Brat began dimly to
realize that I was indeed his brother.
So far, dear Rain, very impatient with us, had from her saddle
watched the ceremonial observances of white men, when brothers meet
after long separation. Now seeing that I had dropped a tail of my
false hair, she made me squat down while she hurriedly braided it on
again, cooing with sympathy when she tugged too hard. Brat sat down
opposite, to pant and make friends with my dog, and while his nose
bled, announced that he also would turn red Indian.
I asked him, gravely, "How?"
"Then," said he, "I'll be a robber, anyway."
"Look here," said I, "you know I've come a long way and taken no end
of trouble to keep you out of mischief. You're not going to play the
hog. You Gadarene swine, if you're not respectable in this life,
where will you go when you die?"
Brat couldn't see why I should have all the fun, so I invited him to
another thrashing, and he excused himself.
"Promise," said I, "to be good."
Seeing preparations for war, he gave a sullen promise.
"S'elp you Bob?"
"S'elp me."
"Honor bright?"
"Bet yer sixpence."
"Brat, why not turn cowboy?"
"But is that respectable?"
"Extremely so. Go and be good in the United States, where you'll
have lots of room. I don't want to crowd you, Brat."
"I know that, Hosay."
Of course, we were talking in Spanish, and in our language my name is
spelled José, lest the English should guess the pronunciation.
"And you can say," I added lavishly, "that this gun," I was taking
sights, "was stolen from you by Indians. Also the cow."
"But it's not true!"
"It is."
"Oh, but it's not fair!"
"Child," said I, "our ancestors were not caught by mere pony soldiers
with such trifles as a gun and a cow."
"Pony-soldiers?"
"Yes."
"You don't mean the mounted police?"
I had never heard of mounted police, but I looked grave and wooden.
"I don't care!" he cried. "I bought that gun from their sergeant."
"And a license?"
"But the cartridges," said poor Brat, "are forty-fives, and they
don't fit the forty-four bore. You might let me keep my gun."
"Oh, all right." I must own I was reluctant. "Catch!"
"And the cow. Shifty Lane wouldn't pay me my wages, so I collected
his cow. The police will say it served him jolly well right."
I was too hungry to relinquish real beef. "No," said I firmly,
"you'd better let me look after the poor cow."
So Brat began to tell me his adventures, and how he had been fool
enough to flirt with Got-Wet. I was disgusted with him, especially
as Lane's half-breed daughter had been making violent love to the
Indian, Tail-Feathers. I told Brat he really must remember his
social position, the natural obligations of his rank, the utter folly
of stooping to such a creature as Got-Wet. Indeed, I had some hope
of improving my brother's morals, laying down precept and example,
when Rain said the soldiers were coming. She had been worrying us
all the time we talked.
I kissed poor Brat, and we promised to write letters, though neither
of us thought of giving a postal address. Then I sent him away with
my blessing.
"_Vaya usted con Dios!_"
"_Adios_," the Brat sobbed, "_Adios!_"
So we parted, and my little brother went on down the valley, very
grateful. At an angle of the cliffs, he waved his hat in farewell,
and passed on out of sight.
For my part, I mounted my sorrel and rode off, driving the cow toward
a break in the cliffs, where I proposed to dine for once on beef
without any foolish delays. But Rain trailed after me with the pack
beasts, pleading that there were soldiers in pursuit. She spoke of
some awful fate awaiting Indian cow thieves caught red-handed with
the white man's beef.
Of course, what she said was all very well for Indians, but I told
her I was white, and all the pony soldiers could go to blazes. I was
hungry.
Poor little girl! I suppose she craved as much as I did for a juicy
rib, a tongue, the kidneys. Unable to resist the kidneys, Rain
followed. The low sun was right in our eyes. The meadow was all
haze; we could not see very well. And Rain was crying.
And through her sobs, Rain warned me. The scout-interpreter, who was
bringing the soldiers to take a cow thief, was none other than her
own betrothed lover. Tail-Feathers would see us two together. He
would be angry, jealous. He was the champion rifle-shot of the
Blackfoot nation. I had a rifle to threaten, no cartridges to fire.
So she made me fly from him, and march swiftly these weary hours. To
delay our flight was death.
I set my teeth, and refused her the slightest notice. I hated
Tail-Feathers!
