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The Luck of the Mounted: A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

by Ralph S. Kendall · English · Gutenberg #15940 · 361,384 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Luck of the Mounted: A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

Author: Ralph S. Kendall


        
Release date: May 30, 2005 [eBook #15940]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15940

Credits: E-text prepared by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUCK OF THE MOUNTED: A TALE OF THE ROYAL NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE ***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



THE LUCK OF THE MOUNTED

A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

by

SERGEANT RALPH S. KENDALL

Ex-Member of the R.N.W.M.P.

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers          New York

1920







  This truest of stories confirms beyond doubt,
  That truest of adages--"Murder will out!"
  In vain may the blood-spiller "double" and fly,
  In vain even witchcraft and sorcery try:
  Although for a time he may 'scape, by-and-by
  He'll be sure to be caught by a Hue and a Cry!
                                        --THE INGOLDSBY LEGEND




TO

MY OLD COMRADES


PRESENT, AND EX-MEMBERS OF THE

R.N.W.M. POLICE


THIS WORK IS DEDICATED WITH EVERY KIND THOUGHT






CHAPTER I

  _O sing us a song of days that are gone--
  Of men and happenings--of war and peace;
  We love to yarn of "th' times that was"
  As our hair grows gray, and our years increase.
  So--revert we again to our ancient lays--
  Fill we our pipes, and our glasses raise--
  "Salue! to those stirring, bygone days!"
  Cry the old non-coms of the Mounted Police._
                                        MEMORIES


All day long the blizzard had raged, in one continuous squalling moaning
roar--the fine-spun snow swirling and drifting about the
barrack-buildings and grounds of the old Mounted Police Post of L.
Division.  Whirraru!-ee!--thrumm-mm! hummed the biting nor'easter through
the cross-tree rigging of the towering flag-pole in the centre of the
wind-swept square, while the slapping flag-halyards kept up an infernal
"devil's tattoo."  With snow-bound roof from which hung huge icicles,
like walrus-tusks, the big main building loomed up, ghostly and
indistinct, amidst the whirling, white-wreathed world, save where, from
the lighted windows broad streamers of radiance stabbed the surrounding
gloom; reflecting the driving snow-spume like dust-motes dancing in a
sunbeam.

Enveloped in snow-drifts and barely visible in the uncertain light there
clustered about the central structure the long, low-lying guard-room,
stables, quartermaster's store, and several smaller adjacent buildings
comprising "The Barracks."  It was a bitter February night in South
Alberta.

From the vicinity of the guard-room the muffled-up figure of a man, with
head down against the driving blizzard, padded noiselessly with
moccasined feet up the pathway leading to the main building.  Soon
reaching his destination, he dived hastily through the double storm-doors
of the middle entrance into the passage, and banged them to.

Flanking him on either side, in welcome contrast to the bitter world
outside, he beheld the all-familiar sight of two inviting portals, each
radiating light, warmth, and good fellowship--the one on his right hand
particularly.  A moment he halted irresolutely between regimental canteen
and library; then, for some reason best known to himself, he steadily
ignored both, for the time being, and passing on began slowly to mount a
short flight of stairs at the end of the passage.

Sweet music beguiled each reluctant step of his ascent: the tinkle of a
piano accompaniment to a roaring jovial chorus from the canteen assuring
him with plaintive, but futile insistence just then, that--

  _Beer, beer! was glorious beer, etc_.

Reaching the landing he paused for a space in an intent listening
attitude outside the closed door of a room marked No. 3.  From within
came the sounds of men's voices raised in a high-pitched, gabbling
altercation.

Turning swiftly to an imaginary audience, his expressive young
countenance contorted into a grimace of unholy glee, the listener flung
aloft his arms and blithely executed a few noiseless steps of an
impromptu war-dance.

"They're at it again!" he muttered ecstatically.

Some seconds he capered thus in pantomime; then, as swiftly composing his
features into a mask-like expression, he turned the handle and entered.
On the big thermometer nailed outside the Orderly-room the mercury may
have registered anything between twenty and thirty below zero, but inside
Barrack-room No. 3 the temperature at that moment was warm enough.

Two men, seated at either end Of a long table in the centre of the room,
busily engaged in cleaning their accoutrements, glanced up casually at
his entrance; then, each vouchsafing him a preoccupied salutory mumble,
they bent to their furbishing with the brisk concentration peculiar to
"Service men" the world over.  As an accompaniment to their labours, in
desultory fashion, they kept alive the embers of a facetious wrangling
argument--their respective vocabularies, albeit more or less ensanguined,
exhibiting a fluent and masterly range of quaint barrack-room idiom and
invective.

Both were clad in brown duck "fatigue slacks," the rolled-up sleeves of
their "gray-back" shirts disclosing the fact that the sinewy forearms of
both men were decorated with gay and fanciful specimens of the tattoo
artist's genius.  A third man, similarly habited, lay stretched out,
apparently sleeping on one of the cots that were arranged around the
room.  Opening his eyes he greeted the newcomer with a lethargic "'Lo,
Redmond!"; then, turning over on his side, he relapsed once more into the
arms of Morpheus--his nasal organ proclaiming that fact beyond doubt.

The orderly aspect of the room bore mute evidence of regimental
discipline.  The blankets--with the sheets placed in the centre--were
strapped into a neat roll at the head of each tartan-rugged cot, at the
foot of which lay a folded black oil-sheet.  Above, on a small shelf,
were the spare uniform and Stetson hat, flanked on either side by a pair
of high brown "Strathcona" riding-boots, with straight-shanked
"cavalry-jack" spurs attached.  On pegs underneath hung the regulation
side-arms,--a "Sam Browne" belt and holster containing the Colt's .45
Service revolver.  A rifle-rack at the end of the room contained its
quota of Winchester carbines.

