A REMINISCENT HOUR.
The policeman's shoulders stiffened, and he put one foot on the keg. He
made no other move; but if ever a man's back was eloquent of
determination, his was. From where I lay I could see the fingers of his
left hand shut tight over his thumb, pressing till the knuckles were
white and the cords in the back of his hand stood out in little ridges.
I'd seen _that_ before, and I recalled with a start when and where I'd
heard that soft, drawly voice. I knew I wasn't mistaken in the man,
though his face was turned from me, and I likewise knew that old Piegan
Smith was nearer kingdom come than he'd been for many a day, if he did
have the drop on the man with the scarlet jacket. He was holding his
pistol on a double back-action, rapid-fire gun-fighter, and only the
fact that Piegan was half drunk and the other performing an impersonal
duty had so far prevented the opening of a large-sized package of
trouble. While on the surface Smith had all the best of it, he needed
that advantage, and more, to put himself on an even footing with Gordon
MacRae in any dispute that had to be arbitrated with a Colt; for MacRae
was the cool-headed, virile type of man that can keep his feet and burn
powder after you've planted enough lead in his system to sink him in
swimming water.
There was a minute of nasty silence. Smith glowered behind his cocked
pistol, and the policeman faced the frowning gun, motionless, waiting
for the flutter of Piegan's eye that meant action. The gurgling keg was
almost empty when he spoke again.
"Don't be a fool, Smith," he said quietly. "You can't buck the whole
Force, you know, even if you managed to kill me. You know the sort of
orders we have about this whisky business. Put up your gun."
Piegan heard him, all right, but his pistol never wavered. His thin
lips were pinched close, so tight the scrubby beard on his chin stood
straight out in front; his chest was heaving, and the angry blood stood
darkly red under his tanned cheeks. Altogether, he looked as if his
trigger finger might crook without warning. It was one of those long
moments that makes a fellow draw his breath sharp when he thinks about
it afterward. If any one had made an unexpected move just then, there
would have been sudden death in that camp. And while the lot of us sat
and stood about perfectly motionless, not daring to say a word one way
or the other, lest the wrathful old cuss squinting down the gun-barrel
_would_ shoot, the policeman took his foot off the empty cause of the
disturbance, and deliberately turning his back on Piegan's leveled
six-shooter, walked calmly over to his waiting horse.
Smith stared after him, frankly astonished. Then he lowered his gun.
"The nerve uh the darned----Say! don't go off mad," he yelled, his anger
evaporating, changing on the instant to admiration for the other's
cold-blooded courage. "Yuh spilled all the whisky, darn yuh--but then I
guess yuh don't know any better'n t' spoil good stuff that away. No hard
feelin's, anyhow. Stop an' eat dinner with us, an' we'll call it
square."
The policeman withdrew his foot from the stirrup and smiled at Piegan
Smith, and Piegan, to show that his intentions were good, impulsively
unbuckled his cartridge-belt and threw belt and six-shooters on the
ground.
"I don't hanker for trouble with a _hombre_ like you," he grunted. "I
guess I was a little bit hasty, anyhow."
"I call you," the policeman said, and stripping the saddle and bridle
from his sweaty horse, turned him loose to graze.
"Hello, Mac!" I hailed, as he walked up to the fire. He turned at the
sound of my voice with vastly more concern than he'd betrayed under the
muzzle of Piegan's gun.
"Sarge himself!" he exclaimed. "Beats the devil how old trails cross,
eh?"
"It sure does," I retorted, and our hands met.
He sat down beside me and began to roll a cigarette. You wouldn't call
that a very demonstrative greeting between two old _amigos_ who'd bucked
mesquite and hair-lifting Comanches together, all over the Southwest. It
had been many a moon since we took different roads, but MacRae hadn't
changed that I could see. That was his way--he never slopped over, no
matter how he felt. If ever a mortal had a firm grip on his emotions,
MacRae had, and yet there was a sleeping devil within him that was never
hard to wake. But his looks gave no hint of the real man under the
surface placidity; you'd never have guessed what possibilities lay
behind that immobile face, with its heavy-lashed hazel eyes and plain,
thin-lipped mouth that tilted up just a bit at the corners. We had
parted in the Texas Panhandle five years before--an unexpected,
involuntary separation that grew out of a poker game with a tough crowd.
The tumultuous events of that night sent me North in undignified haste,
for I am not warlike by nature, and Texas was no longer healthy for me
unless I cared to follow up a bloody feud. But I'd left Mac a
trail-boss for the whitest man in the South, likewise engaged to the
finest girl in any man's country; and it's a far cry from punching cows
in Texas to wearing the Queen's colors and keeping peace along the
border-line. I knew, though, that he'd tell me the how and why of it in
his own good time, if he meant that I should know.
One or two of the buffalo-hunters exchanged words with us while Mac was
building his cigarette and lighting it. Old Piegan stretched himself in
the grass, and in a few moments was snoring energetically, his grizzled
face bared to the cloudless sky. The camp grew still, except for the
rough and ready cook pottering about the fire, boiling buffalo-meat and
mixing biscuit-dough. The fire crackled around the Dutch ovens, and the
odor of coffee came floating by. Then Mac hunched himself against a
wagon-wheel and began to talk.
