|The Rockies, their towering white domes like sheets of ivory inlaid
with blue and green, the glacier gems, looked down upon the Vermillion
Range, and the Vermillion looked down upon the sienna prairie in which
was Fort Calbert, as Marathon might have looked down upon the sea.
In Fort Calbert the Victoria Hotel, monument to the prodigality
of Remittance Men, held its gray stone body in aloofment from the
surrounding boxlike structures of the town.
In a front room of the Victoria six men sat around an oak table upon
which was enthroned a five-gallon keg with a spiggot in its end. It was
an occasion.
Liquor was prohibited in Alberta, but the little joker in the law was
that a white citizen, in good standing, might obtain a permit for the
importation of five gallons.
Jack Enders held the patent right that made the keg on the table
possible.
Five of the six were Remittance Men, the sixth man, Bulldog Carney, in
some particulars, was different. His lean, tanned face suggested
attainment; the gray, restful eyes held power and absolute fearlessness;
they looked out from under light tawny eyebrows like the eyes of an
eagle.
Like Aladdin's lamp, the amber fluid that trickled through the spiggot
transported, mentally, the Englishmen back to the Old Land. It was
always that way with them when there was a shatterment of the caste
shell, an effacement of the hauteur; then they damned the uncouth West
as a St. Helena, and blabbed of "Old London."
A blond giant, FitzHerbert, was saying: "Jack Enders, here, is in no end
of a fazzle; his pater is coming out uninvited, and Jack has a floaty
idea that the old gent will want to see that ranch."
"The ranch that the Victoria's worthy drayman, worthy Enders, is
supposed to have acquired with the several remittances dear pater has
remitted," Harden explained to Carney.
"Oh, Lord! you fellows!" Enders moaned.
His desolated groan was drowned by a droning call that floated in from
the roadway; it was a weird drool--the droning, hoarse note of a tug's
whistle.
Harden sprang to his feet crying: "St. Ives! a Thames 'Puffing Billy'!
Oh, heavens! it makes me homesick."
Harden had named it; it was the absolute warning note of a busy, pudgy
little Thames tug.
Some of them went over the table in their eagerness to investigate.
Outside they stood aghast in silent wonderment; the hot, scorching sun
lay like a yellow flame across the most archaic, disreputable caravan of
one that had ever cast its disconsolate shadow upon the main street. A
dejected, piebald cayuse hung limply between the shafts of a Red River
cart whose appearance suggested that it had been constructed from broken
bits of the ark. In the cart sat a weary semblance of humanity.
The man's face and hands were encrusted with a plastic mixture of dust
and sweat till he looked like a lamellar creature--an armadillo. He
turned small sullen eyes, in which was an impatient, querulous look,
upon the six.
"It's a Trappist monk from the merry temple of Chartreuse," FitzHerbert
declared solemnly.
"Do it again, bargee," Harden begged; "blow your horn, O
Gabriel--there's vintage inside; one blast to warm the cockles of our
hearts and we'll set you happy."
The little eyes of the charioteer fastened upon Harden with his cogent
proposition; he made a trumpet of his palms, and blew the tug boat
blast. He did it sadly, as though it were an occupation.
But Enders, with a spring, was in the cart. He picked up the slight
figure and tossed it to the blond giant, who, catching the thing of
buckskin and leather chapps, turned back into the bar.
"Sit you there, foghorn," FitzHerbert said, as he lowered the
unresisting guest to a chair.
The guest's eyes had grown large with the confirmatory evidence of a
keg; the spiggot fascinated him; it was like a crystal to a gazer. He
shoved out a dry furred tongue and peeled from his lips the rim of lava
that darkened their pale contours.
Harden had replenished the glasses, and the one he passed to the
prodigal was the fated calf--it was full.
The guest raised the glass till the sunlight, slanting through a window,
threw life into the amber fluid, and gazed lovingly upon it.
"Oh, my aunt!" Harden bantered; "the man who has come up out of the
stillness has a toast." The little man coughed, and from the flat chest
floated up through thin tubes a voice that was soft and cultured as it
wafted to their astonished ears: "Gentlemen, the Queen."
FitzHerbert, who had been in the Guards before something had happened,
started. It was the toast of a vice-president of an officer's mess at
dinner.
The six sprang to their feet, carried aloft their glasses, drank, and
sat down again in silence. Fitz-Herbert's big voice had a husk in it as
he asked, "Where is the regimental band, sir?"
