It was Pierrot who aroused Philip in the morning.
“Mon, Dieu, but you have slept like a bear,” he exclaimed. “The storm
has cleared and it will be fine traveling. Eh--you have not heard? I
wonder why they are firing guns off toward Lac Bain!”
Philip jumped from his bed, and his first look was in the direction of
the box. He was criminal enough to hope that Jacques would not discover
that the scarf was missing.
“A moose--probably,” he said. “There were tracks close up to the post a
day or two ago.”
He was anxious to begin their journey, and assisted Pierrot in preparing
breakfast. The sound of guns impressed upon him the possibility of some
one from Lac Bain calling at the half-breed's cabin, and he wished to
avoid further association with people from the post--at least for a
time. At nine o'clock Pierrot bolted the door and the two set off into
the south and west. On the third day they swung to the eastward to
strike the Indians living along Reindeer Lake, and on the sixth cut a
trail by compass straight for Nelson House. A week later they arrived at
the post, and Philip found a letter awaiting him calling him to Prince
Albert. In a way the summons was a relief to him. He bade Pierrot
good-by, and set out for Le Pas in company with two Indians. From that
point he took the work train to Etomami, and three hours later was in
Prince Albert.
“Rest up for a time, Steele,” Inspector MacGregor told him, after he had
made a personal report on Bucky Nome.
During the week that followed Philip had plenty of leisure in which to
tell himself that he was a fool, and that he was deliberately throwing
away what a munificent fortune had placed in his hands. MacGregor's
announcement that he was in line for promotion in the near future did
not stir him as it would have done a few weeks before. In his little
barracks room he laughed ironically as he recalled MacGregor's words,
“We're going to make a corporal or a sergeant of you.” He--Philip
Steele--millionaire, club man, son of a western king of finance--a
corporal or a sergeant! For the first time the thought amused him,
and then it maddened him. He had played the part of an idiot, and all
because there had been born within him a love of adventure and the big,
free life of the open. No wonder some of his old club friends regarded
him as a scapegrace and a ne'er-do-well. He had thrown away position,
power, friends and home as carelessly as he might have tossed away the
end of a cigar. And all--for this! He looked about his cramped quarters,
a half sneer on his lips. He had tied himself to this! To his ears there
came faintly the thunder of galloping hoofs. Sergeant Moody was training
his rookies to ride. The sneer left his lips, and was replaced by
a quick, alert smile as he heard a rattle of revolver shots and the
cheering of voices. After all, it was not so bad. It was a service that
made men, and he thought of the English remittance-man, whose father was
a lord of something-or-other, and who was learning to ride and shoot out
there with red-headed, raucous-voiced Moody. There began to stir in him
again the old desire for action, and he was glad when word was sent to
him that Inspector MacGregor wished to see him in his office.
The big inspector was pacing back and forth when Philip came in.
“Sit down, Steele, sit down,” he said. “Take it easy, man--and have a
cigar.”
If MacGregor had suddenly gone into a fit Philip could not have been
more surprised than at these words, as he stood with his cap in his hand
before the desk of the fiery-mustached inspector, who was passing his
box of choice Havanas. There are tightly drawn lines of distinction in
the Royal Mounted. As Philip had once heard the commissioner say, “Every
man in the service is a king--but there are different degrees of kings,”
and for a barracks man to be asked to sit in the inspector's office
and smoke was a sensational breach of the usual code. But as he had
distinctly heard the invitation to sit, and to smoke, Philip proceeded
to do both, and waited in silence for the next mine to explode under his
feet. And there was a certain ease in his manner of doing these things
which would have assured most men that he was not unaccustomed to
sitting in the presence of greatness.
The inspector seemed to notice this. For a moment he stood squarely in
front of Steele, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a twinkle in
the cold, almost colorless eyechuckling, companionable laugh, such as
finds its vent in the fellowship of equals, but which is seldom indulged
in by a superior before an inferior in the R.N.W.M. Police.
“Mighty good cigars, eh, Steele?” he asked, turning slowly toward the
window. “The commissioner sent 'em up to me from Regina. Nothing like a
good cigar on a dreary day like this. Whew, listen to the wind--straight
from Medicine Hat!”
For a few moments he looked out upon the cheerless drab roofs of the
barracks, with their wisps of pale smoke swirling upward into the leaden
sky; counted the dozen gnarled and scrubby trees, as had become a habit
with him; rested his eyes upon the black and shriveled remnants of
summer flower-beds thrusting their frost-shrunken stalks through the
snow, and then, almost as if he were speaking to himself, he said,
“Steele, are you beautyproof?”
There was no banter in his voice. It was low, so low that it had in it
the ring of something more than mere desire for answer, and when
the inspector turned, Philip observed a thing that he had never seen
before--a flush in MacGregor's face. His pale eyes gleamed. His voice
was filled with an intense earnestness as he repeated the question. “I
want to know, Steele. Are you beauty-proof?”
In spite of himself Philip felt the fire rising in his own face. In that
moment the inspector could have hit on no words that would have thrilled
him more deeply than those which he had spoken. Beauty-proof! Did
MacGregor know? Was it possible-- He took a step forward, words came to
his lips, but he caught himself before he had given voice to them.
Beauty-proof!
He laughed, softly, as the inspector had laughed a few moments before.
