THE SACRIFICE
I
Observe, ere we come to the Throne Mine, these various points of view:
Mr. Otto Rams. His point of view revealed to him a stony broke
inventor by the name of Burrows, to be smoothly cheated out of
certain patents for extracting gold from rock. This was a perfectly
legitimate business proposition.
Doctor Eliphalet P. Burrows, alias Loco. His point of view was this:
that after thirty years of despairing effort he had discovered,
hooked, played and landed an important mining engineer representing
capital, in whose rays he was now prepared to lie on his back with
all four paws up and pant.
Miss Violet Burrows, alias Sarde, widlet. Her point of view was:
"Once a lady, always cautious." Miss Violet loved herself, which is
the true economy of the heart. She had the sense to chuck Joe
Chambers, cowboy (four hundred eighty dollars a year and board), in
favor of Inspector Sarde (twelve hundred dollars a year, all found,
and a social position). Since the one died and the other cheated,
she had a ridiculous tenderness toward a common policeman (two
hundred thirty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents a year at current
rating, less fines, plus board, waster, no social position). Even
had she known about my marquisate, that, after all, was only a
foreign title, old, worn out--a mere nothing compared with the
brand-new knighthood of Sir Augustus Rams of Clapham Junction, for
which no less than fifty thousand dollars had just been paid, cash
down. After all, business is business, and money talks.
It is true that Joe, Sarde, Rams & Company were sporadic as flies to
a spider, whereas I was chronic. It is true that the American, the
Canadian and the Englishman were insipid compared with the Spaniard.
They alighted with a bang, whereas I only hovered, then fluttered off
to take my toll elsewhere. In my broad track, I left the women
bewildered and rather cross, because I did not get them into all the
trouble they wanted. So while Miss Violet's business principles
would always devote her to Rams in business hours, her relaxation was
to dream of me. She meant to marry Rams, but feared and hoped I
would run away with her. When we arrived, she was effusive to Rams,
and cut me. She tumbled all over Rams and bored him. What he wanted
was supper, and that right early. He said so, and Uncle Loco bundled
her into the kitchen. So when I had stabled Black Prince and Gentle
Annie, I found Miss Violet, and kissed her all over for a matter of
twenty minutes, while the coffee boiled over, the bacon went to
cinders and the beans burned--just good enough for Rams.
Loco was entertaining quality in the parlor, and somehow reminded his
weary guest of a Clapham gent, Old Cheese, who always treacled his
trousers to keep off mice.
"As an original inventor," said Loco, with an elevated manner and a
nasal intonation, tapping his celluloid dicky, "I share the glorious
fate of Galileo, Faraday, and John Keeley of Philadelphia: contempt,
disparagement, starvation--ah, here comes supper--while we live, and
after a death from want--Let me help you to beans, Mr. Rams--the
commemorative statue--and some bacon, Mr. Rams--the applause of
nations! Ah, I see you've laid two places, Violet. But I have
supped. Humbly but sufficiently I have supped. Take these away.
Remove these, my dear."
With a clatter of Mexican spurs on the floor, I rolled in from the
kitchen for my supper.
"Ah, Constable," said Loco, "I had--at least, I guess my niece
reserved some supper for you in the kitchen."
"I only looked in, Burrows," said I, "to tell Rams here to water and
feed the horses. I'm spending the night with friends."
"Ah, at the 'Tough Nut,'" Loco beamed with relief. "Most welcome
there, I'm sure."
His bald head, as he sat there, was quite irresistible, so I applied
a spoonful of mustard and a sprinkling of pepper to the shiny
surface. Then, leaving the three freaks to their entertainment, I
went out to the stable.
In a sudden passion of blind rage, Miss Violet was calling her uncle
a damned fool.
So having gone into temptation and not been tempted--which really was
disappointing--I found I was not engaged to marry Miss Burrows. That
was all right. I watered and fed Black Prince and Gentle Annie.
Then gathering both blankets, my cloak and hardtack for my supper, I
turned my back on Freak House, and put out for solitude. Rams and
Miss Violet searched for me long and loud, but I wanted to be alone.
Only a few paces beyond the cabins, I came to an edge of space.
Thousands of feet beneath lay an abyss of clouds. Near by on the
left the Throne Glacier made its broken leap, a cataract of ice,
while on my right the clouded gorge of Horsethief Creek, with murmur
of distant waters, curved away toward the Columbia Valley. There I
could see the faint lights of our camp, and as I watched, a thread of
music, delicate as some blown thread of cobweb, bade me "Come home!
Come home!"
It was last post.
It seemed so far away, that life, that service, up here among the
snowdrifts and the rocks of frosty silver, which cut the swinging and
eternal star-field. Here was a sanctuary for driven souls, where no
pursuing evil dared to come near me. This glacier was surely the
throne of our Eternal Father attended by mists of spirits, hosts of
stars and presence invisible who, with a sighing, wind-like breath,
prayed for His coming to judge, to save, to pardon.
