THE MAN WHO WAS GLAD
There was just the slightest sound of a foot-tread down by the creek.
None but an attentively alert ear could have detected it amid the
soughing of the wintry wind and the murmur of the stream over its stony
bed.
Young Dan Medlicott raised himself on his elbow and listened, directing
his searching gaze across the moonlit grass towards the deep shadows of
the bluff of birch and poplar that lay between him and his home on
Rattlesnake Ranch.
His rifle was behind him, propped against a post of the stout corral
gate. His hand went round to it cautiously, but only to touch it and
assure himself that it was still there, ready for use in case it should
presently be needed.
There were Indians about--Indians and rebel half-breeds, who coveted
the horses in the corral which he was watching, and who during the past
month had made more than one attempt to break through the palisade and
stampede the animals across the valley into their own encampment.
Dan was only seventeen years old, but he was no tenderfoot. In spite of
his youth, he had already had many a brush with the Redskins of Western
Canada, and he knew their subtle ways and how to deal with them.
He had been lying in wait for three weary hours, and nothing had
happened until now. The night was very cold, there was a sharp frost,
and a cutting wind from the mountains in the north moaned dismally in
the trees. He lay with his blanket over his knees and his coat collar
turned up about his ears. He listened for a long time, but the sound
which had alarmed him for a moment was not repeated.
"Some scavenger dog prowlin' around, I reckon," he decided, and leant
back, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes.
He did not allow himself to fall asleep. To do so would have been
neglecting his duty as a scout; but he might at least keep himself
bodily comfortable, and he knew that even if he should sink into slumber
no enemy would approach the gate of the stockade without arousing him.
He was still in the same position half-an-hour afterwards, betraying by
no sign that he was aware that he was not alone.
A shadow moved across his closed eyes, he heard a very cautious footstep
quite near to him, but he did not stir.
He remained silent and motionless for many minutes, until he became
conscious of a warm breath in his face and of a hand stealing behind him
towards his rifle. But before the fingers closed upon the weapon, Dan
had swiftly seized the intruding arm.
"No, you don't!" he objected, with a laugh, and he looked up into the
moonlit face of a man in the familiar uniform of the North-West Mounted
Police, who was sitting on the end of a pine log only a few inches away
from him. "Guess you figured I was asleep, did you, Sergeant?" he said,
rubbing his eyes.
"Looked some like it," returned the sergeant. "You showed no sign of
being awake, and you never challenged me as you ought to have done. Say,
it might have been an Indian sneaking up."
"I sure knew that it wasn't," affirmed Dan. "An Injun doesn't wear top
boots and clinkin' spurs, nor a Stetson hat, nor a scarlet tunic. And he
wouldn't have made a bee-line across that patch of moonlit grass, as you
did just now. I knew it was you all the time. If I hadn't known it, you
might have had a bullet in you. A nice thing it would have been if I'd
had to go to the fort and report that I'd shot Sergeant Silk in mistake
for a Redskin. I should have been some sorry."
"Dare say," reflected Silk, speaking hardly above a whisper. "Folks
generally are some sorry after they've taken a human life. I never knew
but one man who was real glad."
"Glad?" echoed Dan.
"Yes. Lean Bear was glad when he killed Tough Kelly."
"H'm! Indian, eh?" said Dan. "But Indians are usually glad when they've
rubbed out a Paleface. Lean Bear?" He repeated the name. "Why, wasn't
that the chap you spared last week in the skirmish back of the fort? I
saw what happened. I was ridin' behind you. I saw him tumble from his
horse. You had the upper hand of him, and just as you were goin' to pull
the trigger he yelled out to you, and you lowered your weapon, lettin'
him escape, as if he'd been an old pal of yours 'stead of a deadly
enemy."
Sergeant Silk leant forward with an elbow on his knee.
"Yes, that was the chap," he acknowledged. "But any other trooper would
have done the same, and let him live."
"Why?" questioned Dan. "Wasn't he the same as all other Injuns--a
rotten, ungrateful brute?"
Sergeant Silk did not answer at once. He slowly took out his pipe and
tobacco pouch and laid them beside him on the pine log before buttoning
up his overcoat. He was silent for a long time--silent and thoughtful.
Dan Medlicott knew that this mood meant a story.
"Fire away," he urged, "I'm listenin'. I hope it's goin' to be a yarn
about yourself, and none of your second-hand snacks about some fellow
who isn't half so good and brave."
Silk shrugged his shoulders.
"It's just about Lean Bear himself," he resumed. "Lean Bear and--and a
young trooper who had charge of the post at Rosetta's Crossing. Corporal
Pretty John was what he was commonly called, though he wasn't pretty and
John wasn't his name.
"Lean Bear was well known on the Rosetta Patrol. He was just an idle,
good-for-nothing loafer of the plains, picking up a poor living by
trapping on the creeks, doing odd jobs, sponging on people who had more
of this world's goods than himself, and drinking, drinking whenever he
could get hold of a drop of firewater to flush down his scraggy throat.
"The missionaries could do nothing with him; they gave him up. The
Hudson's Bay Company wouldn't trade with him. His own people, the Cree
Indians, wouldn't admit him into their wigwams; they said his tongue was
forked, it was crooked.
"The Mounted Police always kept a close watch on him, suspecting him of
theft, though they never could bring anything home to him. He was too
cunning to be caught. And yet it was said that he'd once led an honest,
respectable life, as far as a Redskin can contrive to be honest and
respectable.
"Sometimes Lean Bear used to disappear for months together. Nobody knew
where he went to, and I don't think many at Rosetta's Crossing cared a
whole lot. They just forgot him until he turned up again at the station
like a half-starved pariah dog that had wandered back to a human
habitation, cringing and fawning and begging for something to eat;
ragged, dirty, almost unrecognisable except for the string of crimson
glass beads that he always wore about his neck.
"One time in the depth of winter he returned, riding a broken-winded
nag that looked even more of a hungry scarecrow than himself. He
demanded food and shelter with all the swagger of a millionaire putting
up at a first-class hotel. Most of the fellows in the store refused to
help him, until Pretty John gave him a biscuit, when others spared him
something, too, and he ate as if his teeth hadn't had any exercise for
weeks.
"All the time while he was in the store, sitting as close as he could
get to the stove, he was looking about him as if he'd a mind to steal
something and make a bolt for the door. One of the men recommended the
corporal to keep an eye on the skunk, and the corporal did so, without
seeming to be watching.
"And as Pretty John watched from the corner of his eye he thought he
guessed what it was that Lean Bear was so anxious about. He wasn't
meaning to steal anything. He was just waiting for some one that he
seemed to expect; and after a bit, in strode Tough Kelly.
"Guess you've heard of Tough Kelly, haven't you, Dan? One of the
biggest rascals that ever dodged the Police. As a matter of fact,
Corporal Pretty John was only waiting for just one bit of evidence
before arresting him.
"Well, at sight of Tough strolling in to join the gamblers at the poker
table, there was a sudden change in the face of Lean Bear. His eyes
glistened with a queer, savage hatred. But he didn't speak. He just drew
back from the stove and glided into a far corner, out of the light,
hiding himself behind a pile of dry goods, pulling his blanket over his
head and pretending to be sound asleep, the same as you did just now."
Sergeant Silk paused to load his pipe, but he did not light it.