THE SWING OF EVENTS
I
Before I left Fort French on my way to regimental headquarters I
promised old Wormy to lead a better life. The first duty then was to
provide for my Brat in hospital; so I raffled my war-horse, and sold
off by public auction a dozen damsels to whom I had been postally
engaged; then lost the whole of the money at cards with the hospital
orderly. So I said good-by to Brat.
Parted from all my vices I felt like an empty box, all chiaroscuro
and good intentions, yet in the stage sleigh caught by a two days'
blizzard it was really too cold to reform. That autumn storm was a
hundred and eight miles long from its tail at Fort French to its nose
at Fort Calgary with a hundred degrees of cold and the nip of a
crocodile. Then at Fort Calgary I had to wait in barracks, for the
unfinished Canadian Pacific Railroad ran trains, weather permitting,
or when the driver was sober. Anyway, I had time to lose my
sustenance money over a game of poker, and when Rich Mixed and I got
on board the train we had nothing to reform with except a tin of
crackers. We were beastly pinched on the six hundred mile crawl east
to Regina, the mounted police headquarters.
I had rather looked forward to seeing civilization after some
eighteen months of the other thing, but the train was jammed with men
coming down from the construction camps in the Rockies and most of
them had forgotten to take a bath. The floors of the cars were
swamped with tobacco juice, the stoves were red, there was no
ventilation. The air made my head swim, and Rich Mixed was taken
sick.
I had been pining for company, but--well, there were some
Canadians--fine chaps, playing cards, the stakes in hundreds of
dollars. I could only afford to look on for half a minute.
There were American commercial gents, pale, high-pitched, talking
millions and millions of dollars. I could not afford to listen.
Then there were navvies busy getting drunk, and even their talk never
went as low as ten cents. They, too, were above my station. I even
heard a man say, "Catch on to all that for fifty cents a day!" I
could not tell him my pay was fifty-five cents.
That was when I stood up to take off my buffalo coat, and all the
people stared at the red tunic. Somehow these good folk did not
belong to my tribe, but I did not know till then that the red coat
shuts off the world like a wall. Only I felt they despised me, so I
blushed. It was as though a flock of sheep stared with contempt at a
collie, and that made me grin.
The better half of me is Irish, sharing the same heritage with every
British Tommy, every British bluejacket, every British irregular on
the far flung frontiers. Even the English feel it, whose hearts are
like cold fish, the glamour of the service, the magic, the
witchcraft, the religion of this justice-under-arms guarding a fourth
part of all mankind from war, keeping the peace of the sea! Spain
was, England is, and Canada will be, a power snatching fire from
Heaven to yield the peace of el Eterno Padre. Santissima Maria--I
belonged to that!
Oh, but it was more, a great deal more. In the frost of the window
beside me there was a patch of clear glass, and I could see a cloud
race past the moon, above the driving surf of the snow-sea, while the
blizzard battered and thundered, half lifting our train from the
rails. I wanted to be back where I had been, riding storms. I
belonged there, I belonged to that.
If we who serve with the colors under Old Glory or the Union Jack
were serving for pay the public enemy could buy us for more pay.
Could you bargain with us in terms of cash for the austerities of
actual service, disease, wounds, death?
"_Credo in unum Deum_," roared the storm. "_Omnipotentem_," roared
the storm. "_Creatirem Coeli, et terrae_," roared the storm. I and
the storm were servants of one God. I knew then that never while I
lived could I belong to a civilization which measures life in dollars.
I was at a castle in Spain tipping the groom of the chambers with one
raw oyster in his extended palm, when Rich Mixed woke me up with his
cold nose in my hand. The dawn was breaking, the train had pulled up
at Moose jaw, and there was a new passenger approaching, all furs,
frost and fuss. The men in the car were stretched or coiled on the
seats, like corpses in the wan gray light of morning. The only empty
place was the one which belonged to my dog, so he was saying in dog
talk.
"Ur-r! Gur-r-r!" which means: "Isn't he poisonous. Don't let him
take my seat. Yur-r-r!"
So I took Rich Mixed on my lap and said, "Sit on your tail, my septic
friend."
Yet this person must needs argue about seats farther on, so the
brakeman called him a fool and walked off. It seemed to me, though,
that this unwholesome stranger shied, not at the dog but at me. So I
told him I was only a policeman, and the dog was most particular as
to what he ate. The man sat down.
As yet I had no suspicions at all, but the person must needs explain
a lot of stuff about being a photographer and making good money with
pictures of mountain sceneries. That set me wondering, for if he
came from the Rockies, why should he board the train five hundred
miles out on the plains? And if he really was a photographer, he
should have the camera tripod, slide box and that well-known
professional manner.
"Cur-r!" said Rich Mixed.