I ate my hardtack with a curious sense that this bread was
sacramental, lay wrapped in my cloak, awake in perfect rest, and at
the dawn knelt watching for the sun, until the Rocky Mountains were
molten at the edges with his blinding splendor.
II
Before the freaks were astir, I mounted Black Prince, told Gentle
Annie to come along or starve, and set out riding in company with
health, the god who lives outdoors. No wholesome lad of
two-and-twenty, well armed and mounted, in the glamour of the
daybreak, is ever so unhappy as he claims; but still the boys at the
"Tough Nut" hailing me for breakfast, relieved a gnawing anxiety
below my belts. A bird in the hand is better than a bull flying.
And after breakfast, they would not let me go, which pleased me. I
had a day to spare. I learned also that frontiersmen of many tribes
and trades are all one brotherhood--of fools.
"Of course," as Long Shorty told me after breakfast, "poor Loco
doesn't count. He doesn't belong to our ancient Order of Fools, who
follow the tracks of wandering St. Paul. Bobbie, it's your wash-up,
so get a move on. Bobbie and I take turns at muddling things."
The prospector coiled his legs on the door-step, and lighted his
corn-cob pipe. "We look down," said he, "on those old Spanish miners
with their dinky ladders, buckets instead of pumps, and mule
Arastras. That's the way Loco jeers at our fissure veins.
"He has a pair of rotary fans, which get up a cyclone between them,
and the dust in that cyclone will tear a steel crowbar to pieces,
yes, to dust of steel. Rock shatters to dust before it has time to
drop through.
"Put money in that idea, and get at a range of mountains like the
Sierra Nevada, which runs a dollar a ton in gold. It costs us two
dollars to mine and mill, but Loco can do it for ninety cents. He
can transmute the Sierra Nevada into gold--and we prospectors are
down and out along with the buffaloes and the Indians. We're out of
date, says Loco."
"Then he's a genius?"
"He's a fool. His fans get cut to powder. When I worked for him
last winter, I offered--for a half interest--to make him fans which
wouldn't get cut to pieces. I would have cased the fans in bott,
which means black Diamonds, and made the fool a multi-billionaire.
Instead of that, he sacked me. Pity, that. I'd have been half-owner
of a corner in gold."
"What would you do?"
"Buy mother an orchard down home in Nova Scotia. Open up the plains
for a nation--you see, I'm Canadian. Buy a fleet, and station it on
the coast of China to meet the Yellow Peril--you see, I'm British,
too. I'd buy me a horse like that Black Prince of yours, and"--he
glanced ruefully at his long boots, which were dropping to
pieces--"yes, and a new pair of boots--that is, if the cash held out."
We looked on trailing mist wreaths, combed by the torch-like pines at
timber line. "The weather's going to change," said Long Shorty, then
scrambled to his feet, for a man of six-foot five must have room when
he wants to yawn. "Come," said he, "help me to point some drills."
That man made me thoughtful.
No climb is too high for an ass with a load of gold--Rams, for
example. And here he was at the top, ready to my hand, so tame I
could stroke his long seductive ears.
Now an ass-load of gold was merely wasted on Loco, and yet it might
be useful to Long Shorty and Bobbie Broach. They had gone to work in
their tunnel, and left me at the forge to sharpen drills. Close by
among the spired pines was their log cabin, with its mud chimney,
while an extension of the roof made a porch in front. Beyond that, a
cutting in the hillside gave entry to the tunnel, whose waste rock
made a terrace heaped with silvery ore a-glitter in the sunshine.
The place was all so beautiful, so dignified, so aching poor. These
men were in rags, and living on half rations, yet made a stranger
welcome to all they had. Poor Bobbie Broach had been born in a
muddle and stayed there, a woman had muddled Shorty's life for him,
but both of them lived straight in a confusing world. I wanted to be
their friend.
Rams, of his own accord, came out for a walk, expecting as rich men
will to patronize the poor, and put them through their paces. He
thought I had gone back to camp, did not expect to see me.
"Come here," said I. "Let's see your mouth."
"My good fellow--er--why?"
"Teeth still all right, eh? Or did Loco steal them?"
He grinned, and murmured that he knew his business.
I said I knew more about mining than a Friburg expert.
He told me huffily that he had graduated at Friburg, the greatest
mining school.
I pointed to the tunnel. "Isn't that the best mining school?"
He scoffed at ignorant prospectors, then sat down on a log in the
forge, with me beside him. "They'll ask you to dinner presently,"
said I. "Don't be unkind to them. Pretend to be genial--but make
them keep their distance. Mention your rich relations. Trot out the
dear Duchess of Clapham Junction. They'll be frightfully impressed.
