"Divils me darlins, it's a memory I have of a time whin luck wasn't
foldin' her arms round me, and not so far back aither, and I on the
wallaby track hot-foot for the City o' Gold."
Shon McGann said this in the course of a discussion on the prosperity of
Pipi Valley. Pretty Pierre remarked nonchalantly in reply,--"The wallaby
track--eh--what is that, Shon?"
"It's a bit of a haythen y' are, Pierre. The wallaby track? That's the
name in Australia for trampin' west through the plains of the Never-Never
Country lookin' for the luck o' the world; as, bedad, it's meself that
knows it, and no other, and not by book or tellin' either, but with the
grip of thirst at me throat and a reef in me belt every hour to quiet the
gnawin'." And Shon proceeded to light his pipe afresh.
"But the City o' Gold-was there much wealth for you there, Shon?"
Shon laughed, and said between the puffs of smoke, "Wealth for me, is it?
Oh, mother o' Moses! wealth of work and the pride of livin' in the heart
of us, and the grip of an honest hand betunewhiles; and what more do y'
want, Pierre?"
The Frenchman's drooping eyelids closed a little more, and he replied,
meditatively: "Money? No, that is not Shon McGann. The good fellowship
of thirst?--yes, a little. The grip of the honest hand, quite, and the
clinch of an honest waist? Well, 'peut-etre.'
"Of the waist which is not honest?--tsh! he is gay--and so!"
The Irishman took his pipe from his mouth, and held it poised before him.
He looked inquiringly and a little frowningly at the other for a moment,
as if doubtful whether to resent the sneer that accompanied the words
just spoken; but at last he good-humouredly said: "Blood o' me bones, but
it's much I fear the honest waist hasn't always been me portion--Heaven
forgive me!"
"'Nom de pipe,' this Irishman!" replied Pierre. "He is gay; of good
heart; he smiles, and the women are at his heels; he laughs, and they are
on their knees--Such a fool he is!"
Still Shon McGann laughed.
"A fool I am, Pierre, or I'd be in ould Ireland at this minute, with a
roof o' me own over me and the friends o' me youth round me, and brats
on me knee, and the fear o' God in me heart."
"'Mais,' Shon," mockingly rejoined the Frenchman, "this is not Ireland,
but there is much like that to be done here. There is a roof, and there
is that woman at Ward's Mistake, and the brats--eh, by and by?"
Shon's face clouded. He hesitated, then replied sharply: "That woman, do
y' say, Pierre, she that nursed me when the Honourable and meself were
taken out o' Sandy Drift, more dead than livin'; she that brought me back
to life as good as ever, barrin' this scar on me forehead and a stiffness
at me elbow, and the Honourable as right as the sun, more luck to him!
which he doesn't need at all, with the wind of fortune in his back and
shiftin' neither to right nor left. --That woman! faith, y'd better not
cut the words so sharp betune yer teeth, Pierre."
"But I will say more--a little--just the same. She nursed you--well,
that is good; but it is good also, I think, you pay her for that, and
stop the rest. Women are fools, or else they are worse. This one? She
is worse. Yes; you will take my advice, Shon McGann." The Irishman came
to his feet with a spring, and his words were angry.
"It doesn't come well from Pretty Pierre, the gambler, to be revilin'
a woman; and I throw it in y'r face, though I've slept under the same
blanket with ye, an' drunk out of the same cup on manny a tramp, that you
lie dirty and black when ye spake ill--of my wife."
This conversation had occurred in a quiet corner of the bar-room of the
Saints' Repose. The first few sentences had not been heard by the others
present; but Shon's last speech, delivered in a ringing tone, drew the
miners to their feet, in expectation of seeing shots exchanged at once.
The code required satisfaction, immediate and decisive. Shon was not
armed, and some one thrust a pistol towards him; but he did not take it.
Pierre rose, and coming slowly to him, laid a slender finger on his
chest, and said:
"So! I did not know that she was your wife. That is a surprise."
The miners nodded assent. He continued:
"Lucy Rives your wife! Hola, Shon McGann, that is such a joke."
"It's no joke, but God's truth, and the lie is with you, Pierre."
Murmurs of anticipation ran round the room; but the half-breed said:
"There will be satisfaction altogether; but it is my whim to prove what
I say first; then"--fondling his revolver--"then we shall settle. But,
see: you will meet me here at ten o'clock to-night, and I will make it,
I swear to you, so clear, that the woman is vile."
The Irishman suddenly clutched the gambler, shook him like a dog, and
threw him against the farther wall. Pierre's pistol was levelled from
the instant Shon moved; but he did not use it. He rose on one knee after
the violent fall, and pointing it at the other's head, said coolly: "I
could kill you, my friend, so easy! But it is not my whim. Till ten
o'clock is not long to wait, and then, just here, one of us shall die.