The little man's shoulders twitched as he answered: "The band is
outside: we'll have the bandmaster in for a glass of wine, presently."
"By George!" FitzHerbert gasped, for he knew this was a custom at mess;
and Carney, who also knew, gazed at the little man, and his gray eyes
that were thought hard, had gone blue.
"Now," Harden declared, "if somebody should dribble in who could give us
twelve booms from 'Big Ben,' we'd have a perfect ecstasy of the blues."
At that two men came in through the front door, their scarlet tunics
showing blood red in the glint of sunshine that played about their
shoulders.
"Oh, you, Sergeant Jerry Platt!" the blond giant cried; "here is where
the regulations bear heavy on a man, for we can't invite you to join
up."
The Sergeant laughed. "You bad boys; if somebody hasn't a permit for
this I'll have to run you all in."
Platt's companion, Corporal McBane, lengthened his dour face and added:
"Drinkin' unlawful whisky is a dreadful sin."
"Shut your eyes, you two chaps, and open your mouths," FitzHerbert
bantered; "that wouldn't be taking a drink."
"Let me see the permit," Platt asked, ignoring the chaff.
When he had examined the official script he said, "Sorry, gentlemen, to
have troubled you."
As the two policemen turned away Platt nodded to Carney, the jovial cast
of his countenance passing into a slightly cynical transition.
"Good fellows," Harden remarked; "our Scotch friend had tears of regret
standing in his eyes at sight of the keg."
"Yes, and they have a beastly task," FitzHerbert declared; "this liquor
law is all wrong. To keep it from the Indians white men out here have to
be treated like babes or prisoners. That's why everybody is against
the police when the law interferes with just rights, but with them when
they're putting down crime."
"The worst part of it is," Carney added, "that sometimes a bull-headed
man who has all the instincts of a thief catcher becomes a sergeant
in the force, and can't interpret the law with any human intelligence.
Fortunately, it's only one once in a while."
The ragged stranger shook himself out of the gentle state of quiescent
restfulness the whisky had produced to say: "There will be a freshet of
this stuff in Fort Calbert in a few days."
"Put me down for a barrel, O joyful stranger," FitzHerbert exclaimed
eagerly.
Carney's gray eyes had widened a little at the stranger's statement.
"You can apply to Superintendent Kane," the little man answered; "he
will have the handling of it, I fancy--a carload."
FitzHerbert's blue eyes searched Carney's, but the latter sat as if
playing poker.
"Tell us about it, man," Enders suggested.
"I pulled into Fort Calbert this morning," the other contributed, "and a
jocular constable took me to the Fort as a vagrant."
"Your equipage was against you," Enders advised. "Don't think anything
of that," FitzHerbert said; "the hobos have been running neck-and-neck
with the gophers about here; they burned up five freight cars in two
weeks. The police have been shaken up over it by the O.C."
The little man drew from a pocket of his coat a bag of gold, and clapped
it gently on the table.
"You had your credentials," and FitzHerbert nodded.
"I'd been washing gold down on the bars at Victoria. It was this way. I
have a farm there, and last year I put in thirty acres of oats. It was
a rotten crop and I didn't cut it. This year it came up a volunteer
crop--a splendid one; I sold it to Major Grisbold, at Fort Saskatchewan,
standing. Now I'm on my holidays, just a little pleasure jaunt."
"The constable took you to the Fort?" FitzHerbert suggested, for the
little man's mind had returned to the convivial association of his
glass.
"By Jove! forgive me, gentlemen--about the whisky: While I was waiting
for an audience with the Polica _Ogema_ I heard, through an open door,
a pow-wow over a telegram that had just come. Its general statement was
that whisky was being loaded at Winnipeg on car 6100 for delivery at
Bald Rock. The Major gave the Sergeant orders to seize the car here."
"Who owns the whisky?" FitzHerbert asked.
"I heard the O.C. say, 'It's that damn Bulldog Carney again!' so I
suppose----"
The speaker's eyes opened in wondering perplexity at the blizzard of
merriment that cut off his supposition; neither could he understand why
FitzHerbert clapped a hand on his shoulder and cried, "Old top, you're a
joy!"
The laughter had but died down when Carney rose, and, addressing the
little man, held out his hand, saying: "I'm _very_ glad to have met you,
sir." Then he was gone.
"I like that man," the derelict declared. "What's his name--you didn't
introduce me?"
"That gentleman is Mr. Bulldog Carney," FitzHerbert answered solemnly.
"Oh, I say!" the other gasped.