At dinner, tell them how much better food you've been used to, and
ask them how much there's to pay. We of the lower classes love being
patronized. So good for us."
"You think I'm such an infernal cad?"
"Why, Rams, you've been wondering if you ought to tip me."
He flushed at that.
A chipmunk, proud of his gaily striped fur coat, was showing off on
the anvil. "Cheep?" said he disdainfully.
"Cheep," said I, to pass the time of day.
"Cheep!" Polite, but hurried, he found just time to curl his dainty
tail up his furry back to please me.
"Cheep! Cheep!" said I, and he scampered up my boot-leg expecting
lunch.
"How's the nut business, eh? Cheep?"
"Oh, if that's all!" He scampered back to the anvil, then turned and
swore at me.
The distant clang of a hammer now noticeably ceased, and Broach, a
muddy little man with a putty face, came out from the tunnel, crossed
to the shack and went in. Presently there was dinner smoke at the
chimney, while from the tunnel came fainter sounds of tapping, then
thumping, then silence, and Shorty came running out. A volley of
stones came flying after him, the hillside quivered, and smoke poured
from the tunnel.
Rams had picked up a thick, short yellow stick like barley sugar with
the feel of wax.
"Give that to me," said I in a sharp whisper.
But he was sulky.
"Put that down," said I, "it's dynamite!"
I grabbed too late. Rams had thrown the stick at my chipmunk, and it
whirled, spinning over and over until it struck the anvil.
A red flower seemed to bud there, which grew to a giant blossom,
filling the world.
A pain in my right thigh pulled me awake, to find myself on a bunk
inside the shack. Shorty was cooking by stove-light, while wisps of
red smoke toiled round his lanky frame, and rain thrashed the roof.
The wind leaped at the cabin, roaring like a beast.
"Rams killed?" I ask.
"We set a broken arm," he said, "and packed him to the Throne. How
do you feel?"
"Dunno. Surprised, I think. Where's Broach?"
"Taken your horses down to your camp. He'll bring up grub, and a
doctor. Here's some coffee."
I found that my thigh was snapped, a simple fracture which my friends
had set and splinted without disturbing me. My skull was bruised,
too, and I did not feel really well when Shorty lifted me up to give
me coffee.
Then he sat on the edge of the bunk with his own tin cup. "I guess,"
he said, "that tenderfoot was careless."
"Threw dynamite at a chipmunk."
"There's a hole," said Shorty, "where we had our forge."
"How much will that cost Rams?"
"Don't know yet. It's our first capitalist, so it's lucky it wasn't
put out of business, eh? That arm should tie it down six weeks,
while we sell it wild-cats. We've got a dandy bunch of wild-cat
claims, and they might cost a Friburg expert--"
"He's that."
"Say fifty thousand dollars. Thanks, old man. We're grateful."
III
My blood came by inheritance, my vices by contagion. My blood was
wholesome, healing me rapidly from the start, and as to contagion of
vice, or any kind of foulness, there really was no room in that
little shack. I do believe most heartily that unhappy people infect
their homes with selfishness, nagging, peevishness, rancor,
melancholia, murder, which like the microbes of disease, are living
evils, the devils which our Lord Christ found such sport in hunting.
But where Shorty and Broach kept house there was only room for
fairies, and they swarmed. I know, because fairies are so exactly
like children in the way they love noise and mess. Think how
delighted they are in hiding things which humans leave lying about!
These prospectors, for instance, had mislaid everything they had not
really lost.
But if fairies are merely untidy, squirrels are dissolute. A pair of
them lived in the roof, who kept a squirrel maid to help them scatter
flour, nuts and cinders. She had lost an eye, and never threw
anything straight.
Besides these people, I had visitors, beginning with Sergeant
Gathercole, an ex-vet, a nice chap, and a temperate man when sober.
He had a charming habit, I remember, during meal times of combing out
his tawny mustache with his fork. Gathercole came with a pack-horse
load of government grub, a proper splint and bandages which made me
comfortable, and any amount of advice, messages, even presents from
fellows I disliked. The troop, he told me, was leaving for Wild
Horse Creek, but Black Prince was to stay with our Windermere
detachment, and I could send down for him when I was fit for duty.
For the first fortnight, I had only occasional news of the three
freaks up at the Throne. They lived in the clouds, believing that
they held the mighty secret by which whole mountain ranges could be
milled for gold. They dreamed of wealth beyond imagination, and
carried themselves like demigods--at first.
Then at our shack there arrived, with pomp and circumstances, Doctor
Eliphalet Burrows impressively arrayed in a silk hat, frock suit and
nice brown shoes. Some one had told him long ago that his voice was
resonant, so he did cultivate the same, producing it like a bull frog
from his thin hind legs. According to his niece, Mrs. Sarde, he had
a most charming smile, and this, too, he used at random. Indeed, he
was so mellow and rotund, so large and resonant, that one might
safely compare him with a drum--played by Mistress Violet.