"I suppose it looks odd to you, Sarge, to see me in this rig?" he asked
whimsically. "It beats punching cows, though--that is, when a fellow
discovers that he isn't a successful cowpuncher."
"Does it?" I returned dryly. "You were making good in the cow business
last time I saw you. What did you see in the Mounted Police that took
your fancy?"
He shrugged his shoulders philosophically. "They're making history in
this neck of the woods," he said, "and I joined for lack of something
better to do. You'll find us a cosmopolitan lot, and not bad specimens
as men go. It's a tolerably satisfying life--once you get out of the
ranks."
"How about that?" I queried; and as I asked the question I noticed for
the first time the gilt bars on his coat sleeve. "You've got past the
buck trooper stage then? How long have you been in the force?"
"Joined the year they took over the Territory," he replied. "Yes, I've
prospered in the service. Got to be a sergeant; I'm in charge of a
line-post on Milk River--Pend d' Oreille. You'd better come on over and
stay with me a day or two, Sarge."
"I was heading in that direction," I answered, "only I expected to cross
the river farther up. But, man, I never thought to see you up here. I
thought you'd settled down for keeps; supposed you were playing
major-domo for the Double R down on the Canadian River, and the father
of a family by this time. How we do get switched around in this old
world."
"Don't we, though," he said reflectively. "It's a great game. You never
know when nor where your trail is liable to fork and lead you to new
countries and new faces, or maybe plumb over the big divide. Oh, well,
it'll be all the same a hundred years from now, as Bill Frayne used to
say."
"You've turned cynic," I told him, and he smiled.
"No," he declared, "I rather think I'd be classed as a philosopher; if
you could call a man a philosopher who can enjoy hammering over this
bald country, chasing up whisky-runners and hazing non-treaty Indians
onto reservations, and raising hell generally in the name of the law.
Still, I don't take life as seriously as I used to. What's the use? We
eat and drink and sleep and work and fight because it's the nature of us
two-legged brutes; but there's no use getting excited about it, because
things never turn out exactly the way you expect them to, anyhow."
"If that's your philosophy of life," I bantered, "you ought to make a
rattling good policeman. I can see where a calm, dispassionate front
would save a man a heap of trouble, at this sort of thing."
"Josh all you like," MacRae laughed, "but I tell you a man does save
himself a heap of trouble when he doesn't get too anxious whether things
come out just as he wants them to or not. Six or seven years ago I
couldn't have done this sort of work. I've changed, I reckon. There was
a time when I'd have felt that there was only one way to settle a row
like I just had. And the chances are that I would have wound up by
putting that old boy's light out. Which wouldn't have helped matters any
for me, and certainly would have been tough on old Piegan Smith--who
happens to be a pretty fair sort; only playing the opposite side of the
game."
As if the low-spoken sound of his name had reached his ears and
electrified him, Piegan sat up very suddenly, and at the same instant
the cook sounded the long call. So we broke off our chat, and getting a
tin plate and cup and a set of eating-implements, we helped ourselves
from the Dutch ovens and squatted in the grass to eat.
When we'd finished, one of the hunters rounded up the horses and we
caught our nags and saddled them. MacRae was going back to his post that
night, and I also was in haste to be traveling--that ten thousand
dollars of another man's money was a responsibility I wanted to be rid
of without the least possible delay. Pend d' Oreille was twenty-five or
thirty miles south of us--a long afternoon's ride, but MacRae and I were
glad of each other's company, and it was worth while straining a point
to have even one night's shelter at a Police camp in that semi-hostile
country. There were no road-agents to speak of, for sums of money large
enough to tempt gentry of that ilk seldom passed over those isolated
trails; but here and there stray parties of Stonies and Blackfeet, young
bucks in war-paint and breech-clout, hot on the trail of their first
medicine, skulked warily among the coulée-scarred ridges, keeping in
touch with the drifting buffalo-herds and alert for a chance to ambush a
straggling white man and lift his hair. They weren't particularly
dangerous, except to a lone man, still there was always the chance of
running slap into them, in which case they usually made a more or less
vigorous attempt to wipe you out. A red coat, however, was a passport to
safety; even so early in the game the copper-colored brother had learned
that the Mounted Police were a hard combination--an enemy who never
turned back when he took the war-trail.
When we were mounted Mac leaned over and muttered an admonitory word for
Piegan's ear alone. "Better lay low, Smith," he said, "and let the
boot-leggers go it on their own hook for a while. We are watching for
you. It's only a matter of time till somebody takes you in, because your
whisky is making lots of nasty work for us these days, and we've got
orders from the big chief to nail you if there's a show. I'm passing up
this little affair to-day. That doesn't count. But the next time you
cross the river with a four-horse load of it I'll be on you like a wolf.
If I don't, some other fellow will. _Sabe?_ Think it over."
Smith bit off a huge chew of tobacco, while he digested MacRae's
warning. Then he looked up with a smile that broadened to a grin.
"You're all right," he said cheerfully. "I like your style. If I get the
worst of the deal, I won't holler. So-long!"