IV
Between the meadow and the foot of the cliff some former channel of
Milk River had left a narrow lake. This pulled me up short, and as I
looked for a way round the water, a smoke-puff appeared at the rim of
the cliff overhead, a rifle-shot rang out with rumbling thunder
echoes, and my sorrel horse crashed down dead, leaving me more or
less in the air. A second shot crumpled my cow. A third grazed my
naked shoulder, lifting blood. Then came Rain at full gallop to my
rescue, screaming in Blackfoot to the man up there on the cliff.
"Tail-Feathers! Oh, Tail-Feathers, how could you? Killed my pony,
spoiled the cow! Don't kill my squaw!"
Her squaw! She called me a squaw! _Me_! I jumped up and down in my
fury.
"See," Rain shrieked. "My squaw is dancing! Look!"
"How dare you!" I shouted at her.
"Boy-drunk-in-the-morning," her eyes were dancing with fun, "I'm
saving your life, you silly."
"Mind your own business!"
"See!" She pointed at a gaunt, middle-aged Indian in a gray slop
suit, who rode along the sky-line seeking a way down the cliffs.
"There," she said. "My man."
It was certainly very awkward.
"I am his woman," she said demurely, then tossing her head with a
flash of royal pride, "and he's my man! He comes now to take me to
his lodge."
"But what right had the fellow to shoot me? Confound his cheek, he
has shot me!"
"Not much," she caressed the long wale carved in my shoulder. Then
she gabbled so quickly in her sweet liquid speech, that I could only
just catch flying words.
She was telling Tail-Feathers to stop killing me. As if I cared!
Tail-Feathers was a mighty warrior, who could never stoop to killing
a mere boy with no scalp, a boy with a false wig of woman's hair.
She begged me to set to the camp work, the squaw's work, so I could
stay alive until the soldiers got me.
Blind with tears, moaning with rage, I shot back the lever and jammed
it home, as though I were loading my rifle. Tail-Feathers should
think he had an armed man to fight, not a squaw begging his mercy. I
knelt down and took a sight at the approaching horseman. If it were
only loaded!
Rain was nervous. Her little toil-worn hands were trembling as they
caressed my head. "You're not an Indian," she crooned. "Not like an
Indian, kneeling out here in the open, exposed, with an empty rifle.
Fight-in-the-open-with-an-empty-gun is the sort of person who makes
my man laugh. Oh, surely he must see that you're a mere boy, a
child, too young for killing.
"See how he leaves his pony and climbs down--and comes from bush to
bush and hides behind the rocks-- He's coming very near to see
what's wrong, why you don't fire. And I stand behind you, so if he
fires he'll get us both. Hear how he shouts-- Wants me to get out
of his line of fire. I'm so frightened!" She rumpled up my hair,
and laughed with queer, little, tremulous chuckles. "Ho,
Tail-Feathers," she called, "you're not to kill my funny boy any
more. I'll never love you if you hurt my boy."
But Tail-Feathers yelled from behind a rock, denouncing her for a
wanton unfit to be his woman.
"Men are so stupid," she whispered in my ear. "He's going to shoot
us both."
I asked her quickly and roughly if she would be my wife. If I had
brought her to such a pass as this, it was her due, and as a
gentleman I could do no less. Yet when she answered, "No," I felt
relieved.
"To marry you," she chuckled, "to be your woman?
Boy-drunk-in-the-morning will take me to his lodge of all the winds,
a queer person who can not hunt or fight or even run away. He'll
feed me through the hunger-death next winter. Oh, you funny boy, I
hope my man won't get you."
Now she had roused me to such a pitch of frenzy that death was easy
compared with the shame of life. I could see the Indian creeping
behind a rock not fifty feet away. The Blackfeet have no oaths, but
I could swear, and did, until Rain shrank back in horror. I sprang
straight at the man, who was so startled that he fired high.
He was pumping a fresh cartridge, and praying the Great Mystery to
guide his aim. By all the rules of war, I had no right to charge
him, for no sane man would dare. He thought me crazy, bullet proof,
inspired by the Big Spirit.
But when he turned to run, I thought I was losing him, and with a
scream of passion hurled my rifle whirling through the air. It
caught him just at the base of his skull, and felled him.
Then, with my foot upon his neck, I turned on Rain. "Am I a squaw or
am I a man?" I asked. "Woman, come here, you're mine!"
For just one quivering moment, Rain obeyed me. Then we both felt a
tremor in the ground, and looking up the valley saw a mounted man,
full gallop, charging at us. "The pony soldiers! Fly for your
life!" cried Rain.