He contrasted my trivial injuries with the grave condition of his
esteemed friend Rams, who had sustained an oblique fracture of the
humerus, whereas I had only a mere broken thigh-bone. The rich man's
finer nature, so delicately strung, made him most exquisitely
susceptible to pain.
Next, Loco proceeded to find himself in a most
embarrassing--ahem--situation, being suah that, notwithstanding the
expressed wish of his deah niece, I would not permit him to discuss
that unfortunate contretemps which had attended my visit to his
humble--ahem--abode.
I told him that mustard made the hair grow.
Charmed as he had been to receive as his honored guest the
distinguished English mining engineer, his deah friend Rams, a six
weeks' visit was more than he deserved. The fact was that, to be
perfectly frank, provisions were running--ahem--and he regarded with
concern an impending inconvenience to his illustrious guest. Now he
was given to understand that the authorities had placed at my
disposal a pack-horse load of--ahem--ahem-- To be precise, did I
think that, under the peculiar--ahem--which had arisen through my
misunderstanding the--er--nature and uses of dynamite, I should
be--ahem--disposed, et cetera?
I told him I'd see him damned first, and he said he would pray for me
on his way home.
It is the nature of women to disdain those who love them, and to love
those who abhor them. I loved all women, so Mistress Violet, knowing
she owned me anyway, could not be bothered to call until I had been
about a month in bed. The good hope of catching Rams was better than
the poor possession of her Blackguard, so when she came at last it
was on business, without the least pretense to sentiment. I had
pretty well cured her of trying that on me.
"I just _got_," she explained, "to marry Rams, and that's all there
is about it. I've come to sit with you all the time now to make him
jealous."
"I understand," said I, "the watched pot never boils."
"I got him bubbling once or twice," she giggled.
At an elevation of eight thousand feet, water will boil without being
hot enough to cook an egg. So on this mountain top, Rams' bubbling
point was a long way short of a grand passion. "Worms ain't more
slippery," said Mistress Violet. "After all we done, too."
Loco's festal apparel and brown shoes, her own frocks--of the kind
which shriek to heaven, and a heap of household linen, had all been
bought on credit to astonish Rams. "As to provisions--my! Sass!
Jells! Egg-powders! Apple-butter! Tomay-toes! Pait-defore-grass!
We ran our face for the lot."
"But when Rams actually came," said I, "he got burnt beans, and
sow-belly done to cinders."
"Whose fault was that?" she bridled. "Besides, he put off coming,
until he arrived with a bang, and we weren't even dressed. We'd been
wearing store clothes for a month--and there was me caught with my
bangs in curling-irons."
"Still, Rams is in clover now."
"That's all you know. We got a house full of fancy groceries, but no
grub. And would you believe it--when I sent Loco down for beans,
flour and bacon, the trader at Windermere wanted him to pay cash!"
"The wretch!"
"And now," she culminated, "it's up to you to lend me fifty dollars."
I saw no fun for me in feeding beans to Rams. Besides, my two
hundred nice little dollars felt so snug in my hind pocket. They
stayed there, too.
I was a very acrobat on my crutches, before the quality at Freak
House bestowed another visit. This time, my caller was Rams, in a
state of panic.
"I may have dallied," so began his plaint, "but not philandered.
Believe me, I never. Once, of course, I chucked her under the chin,
and when she said that pimples on the neck could be kissed away--of
course! But it never went so far as a hint, much less a suggestion."
"Then, why this fuss?"
It appeared that Loco, who had tact enough to stampede a locomotive,
wanted to know the intentions of his deah young friend with regard to
his--ahem--niece.
The American heavy father, especially when he happens to be the heavy
uncle, can be frightfully impressive on that subject. Rams, too, had
been reading Wild West in his leisure moments, and, as everybody
knows, the denizens of that region invariably shoot. In Rams'
dilated vision, Loco Burrows was a westerner, a frontiersman, with
symptoms of desperado and a gun.
"Asked me," the Englishman groaned, "if my intentions were honorable.
As if I had intentions! Why, my dear fellow, strictly on the q.t.,
she's lower middle class!"
"You don't say so?"
"Fact. My father, Sir Augustus, you know, will cut me off with a
bob. Still, I didn't want to be shot."
"So you're engaged? A thousand felicitations!"
Rams fled.
But then he came back next day in a dreadful state of mind, bearing
an old number of the _Macleod Gazette_, with mention in it of
Inspector Sarde. "We have much pleasure in announcing that the
popular inspector is coming back to our district. Are we to be
introduced to the beautiful Mrs. Sarde we heard so much of?"