The last arrival, whom the sleeper had designated "Redmond," proceeded to
divest himself of his short fur coat and, after dashing the snow from it
and his muskrat-faced cap, unbuckled his side-arms, and hung all up at
the head of his own particular cot.

Flashing across our retrospective mind-screens, as at times we dreamily
delve into the past, beloved faces come and go.  Forever in the memory of
the writer, as his ideal conception of healthy, virile splendid Youth
personified, will stand the bronzed, debonair, clean-shaven young face of
George Redmond--or "Reddy," as he was more familiarly dubbed by his
comrades of L. Division.

Handsome his countenance could not have been termed--the features were
too strongly-marked and roughly-hewn.  But it was an undeniably open,
attractive and honest one--the sort of face that instinctively invited
one's "Hail, fellow, well met!" trust at first sight.  His hair was dark
auburn in colour, short and wavy, with a sort of golden tinge in it; his
forehead was broad and open, and below it were two uncommonly waggish
blue eyes.  His habitual expression was a mixture of nonchalant good
humour and gay insouciance, but the slightly aquiline, prominent nose and
the set of the square aggressive jaw belied in a measure the humourous
curl of the lips.

Those who knew his disposition well were fully aware how swiftly the
mocking smile could vanish from that indolent young face on occasion--how
unpleasantly those wide blue orbs could contract beneath scowling brows
into mere pin-points of steel and ice.  Slightly above middle height,
well-set-up and strongly, though not heavily made, the lines of his
clean-built figure suggested the embodiment of grace, strength and
activity.

He was dressed in the regulation winter uniform of the Force, consisting
of a scarlet-serge tunic, dark-blue cord riding breeches with the broad
yellow stripe down the side, thick black woollen stockings reaching to
the knee, and buckskin moccasins with spurs attached.  Over the
stockings, and rolled tightly down upon the tops of the moccasins as
snow-excluders, were a pair of heavy gray socks.

Wriggling out of his tightly-fitting red serge he carelessly flung that
article onto the next cot; then, filling and lighting a pipe, he
stretched out comfortably upon his own.  With hands clasped behind his
head he lazily watched the two previously-mentioned men at their cleaning
operations, his expressive face registering indolent but mischievous
interest, as he listened to their wrangling.

"No!" resumed one of the twain emphatically, apropos of some previous
contention, "No, by gum! this division ain't what it used to be in them
days."

He gave vent to a reminiscent sigh as he spat upon and rubbed up some
powdered brick-dust.

"Billy Herchmer was O.C., Fred Bagley was Sergeant-Major--and there was
Harry Hetherington, Ralph Bell, De Barre, Jeb Browne, Pennycuik, and all
them old-timers.  Eyah! th' times that was! th' times that was!  Force's
all filled up now mostly with 'Smart Aleck' kids, like Reddy, here,
an'"--he shot a glance of calculating invitation at his vis-a-vis,
Hardy--"'old sweats' from the Old Country Imperials."

Artfully to start some trivial but decidedly inflammable barrack-room
argument was one of Corporal Dave McCullough's pet diversions.  At this
somewhat doubtful pastime he would exhibit a knowledge of human nature
and an infinite patience worthy of a better object.  From some occult
reasoning of his Celtic soul the psychological moment he generally chose
as being likely the most fruitful of results was either a few minutes
before, or after "Lights Out."

When the ensuing conflagration had blazed to the desired stage he would
quietly extinguish his own vocal torch and lie back on his cot with a
sort of "Mark Antony" "Now let it work!" chuckle.  "Getting their goats"
he termed it.  Usually though, when the storm of bad language and boots
had subsided, his dupes, too, like those of "Silver Street" were wont to
scratch their heads and commune one with another:--

  --_begod, I wonder why_?

He was a heavy-shouldered man; middle-aged, with thick, crisp iron-gray
hair and moustache and a pair of humourous brown eyes twinkling in a
lined, weather-beaten face.  His slightly nasal voice was dry and
penetrating to the point of exasperation.  For many years he had acted as
"farrier" to L. Division.

George warily accepted the share of the pleasantry extended to him with a
shrug, and a non-committal grin.  But Hardy chose to regard it as a
distinct challenge, and therefore a promising bone of contention.  He
gloated over it awhile ere pouncing.

A medium-sized, wiry, compactly-built man bodily, Hardy bore lightly the
weight of his forty-five years.  His hair was of that uncertain sandy
colour which somehow never seems to turn gray; the edges of the
crisply-curling forelock being soaped, rolled and brushed up into that
approved tonsorial ornament known in barrack-room parlance as a "quiff."
His complexion was of that peculiar olive-brown shade especially
noticeable in most Anglo-Indians.  In his smart, soldierly aspect,
biting, jerky Cockney speech and clipped, wax-pointed moustache he
betrayed unmistakably the ex-Imperial cavalry-man.

"Old sweats!" he echoed sarcastically--he pronounced it "aoweld"--"Yas!
you go tell that t' th' Marines, me lad! . . .  Took a few o' th' sime
'old sweats' t' knock ''Ay Leg!' 'Straw Leg' inter some o' you mossbacks
at th' stort orf.  Gee!  Har! oh, gorblimey, yas!"  He illustrated his
trenchant remarks in suggestive pantomime.

"Ah!" quoth McCullough blithely, "Yu' know th' sayin'--'Old soldier--old
stiff?' . . ."

His adversary burnished a spur viciously.  "Old pleeceman--old son of
a--" he retorted with a spiteful grin.  "W'y, my old Kissiwasti here
knows more abaht drill'n wot you do."  He indicated a rather
disreputable-looking gray parrot, preening itself in a cage which stood
upon a cot nearby.

At the all-familiar sound of its name the bird suddenly ceased its
monotonous beak and claw gymnastics for a space, becoming on the instant
alertly attentive.  There came a preliminary craning of neck and winking
of white-parchment-lidded eyes, and then, in shockingly human fashion it
proceeded to give voluble utterance to some startling samples of
barrack-room profanity.  Its shrill invective would have awakened the
dead.  The whistling, regular snores of the sleeper suddenly wound up
with a gasping gurgle; he opened his eyes and, in a strong cereal accent
gave vent to a somnolent peevish protest.