"Don't worry; you've probably done him a good turn," FitzHerbert
answered.
The stranger blinked his solemn eyes as if debating something; then
he related: "My name is Reginald Llewellyn Fordyce-Anstruther; from
An-struther Hall one can drive a golf ball into either one of three
counties--Surrey, Sussex, or Kent."
In retaliation each of the five presented himself at decorous length.
From the Victoria Carney strolled to the railway station and sent
a telegram to John Arliss at Winnipeg. It was an ordinary ranch-type of
message, about a registered bull that was being shipped. In the evening
he had an answer to the effect that the bull would be well looked after.
Then Sergeant Jerry Platt paid several visits daily to the railway
station for little chats with a constable who patrolled its platform
from morning till night.
On the sixth day a gigantic, black-headed, drab snake crawled across the
prairie from the east, and toward its tail one joint of the vertebras
was numbered 6100.
Sergeant Jerry was on hand, and his eye brightened; the advice the Major
had received was reliable, evidently.
The station master knew nothing about the car; it was through
freight--not for Fort Calbert.
Bulldog Carney had wandered unobtrusively down to the station; a dry
smile hovered about his lips as he listened to the argument between the
amiable Jerry and the rather important magnate of the C. P. R.
"Lovely!" he muttered once to himself as he wandered closer to the
discussion.
It was a case of when great bodies collide. The C. P. R. was a mighty
force, and its agents sometimes felt the tremendousness of their power:
the Mounted Police were not accustomed to being balked when they issued
an order.
Jerry wanted the seals broken on the car. This the agent flatly refused
to do; rules were rules, and he only took orders, re railroad matters,
from his superior officer.
Jerry was firm; but the famous Jerry Platt smile never left his face for
long. "There's booze in that car, Mr. Craig," he declared.
"How do you know?" the station agent retorted.
"Perhaps we got the info from Bulldog Carney, there," and Jerry laughed.
Perhaps Bulldog had been waiting for a legitimate opening, for he
jumped:
"I think it is altogether incredible, Sergeant Jerry,"' he answered;
"Ottawa would never let that much liquor get out of Ontario--they have
use for it down that way."
"It's booze," Jerry asserted flatly; "and I'm going to tell you
something on the level, Bulldog. You're a hell of a nice fellow, but if
I get the evidence I expect to get you'll go into the pen just as though
I never set eyes on you."
Carney laughed. "When you say the word, Jerry, and I can't make a
get-away, I'm yours without trouble. But I don't mind laying you a bet
of ten dollars that somebody's been pulling your Superintendent's leg. A
carload of whisky is simply preposterous."
This little by-play had given Sergeant Platt time for a second thought.
He could see that the agent was one of those duty-set men, and would not
break the seal of the car; and without authority he did not care to take
it on himself.
"Look here, Craig," he said, "cut that car off. I'll get the O.C. to
come down; in the meantime you might wire your divisional point how
to act. We've simply got to detain the car even if we use force; but I
don't want to get you into trouble."
A look of pleasure suffused Carney's face; for or against him, he
admired brains in a man. And Jerry's determination and bravery were also
well known. He turned to the station master saying:
"I don't want to horn in on this round-up, Craig, but I fancy that's the
proper way. I've a curiosity to see just what is in that car."
Sergeant Platt waited patiently; and the conductor of the freight train
was now on the platform asking for his "line clear."
Craig was up against a new situation. His company was powerful, and
would back him up if he were absolutely in the right, but they also
expected of a man a certain amount of intelligence plus his orders; they
didn't encourage friction between their employees and the Mounted.
"Cut off 6100, Jim, and run her into the sidin'," he said curtly to the
conductor. And as a panacea to his capitulation he added: "If you've got
somebody else's freight there, Jerry, I'd advise you to apply for a job
as brakeman, you're so damned fond of runnin' the C. P. R."
Platt laughed and, turning to the constable, said: "Gallop down to the
Fort, report to the O.C., and ask him for a written order to break the
seals on this car, as the agent refuses to."
So 6100 was lanced from the drab snake's body, and then the reptile
crawled up the grade toward the foothills, the tail-end joint, the
caboose, flicking about derisively as it hobbled over the uneven track.
An inkling of what was on had come to the ears of the citizens; casually
the worthy people sauntered down to the station. They were thirsty
souls, for permits did not grow on every lamp post. That a whole carload
of whisky had been seized bred a demoralizing thirst. It was doomed,
of course, to be poured out on the parched earth, but the event had an
attraction like a funeral.