V
Slide-out Detachment was an outpost of the Northwest Mounted Police,
where the sergeant-in-charge had the mumps, which made him look
ridiculous and feel cross. To him came Tail-Feather, the
scout-interpreter, with complaint from Shifty Lane about a stolen
cow. There was not a man to be spared, so a recruit was sent on
patrol, Constable Buckie, with the scout for chaperon.
Poor Buckie rode in mingled pride and pain:
_PRIDE_. Half a mile out, he chucked his white helmet into a bush
and put on a stetson, the flat-brimmed slouch hat of the prairies,
which in those days the police were not allowed to wear. He took off
his gauntlets because their pipe-day smeared him, and stuffed them
into his wallets. He sported a silk handkerchief to dust his
beautifully polished long boots about once in every mile. For the
rest, he had a red dragoon tunic, indigo breeches with a yellow
leg-stripe, white cross belt, a blazing bright belt of burnished
cartridges, a foot-long Adams revolver in its holster, and a Snyder
carbine slung athwart the horn of the stock saddle.
_PAIN_. The poor soretail would have died on duty rather than let
his grief be seen by an Indian, but he rode well over to starboard or
at times with a list to port, and hung on with bloody spurs, while he
loped a rough rangy gelding whose trot was agony.
_PRIDE_. Approaching Lane's, he put the gauntlets on, and ogled
Got-Wet, who made him first flirtation signals while she talked to
the scout in Blackfoot. She was making Tail-Feathers to understand
how Rain, his promised wife, was traveling just ahead with a white
man disguised as an Indian. Leaving Constable Buckie to play with
Got-Wet, the scout rode on to kill me. What happened afterward
between Got-Wet and Buckie in the barn loft is entered in the
constable's official notes as "information received." He was both
proud and shocked at his own conduct, supposing that every flirt went
direct to perdition.
_PAIN_. Buckie rode down the valley all day long wondering what
could have become of his chaperon. Toward sunset, a sound of
rifle-shots ahead aroused him to a sense of something wrong. He saw
the chance for some great deed of war, and since he could not bear
the pain either of trot or canter, he had to charge at full gallop,
keeping his eyes shut because he was scared to look.
_PRIDE_. He pulled his gun.
Now I was standing on his chaperon's neck, whetting my knife to scalp
my first real Indian, when suddenly I saw a proper Tommy Atkins, of
scarlet cavalry, somehow broke loose from England and charging
straight at me, blind.
"Whoa!" said I. "Whoa, hoss!"
At that, the rangy gelding pulled up dead, but the soldier came
straight on until he bumped, and slid right to my feet.
"Hello!" said I.
The soldier blinked at me, leveled his gun and grunted, "Hands up,
you swine!"
But at that moment, I wanted a whole regiment to defy, so I told him
I'd see him damned first, for I would not throw up my hands for any
bally Tommy.
"Come, hands up, _nitchie_ (friend)."
"You silly ass," I said. "Can't you see I'm a white man?"
"You look it," said he with sarcasm; and being nicely stained brown
all over by way of costume, I could only smile.
The rookie had misgivings. This episode would be grand in Saturday's
letter to mother, but what would they say in barracks about pulling a
revolver on an unarmed man. He smirked, so I told him to put his gun
away and not try to be funny. He obeyed.
"Consider yourself under arrest," he growled, for that was the way
the non-coms. always addressed him. "Now," he stood up, "what d'ye
mean by killing the cow and my scout-interpreter?"
"If you--" I suggested blandly.
"If you--what?"
"If you please, pig," said I.
"Well, I'll be dog-goned! Say," he asked, almost respectfully, "have
you seen a young fellow along here by the name of Pedro la Mancha?"
"You dreamed him."
"Ax that girl."
So I asked Rain in my best Blackfoot, but she did not understand it
very well. Then it occurred to Constable Buckie that I might be
Pedro in disguise.
"Here, you," he asked Rain, "who killed that cow?" I translated.
Now Rain was afraid of pony soldiers, but she remembered being
insulted by her man, and charged with being a wanton. He should rue
that!
"He killed the cow," she answered, pointing at Tail-Feathers, who lay
still unconscious.
"And the pony?"
Again she pointed at the police-interpreter.
"And who killed my Indian scout?"