Is it not so?" The Irishman did not flinch before the pistol. He said
with low fierceness, "At ten o'clock, or now, or any time, or at any
place, y'll find me ready to break the back of the lies y've spoken, or
be broken meself. Lucy Rives is my wife, and she's true and straight as
the sun in the sky. I'll be here at ten o'clock, and as ye say, Pierre,
one of us makes the long reckoning for this." And he opened the door and
went out.
The half-breed moved to the bar, and, throwing down a handful of silver,
said: "It is good we drink after so much heat. Come on, come on,
comrades."
The miners responded to the invitation. Their sympathy was mostly with
Shon McGann; their admiration was about equally divided; for Pretty
Pierre had the quality of courage in as active a degree as the Irishman,
and they knew that some extraordinary motive, promising greater
excitement, was behind the Frenchman's refusal to send a bullet
through Shon's head a moment before.
King Kinkley, the best shot in the Valley next to Pierre, had watched the
unusual development of the incident with interest; and when his glass had
been filled he said, thoughtfully: "This thing isn't according to Hoyle.
There's never been any trouble just like it in the Valley before. What's
that McGann said about the lady being his wife? If it's the case, where
hev we been in the show? Where was we when the license was around? It
isn't good citizenship, and I hev my doubts."
Another miner, known as the Presbyterian, added: "There's some
skulduggery in it, I guess. The lady has had as much protection as if
she was the sister of every citizen of the place, just as much as Lady
Jane here (Lady Jane, the daughter of the proprietor of the Saints'
Repose, administered drinks), and she's played this stacked hand on us,
has gone one better on the sly."
"Pierre," said King Kinkley, "you're on the track of the secret, and
appear to hev the advantage of the lady: blaze it--blaze it out."
Pierre rejoined, "I know something; but it is good we wait until ten
o'clock. Then I will show you all the cards in the pack. Yes, so,
'bien sur.'"
And though there was some grumbling, Pierre had his way. The spirit of
adventure and mutual interest had thrown the French half-breed, the
Irishman, and the Hon. Just Trafford together on the cold side of the
Canadian Rockies; and they had journeyed to this other side, where the
warm breath from the Pacific passed to its congealing in the ranges.
They had come to the Pipi field when it was languishing. From the moment
of their coming its luck changed; it became prosperous. They conquered
the Valley each after his kind. The Honourable--he was always called
that--mastered its resources by a series of "great lucks," as Pierre
termed it, had achieved a fortune, and made no enemies; and but two
months before the day whose incidents are here recorded, had gone to the
coast on business. Shon had won the reputation of being a "white man,"
to say nothing of his victories in the region of gallantry. He made no
wealth; he only got that he might spend. Irishman-like he would barter
the chances of fortune for the lilt of a voice or the clatter of a pretty
foot.
Pierre was different. "Women, ah, no!" he would say, "they make men
fools or devils."
His temptation lay not that way. When the three first came to the Pipi,
Pierre was a miner, simply; but nearly all his life he had been something
else, as many a devastated pocket on the east of the Rockies could bear
witness; and his new career was alien to his soul. Temptation grew
greatly on him at the Pipi, and in the days before he yielded to it he
might have been seen at midnight in his but playing solitaire. Why he
abstained at first from practising his real profession is accounted for
in two ways: he had tasted some of the sweets of honest companionship
with the Honourable and Shon, and then he had a memory of an ugly night
at Pardon's Drive a year before, when he stood over his own brother's
body, shot to death by accident in a gambling row having its origin with
himself. These things had held him back for a time; but he was weaker
than his ruling passion.
The Pipi was a young and comparatively virgin field; the quarry was at
his hand. He did not love money for its own sake; it was the game that
enthralled him. He would have played his life against the treasury of a
kingdom, and, winning it with loaded double sixes, have handed back the
spoil as an unredeemable national debt.
He fell at last, and in falling conquered the Pipi Valley; at the same
time he was considered a fearless and liberal citizen, who could shoot as
straight as he played well. He made an excursion to another field,
however, at an opportune time, and it was during this interval that the
accident to Shon and the Honourable had happened. He returned but a few
hours before this quarrel with Shon occurred, and in the Saints' Repose,
whither he had at once gone, he was told of the accident. While his
informant related the incident and the romantic sequence of Shon's
infatuation, the woman passed the tavern and was pointed out to Pierre.
The half-breed had not much excitableness in his nature, but when he saw
this beautiful woman with a touch of the Indian in her contour, his pale
face flushed, and he showed his set teeth under his slight moustache.
He watched her until she entered a shop, on the signboard of which was
written--written since he had left a few months ago--Lucy Rives,
Tobacconist.
Shon had then entered the Saints' Repose; and we know the rest. A couple
of hours after this nervous episode, Pierre might have been seen standing
in the shadow of the pines not far from the house at Ward's Mistake,
where, he had been told, Lucy Rives lived with an old Indian woman. He
stood, scarcely moving, and smoking cigarettes, until the door opened.