"Losh! . . . whot wi' you fellers bickerin' an' yon damn birrd currsin' I
canna sleep! . . . gie th'--"

But Hardy silenced him with a warning finger.

"Sh-sh!  McSporran!" he hissed in a loud eager whisper, "Jes' 'awk t'
im? . . . gort th' real reg'mental tatch 'as old Kissiwasti! ain't
he?"--his face shone with simple pride--"d' yer 'ken' that? sh-sh! listen
now! . . .  Yer shud 'ear 'im s'y 'Oot, mon!' . . .  'Awk t'im up an'
tellin'yer _w'y_ th' Jocks wear th' kilts."

Awhile McSporran listened, but with singular lack of enthusiasm.
Presently, swinging his legs over the side of the cot with a weary sigh,
he proceeded to fill his pipe.  He was a thick-set, grey-eyed fair man
about thirty, with a stolid, though shrewd, clean-shaven face.

"Best ye stickit tae wha' ye ca' 'English,' auld mon!" he remarked
irritably, "Baith yersel' an' yer plurry pairrut. . . .  Ou ay, I
ken!--D'ye ken John Peel?--"

And, in derision he hummed a few lines of a rather vulgar parody of that
ancient song that obtained around Barracks.

"Say, by gad, though! that bird is a fright!" ejaculated George suddenly,
"Holy Doodle! just listen to what he said then? . . .  If ever he starts
in to hand out tracts like that when the O.C.'s up here inspecting he'll
get invested with the Order of the 'Neck-Wring' for usurping _his_ pet
privilege.  You'd better let Brankley the quartermaster have him.  He was
up here the other day and heard him.  He was tickled to death--said he'd
like to buy him off you, and 'top him off'--finish his education."

"Oh, 'e did, did 'e?" growled Hardy mutinously, but with ill-concealed
interest, "Well, 'e ain't a-goin' t' 'ave 'im!"  He breathed hard upon a
buckle and polished it to his satisfaction.  "Brankley is some connosser
I will admit," he conceded grudgingly, "but Kissiwasti's got orl th'
'toppin orf wot's good fur 'im--dahn Regina--'e went through a reg'lar
course dahn there--took 'is degree, so t' speak. . . .  I uster tike an'
'ang 'is kydge hup in that little gallery in th' ridin school of a
mornin'--when Inspector Chappell, th' ridin' master wos breakin' in a
bunch o' rookies--'toppin' orf,' wot? . . ."

"Tchkk!" clucked McCullough wearily.  "What is the use of arguin' with an
old sweat like him? . . .  Hardy'll be happy enough in Hell, so long as
he can have his bloomin' old blackguard of a parrot along with him.  If
he can't there will be a pretty fuss."

"Bear up, Hardy!" comforted George.  "When you've got that 'quiff' of
yours all fussed up, and those new 'square-pushin'' dress-pants on you're
some 'hot dog.' . . .  Now, if I thought you could 'talk pretty' and
behave yourself I'd--"

The old soldier grinned diabolically.  "Sorjint?" he broke in mincingly
"c'n I fall out an' tork t' me sister?--garn, Reddy! wipe orf yer
chin! . . . though if I did 'appen t' 'ave a sister she might s'y th'
sime fing abaht me, now, as she might s'y abaht you--to a lydy-fren' o'
'er's, p'raps. . . ."

"Say what?" demanded George incautiously.

Hardy chuckled again, "'Ere comes one o' them Mounted Pleecemen, me
dear,--orl comb an' spurs,--mark time in front there. . . !"  And he
emitted an imitation of a barnyard cackle.

McCullough shot a glance at Redmond's face.  "Can th' grief" he remarked
unsympathetically, "you're fly enough usually . . . but you fairly asked
for it that time."

Hardy spat into a cuspidor with long-range accuracy.  He beamed with
cheerful malevolence awhile upon his tormentors; then, uplifting a
cracked falsetto in an unmusical wail, to the tune of "London Bridge is
Falling Down," assured them that--

  "_Old soweljers never die, never die, never die,
  Old soweljers never--_"

With infinite mockery Redmond's boyish voice struck in--

  "_Young soldiers wish they would, wish they--_"

"'Ere!" remonstrated Hardy darkly, "chack it, Reddy! . . .  You know wot
'appens t' them as starts in, a-guyin' old soweljers?--eh?--Well, I tell
yer now!--worse'n wot 'appened t' them fresh kids in th' Bible wot mocked
th' old blowke abaht 'is bald 'ead."

"_Isch ga bibble_!  I don't care!" bawled the abandoned George; "can't be
much worse than doing 'straight duty' round Barracks, here!--same thing,
day in, day out--go and look at the 'duty detail' board--Regimental
Number--Constable Redmond, 'prisoner's escort'--punching gangs of
prisoners around all day long, on little rotten jobs about Barracks--and
'night guard' catching you every third night and--"

"Oyez! oyez! oyez! you good men of this--"

"Oh, yes! you can come the funny man all right, Mac--you've got a 'staff'
job.  Straight duty don't affect you.  Why don't they shove me out on
detachment again, and give me another chance to do real police
work? . . .  I tell you I'm fed up--properly. . . .  I wish I was out of
the blooming Force--I'm not 'wedded' to it, like you."