But there was a strange tenseness in his face--something which MacGregor
saw, but could not understand.
“Beauty-proof?” He repeated the words, looking keenly at the other.
“Yes, I think I am, sir.”
“You think you are?”
“I am quite sure that I am. Inspector. That is as far as I can go.”
The inspector seated himself at his desk and opened a drawer. From it he
took a photograph. For some time he gazed at it in silence, puffing out
clouds of smoke from his cigar. Then, without lifting his eyes from
the picture, he said: “I am going to put you up against a queer case,
Steele, and the strangest thing about it is its very simplicity. It's a
job for the greenest rookie in the service, and yet I swear that there
isn't another man in Saskatchewan to whom I would talk as I am about to
talk to you. Rather paradoxical, isn't it?”
“Rather,” agreed Philip.
“And yet not when you come to understand the circumstances,” continued
the inspector, placing the photograph face down on the table and looking
at the other through a purple cloud of tobacco smoke. “You see, Steele,
I know who you are. I know that your father is Philip Steele, the big
Chicago banker. I know that you are up here for romance and adventure
rather than for any other thing there is in the service. I know, too,
that you are no prairie chicken, and that most of your life has been
spent where you see beautiful women every hour of the day, and where
soft voices and tender smiles aren't the most wonderful things in the
world, as they sometimes are up here. Fact is, we have a way of our own
of running down records--”
“And a confounded clever one it must be,” interrupted Philip
irreverently. “Had you any--any particular reason for supposing me to be
'beauty-proof,' as you call it?” he added coldly.
“I've told you my only reason,” said the inspector, leaning over his
desk. “You've seen so many pretty faces, Steele, and you've associated
with them so long that one up here isn't going to turn your head. Now--”
MacGregor hesitated, and laughed. The flush grew deeper in his cheeks,
and he looked again at the photograph.
“I'm going to be frank with you,” he went on. “This young woman called
on me yesterday, and within a quarter of an hour--fifteen minutes, mind
you!--she had me going like a fool! Understand? I'm not proof--against
her--and yet I'm growing old in the service and haven't had a love
affair since--a long time ago. I'm going to send you up to the Wekusko
camp, above Le Pas, to bring down a prisoner. The man is her husband,
and he almost killed Hodges, who is chief of construction up there.
The minimum he'll get is ten years, and this woman is moving heaven
and earth to save him. So help me God, Steele, if I was one of the
youngsters, and she came to me as she did yesterday, I believe I'd let
him give me the slip! But it mustn't happen. Understand? It mustn't
happen. We've got to bring that man down, and we've got to give him the
law. Simple thing, isn't it--this bringing a prisoner down from Wekusko!
Any rookie could do it, couldn't he? And yet--”
The inspector paused to light his cigar, which had gone out. Then he
added: “If you'll do this, Steele--and care for it--I'll see that you
get your promotion.”
As he finished, he tossed the photograph across the desk. “That's she.
Don't ask me how I got the picture.”
A curious thrill shot through Philip as he picked up the bit of
cardboard. It was a wondrously sweet face that looked squarely out of
it into his eyes, a face so youthful, so filled with childish
prettiness that an exclamation of surprise rose to his lips. Under
other circumstances he would have sworn that it was the picture of a
school-girl. He looked up, about to speak, but MacGregor had turned
again to the window, clouds of smoke about his head. He spoke without
turning his head.
“That was taken nearly ten years ago,” he said, and Philip knew that he
was making an effort to keep an unnatural break out of his voice. “But
there has been little change--almost none. His name is Thorpe. I will
send you a written order this afternoon and you can start to-night.”
Philip rose, and waited.
“Is there nothing more?” he asked, after a moment. “This woman--”
“There is nothing more,” interrupted the inspector, still looking out
through the window.
“Only this, Steele--you must bring him back. Whatever happens, bring
back your prisoner.”
As he turned to leave, Philip fancied that he caught something else--a
stifled, choking breath, a sound that made him turn his head again as he
went through the door. The inspector had not moved.
“Now what the deuce does this mean?” he asked himself, closing the door
softly behind him. “You're up against something queer this time, Philip
Steele, I'll wager dollars to doughnuts. Promotion for bringing in a
prisoner! What in thunder--”
He stopped for a moment in one of the cleared paths. From the big
low roofed drill enclosure a hundred yards away came the dull thud of
galloping hoofs and the voice of Sergeant Moody thundering instructions
to the rookies. Moody had a heart like flint and would have faced
blazing cannon to perform his duty. He had grown old and ugly in
the service and was as beauty-proof as an ogre of stone. Why hadn't
MacGregor sent him?
Beauty-proof! The words sent a swift rush of thought, of regret, of
the old homesickness and longing through Philip as he returned to his
quarters. He wondered just how much MacGregor knew, and he sat down to
bring up before him for the thousandth time a vision of the two faces
that had played their part in his life--the face of the girl at home,
as beautiful as a Diane de Poitiers, as soulless as a sphinx, who had
offered herself to him in return for his name and millions, and of
that other which he had met away up in the frozen barrens of Lac Bain.
Beauty-proof! He laughed and loaded his pipe. MacGregor had made a good
guess, even though he did not know what had passed that winter before
he came north to seek adventure, or of the fight he had made for another
woman, with Mr. Bucky Nome--deserter!