Where had my decent dog met this liar who shied at police? My septic
friend was a town scout, so the only town where the dog could have
known him would be Winnipeg. Then I jumped the rest of the way to
that House of the Red Lamp, the place where this book began, where
Rawhide Kate had shown me a photograph of her husband--this very
man--a circus artiste with a breast of revolting decorations, and a
brace of revolvers--Jonathan Withal, King of Guns. Afterward, I
remembered, he murdered Rawhide Kate. The police description
mentioned a wen on his neck and oddly enough this duck sat in his fur
coat with the collar up while he sweated. Besides he kept his hands
in the side pockets, and by the bulge, it was guns. He had me
covered.
You know how one thing leads to another. We talked about Rich Mixed.
Then I got confidential, telling him all about my dog's half-sister,
Biscuits, and he told me exactly how much money he made. So I was
envious, sick of the police, proposing to desert, that I might take
to drink and photography which in his case were such a success. But
he explained through his nose how some folks being prejudiced jest
nachurally couldn't see the difference between a drinkin' man and a
drunkard whereas he could take it or leave it alone: that's what,
although there's some as would figger five dollars a day for drinks
as coming rather steep, yes, sir, but them's cheap men. As for him
he wanted me to know that he was bad, and wild, all hard to curry and
full of fleas and could shoot the spots out of the ten of clubs at a
mile.
He paused, giving me time to admire.
Then he mentioned a bottle right here in his valise.
By that time I had caught a strong Amurrican accent, yes, siree,
_and_ owned his talk made me thirsty, _although_ one drink of the
real quintessence would put me under the seat dead drunk, because I'd
just recovered from hydrophobia.
Out came his hands from his pockets which made me real proud to have
his confidence, you betcher life. Then the patient turned round to
open his valise while I grabbed his collar and wrenched it down,
locking his elbows behind him until I tied his thumbs together with a
string.
He wanted to give a display of fireworks, but couldn't reach his
guns. So I had to tell him not to say things I was too young to hear.
"Jonathan Withal," said I, when we were settled down again. "I
arrest you in the Queen's name. You will be charged with the murder
of your wife, and I warn you that anything you say will be used in
evidence."
The episode was sordid, its memory has become unpleasant, and it
would not be mentioned here but for the issue which altered the
course of my life. I had been sent as a bad character for a course
of recruit drill and discipline at headquarters, but arrived at
Regina with a prisoner who was in due course committed to trial for
capital felony at Winnipeg. I was sent as escort to give evidence of
arrest, and pending the trial and hanging was posted to our
detachment at Fort Osborne just outside that city. Afterward I
remained on detachment during the early winter.
II
During those few weeks at Winnipeg I had a couple of letters from my
Brat who had taken to crutches and felt able-bodied. He told me that
there was some rumor of Sarde getting married. The inspector had
bought an engagement ring, also a girl's fur cap and coat which had
gone by the stage sleigh to Helena where Widow Burrows lived. He had
applied for transfer to depot at Regina as being nearer to
civilization. My friend Buckie was in from Slide-out Detachment and
was going on prisoners' escort to Regina.
In response I sent Brat my first poem, in celebration of Sarde's
alleged engagement to Widow Burrows.
When the artful Meringue
Met the gay Macaroon,
And they sighed, and then sang
In the light of the moon--
'Twas there! 'Twas thus! 'Twas then
I met my first, my only love.
'Twas warm!
One day I was on sentry at the gate of Fort Osborne when a tramp came
along the street, a bare-headed, red-haired hobo shivering in
remnants of a jersey and broken down sea boots.
"I'd been in Roosia once," he told me afterward, "and you made me
think of a Roosian grand dook I'd seen reviewing troops--wot chanct
'ad I got, eh?"
I remember being very comfy in fur cap, short buffalo coat, long
stockings, moccasins, and my belt of burnished brass cartridges in
the sunlight shone as a streak of blazing light. I asked the
freezing sailor if he wanted to take on in the force. For answer he
gulped at me, so I pointed out the way to the recruiting office.
"Second door on the left. Good luck to you."
A few minutes after the tramp had gone to his fate a municipal
policeman arrived, one of the famous Winnipeg giants. He inquired
after a red-haired hobo, who was badly wanted for kicking a booking
clerk of the Canadian Pacific through the office door which happened
to be shut. The clerk was being removed to hospital.
Yes, I remembered seeing a person with red hair--of course, the very
man. Ten minutes ago he had passed going toward Red River in a
parachute.
The Winnipeg police giants are ponderous of understanding and
sensitive to chaff.
The guard-house was not in use, and the men on guard lived in the
barrack room. So there I was when, after my relief, I lay on my
trestle half dressed, doing bed fatigue, my dog asleep beside me.
Yes, I was eating dates when Red Saunders, the sailor hobo, came out
from the medical ordeal.
"Hullo!" I called. "What luck?"
"They snapped me up!" cried Red, and at that the corporal of the
guard, who was playing cards at the table, looked up laughing.
"'Ere!" Red seized the corporal by the collar, "come and 'ave yer
'ead punched!"