On being confronted with this damning text, the lady had explained
with tears that she was not exactly a widow, because her late husband
was living, and had never married her.
Whereat Rams flew in a passion, broke his collar stud, and with one
end of his collar pointing out the sun, "said a few words." I fancy
he used language.
"What an escape!" he said. "Suppose I'd married her! Why, oh, why,
should these awful people be trying to hound me into a marriage?
There's something fishy. I smell a rat. I'm not such a fool as I
look--not by a long chalk. If this invention is all right, why
should they--? I'm off."
Suspicious of anything fishy which smelt of rats, he went muttering
homeward. "Have another go at Loco's
estimates--tampered--suppose--damned--m'n-m-m--"
The clouds were trailing along the hill, and a fine rain washed the
autumn foliage into a riot of orange, flame, lemon and soft amber,
melting into fog against green gloom of timber, and its deep blue
glades. I was alone since early yesterday, for Broach had taken his
toothache down to the Windermere blacksmith, and Long Shorty had gone
with him for a load of stores. I redded the cabin tidy, baked a
batch of bread, made dinner and my siesta, then sewed a pink seat to
Shorty's blue overalls, while the rain changed to sleet, the sleet to
snow, and a young storm woke to howls as the dusk deepened into a
horrid night. Then the prospectors came home with my horse and an
official letter. I had orders to attach all property of Eliphalet
Pardoe Burrows for debt, and to arrest him on a charge of issuing
fraudulent checks. But morning would be the proper time for that,
and meanwhile there was supper to cook for weary men.
And all this time there was an argument proceeding at the Throne.
With an unlimited capacity for fooling himself, and none for fooling
others, the inventor had made false estimates of his great invention,
and Rams, with the quivering nostrils of suspicion, at last had found
him out. Here were round numbers rather than square facts, and
pretty little improvements of dull assays, a few naughts cocked on to
tiresome statistics, and quite a dainty cookery of accounts. So Rams
was shocked to the soul at finding bigger rascals than himself,
denouncing Loco for swindling, forgery and fraud, accusing Mistress
Violet of attempted bigamy and blackmail. Both said exactly what
they thought of Rams, but Mistress Violet began first, said most,
continued longest and had the best of it. From noon to midnight, she
made a general confession of the young man's imperfections, and the
depravity of Englishmen, denounced her Uncle Loco and bewailed her
fate. And then the trouble began for the two men, having made common
cause against the lady, fell out between themselves. They got in a
passion, and threw things, including the lamp, which set the whole
place in flames. So while the woman stood outside warming herself by
that fire, and wearying the very skies with her indignation, the men,
driven to ignominious flight, set out upon the trail snarling at each
other like two dogs. Had they come to me, I should have tied them
together and watched the fun, but they ignored my presence at the
"Tough Nut," and went on to lay their demands for justice before the
sergeant in charge at Windermere.
The sky was clearing then, and the moon rose on silver waves of Alps
and deep blue troughs between, along the stormy ranges which crown
the continent.
And there the woman, who had no further use for Loco or any hope from
Rams, was left among black ruins on the mountainside, abandoned.
When a selfish soul has nothing left but self, then loneliness is
tragic. Like ivy torn from a wall, this creature had nothing left to
cling to, no strength to stand alone. The bitter dawn wind swept the
last sparks from her burned world, and the raw chill snatched all her
warmth away. So she lay moaning.
IV
Down at the "Tough Nut" cabin, we slept soundly, having seen nothing
but the driving snow, heard nothing but the storm. But as the dawn
light roused me I remembered that the Throne cabins must be seized
for debt, and Loco taken down to Windermere, for which there would be
scarcely time in the brief autumn day. So without disturbing my
friends I brewed a cup of coffee, and made my way on crutches to the
stable behind the cabin. I saddled Black Prince, climbed to his back
and rode up the drifted trail, which showed the floundering tracks of
Rams and Loco bound for Windermere. I found the Throne cabins a heap
of smoldering ashes, with a few blowing sparks, and on the slab of
rock which had been the door-step lay that poor woman.
She was no less the complete minx than usual. I told her that the
moans and wriggles completely spoiled her performance as a swooning
lady. She wanted to play at abandoned heroine, but I was a deal too
cold and hungry for heroics, and told her pretty roughly to shut up.
Then she thought that the rescued damsel always rode with the knight
at her bridle, forgetting that real paladins never have game legs. I
told her that the walk would do her good, and a mile of floundering
through drifts certainly warmed the cat. By the time we reached the
"Tough Nut" she was hungry, and after breakfast purred, making eyes
at the prospectors, although for a solid year they had been beneath
her notice.
If I had only been able to help my friends to the wealth of that
gilded ass, poor crooked Rams! The time had come for parting with
Shorty and Bobbie Broach, and they refused to snare the little wad in
my pocket. They lent and saddled their pony for the woman, and when
Black Prince had finished his breakfast we had to hit the trail.
