The shooting season was at hand. At frequent intervals along the fence
lines of O Bar O, big square slabs of white enamelled wood were nailed
to fence posts, bearing in great black letters the legend:
TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN
Punished to fullest extent of law.
BEWARE THE DOGS
P. D. MCPHERSON, Owner.
These daunted not the more persistent and intrepid of the hunters, who
slipped into this game paradise through the medium of the gate under
the Ghost River Bridge on the Banff Highway. Pitching camp near the
road, they penetrated up the great canyon and into the luring woods of
the forbidden country.
Duncan Mallison, whose vacation was drawing to a close, resented any
intrusion upon his privacy. He had begun almost to regard the place
as his own private and personal preserve. Trespassers irritated and
interrupted him. Reluctantly, he made a final shoot of Hungarian
partridge and prairie chicken--enough to go the rounds of the newspaper
office--packed his camping outfit, and prepared to depart from the
vicinity of O Bar O.
He had a moderately good feature story, but had been obliged to do a
lot of padding, elaborating and exaggerating on the amount of gambling
done and the odds on P. D. He was not satisfied with his “story.” He
just “sniffed the edges” of a story big enough to syndicate in a dozen
or more papers over the country and perhaps find a place also across
the line. His nose for news and his inherent sense of romance scented
another kind of story at O Bar O. This Englishman--whatever his name
was (of course, Cheerio was merely a nickname) interested the reporter.
It was plain that he was no ordinary ranch hand. Who, then, was he, and
what was he doing working on a ranch?
“Younger son,” and, for that matter, older sons, were not uncommon in
the Alberta ranching country. It was in fact, an ideal place, for the
disposal of ne’er-do-wells, and if they had the “stuff” in them to
make real men of them. The reporter had come into contact with a great
many of these quite likable chaps from the old country, especially
upon those periodical occasions when remittances from home were due,
they came to town to spend a monthly allowance in a single night, or
several days of unadulterated spreeing. They were not noted especially
for their love of work, though there was good stuff in most of them as
was proved when the war broke out and a large percentage of the men who
marched from Alberta were of English birth.
This Cheerio fellow was somehow different. Mallison could not exactly
place him. He worked. In point of fact, Cheerio was reputed to be
one of the best workers at O Bar O and really earned his modest $50
a month. Nevertheless, the newspaper man recognised him at once as a
man of education and breeding. Mallison had heard the story of the
branding, and of the confession that had followed. Sandy was prone
to exaggeration, and the reporter, sifting the facts in the case,
was disposed to question whether this incident should be regarded
seriously. From Cheerio himself he learned scarcely nothing. Several
times intent upon acquiring a real interview with the man, he was
exasperated to discover after Cheerio had left him that Cheerio, on the
contrary, had interviewed him. He was extremely interested, apparently,
in newspaper work, and asked the reporter many questions concerning
the sort of papers supported by the City of Calgary, and also what
opportunity there might be for a man to get a berth on one of these as
a caricaturist or newspaper artist.
Ruminating over the matter, the reporter lay flat upon the ground on
his back, hands under the back of his head, staring straight up at the
interlacing branches of a giant spruce tree, through which the sunlight
glistened and danced. Presently his reverie was disturbed. There was
the flurry and flutter of wings and up out of the bush there arose a
couple of grouse--wavered above his head a moment, then dropped down
behind the somewhat fantastic rock that jutted out above the river.
“Doggone those hunters!”
They were a distinct menace in the woods of O Bar O. They shot at
anything and everything.
The bushes at the back of the reporter were violently agitated, and a
fat red face presently was thrust cautiously through. A man carrying a
shot-gun, and dressed in knickers and khaki hunting coat with numerous
little shell pockets, trod through the bush. Reporter and hunter
scowled at each other. Here was no entente cordiale.
“Did you see where my birds dropped?”
“Did you see those trespass signs along the road?” was the reply.
“Did you see them yourself?” retorted the other.
“You bet I did, and I’m here to see that others see them, too.”