"Two, four, six," said the corporal over his cards, "and a pair,
eight."
"Carrots!" I shouted. Red forgot his corporal and hastened across to
destroy me. "Dates, I mean," said I gently, holding out the bag.
"Sit here on my bed; Rich Mixed is only snarling for effect. Won't
bite. Too full to hold another mouthful. Do you know, Red, that the
gentleman over there is your superior officer?"
"Swine!"
"How true. Yet for touching even a chaffy corporal the punishment is
death."
"'E insulted me!"
"Death. Court-martialed and shot at sunrise, then buried in the
dogs' churchyard with a dreadful epitaph. After that you'd be
punished for kicking that clerk into hospital."
"'E can't 'and me over to the police," Red lowered at the corporal,
"'cause we're shipmates now. I belong."
"That's so. We've all got to behave as shipmates, and we mustn't
scrag the bosn."
"I can take an 'int," quoth Red, who was gulping down the dates,
stones and all. "I sai--wot d'ye think the josher said in there?
Axed me my catechism, s'elp me, and I 'ad to write the answers.
"''Ad I served before? Yes, before the mast.
"'Married? No, thank Gawd.
"'Could I read and write?' So I wrote down, 'Hain't I a-doing of it?
"'Character from the clergyman of my parish?' Parish, mind you.
Mine's the sea, so I writes down, 'Reverend Davy Jones don't give no
discharges.
"'Care and management of 'orses?' Well, I said, I'd 'ove some
overboard acrost the Western.
"Makes me strip bare, buff 'n buttocks.
"And take them oaths. Oaths from _me_! I axed 'im if I looked like
a traitor, or a Dago."
"A Dago, like me?"
Red gave me his grubby sticky hand in sudden sympathy, bidding me
cheer up. "'Cause even a Dago ain't so bad as niggars."
I mopped my eyes with a handkerchief and begged him not to comfort me
too much lest I shed unmanly tears. "Tell me," I went on, "about the
man you kicked."
"Ruptured, I 'ope. You see I went into the C.P.R. office and ast for
a job, and 'e said no English need apply. I'd best go, says 'e, to
the Society for the Relief of Destitute Englishmen. So I ast 'im wot
'e was and 'e says, 'Canadian, get-to-'ell-out-of-'ere.' Then I
'ummed _Gawd Save the Queen_ at 'im for maybe fifteen minutes to lure
'im out from behind that 'ere bulkhead.
"The girl with the parcels was buying a ticket to Troy, and 'im
showin' off of 'is manners and gold-filled teeth. Sort of, 'Yes,
madame, the twelve o'clock train leaves at noon to-morrow, and the
fare don't h'include no Pullman bunk nor meals nor an extra h'engine,
and in the event of Indians you won't be scalped, madame, 'cause
you're just too beautiful.' And she is, too.
"Meanwhile I just sang the national anthem at 'im, knowing it was
bound to work if I kep' on patient, 'e gettin' as red as a lobster
with 'is un'oly passions, until at last she says, 'Good-by,' an'
drops 'er parcels. Stands like an 'elpless angel, saying 'ow silly
she is.
"Yuss. There's me at 'er little feet a-pickin' up the pawcels 'and
over 'and, when h'out comes Mr. Clerk from 'is sheltered 'utch to say
I'm a thief--so I lets out a mule kick and 'e performs the high
trajectory--yuss, and busts his bloomin' hypotenuse right fair across
the seat. And I never said nothin' to nobody. Nar! Then just as
I'm opening the door for 'er ladyship to pawss out 'e comes along for
another, and gets some more of the same in 'is bleedin' gizzard. I
gives it to 'im abundant, enough to lawst, but the lidy says, ''Ow
could yer!' and wants to offer me money. Says I to meself, 'I 'ear
thee speak of a better land,' so not wanting to interfere with them
'ippopotamus police I comes 'ere for sanctimony.
"Oh, yuss. She was h'angels h'ever bright and fair by the nime o'
Vi'let Burrows. That's 'er tally. Tells the clerk she 'ails from
'Elena, Montana."
"What!"
"Vi'let Burrows, of 'Elena, Montana. 'Ere, what's up?"
But Violet Burrows, of Helena, Montana, was the lady I had swapped
for a sucking pig to the cook who traded her for a dog to the
sergeant-major who sold her for a pair of boots to the good Inspector
Sarde. Then I had written advising her to bring an action against
poor Sarde for breach of promise of marriage. According to Brat's
last letter, Inspector Sarde was at Fort Qu'Appelle twenty miles
north of Troy station, on the Canadian Pacific. And here was Violet
Burrows on her way to Troy. It would never do. She was much too
good for Sarde. She belonged to me.
I rushed at the corporal of the guard, and told him to parade me to
the officer commanding.
"Oh, go and die," said he, still at his cards, "my deal."