There was plenty for me to think about on that long day's march to
Windermere. Loco was on his way to a term of imprisonment, and when
he came back his employers would not be pleased with his excessive
zeal as their caretaker at the Throne. Rams, of course, would go
home to his native land, where there are more fools to be cheated
than in any other country of equal size.
And this woman was left on my hands. What could I do with her? She
had no relatives, had earned no friends, and could not find
employment where there were no employers, and she was destitute, many
hundreds of miles out in the wilderness. Had I been wise, I should
no doubt have given her the couple of hundred dollars in my pocket to
pay her way to the settlements, and there make a fresh start in life.
Had I been wise--but, then, I doubt if any really and truly wise man
would have much of a story to tell in making a chronicle of his life.
Had I been altogether a bad man, I should have used this woman
committed to my mercy, had her as mistress until her tongue galled,
then turned her loose, the worse for having known me, to take the one
trail open to her talents. But had I been altogether bad--should I
confess my errors in a book?
Perhaps there were other ways of dealing with this affair, but at the
age of twenty-three, I lacked the experience which makes all things
clear to the reader. I could see but one way consistent with decency
and my honor. And all the way from the Throne to Windermere, and
through the day's march from there to Canal Flats, and all the weary
trail from thence to the mission, I saw no other course but that of
marriage.
The three years since first we met in the train at Winnipeg had
enlarged the girl into womanhood, the slattern into a housewife.
Shallow she was, innately vulgar, with no heart, no morals, and no
mind; but by this time she had learned enough to wash, to mind her
manners, restrain a shrill unpleasant voice, limit her temper to only
occasional field days, and turn her increase of beauty to account in
the ruling of men. To this young animal was given hair as glorious
as the sunshine, a skin like transparent milk, suffused with the glow
of peaches, and covered with a bloom most rare and lovely, eyes very
changeful and bewildering, health, strength, grace of bearing, and
the temper of the spring-time between sun and shower. Small blame to
me if my five senses worshiped this triumph of nature's artifice,
which the creature had for sale for Sarde's position, Rams' money, or
any passing storm of her ambition. Those greater women whose souls
are not for sale will be the last to judge her.
We Latins are perhaps more womanish than the blond men of the North,
having more sympathy, and deeper understanding of women. It was my
fate to discern, to see right through them, and I had no illusions
concerning Mistress Violet. Her beauty appealed with frightful
strength to my manhood. In saying, "With my body I thee worship," I
should speak the truth. But, "With my spirit I thee worship," I
could say to Rain, and to no other woman I ever knew. Passion I had
for many, devotion I had toward all things beautiful, but love for
only one woman, and her I might not marry.
I have spent days trying to write this passage, to express in words
of clean, just, decisive English the relations between a man and a
woman brought together in wedlock, where the woman gave all, but the
man gave nothing because he withheld his soul.
"He who called Arms and Letters a pair of sisters, knew nothing about
their family, for no lineages are so far apart as saying and doing."
Yes, playing the man of letters, with nothing to do but look back, I
gabble most confoundedly; but in those days I was a man-at-arms. I
might be indeed troop jester, but the jester's habit is the mask of
reticence. I made the woman merry, to ease the way as best I could
for her, but told her nothing. How could I tell such a creature
that, in giving my hand, I gave my mother's rank, my mother's
dignities. The woman might be Sarde's wife, or Sarde's discarded
mistress, for all I cared, but not the Marchioness of the Alpuxarras
to tarnish the old and lovely memories of my house. Rank is a
responsibility, at times a burden, a thing we try to forget in our
private life, not to be soiled in the filthy conversation of camp or
barrack, not to be tarnished by a woman of doubtful character.
Unless I could pass my knighthood on to the sons of a gentlewoman,
the succession would go to my brother. And so, before we parted at
Wild Horse Creek, I gave to Don Pedro's keeping the badge of the
Golden Fleece.
The incompetent in charge at the Kootenay Mission was my friend of
the church parades, and he refused me marriage. Had he been a
Christian, there had been no marriage, for ever so gladly would I
have made confession to a real priest, and at his orders provided for
the woman in her necessities. But this parson was merely a creature
of convention, since the weeds of respectability sprang up to choke
the flowering of his soul. He objected to me as a Papist, to the
woman as a Prohibitionist or a vegetarian, or some such uncouth
sectarian outside the pale. He objected to the social misalliance,
as though he were priest to a god of etiquette. He demanded a permit
from my commanding officer. He demurred on grounds of infancy.
"We don't mind getting married," I told him, "unless you prefer that
this woman should be my mistress."
At that, he collapsed altogether, and merely to save him from being
mixed up in a scandal, that marriage was made in hell.