For answer, she showed the soldier that long red, burning wale across
my shoulder, while her pointing finger accused the police-interpreter
of attempted murder. "Boy-drunk-in-the-morning," she said in
Blackfoot, "tell my words to the pony soldier. Tell him, I say you
had no cartridges when this man tried to kill you."
"She says," I explained, "that I had no ammunition, and that's a
fact, worse luck."
"Tell him," said Rain, "that you clubbed Tail-Feathers with your
medicine-iron."
I blushed as I translated. "This mighty hero," she says, "charged
like the great chief of all the buffalo. His name is Charging
Buffalo, and all that sort of stuff, don't ye know."
The Indian began to groan.
"Say," said Buckie, "Charging Buffalo, alias Pedro la Mancha, just
tell the girl you're both my prisoners."
"The silly ass," I translated, "thinks I'm Pedro, and so we're
prisoners. Isn't it a lark!"
"She's a nice little piece," added Buckie. "Tell her to cut up the
cow and get supper."
So I sent Rain to get supper, and she went, head bent, feet dragging,
for she was terrified at being a prisoner.
"Pedro," the soldier was unsaddling his horse, "you may play at
Indians, but I guess you've been raised for a lord, or some sort of
pet. Say you won't run, and your word is good enough."
Having nothing to run from, and nowhere to run to, I readily gave
parole. Wild horses could not have dragged me from that camp with
real beef in sight.
"As to this infernal Tail-Feathers," Constable Buckie looked round.
"Hello! Look out!"
The scout-interpreter felt so much better now that he was able to sit
up with his rifle and take a pot-shot at my back. I had just time to
jump on his stomach before the thing went off.
Rookie he was, and not over-wise at that, but Constable Buckie felt
that for a scout-interpreter this Indian was too impulsive. He
therefore persuaded Tail-Feathers to lie down and take a nap with
contusions, then put the man under what he called close arrest, tied
up like a brown paper parcel, for delivery to the sergeant-in-charge
at Slide-out.
The dusk was falling, and big white stars broke through as the sky
darkened. "I reckon," said Constable Buckie wearily, "we've time for
a swim before supper."
So I challenged him to race me at undressing, and dived into the
lake, which was nice and warm for swimming. When Buckie had shed his
uniform, he joined me, and very soon our troubles were forgotten. At
nineteen, it is rather hard to be officially minded after business
hours. As for me, I liked Buckie first-rate, because he happened to
be a clean-bred Canadian. I did not know that we should be chums for
life.
Rain was ever a busy little person, and now in the twilight she made
haste to get everything ready. She cut loose Tail-Feathers, who
passed away into the gloaming, no longer in anyway attached to the
mounted police. She used his lashings to make a neat bundle of
Buckie's arms and uniform, which she dropped without a sound into
deep water. Then leaving the supper to cook itself, she adjourned to
an ant-heap a little way from the camp, where all alone in the gloom
she howled for her poor father.
There was a tang of frost in the air when we came out chilled,
famished and distressed by Rain's most dismal lamentations. The fire
was dead, there was nothing to eat, and Tail-Feathers had escaped, so
it seemed, with Buckie's kit. As to Rain, she said we were very rude
to interrupt her grief. She was an orphan, and a prisoner.
Wrapped in my painted robe, with chattering teeth, Buckie sat by our
fire, projecting schemes for tracking Tail-Feathers by torchlight and
by moonshine. It was awkward, though, that the Indian had decamped
with both the police carbines, both their revolvers, all the
ammunition. Even when comforted with much beef, the pony soldier
trembled at the thought of his doom when he made official report to
the sergeant-in-charge at Slide-out. Later, in the darkness of the
teepee, I heard him weeping, and at dawn he set out barefoot on some
futile attempt to track Tail-Feathers. The ground was then white
with frost.
On his departure, Rain sat up, a little heap of mischief, and
whispered across the teepee, "If I were only free!"
And I yawned back, "What then?"
"I think," she said demurely, "I could find the soldier's clothes."
"Cat!"
She purred. "And make you back into a white man, Charging Buffalo."
"Why for?"
"So you could go and be a pony soldier."
"What's that?"
"You saw the red coat, and your eyes were so hungry! You followed
him like a dog, and forgot poor little Rain. Threw out your chest,
so! and your shoulders, hump! And your eyes, ever so far away. Then
I call, and you yawn, so! You're tired of Rain, and playing Indians,
eh?"
I made shamefaced objections, blushing hot all over as I realized at
once that what Rain said was true.