"'Ear, 'ear!" chimed in Hardy, with a sort of miserable heartiness.
McSporran's contribution was merely a dour Scotch grin.  In the moment's
silence that followed a tremendous bawling squall of wind rocked the
building to its very foundations.  The back-draught of it sucked open the
door, and, borne upon its wings, the roaring, full-chorused burst of a
popular barrack-room chantey floated up the stairs from the canteen
below--

  "_Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
  And a merry old soul was he--
  He called for his pipe, and he called for his glass,
  And he called for his old M.P._"

Outside the blizzard still moaned and howled; every now and then, between
lulls, screeching gusts of sleet beat upon the windows.  The parrot,
clinging upside down to the roof of its cage, winked rapidly with
Sphinx-like eyes and inclined its head sideways in an intent listening
attitude.

"Eyah! but th' Force's a bloomin' good home to some of you, all th'
same," growled McCullough.  "Listen to that 'norther'? . . .  How'd you
like to be chucked out into th' cold, cold world right now?--You, Hardy!
that's never done nothin' but 'soldier' all your life--you, Reddy! with
your 'collidge edukashun'?"

George, unmoved, listened respectfully awhile, lying on his stomach with
his chin cupped in his hands.  "Must have been a great bunch of fellows
when you first took on the Force, Dave?" he queried presently.

From sheer force of habit the old policeman glanced at his interlocutor
suspiciously.  But that young gentleman's face appearing open and serene,
merely expressing naive interest, he grunted an affirmative "Uh-huh!" and
backed his conviction with a cheerful oath.

"Ah, they sure was.  But where are they all now?" he rambled on in
garrulous reminiscence, "some of 'em rich--some of 'em broke--an' many of
'em back on th' old Force again, an' glad to get their rations.  There
was some that talked like you, Mister Bloomin' Reddy!--fed up, an' goin'
to quit--an' did quit--for a time.  There was Corky Jones, I mind.  Him
that used to blow 'bout th' wonderful jobs he'd got th' pick of when he
was 'time-ex.'  All he got was 'reeve' of some little shi-poke burg down
south.  Hooshomin its real name, but they mostly call it Hootch
thereabouts.  A rotten little dump of 'bout fifty inhabitants.  They're
drunk half th' time an' wear each other's clothes.  Ugh! filthy
beggars! . . .  He's back on th' Force again.  There was Gadgett Malone.
Proper dog he was--used to sing 'Love me, an' th' World is Mine.'  He got
all balled up with a widder, first crack out o' th' box, an' she shook
him down for his roll an' put th' skids under him in great shape inside
of a month.  He's back on th' Force again.  There was Barton McGuckin.
When he pulled out he shook hands all around, I mind.  Yes, sir! with
tears in his eyes he did.  Told us no matter how high he rose in th'
world he'd never forget his old comrades--always rec'gnize 'em on th'
street an' all that.  On his way down town he was fool enough to go into
one o' these here Romany Pikey dives for to get his fortune told.  This
gypsy woman threw it into him he was goin' to make his fortune in th'
next two or three days by investin' his dough in a certain brand of oil
shares. . . ."

McCullough paused and filled his pipe with elaborate care, "Th' last time
I see him he was in th' buildin' an' contractin' line--carryin' a hod an'
pushin' an Irishman's buggy . . .  There's--but, aw hell! what's th' use
o' talkin'?" he concluded disgustedly.  "No!  times ain't what they was,
by gum!--rough stuff an' all things was run more real reg'mental them
days--not half th' grousin' either."

"Reel reg'mental?" echoed Hardy mincingly, "aowe gorblimey! 'awk t'im?
well, wot abaht it?  I've done my bit, too!--in Injia.  See 'ere; look!"

He pulled up the loose duck-pant of his right leg.  On the outside of the
hairy, spare but muscular limb, an ugly old dirty-white scar zigzagged
from knee to ankle.

"Paythan knife," he informed them briefly, "but I did th' blowke in wot
give it me."  He launched into a lurid account of a border hill-scuffle
that his regiment had been engaged in relating all its ghastly details
with great gusto.  "Cleared me lance-point ten times that d'y," he
remarked laconically.  "Flint was aour Orf'cer Commandin'--Old 'Doolally
Flint'--'ard old 'ranker' 'e wos.  'E'd worked us sumphin' crool that
week.  Night marches an' wot not.  I tell yer that man 'ad no 'eart for
men or 'orses.  An' you tork ababt bein' reel reg'mental, Mac! . . . 'e
wos a reg'mental old soor if yer like! . . .  Fit to drop we wos--wot wos
left o' us, an' th' bloody sun goin' down an' all.  But no! 'e give us no
rest--burial fatigue right away.  Free big trenches we buried aour pore
fellers in--I can see 'em now. . . ."

For some few seconds he ceased polishing his glossy, mahogany-shaded "Sam
Browne" belt, and, chin in hand, stared unseeingly straight in front of
him.  His audience waited.  "Arterwards!" he cleared his throat,
"arterwards--w'en we'd filled in 'e made us put th' trimmin's on--line
'em out 'ead an' foot wiv big bowlders.  I mind I'd jes kern a-staggerin'
ap wiv a big stowne for th' 'ead o' Number Free trench, but Doolally kep
me a-markin time till 'e wos ready.  'Kem ap a bit, Private 'Ardy,' 'e
sez, 'kem ap a bit! you're aht o' yer dressin'!' 'e sez.  'Arry Wagstaff,
as wos in Number Two Squordron 'e pulls a bit o' chork aht of 'is pocket,
an' 'e marks on 'is bowlder in big, fat letters 'Lucky soors--in bed
ev'ry night'--but old Doolally 'appened to turn rahnd an' cop 'im at it.
Drum-'ead coort-martial 'Arry gort for that, an' drew ten d'ys Number One
Field Punishment.  But that wos old Doolally all over . . . yer might s'y
'e 'adn't no sense o' 'umor, that man.  Down country we moves next d'y,
for Peshawur, where th' reg'ment lay.  We'd copped a thunderin' lot o'
prisoners--th' Mullah an' all."

"Wha' d'ye ca' a Mullah?" queried McSporran, with grave interest.