"Whom God hath joined," he said, "let no man put asunder."
"But why blame Him?" I asked, and the service ended.
Of the same breed are marriage and repentance.
V
Our borrowed pony had been left behind at Windermere, from whence the
señora and I rode double on Black Prince. My broken leg was scarcely
fit for travel, and the wedding delayed us also for some hours on our
way to troop headquarters at Wild Horse Creek.
But swift and direct went a despatch from the sergeant in charge at
Windermere to the officer commanding D Division. The news reached
Sam a day ahead of us.
To him, as the nearest magistrate, it was reported that Doctor
Eliphalet P. Burrows was in custody charged with fraud, with
destroying the security for his debts, and with burning the Throne
cabins where he was caretaker in charge. Mr. Rams was detained on
charges brought by Burrows. Constable la Mancha, riding double with
the runaway wife of Inspector Sarde, was on his way to report to the
O.C.D. Division.
So we were expected, and on my arrival in camp at Wild Horse Creek, I
was paraded at once before my officer commanding.
"Constable," he asked, "what do you mean by bringing Mrs. Sarde into
my camp?"
"The lady, sir, whom I have brought is the Señora de la Mancha."
Sam turned to the orderly corporal. "Place this man," he said,
"under arrest."
I handed over my side-arms.
"Prisoner," said Sam, "you will be charged with going through the
form of marriage without permission, and in defiance of regulations.
You're entitled to twenty-four hours to prepare your defense."
"I don't ask a minute, sir. Whatever you do is going to be dead
straight to-day or to-morrow."
"You take a grave risk playing with me," said Sam.
"I see, sir, that you're striking camp, for a march. I don't want to
be a prisoner and a nuisance while there are wheels in mud-holes."
That spirit appealed most powerfully to Sam. "Defend yourself," he
said gravely. "I'm your best friend."
He knew I loved him dearly.
"Sir, I found this lady abandoned on the Selkirks in several feet of
snow. I took her to the padre at the mission. It was no time for
fooling, I gave her the only protection possible. Sir, you'd have
done the same. Now I've come straight to report."
"What, go through a mock marriage with an officer's wife?"
"That, sir, is not true."
"What, you charge my brother officer!--Corporal, just stand back out
of ear-shot. Now, La Mancha, what on earth do you mean?"
I told him of Sarde's bogus marriage with Miss Burrows, performed by
Happy Bill, a bogus parson, of how the facts were discovered by Joe
Chambers, who died, passing the woman's defense to me, of my duel
with Sarde to obtain her release, and her return to her guardian,
Loco Burrows.
"You bring no charge, then," asked Sam, "against Inspector Sarde?"
"None, if he leaves me alone."
Sam recalled the orderly corporal.
"Prisoner," said he, "you plead guilty to a charge of marrying
without leave. I'm sorry to say that my duty requires me to report
this matter to the Commissioner, and he will give sentence. All I
can do is to report with a strong recommendation to leniency, for, in
spite of your defaulter sheet, you're the best duty man in my
division.
"But--why, man, you'd been warned by express orders from the
commissioner that your next offense would be final. You've no more
chance than a snowflake in hell. Don't you see, you idiot, that a
constable can't marry an officer's wife, or--or mistress? It's
impossible.
"And I won't have a woman with my column. We may be in for a rough
trip crossing the Rockies. But, then, we can't leave a woman here in
the bush. You'll have to take furlough. Corporal, make out a
fortnight's pass. He'll report at Fort French.
"La Mancha, I think, on the whole, you'd better turn in your
accouterments, kit, all government property. I'll advance your pay
to this date."
"Is it so bad as that, sir?"
"I'm afraid so, La Mancha. You must leave camp before watch-setting.
Good-by, my boy. God bless you."
So he shook hands with me.
And after I had gone, he spoke in private to the corporal. "Warn
that boy," he said, "not to report at Fort French. I'd rather see
him desert than get a year's hard labor, and discharged with
ignominy, or even transferred to the civil courts on a charge of
bigamy. It's expensive sometimes, Corporal, to be a gentleman, eh?"
So far as the troop knew, I had a honeymoon furlough, and as I should
visit the United States, my kit was turned in for safety. The boys
raked the camp for rags which represented my kit turned into store,
so that I had my buffalo coat, blankets and good clothing to take
away with me. Breeches with the yellow stripe torn off, boots and
Brat's old coat were all I could raise in the way of civilian dress,
but the officers gave me a horse, the sergeants' mess another, the
troop subscribed saddles, pack gear and camp outfit, by way of a
wedding present.
While I was packing, I came upon my war-dress as a Blackfoot chief,
the gift of Many Horses, dear Rain's squinting brother, on that day,
only three years ago, when I made her a widow. If only I had married
Rain!
I wept when I was born, and every day explains the reason why.