But I had him firmly by the ear. "Come quick," said I, "come on.
I've got to get transferred--tomorrow's train--a little widow--a
grandmother of mine, and bound for Troy. Oh, by my sainted aunt's
dear speckled socks, come on!"
III
A mile outside of Winnipeg station, just at the end of the sidings,
the west-bound train slowed down, then stopped to admit three
passengers who came in a government sleigh. These boarded the train
and marched through the cars in procession: an important dog
snuffling at the passengers on an official tour of inspection, a
red-haired sailor tramp, so badly wanted by the local police that he
had to be shipped outside their jurisdiction, and a black-avised
soldier who, to judge by contemporary portraits, looked rather like
the devil.
As we three entered the day-car the tramp shouted, "There she is!"
I told him it was rude to point, bade him stow my luggage and sit
down, and then approached the lady, throwing a salute.
"Widow Burrows?" I asked.
"_Miss_ Burrows," was the prim answer.
She was a pretty, tip-tilted blonde, of the best housemaid type, a
dead common young animal, yet quite attractive in a land where women
were still rare. In England I used to sample them by dozens, taking
an educational course in any favors that they had to offer. This one
had a pert fur cap, a coat of the same which fitted crushingly over a
most pretentious bustle. The skirt seemed hung the wrong way round.
From the size, shape and condition of the hands, gloves would have
been advisable. She giggled under inspection.
From Sarde's photographs, of course, she knew the uniform of the
mounted police and airily supposed me to be his messenger; so I told
her I was to be escort as far as Troy, then shed my hot furs and
asked if I might sit down.
For a mere messenger she thought that rather familiar, so I told her
not to bristle because it was not becoming. "Now, don't drop your
parcels, my dear." I pointed out Red Saunders in the corner.
"The kicker you hired yesterday is tamed and eats out of my hand.
But have you engaged assassins for to-day?" I searched under the
seats, and told her that I was timid about being kicked.
"Oh, say!" She was all of a flutter. That species usually got
excited when they expected kisses. It was well to keep them
expecting, for when they had nothing to hope for interest was apt to
flag.
"Now don't be formal, young woman. A smile, please. There, how
charming the sudden sunshine! And how is your late husband? The one
in Hel--in Helena?"
"Sir!"
"How stupid of me. Not introduced, eh? Miss Burrows, allow me to
present Mr. la Mancha who wrote to you once or twice, you may
remember, eh?"
"Oh!"
"Please do that 'Oh!' again. Lips perfectly enchanting, Mrs.
Burrows. I could arrange my kisses in that vase like roses."
Miss Burrows played at indignant heroine molested by a villain.
"I--I--I'm n-not Mrs. Burrows. I told you before."
"So? You've exorcised the ghost of the late husband? May his
divorced spirit fry, for all I care, Miss Burrows. Or perhaps you're
only a widow, at home in Helena."
"Now you go away, Mr. la Mancha, or I'll get right mad."
"Don't call me mister. Call me Blackguard."
"I got no use for you anyways."
"You advertised for me."
"I didn't! I never! You advertised!"
"Ah! And you sent me the photograph of an ugly aunt--a
scarecrow--instead of your lovely self. Why--why?"
"Say," she bridled, "if Mr. Sarde sent you to --wall--all I kin say
is--"
"Don't you mean _was_?"
"I'll tell Mr. Sarde--there!"
"Do you know that his father was hanged when his mother stole the
ducks?"
My arm stole round her waist.
"Oh, we'll be noticed! I'll scream! I swear I'll scream!"
"We'll both scream. Then we're sure to be noticed."
"You're just too horrid. It's not respectable."
"I hang in thy sunshine all spread out, like a kipper. Make me what
you will." My arm closed round her waist, and was hardly long enough.
"Now you want to let me go right now, or--"
"My dear, you've never enjoyed yourself so much in all your life."
"I shall call for help!"
"Do. If I'd only a tuning fork, I'd give you the note--the high Q."
"When the brakeman comes, or the conductor, I will, I swear I will!"
"Won't the newsboy do? Don't eat me, try a banana."
I bought one from the newsboy for fifteen cents, half peeled it and
held it to her lips.
"I won't touch it," she said, and bit. "I--"
"Bite, ruby lips, clutch hard, oh, pearls, and give your tongue a
rest, 'cause you can't talk with your mouth full, greedy. To think
that all your ancestors lived on nuts! Exit banana up center. And
now with its tender inside skin I wipe the powder gently off thy
nose."
"We'll be seen!" she pleaded.
"And envied. Don't I flirt nicely? Banana skin should be good to
swab off rouge, but I think this must be a preparation of pig fat and
brick dust, for it won't come off. I use cherry tooth paste, but
then, I'm a brunette. And now, my dear, if you'll turn your nose
half left, I don't mind kissing you."
"I dare you!"
"This way. Um. If I weren't so painfully shy, yes, you may tickle
me."
"I didn't."