Hardy, carbine-barrel between knees--struggled with a "pull-through."
"Mullah? well, 'e's a sorter--sorter 'ead blowke," he mumbled lamely.

"Kind of High Priest?" ventured George.

The old soldier beamed upon him gratefully, "Ar, that's wot I meant.  'E
stunk that 'igh th' Colonel 'e sez--"

The storm doors banged below.  "Redmond!--oh, Redmond!"  The great,
booming, bass voice rang echoing up the stairway.  Involuntarily they all
sprang to an attitude of alert attention.  Rarely did Tom Belcher have to
speak twice around Barracks.

"There's the S.M.!" muttered George.  Aloud he responded "Coming,
Sergeant-Major!"  And he swung downstairs where a powerfully-built man in
a snow and ice-incrusted fur coat awaited him.

"The O.C.'s orders, Redmond!--get your kit packed and hold yourself in
readiness to pull out on the eleven o'clock West-bound to-morrow.  You're
transferred to the Davidsburg detachment.  I'll give you your
transport-requisition later."

The storm doors banged behind him, and then, Redmond, not without design,
forced himself to saunter slowly--very slowly--upstairs again, whistling
nonchalantly the while.

Expectant faces greeted him.  "What's up?" they chorused.  With a fine
assumption of indifference he briefly informed them.  McSporran received
the news with his customary stolidity, only his gray eyes twinkled and he
chuntered something that was totally unintelligible to anyone save
himself.  But its effect upon McCullough and Hardy was peculiar, not to
say, startling in the extreme.  With brush and burnisher clutched in
their respective hands they both turned and gaped upon him fish-eyed for
the moment.  Then, as their eyes met, those two worthies seemed to
experience a difficulty of articulation.

Dumfounded himself, George looked from one to the other, "What the
devil's wrong with you fools?" he queried irritably.

Thereupon, McCullough, still holding the eyes of the Cockney, gasped out
one magical word--"Yorkey!"

The spell was broken.  "W'y, gorblimey!" said Hardy, "Ain't that
queer?--that's jes' wot I wos a-thinkin' . . .  Well, Gawd 'elp Sorjint
Slavin now!"  With which cryptic utterance he resumed his eternal
polishing.

"Amen!" responded the farrier piously, "Reddy, here, an' Yorkey on th'
same detachment. . . .  What th' one don't know t'other'll teach
him. . . .  You'd better let 'em have th' parrot, too."

McSporran, back on his cot with hands clasped behind his head, gobbled an
owlish "Hoot, mon! th' twa o' them thegither! . . .  Losh! but that beats
a' . . . but, hoo lang, O Lard? hoo lang?"

From various sources George had picked up the broken ends of many strange
rumours relating to the personality and escapades of one Constable Yorke,
of the Davidsburg detachment, whom he had never seen as yet.  A hint
here, a whisper there, a shrug and a low-voiced jest between the
sergeant-major and the quartermaster, overheard one day in the Matter's
store.  To Redmond it seemed as if a veil of mystery had always enveloped
the person and doings of this man, Yorke.  The glamour of it now aroused
all his latent curiosity.

"Why, what sort of a chap is this Yorke?" he inquired casually.

McCullough, busily burnishing a bit, shrugged deprecatingly and laughed.
Hardy, putting the last touches to his revolver-holster, made answer,
George thought, with peculiar reticence.

"Wot, Yorkey? . . . oh, 'e's a 'oly terror 'e is. . . .  You arst
Crampton," he mumbled--"arst Taylor--they wos at Davidsburg wiv 'im.
Slavin's orl right but Yorkey!". . .  He looked unutterable things.
"Proper broken down Old Country torff 'e is, too.  'E's right there wiv
th' goods at police work, they s'y, but 'e's sure a bad un to 'ave to
live wiv.  Free weeks on'y, Crampton stuck it afore 'e applied for a
transfer--Taylor, 'e on'y stuck it free d'ys."

Redmond made a gesture of exasperation.  "Ah-h! come off the perch!" he
snarled pettishly, "what sort of old 'batman's' gaff are you trying to
'get my goat' with?"

His display of irritation drew an explosive, misthievous cachinnation
from the trio.

"Old 'batman's' gaff?" echoed the Cockney grinning, "orl right, my fresh
cove--this time next week you'll be tellin' us wevver it's old 'batman's'
gaff, or not."

Outside, the blizzard still moaned and beat upon the windows, packing the
wind-driven snow in huge drifts about the big main building.  Inside, the
canteen roared--

  "_Then--I--say, boys! who's for a drink with me?
  Rum, tum! tiddledy-um! we'll have a fair old spree!_"

McSporran slid off his cot with surprising alacrity.  "Here's ane!" he
announced blithely.  Hardy, carefully hanging up his spotless, glossy
equipment at the head of his cot, turned to the farrier who was likewise
engaged in arranging a bridle and a pipe-clayed headrope.

"Wot abaht it, Mac?" he queried briskly.

McCullough, in turn looked at Redmond.  "All right!" responded that young
gentleman with a boyish shrug and grin, "come on then, you bloomin' old
sponges! let's wet my transfer.  I'll have time to pack my kit to-morrow,
before the West-bound pulls out."

Upon their departing ears, grown wearily familiar to its
monotonous repetition, fell the parrot's customary adieu, as that
disreputable-looking bird swung rhythmically to and fro on its perch.

"Goo' bye!" it gabbled, "A soldier's farewell' to yeh! goo' bye! goo'
bye!"




CHAPTER II

  _Homeless, ragged and tanned,
  Under the changeful sky;
  Who so free in the land?
  Who so contented as I?_.
                         THE VAGABOND


The long-drawn-out, sweet notes of "Reveille" rang out in the frosty
dawn.  Reg. No. ---- Const George Redmond, engaged at that moment in
pulling on his "fatigue-slacks" hummed the trumpet-call's time-honoured
vocal parody--

  "_I sold a cow, I sold a cow, an' bought a donk-ee--'
  Oh--what--a silly old sot you were_!"