The señora never guessed that I was outlawed, but seemed much more
than content with a hundred men to play with. She had come down in
the world from an inspector's lady to a constable's poor thing, but
seemed much more at home in her new part, playing cat's cradle with
Red Saunders. Red 'oped she would 'ave 'appiness.
Throned in Buckie's tent, she held her court after supper, while I
dragged up my friends and introduced them. "Allow me to present Wee
James' legs--the upper part of him having gone aloft." Wee James
stood six-foot seven.
"This is Tubby, our brevet acting deputy vice-cook. Allow me to make
known Detective-Sergeant Ithuriel Fat McBugjuice, bai bingah, yaas.
The grin with a face attached belongs to Mutiny. Rich Mixed makes
his bark and wags his compliments. Here's Sergeant Snuffleton, all
present, and correct waist measurement fifty-nine, my dear, and
bustle a number twelve. Calamity makes his bow. And this is
Tribulation, with a bad cold from oversleeping on sentry."
I went to the lines, where Buckie and Brat were loading my
pack-horse, and would not let me interfere with that, or with the
saddling. Restless, I wandered among the tents, where the boys were
preparing for a morrow in which I should have no share. "Sweat, you
poor workers," I told them. "Lick, spit and polish, for every day
has its dog; but I'm a free civilian. No more parades, no more pack
drill, no guards, no cells, no more fatigues except good bed fatigue.
"Go it, you pigeon-breasted shave-tails, clean harness, you
poor-souled rookies, you pemmican eaters, you pie-biters, you
ring-tailed snorters!
"The Blackguard was taken young and raised on alkali--everybody's dog
on government beans and sow-belly, rode sweating hell-for-leather
after horse thieves, rebels and coyotes, wore government socks, and
didn't believe in the gawspel--
"Sweat, you slaves, rustle, you gophers, till the civvies send kids
to camp for a convent training, you sons of sin--but I'm for the open
range, and you'll hear my long wolf-howls by starlight."
Then I was back with Black Prince to say good-by, and when Brat came
to fetch me, I turned on him with a snarl, blaspheming horribly.
So I got the señora astride on a man saddle, and mounted my own plug,
taking the lead-rope from Buckie to tow the pack-horse, and gave
Sergeant-Major Samlet an episcopal benediction. The whole troop had
gathered round us to shake hands at parting, and fire a volley of old
boots and rice as our bridal procession moved out into the darkness,
into the wilderness. Three rousing cheers drowned the music of last
post, the funeral music which is played over open graves.
Buckie and Brat came down to the ford of Wild Horse Creek, and there,
while Rich Mixed barked all round us, I had to say good-by. Brat was
laughing still over the sergeant-major's pleasure at my Latin
compliments: "_Maledico! Maledicite!_" Then our horses went
splashing into the ford, and I saw my dog break back to his home in
camp, for the bugle was calling "Lights out" to the very stars. God
who mends breaking hearts may have heard me laugh when my dog
deserted me.
The news of my marriage with Mrs. Sarde swept through the regiment
like flames through grass. All men knew now that either Sarde had
made a bogus marriage, or else the Blackguard had committed bigamy.
Then Sarde's position become impossible, for his brother officers
demanded of him that he clear himself of scandal or send in his
papers. He produced counsel's opinion that a marriage made in good
faith before any genuine minister of religion would hold in law. He
obtained a warrant for my arrest and extradition on charges of
abduction and bigamy. If I came to trial, my very innocence involved
a year's imprisonment for desertion from the force.
To allay the danger of my being arrested, the Brat and Buckie put
about the news of my death, killed by the fall of a horse down
somewhere in Montana. Then Sarde felt safe, and slandered my memory.
When God made everything that creepeth, He saw it was good. So Sarde
was good, but I do not think that he improved with keeping.
The story of my death grew from a rumor into a belief, and the old
hands remembered that Brat once had a brother--killed, poor chap, by
the fall of a horse down somewhere in Montana.
We who once served in the great regiment have often come together by
accident in the later years, meeting old comrades in the Klondike
gold rush, or the South African field force, or the national reserve
of British veterans. We make new partnerships for auld lang syne in
Sikkim or Patagonia, Damaraland or Samoa, or, dressed up like
ridiculous waiters, dining at some white table in town. We parted as
troopers to meet as officers, our scalawags are squires, our wasters
wealthy men, but our meetings are grave with memories of Toby who
died a tramp, of Jumbo who shot himself, of Monte who was rolled on
by a horse. Spirits are calling to us across the deep from every
continent, and all the oceans. The glass that was lifted for a toast
of the good old times falls broken, because some remembered voice
comes from among the candles: "Well, here's luck!"
I have been present when men, who did not suspect my membership,
spoke of the tribal memories, and one of them, I remember, mentioned
the Blackguard kindly, as numbered among our dead.