"Then you should. Now, when you're finished huffing like the female
puff bird, you'll tickle me, or I'll dance you the length of the car."
"Will that do?"
"Nicely, thanks. Now left ear."
"There's the brakeman, he'll see us!"
The brakeman passed, followed by the conductor who examined tickets,
but Miss Violet with her nose in the air and my arm around her waist,
pretended total strangers.
I began to lose interest. The girl was mine for the asking. Any man
in the force could have won her easy favors. She only interested me
as Sarde's property. "And so," said I, "you're meeting him at
Qu'Appelle."
"Mind you own business."
"It is my business. Didn't I tell you to sue him for breach of
promise?"
"There isn't any breach. We're engaged, so there."
"So you've got to marry him, eh?" and I led her on to talk about
herself, the only topic she had for conversation.
Miss Burrows, was, I believe, not fortunate in the selection of her
parents, and had been adopted at the age of fourteen by an uncle,
Eliphalet P. Burrows, known as Loco, because he happened to be
cracked. He was caretaker at a bankrupt mine near Helena, absorbed
in a fool invention which used up all his wages, and glad to have
Miss Violet because she was cheap. A servant would expect to be paid.
To those who have eyes, ears and a heart, the wilderness gives a
better education than the schools, but the girl turned her back on
that, sprawling in the parlor with windows draped to shut out all
things beautiful. The place was full of shams and plush vulgarities,
and there she spent her leisure reading novels.
Now fiction honestly made by craftsmen may be true to human life, and
at its best a mirror reflecting the world. But an average novel
depicts a hero perfectly sweet, canned virtue, guaranteed bullet
proof; and a heroine who is potted chastity and warranted tender: two
figures void of human character, whose respectable passions are
thwarted for about three hundred pages, saleable at one dollar and
thirty-five cents. Then they marry, and live happily ever after.
Truth may be stranger than that--but I have doubts.
Miss Violet's novels depicted villains of spotless blackness, the
good flawlessly innocent but painfully underfed. Vice lived in
guilty splendor, wicked earls lunched in their coronets, lurid
adventuresses went hurtling to the bad, and nobody had the slightest
sense of humor. She fed on offal.
Old Burrows had a stepson, young Joe Chambers, a cow-hand earning
forty dollars a month, a decent fellow, tongue-tied and a lout, but
with the makings of a first-rate husband. He spent his money on
presents, his spare time in devotion, while Miss Violet, who had
nobody else to flirt with, made love to him out of books, had him for
dummy to keep herself in practise, and wrecked his life without the
least compunction.
She waited for the lover of her dreams, the hero of fiction, and in
this condition replied to my mock advertisement in the Matrimonial
Ashbin. Some shreds or casual patches of modesty impelled her to
send the portrait of a repulsive aunt, and to fit herself out in
bogus widowhood.
Decent women avoid that sort of correspondence, and our boys of C
Troop felt that the girls who made love by post were fair game for
any sort of lark. For the sheer repulsiveness of the photograph she
sent, this correspondence was a standing joke in the troop until
Inspector Sarde was fool enough to take her seriously. She sent him
a photograph of herself and dropped the pose of widow. I sent her
ample warning.
Had she shown my letter to her lover, Joe would have ridden across
and shot me. Had she shown it to Uncle Loco, he would have prated
and been tiresome. Even her conscience told her she had laid herself
open to insult and as a matter of common sense, had better take no
risk of something worse. But her vanity had been wounded and in a
silly rage, she must needs get even. She would take my advice and
lead Sarde on into a promise of marriage, then if he broke his pledge
threaten an action at law.
So came Sarde's photograph in uniform, and with quite regular
features and a viking mustache he seemed her ideal lover, her hero of
fiction. He wrote too as lonely men are apt to do. After all, he
held Her Majesty's Commission in a distinguished corps, had official
rank as a gentleman, was ex-officio justice of the peace, could give
her a social position, offered marriage, and was now in earnest. The
poor fool thought herself in love.
Sarde was not very clever. An Ontario farm, a military college, and
some forlorn outposts on the frontier had not completed him in
worldly wisdom. With a lieutenant's pay, to marry on the strength of
a pretty photograph gave him distinction in a world of fools. By
running into debt, he managed to send an engagement ring, and
afterward that sealskin cap and coat, cut as the fashion was, to fit
over a bustle. All that I knew, from my chum Buckie who sent me a
letter of gossip from Fort French. Later, Sarde sent the girl a
hundred dollars, a month's pay, and got himself transferred to Fort
Qu'Appelle within reach of civilization.
For her part Miss Violet developed lumbago in the left leg, so that
Loco had to engage a Chinese servant. Released from housework, she
decided that her mission in life was to help Loco with his invention,
for which she must prepare by spending a year at college. Thus Loco
was induced to borrow sixty dollars for her fare down East--"spoiling
the Egyptians" she called that, and Joe raised forty dollars. "All's
fair in love," said she.