The room buzzed like a drowsy hive with hastily dressing men.  Breathing
hotly on the frosted window-pane next his cot, George rubbed a clear
patch and glued his eye to it.  The blizzard had died out during the
night leaving the snow-drifted landscape frosty, still and clear.  A
rapidly widening strip of blended rose and pale turquoise on the eastern
horizon gave promise of a fine day.

He turned away with a contented sigh and, descending the stairs, fell in
with the rest of the fur-coated, moccasined men on "Morning Stable
Parade."

Three hours later, breakfast despatched, blankets rolled and kit and
dunnage bags packed, he received a curt summons from the sergeant-major
to attend the Orderly-room.  To the brisk word of command he was
"quick-_marched_" "left-_wheeled_," and "halted" at "attention" before
the desk of the Officer Commanding L. Division.

"Constable Redmond, Sir!" announced the deep-throated, rumbling bass of
the sergeant-major; and for some seconds George gazed at the silvery hair
and wide bowed shoulders of the seated figure in front of him, who
continued his perusal of some type-written sheets of foolscap, as if
unaware of any interruption.  Elsewhere have the kindly personality and
eccentricities of Captain Richard Bargrave been described; "but that," as
Kipling says, "is another story."

Presently the papers were cast aside, the bowed shoulders in the
splendidly-cut blue-serge uniform squared back in the chair, and Redmond
found himself being scrutinized intently by the all-familiar bronzed old
aristocratic countenance, with its sweeping fair moustache.
Involuntarily he stiffened, though his eyes, momentarily overpowered by
the intensity of that keen gaze, strayed to the level of his superior's
breast and focussed themselves upon two campaign ribbons there,
"North-West Rebellion" and "Ashantee" decorations.

Suddenly the thin, high, cultured voice addressed
him--whimsically--sarcastic but not altogether unkindly:

"The Sergeant-Major"--the gold-rimmed pince-nez were swung to an
elevation indicating that individual and the fair moustache was twirled
pensively--"the Sergeant-Major reports that--er--for the past six months
you have been conducting yourself around the Post with fair average"--the
suave tones hardened--"that you have wisely refrained from indulging your
youthful fancies in any more such--er--dam-fool antics, Sir, as
characterized your merry but brief career at the Gleichen detachment,
so--er--I have decided to give you another chance.  I have here"--he
fumbled through some papers--"a request from Sergeant Slavin for another
man at Davidsburg.  I am transferring you there.  Slavin--er--damn the
man! damn the man! what's wrong with him, Sergeant-Major? . . .  Two men
have I sent him in as many months, and both of 'em, after a few days
there, on some flimsy pretext or another, applied for transfers to other
detachments.  Good men, too.  If this occurs again--damme!"--he glared at
his subordinate--"I'll--er--bring that Irish 'ginthleman' into the Post
for a summary explanation.  Wire him of this man's transfer! . . .  All
right, Sergeant-Major!"

"About-turrn!--quick-march!" growled again the bass voice of the senior
non-com; and he kept step behind George into the passage.  "Here's your
transport requisition, Redmond.  Now--take a tumble to yourself, my
lad--on this detachment.  You're getting what 'Father' don't give to
many--a second chance.  Good-bye!"

George gripped the proffered hand and looked full into the kindly,
meaning eyes.  "Good-bye, S.M.!" he said huskily, "Thanks!"


Westward, the train puffed its way slowly along a slight, but continual
up-grade through the foothills, following more or less the winding course
of the Bow River.  Despite the cold, clear brilliance of the day, seen
under winter conditions the landscape on either side of the track
presented a rather forlorn, dreary picture.  So it appeared to George,
anyway, as he gazed out of the window at the vast, spreading,
white-carpeted valley, the monotonous aspect of which was only
occasionally relieved by sparsely-dotted ranches, small wayside stations,
or when they thundered across high trestle bridges over the
partly-frozen, black, steaming river.

Two summers earlier he had travelled the same road, on a luxurious trip
to the Coast.  The memory of its scenic splendor then, the easy-going
stages from one sumptuous mountain resort to another, now made him feel
slightly dismal and discontented with his present lot.  Eye-restful
solace came however with the sight of the ever-nearing glorious
sun-crowned peaks of the mighty "Rockies," sharply silhouetted against
the dazzling blue of the sky.

Children's voices behind him suddenly broke in upon his reverie.

"That man!" said a small squeaking treble, "was a hobo.  He was sitting
in that car in front with the hard seats an' I went up to him an' I said,
'Hullo, Mister! why don't you wash your face an' shave it? we've all
washed our faces this morning' . . . .  We did, didn't we, Alice?--an'
washed Porkey's too, an' he said 'Hullo, Bo! wash my face?--I don't have
to--I might catch cold.'"

"But Jerry!" said another child's voice, "I don't think he could have
been a real hobo, or he'd have had an empty tomato-can hanging around his
neck on a string, like the pictures of 'Weary Willie' an' 'Tired Tim' in
the funny papers."

Then ensued the sounds as of a juvenile scuffle and squawk.  Master Jerry
apparently resented having his pet convictions treated in this "Doubting
Thomas" fashion, for the next thing George heard him say, was:

"Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy! . . .  No! he hadn't got a tomato-can,
silly! but he'd got a big, fat bottle in his pocket an' he pulled the
cork out of it an' sucked an' I said 'What have you got in your bottle?'
an' he said 'Cold tea' but it didn't smell a bit like cold tea.  There's
a Mounted Policeman sitting in that seat in front of us.  Let's ask him.
Policemen always lock hoboes up in gaol an' kick them in the stomach,
like you see them in the pictures."