Shon came out and walked down the hillside to the town. Then Pierre went
to the door, and without knocking, opened it, and entered. A woman
started up from a seat where she was sewing, and turned towards him.
As she did so, the work, Shon's coat, dropped from her hands, her face
paled, and her eyes grew big with fear. She leaned against a chair for
support--this man's presence had weakened her so. She stood silent, save
for a slight moan that broke from her lips, as Pierre lighted a cigarette
coolly, and then said to an old Indian woman who sat upon the floor
braiding a basket: "Get up, Ikni, and go away."
Ikni rose, came over, and peered into the face of the half-breed. Then
she muttered: "I know you--I know you. The dead has come back again."
She caught his arm with her bony fingers as if to satisfy herself that he
was flesh and blood, and shaking her head dolefully, went from the room.
When the door closed behind her there was silence, broken only by an
exclamation from the man.
The other drew her hand across her eyes, and dropped it with a motion of
despair. Then Pierre said, sharply: "Bien?"
"Francois," she replied, "you are alive!"
"Yes, I am alive, Lucy."
She shuddered, then grew still again and whispered: "Why did you let it
be thought that you were drowned? Why? Oh, why?" she moaned.
He raised his eyebrows slightly, and between the puffs of smoke, said:
"Ah yes, my Lucy, why? It was so long ago. Let me see: so--so--ten
years. Ten years is a long time to remember, eh?"
He came towards her. She drew back; but her hand remained on the chair.
He touched the plain gold ring on her finger, and said:
"You still wear it. To think of that--so loyal for a woman! How she
remembers, holy Mother! . . . But shall I not kiss you, yes, just
once after eight years--my wife?"
She breathed hard and drew back against the wall, dazed and frightened,
and said:
"No, no, do not come near me; do not speak to me--ah, please, stand back,
for a moment--please!"
He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and continued, with mock tenderness:
"To think that things come round so! And here you have a home. But that
is good. I am tired of much travel and life all alone. The prodigal
goes not to the home, the home comes to the prodigal." He stretched up
his arms as if with a feeling of content.
"Do you--do you not know," she said, "that--that--"
He interrupted her:
"Do I not know, Lucy, that this is your home? Yes. But is it not all
the same? I gave you a home ten years ago--to think, ten years ago!
We quarrelled one night, and I left you. Next morning my boat was found
below the White Cascade--yes, but that was so stale a trick! It was not
worthy of Francois Rives. He would do it so much better now; but he was
young then; just a boy, and foolish. Well, sit down, Lucy, it is a long
story, and you have much to tell, how much--who knows?" She came slowly
forward and said with a painful effort:
"You did a great wrong, Francois. You have killed me.
"Killed you, Lucy, my wife! Pardon! Never in those days did you look so
charming as now--never. But the great surprise of seeing your husband,
it has made you shy, quite shy. There will be much time now for you to
change all that. It is quite pleasant to think on, Lucy. . . . You
remember the song we used to sing on the Chaudiere at St. Antoine? See,
I have not forgotten it--
"'Nos amants sont en guerre,
Vole, mon coeur, vole.'"
He hummed the lines over and over, watching through his half-shut eyes
the torture he was inflicting.
"Oh, Mother of God," she whispered, "have mercy! Can you not see, do you
not know? I am not as you left me."
"Yes, my wife, you are just the same; not an hour older. I am glad that
you have come to me. But how they will envy Pretty Pierre!"
"Envy--Pretty-Pierre," she repeated, in distress; "are you Pretty Pierre?
Ah, I might have known, I might have known!"
"Yes, and so! Is not Pretty Pierre as good a name as Francois Rives?
Is it not as good as Shon McGann?"
"Oh, I see it all, I see it all now!" she said mournfully. "It was with
you he quarrelled, and about me. He would not tell me what it was. You
know, then, that I am--that I am married--to him?"
"Quite. I know all that; but it is no marriage." He rose to his feet
slowly, dropping the cigarette from his lips as he did so. "Yes," he
continued, "and I know that you prefer Shon McGann to Pretty Pierre."
She spread out her hands appealingly.
"But you are my wife, not his. Listen: do you know what I shall do?
I will tell you in two hours. It is now eight o'clock. At ten o'clock
Shon McGann will meet me at the Saints' Repose. Then you shall know....
Ah, it is a pity! Shon was my good friend, but this spoils all that.
Wine--it has danger; cards--there is peril in that sport; women--they
make trouble most of all."
"O God," she piteously said, "what did I do? There was no sin in me.
I was your faithful wife, though you were cruel to me. You left me,
cheated me, brought this upon me. It is you that has done this
wickedness, not I." She buried her face in her hands, falling on her
knees beside the chair.