I wonder if other men feel as I do. I can not look unmoved at a
pretty woman, and yet the sight of the British scarlet excites me
more than anything else I know of. To speak to a man who wears it
makes me catch my breath. Equally strong is the appeal to my senses
of revolvers, cartridge belts, long boots, skin clothes or any gear
of horsemanship or wild life. To see these things makes my heart
leap, to use them is a lasting enjoyment, whereas I have looked on
big stacks of gold, or silver, or treasures of diamonds, without the
least emotion.
As soon as Rain spoke, I was sick of Indians. Life was impossible
outside the mounted police.
"I only try," she mimicked my voice when I talked to the Brat, "and
take so plenty trouble to keep you out of meeschief!"
"And if I go for a soldier, what about you?" I asked.
"Me?" she sighed. "Oh, I go catch poor Tail-Feathers. He got no
beef."
As a matter of fact, poor Tail-Feathers had come in the night, had
loaded his horse with beef, and now, well hidden in the cliffs, was
eating the same while he watched Buckie's futile attempts at
tracking. The soldier came back blue with cold, gray with despair
and only too glad when I proposed that Rain should be free from
arrest if she could find his clothes. She placed a string in his
hands, and bade him pull. So he hauled the bundle of arms and
clothes out of the lake.
Over a big fire inside the teepee, we hung his clothes to dry, and
after breakfast, while I made a most careful toilet, a naked
constable drafted in a damp note-book the full official version of
his patrol.
"How will this do?" he began. "'Dear Guts!' I mean, 'Sir, I have the
honor to report for your information that when I made Lane's from
information received'--from Got-Wet when we hid up in the barn
loft--'to the effect, viz: that old Shifty was up to his usual games,
cheating said Pedro la Mancha out of four months' wages, so Pedro
skinned out with Got-Wet's cow, which didn't belong to Lane anyway,
because Pedro's brother Hosay la Mancha, a respectable British
subject, had gone to collect the cow for Got-Wet.' So that's all
clear, eh?"
"Fine," said I, from behind the hanging clothes. "'Meanwhile, I sent
the interpreter ahead'--so he wouldn't catch on to Got-Wet and me in
the barn loft--'with instructions to pick up the cow tracks, and when
I caught up'--Say, old fellow, don't want to let on that I invaded
the damned States under arms. It wouldn't be good for Guts, and he'd
throw Catherine wheels if he thought I'd raided Montana. We'll say I
caught you up at the boundary line, 'where my interpreter was
shooting up the cow, the pony and Hosay la Mancha. I detained the
prisoner in close custody, but he skinned out'--and you can't see his
tail for dust--'so I brung in Mr. la Mancha, who wants to take on in
in the Outfit, and have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
regimental number'--I'll have to look that up--'David Buckie,
Constable.' How's that, umpire?"
"Bull's-eye!" So I stepped out from behind the clothes-line. After
all, my dress suit was by a jolly good cutter in Savile Row, the
shirt a bit rumpled but a decent fit, the pumps and socks quite new
and, nothing paid for. In my best Oxford manner, I held out the
white tie and asked Buckie to make the bow. "You bally idiot!" I
added, because he rolled into the fire, singeing my painted cow-skin.
Stark naked, the buck policeman rolled back over the cooking-pots and
prayed to be carried away for burial. Then he sat up wiping his eyes
with my necktie. "Chee! Now whar hev I put me lavender kids?" he
howled. "Oh, hang my collar on the chandelier while I sweat! Me
pants is split from ear to ear, and it's my night to how-w-l!
Yow-ow-w!"
I told him these were all the clothes I had.
"Just turn them loose on Slide-out. Think of Guts! Why, you
ring-tailed, lop-eared coyote, you can't join Our Outfit dressed like
a blasted Comet!"
"What's to be done?"
"I guess I'll cache you in a prairie-dog hole until I've stole you a
shirt and overalls. Allee samee, that kit would take first prize for
fancy dress at a ball, or I'm a shave-tail."
Even in those days, Buckie suffered from a respectable soul, which
made him a bit of a prig for routine, a glutton for etiquette, a
shop-walker for deportment, and most maidenly particular about his
clothes. He kept us at work for hours cleaning kit before he would
get into uniform, then mourned aloud because for all my evening dress
I had lost my opera hat and ought not to go bareheaded. In the end
we departed riding his big horse tandem with me behind, pursued by
Rain's howls, malicious, derisive, devilish little howls. Were these
for her poor father?