The next instant there came a pattering of little feet and two small
figures scrambled into the vacant seat in front of Redmond.  His gaze
fell on a diminutive, red-headed, inquisitive-faced urchin of some eight
years, and a small, gray-eyed, wistful-looking maiden, perhaps about a
year younger, with hair that matched the boy's in colour.  Under one
dimpled arm she clutched tightly to her--upside-down--a fat, squirming
fox-terrier puppy.  Hand-in-hand, in an attitude of breathless,
speculative awe, they sat there bolt upright, like two small gophers;
watching intently the face of the uniformed representative of the Law, as
if seeking some reassuring sign.

It came presently--a kind, boyish, friendly smile that gained the
confidence of their little hearts at once.

"Hullo, nippers!" he said cheerily.

"Hullo!" the two small trebles responded.

"What's your name, son?"

"Jerry!"

"Jerry what?"

An uneasy wriggle and a moment's hesitation then--"Jeremiah!" came a
small--rather sulky--voice.

Breathing audibly in her intense eagerness the little girl now came to
the rescue.

"Please, policeman?" she stopped and gulped excitedly--"please,
policeman?--he doesn't like to be called that. . . .  It isn't _his_
fault.  He always throws stones at the bad boys when they call him that.
Call him just 'Jerry.'"

That gamin, turning from a minute examination of Redmond's spurred
moccasins, began to swing his chubby legs and bounce up and down upon the
cushioned seat.

"Her name's Alice," he volunteered, with a sidelong fling of his
carrot-tinted head.  "Yes! she's my sister"--he made a snatch at the pup
whose speedy demise was threatened, from blood to the head--"don't hold
Porkey that way, Alice! his eyes'll drop out."

But his juvenile confrere shrugged away from his clutch.  "Stupid!" she
retorted, with fine scorn, "no they won't . . . . it's on'y guinea pigs
that do that!--when you hold them up by their tails."  Nevertheless she
promptly reversed that long-suffering canine, which immediately
demonstrated its gratitude by licking her face effusively.

The all-important question of the hobo was next commended to his
attention, with a tremendous amount of chattering rivalry, and, with
intense gravity he was cogitating how to render a satisfactory finding to
both factions when steps, and the unmistakable rustle of skirts, sounded
in his immediate rear.  Then a lady's voice said, "Oh, there you are,
children! . . .  I was wondering where you'd got to."

The two heads bobbed up simultaneously, with a joyful "Here's Mother!"
and George, turning, glanced with innate, well-bred curiosity at a stout,
pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman who stood beside them.

"I hope these young imps haven't been bothering you?" she said.  "We were
in that car behind, but I was reading and they've been having a great
time romping all over the place.  Oh, well!  I suppose it's too much to
expect children to keep still on a train."

With a fond motherly caress she patted the two small flaming heads that
now snuggled boisterously against her on either side.

"Come now!  Messrs. Bubble and Squeak!" she urged teasingly,
"march!--back to our car again!"

"Bubble and Squeak" seemed appropriate enough just then, to judge by the
many fractious objections immediately voiced by those two small
mutineers.  They were loth to part with their latest acquaintance and
weren't above advertising that fact with unnecessary vehemence.  Even the
puppy raised a snuffling whine.

"Boo-hoo!" wailed Jerry, "don't want to go in the other car--me an' Alice
want to stay here--the policeman's goin' to tell us all about
hoboes--he--"

"Oh, dear!" came a despairing little sigh, "whatever--"

Their eyes met and, at the droll perplexity he read in hers, George
laughed outright.  An explosive frank boyish laugh.  He rose with a
courteous gesture.  "I'm afraid it's a case of 'if the mountain won't
come to Mahomet,'" he began, with gay sententiousness.  "Won't you sit
down?"

The matron's kindly eyes appraised the bold, manly young face a moment,
then, with a certain leisurely grace, she stepped in between the seats
and, seating herself, lugged her two small charges down beside her.

"I suppose, under the circumstances, an old woman like me can discard the
conventionalities?" she remarked smilingly.

Jerry and Alice leered triumphantly at their victim.  "Now!" Jerry
shrilled exactingly "tell us all about hoboes!"

"They do carry empty tomato-cans, don't they?" pleaded Alice.

It was now their guardian's turn to laugh at his dismay.  "You see what
you've let yourself in for now?" she remarked.

"Seems I am up against it," he admitted, with a rueful grin, "well! must
make good somehow, I suppose?"

With an infinitely boyish gesture he tipped his fur cap to the back of
his head and leaned forward with finger-tips compressed in approved
story-telling fashion.

"Once upon a time!--" a breathless "Yes-s"--those two small faces
reminded him much of terriers watching a rat-hole--"there was a hobo."
He thought hard.  "He was a very dirty old hobo--he never used to wash
his face.  He was walking along the road one day when he heard a little
wee voice call out 'Hey!'.  He looked down and he saw an empty tomato-can
on a rubbish heap.  Tomato-cans used to be able to talk in those days and
the hoboes were very good to them--always used to drink out of them and
carry them to save them from walking.  This can had a picture of its big
red face on the outside.  'Give us a lift?' said the can.  'Where to?'
said the old hobo.  'Back to California, where I came from,' said the
can.  'All right!' said the old hobo, 'I'm goin' there, too.'  And he
picked the can up and hung it round his neck and kept on walking till
they came to a house.  The window of the house was open and they could
see a big fat bottle on a little table.  'Ah!' said the old hobo 'here's
an old friend of mine!--he's comin' with us, too,'  And he shoved his arm
through the window and put the bottle in his pocket.  By and by they came
to a river--'Hey!' said the can, again--'What's up?' said the old
hobo--'I'm dry,' said the can--'So am I,' said the hobo; and he dipped
the can in the water and gave it a very little drink.  'Hey!' said the
can, 'give us a drop more!'--'Wait a bit!' said the old hobo, and he
pulled the cork out of the bottle.  'Don't you pour any of that feller
into me!' said the can, 'he'll burn my inside out--an' yours--if you pour
him into me I'll open my mouth where I'm soldered and let him run out,
and you won't be able to drink out of me any more.  Chuck him into the
river!--he's no good.'