Turning back his coat, Mallison revealed a bright star pinned to his
vest. Now, that star represented the fact that the reporter had certain
rights at fires and other places where the press is permitted to be
represented; but to the hunter it looked fearfully like the star that a
game warden might carry. He essayed a conciliating laugh, while backing
hastily toward the exit at the bridge outside of which his Studebaker
was parked. He got into it in a great hurry.
Grinning, Mallison sat up, his eye upon the out-jutting rock where the
grouse had fallen. Lazily he stretched himself; leisurely he climbed up
the cliff to the rock and lightly he dropped down in Cheerio’s cave.
He swung around in a circle, blinking his eyes and emitting a long,
amazed whistle.
For the next half hour he was a very busy reporter. Aladdin’s cave
could have afforded him no more satisfaction or interest.
The Indian pictures were ranged along a shelf in the natural gallery
that stretched under the rock for a space of about thirty feet. It was
amply lighted and completely sheltered. As Mallison went down the line
of pictures he realized that here was indeed a rare find.
Colour had been splashed prodigally upon the canvasses. Maroon, lemon,
magenta, scarlet, vivid purple, cerise, blues, flame colour. Indian
colours! Indian faces! Here was more than a mere tribe of Indians.
The artist had stamped indelibly upon the canvas a revelation of the
history of a passing race. He had painted the Iliad of the Indian race.
Here was an ancient chief, grave, stern as a judge, with the dignity of
a king and a pride that all the squalor and poverty and starvation of a
long, hard life, the repression and tyranny at the hands of successive
Indian agents and parasites upon his race, had been unable to quench.
Here, the infinitely old and wrinkled, toothless, witch-like
great-great-grandmother of the tribe, a crone who mumbled prophetic
warnings to which the lightest-hearted paid superstitious heed. And
here the blind Medicine Man.
Smiling, wheedling, begging, the pleasantly-plump shining-faced squaws.
The Braves, young and old, variously clad, some clinging to the garb
of their ancestors, or wearing the holiday dress, gaudy Hudson’s Bay
blankets and rugs and headdresses of eagle or turkey feathers; others
in the half cowboy, half Indian clothes, and others again poorly
attired in the mockery of the white man’s clothes.
Thin faces, deep and hungry-eyed, with that subdued look that tells not
so much of the conquering hand of the white man as of the insidious
effects of the great white plague.
Tragic faces of half-breeds, pawns of an undesired fate. Something
of smouldering wildness, something of sadness, something of intense
longing and wistfulness looked from the strange eyes of the breeds,
legally white and permitted the “privilege” of the franchise, subject
to conscription and taxation, yet doomed to live among their red
kindred.
Beauty peered from the half-lifted ragged magenta shawl of an Indian
Madonna, upon whose back the tiny blonde head of a blue-eyed papoose
told a story more eloquent than words.
This, then, was the “find” of the newspaper man. Of the pictures, he
selected six. He had no compunction about helping himself. It was
part of his trade, and he had discovered the cave. What is more, he
cherished the enthusiastic ambition of making the unknown artist
famous. There were people in Calgary who would appreciate what this man
had done. Mallison intended to show his find to these connoisseurs.
From the Indian pictures, he turned to the portfolio of sketches.
Several of Sandy and the ranch hands, one of Bully Bill, with the
quid of tobacco in his cheek, a characteristic bit of old P. D., one
of Viper at the heels of the milk cows, a stream of cattle pouring
over the hill, and--Hilda! One hundred and eighteen sketches of Hilda
McPherson. Now the reporter understood, and he chuckled with sympathy.
He did not blame the man. He had seen Hilda!
From the portfolio, Mallison selected two or three sketches of P. D.,
one of Sandy, three of Hilda, and a single photograph of Cheerio, taken
evidently in France, and in uniform. He was easily recognizable. There
was no mistaking that boyish and friendly smile, that seemed somehow
to irradiate and make singularly interesting the essentially sensitive
features of the young Englishman.