Heart-broken, she left old Loco to his fate, boarding the train at
Helena in floods of tears. "I cried my eyes out." By the time she
reached Fargo, she cheered up. "Can't be helped," said she, and took
the train for Winnipeg. There, feeling much better, she bought a
ticket for Troy. A stage sleigh thence would take her to Fort
Qu'Appelle, and she wired Sarde the date of her arrival. By the time
I met her outside Winnipeg on board the west-bound train, she had
recovered from her late bereavement. "It's all in a lifetime," said
she.
"It's love at long range," said I. "The adoring swine sends you a
first-class ticket for Cupid's express, saying, 'Come to my arms,
regardless of expense.' But, my dear, why Sarde?"
"And why not?"
"There's me."
"You? You're only an enlisted man, but my Cyril is an officer."
"Comfort me," I squeezed her, "or I'll scream."
My attention wandered to Rich Mixed, to Saunders who grinned and
winked, to the few passengers and the passing landscape. But Miss
Burrows, to bring me back to the main thing, herself, produced a
grubby hand while she talked palmistry, bidding me read her fortune.
I told her, between yawns that the paws of little cats are much
alike, useful for mousing.
"But I'm a lady."
"Ladies and cats are pretty much the same. Both wash themselves all
over every day."
It was not in that sense Miss Burrows had claimed to be a lady, and
with an angry flush she set to work to put me in my place.
"Oh, say," she asked incisively, "ain't English common soldiers with
red coats called Tommies?"
"Toms," I corrected, "not Tommies. Toms. A she puss, who uses cheap
scent instead of licking her fur, is apt to get scratched by Toms."
"How dare you say I'm no lady?"
"You're not, my dear. You're nice and common, frightfully
attractive, pretty enough to turn the head of any Tom. Why, pussie,
dear, if you lived in England, any of our chaps would walk out with
you in the park. They'd charge half-a-crown--but, by jove, I'd do it
for a bob."
"Holy snakes! Me to pay you for--wall, I guess that's all you
red-coats are fit for anyway. We thrashed the stuffing out of you!"
"We're better without the stuffing. Oh, much better. I never pad.
Do you?"
"We chased you out of Amurrica."
"We liked it. We like being noticed. What breaks our hearts is
being ignored by a proud people."
"How about Bunker Hill?"
"Ah, yes. How true. But if he'd been a good Amurrican you'd call
him Bunker G. Hill, or Bunker Zee Hill, eh?"
"It was a battle, and you ran like rabbits."
"Eh? Did we smell some beer? At the slightest whiff of beer we
outleap the longest rabbit. Makes me thirsty to think of. Wish I'd
been there. Pussie, where is Bunker V. Hill? There may be some beer
left."
"Boston, of course."
"Boston. We've got a little town named after it. And where's
Boston?"
"You ain't so ignorant as that. Wall, I reckon it's the capital of
New England."
"Oh, we've got a place named after New England, too. Let's see--oh,
yes, isn't it run, like ours, by the Irish?"
"You make me sick."
"How charmingly frank you are."
"And you," she sniveled, "just"--_sniff_--"treating me"--_sniff_--"as
if I wasn't a lady."
"That," said I gravely, "I shall never be."
"So I'm no account," said Miss Burrows with asperity. "I think
you've got just the homeliest face, and the most or'nary manners I
ever seen. You're no gentleman."
"Alas, no! I was found in an ashbin with dead cats. My manners were
a disgrace to my native slum. My face is my misfortune. Pity me."
"You're a brute!" she sobbed.
"Cry, but take care, my dear, not to sniff. There, you spoil it all
by sniffing."
"Beast!"
"Beauty! And so we're Beauty and the Beast. She loved him."
At that she cheered up, and scratched.
"The beast," said she, "was a prince in disguise, but you're a--"
"No, my dear. He wasn't a mere prince. He traveled in white goods,
a real gent, a swell."
"You're laughing at me."
"All the time," said I.
"Oh!"
"Because you're angry, my dear, for once in your life you're behaving
simply and naturally--first lesson in being a lady. You'll get on."
"Oh, that's what you think."
"American girls are the cleverest in the world at the great business."
"Wall now, what's that? I'd love to hear."
"Getting on. The principal word in the great American language is
the verb to get. I get, you get out, he gets there. We are getting
on, you are getting way up, they are busted. Do you use hair oil?"
"No, of course not."
"Then you may lay your golden head upon my--hold on. I'll spread my
handkerchief--so. Now, cuddle up for a sleep."
She had supper with me at the dining station, and afterward while I
smoked, ate candy until she could hold no more, and played with Rich
Mixed until both were tired.
"Sleep is good," I told her, "so two sleeps are better than one. I
told the brakeman to wake us up at Troy. Sweet dreams."
Sometime in the dead middle of the night, Inspector Sarde boarded the
train at Troy, and came swaggering through the cars in search of a
girl with an aureole of bright hair, a dainty tip-tilted nose and
pouting lips, wearing the furs he had sent her, awaiting his first
kiss, demure, shy, innocent.
He found his promised wife clasped in my arms, her head upon my
shoulder and both of us fast asleep. He never really loved me,
anyway.
Being a Canadian he had the national qualities of strength and
self-control, and yet was capable of a blind white fury in which his
eyes would blaze from a livid deathly face. Because he did not lift
his voice or use unnecessary words I found him quite impressive. On
this occasion a stroke from his whip aroused me so that I started
broad awake staring up at an officer of the corps. I threw off the
girl, stood to attention with wooden gravity and saluted.
As to Miss Burrows, with one blink she sprang into his arms and said,
"Oh, Cyril!" which made him rather comic in his high authority. He
licked his dry lips before he could even speak.
"Constable," said he, very cold and rigid, like some cold monumental
lamp-post entwined by a siren or a mermaid, "what are you doing here?"
"Transferred, sir, Winnipeg to Regina."
"Get off the train," his words were stinging, his tone had malice.
"I'll wire the commissioner that I detained you on my detachment, and
in the morning you report at my office for duty."
"I understand, sir," for he had me at his mercy. I saluted and
turned to obey.
Then Sarde faced the woman who had betrayed him.
"Come," he said icily, and turned on his heel.
"Oh, Cyril!"
"Come," he repeated, over his shoulder, "unless you prefer to go on
with the train; you can go to hell for all I care."
"Oh, Cyril, let me explain!"
"Are you coming or not?"
So he left the train, with the woman trailing after him, making a
scene. I followed.
IV
Far back in the long ago time an Indian woman lay in her teepee dying
and with her last breath called her lover's name. And many miles
away her lover heard. He pulled up his dog-train and stood beside
the cariole, and listening to the silence, cried, "Who calls?"
The French Canadian voyagers would tell that story of the Indian who
heard a spirit voice, and answering cried, "Qu' Appelle?" From that
cry was the valley named, and the old Hudson's Bay Fort is still
called Qu'Appelle.
On the hillside overlooking the fort stood our log shanties of the
police detachment, but Inspector Sarde, the officer commanding, and
his new wife had quarters at the hotel.
I was posted to Sarde's detachment and as all soldiers know, when an
officer commanding is down upon any trooper he can easily drive the
man to mutiny, desertion or suicide within the first few weeks.
Sarde did his very best to that intent, hazed me, nagged at me,
goaded me, set traps to catch me in some lapse of temper, told me off
to impossible duties and used false charges to give me ruthless
punishment. My pay was collected in fines, the other fellows had
their leave stopped on my account that they might be turned against
me, and once I passed a night in the cells with a hundred degrees of
frost. Of course I deserved all I got, and made no moan because I
had so richly earned Sarde's hatred. He put me on my mettle, forced
me to excel in every duty, made me the best man in his command, set
me to keep the other chaps in good spirits and make him a good
example in the way of manners.
Of course, our men told nothing to civilians about affairs within our
family; but passers-by on the road who saw me undergoing punishment,
began to spread the scandal until nobody in the place would speak to
Sarde or call upon his wife.
Buckie, the dear chap who first had introduced me to the outfit, was
recently transferred to this division, and posted to Fort Qu'Appelle.
He was my friend in very bitter need, feeding me coffee when I was
like to freeze on pack drill, rousing the other fellows until they
would perjure themselves to the eyes in my defense, getting me help
with my extra work, turning the crowd against Sarde. And then he
used to comfort me in private.
One Sunday afternoon Sarde was away to Troy, and Buckie helped me at
the stable where I had to set the ring for a stove-pipe in the roof
of an A tent. For some time we were busy while we measured and cut
the canvas. Then, sitting on up-ended buckets in the warm dusk, we
began the stitching. After a morning talk with Sarde I felt so ill
that I asked Buckie if the man intended to kill me.
"Sarde," answered Buckie, "says he'll tone you down or kill you, one
or the other. You need it a whole lot. Why? Because you'd got to
think you were Adam before the creation of Eve. The world is not
inhabited entirely by one Blackguard. Suppose you think about
somebody else for a change."
That was straight from the shoulder anyway. Since first I had seen
him a rookie of the rookiest, he had become tremendously grown-up
into the very stock pattern of buck policeman.
"The C Troop crowd," he went on, "think you're the sort of bounder
who needs to live in lime-light on salvos of applause."
Buckie's respectable soul was in full revolt at my enormities. I
tried not to flinch.
"I ain't much on soldiering"--he was so nice in the vernacular!--"but
I been taking stock of the men who count, who do things and get the
outfit a good name."
I thought of Buckie's first advent on the charging steed, and how I
halted his trooper, so that the cavalier sped at me through the air,
gun still in hand and resolute for duty.
"The real men," said he, "keep their mouths tight except when they've
something to say. That gives 'em time to think; you don't get any.
They obey orders, and there's nothing else in life until they've done
their job. So they've no time to show off; you have. You'd make a
showman, or a clown in a circus, whereas this outfit is something
serious."
I reminded Buckie of being really serious once when Rain stole his
clothes and he paraded around in my painted cow-skin robe tracking a
malefactor.
"Now, Sarde," he went on, "was only a corporal when he took a
prisoner out of Big Bear's camp in face of two thousand guns. He's a
man, and he'll be superintendent before he's through. You'll never
get your stripes. Why, Blackguard, Sarde wouldn't be a man at all if
he allowed you to monkey with his wife."
I told Buckie to pet me, or I'd cry. He said he couldn't because he
was using his foot to hold the canvas down.
Then, stitching away with sail-needle and palm thimble, he looked up
at me with just the expression of some prim old maid. "Did you ever
hear tell," he asked, "of old Fort Carlton?"
Rather! Fort Carlton stood on the bank of the ice-clad North
Saskatchewan, a cluster of framed log houses inside a stockade with
bastions on the two rear corners. How well I remembered the picture!
It was a trading post, strong against bows and arrows, but from the
high edge of the plains even a trade musket had range enough to pick
men off in the square. All that, I had read as a boy in fine
adventure books, longing to ride with the French half-breeds and the
Cree Indians running buffaloes up there on the plains above the fort.
I wanted to taste the pemmican made by their squaws of bison beef and
berries, to sail with the gay brigades which carried that food to
other Hudson's Bay posts all down the great Mackenzie. But now the
bison herds were swept away, they and the hunters and the brave
voyagers.
"We're going there," said Buckie.
"What, to Fort Carlton?"
"You bet. That's why Sarde ordered a stove-pipe hole for this tent.
It's to cover a sleigh for his wife. The sleigh will be rigged as a
shack with a stove, kitchen, bed, everything."
Now I began to understand why men were being drafted in to Fort
Qu'Appelle, the tons of harness and gear we had been overhauling,
Sarde's visit to Troy and lots of other happenings.
Buckie began to gossip.
"Down at the Hudson's Bay store yesterday a Scotch half-breed from
the North was talking of Louis Riel, the man, you know, who got up
the Red River Rebellion way back in '71. He is up there now, among
the old buffalo runners and voyagers, who used to hunt and man the
brigades for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Carlton. He is
spreading treason among the breeds and the Crees. God has sent him,
he says, to raise war against the police, the white men and the pope,
to found a republic of hunters and voyagers, to be the father of all
the prairie men. They are to burn Fort Carlton, to kill all the
mounted police, to drive the whites from the plains--for then the
buffaloes will come back, and their lodges will be red with meat as
in the good old times."
"So there'll be war?" I asked and my heart was jumping with
excitement.
"When the grass comes." Buckie threaded his needle neatly as a
housewife. "War," said he. "That's why we're going to Carlton, and
Sarde won't have much time to spare for hazing you, eh, Blackguard?"
Buckie proved right in all that he had told me. Within the week we
marched, some sixteen men, mostly green recruits, each driving a
one-horse sled known as a jumper, laden with forage, bedding, kit,
camp gear, grub and even fire-wood. As on a sea voyage, there was
nothing to be had by the wayside, so our jumpers were laden like so
many little ships, as our flotilla drove on the great snows. The
mercury was frozen, and at the Salt Plains, it was sixty degrees
below zero, rough travel for Mrs. Sarde in her sleigh-tent, not
comfortable for us. One of our fellows, Crook, had his brain
chilled, and in high delirium drove off to chase a star until a
little chap called Sheppey rounded him up and herded him to camp. We
had to leave Crook at the Salt Plain station, and Doc, with his face
frozen off, stayed with him by way of nurse.
Sarde was quite friendly to me on that trail, and for once I liked
him because he played the man, taking his share with us, not with his
wife. And I was happy trotting beside my jumper, pulling my horse
out of snowdrifts, busiest man in the crowd when we set up the tents
and cooked, rolled down our beds and slept, broke up our camp and
marched.
I even made Buckie own up I was not a bounder.
Indeed, that five days' journey had been quite perfect if only one
might have left the baggage behind, and gone without a cold
uncomfortable body, a sled and a weary horse. The spirit needs no
baggage to enter that great White Silence of the snow-field or to
visit the night splendors of the star drift.
On our last march of sixty miles we drove through the log village of
Batoche where Louis Riel was hatching his new rebellion, and some of
his hunters lounged sullen in their doorways. There we crossed the
South Saskatchewan and all day long were driving through the land
between the two branches of that river, so very soon to become the
seat of war. It was dusk when we came to the edge of the plains,
looking down on the valley of the North Saskatchewan. It was
starlight when we reached the foot of the hill, and swung round the
stockade to enter the river gate of old Fort Carlton.