"'You shut your mouth!' said the old hobo, 'or I'll chuck you into the
river!'  And he poured some of the stuff out of the bottle into the can--"

At this exciting point poor George halted for breath and mopped his
forehead.  He felt fully as thirsty as the tomato-can.  But the children
were upon him, clutching his scarlet tunic:

"What did he do then?" howled Jerry.

"Eh?" gasped the young policeman,--"oh, he opened his mouth where he was
soldered and let the stuff run out.  So the old hobo threw him into the
river.  That's why hoboes always pack a bottle with them now instead of a
tomato-can."

He leaned back with a sigh and, thrusting his hands deep into his
pockets, smiled wanly at his vis-à-vis.

"There!" he said, with feeble triumph, "I've carried out the sentence."

And it did him good to drink in her mirthful, waggish laugh.

"Yes!" she conceded gaily, "you certainly did great execution, though you
look more like a prisoner just reprieved."

Jerry, screwing up his small snub nose leered triumphantly across her lap
at Alice.  "Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy!" he squeaked, "that man was a
real hobo."

His grimace was returned with interest.  Alice hugged her puppy awhile
contentedly, murmuring in that canine's ear, "What a silly old thing that
tomato-can must have been.  If I'd been him I'd have kept my mouth shut."

"Cow Run!" intoned the brakeman monotonously, passing through the
coaches, "Cow Run next stop!"  His eye fell on Redmond.  "Wish I'd seen
you before, Officer!" he remarked, "I'd have had a hobo for you.  Beggar
stole a ride on us from Glenbow, back there.  The con's goin' to chuck
him off here--do you want him?"

"No!" said Redmond shortly, "let the stiff go--I'm going on to
Davidsburg--haven't got time to get messing around with 'vags' now."

The train began to slow down and presently stopped at a small station.
Mechanically the quartette gazed through the window at the few shivering
platform loungers, and beyond them to the irregular, low-lying facade of
snow-plastered buildings that comprised the dreary main street of the
little town.

Suddenly the children uttered a shrill yelp.

"There he is!" cried Alice, darting a small finger at the window-pane.

"I saw him first!" bawled Jerry.

And, slouching past along the platform, all huddled-up with hands in
pockets, George beheld a ragged nondescript of a man whose appearance
confirmed Master Jerry's previous assertion beyond doubt.

The children drummed on the window excitedly.  Glancing up at the two
small peering faces the human derelict's red-nosed, stubble-coated visage
contorted itself into a friendly grimace of recognition; at the same
time, with an indescribably droll, swashbuckling swagger he doffed a
shocking dunghill of a hat.

Suddenly though his jaw dropped and, replacing his battered headpiece,
with double-handed indecent haste the knight of the road executed an
incredibly nimble "right-about turn" and vanished behind the
station-house.  Just then came the engine's toot! toot!, the conductor's
warning "All aboar-rd!" and the train started once more on its journey
westward.

Smiling grimly to himself, the policeman settled back in his seat again
and glanced across at the lady.  She was shaking with convulsive laughter.

"Oh!" she giggled hysterically "he--he must have seen your red coat!"
another spasm of merriment, "it was as good as a pantomime," she murmured.

Evincing a keen interest in his soldierly vocation, for awhile she
subjected him to an exacting and minute inquisition anent the duties and
life of a Mounted Policeman.  In this agreeable fashion the time passed
rapidly and it was with a feeling of regret that he heard the brakeman
announce his destination and rose to take leave of his pleasant
companion.  The children insisted on bidding their late chum a cuddling,
osculatory farewell--Alice tearfully holding up the snuffling Porkey for
his share.  The train drew up at the Davidsburg platform, there came a
chorus of "Good-byes" and a few minutes later George was left alone with
his kit-bags on the deserted platform.




CHAPTER III

  _St. Agnes' Eve.  Ah! bitter chill it was.
    The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
  The hare limped, trembling, through the frozen grass;
    And drowsy was the flock in woolly fold_.
                                        ST. AGNES' EVE


Edmond did not have to wait long.  Sounding faint and far off came the
silvery ring of sleigh-bells, gradually swelling in volume until, with a
measured crunch! crunch! of hoofs on packed snow, a smart Police cutter,
drawn by a splendid bay team, swung around a bend of the trail and pulled
up at the platform.  Redmond regarded with a little awe the huge,
bear-like, uniformed figure of the teamster, whom he identified at once
from barrack gossip.

"Sergeant Slavin?" he enquired respectfully, eyeing the bronzed,
clean-shaven face, half hidden by fur cap and turned-up collar.

"Meself, lad!" came a rich soft brogue, "I was afther gettin' a wire from
th' O.C., tellin' me he was thransfering me another man.  Yer name's
Ridmond, ain't it?---Whoa, now!  T an' B!--lively wid thim kit-bags,
son!--team's pretty fresh an' will not shtand."

They swung off at a spanking trot.  George surveyed the white-washed
cattle-corrals and few scattered shacks which seemed to comprise the
hamlet of Davidsburg.

"Not a very big place, Sergeant?" he remarked, "how far's the detachment
from here?"

"On'y 'bout a mile" grunted the individual, squirting a stream of
tobacco-juice to leeward, "up on the high ground beyant.  Nay! 'tis just
a jumpin' off place an' shippin' point for th' ranches hereabouts.
Business is mostly done at Cow Run--East.  Ye passed ut, comin'.  Great
doin's there--whin th' cowpunchers blow in.  Some burg!"

"Sure looked it!" Redmond agreed absently, thinking of the casual glimpse
he had got of the dreary main street.

They were climbing a slight grade.  The sun-glare on the snow was
intense; the cutter's steel runners no longer screeched, and the team's
hoofs began to clog up with soft snow.

"They're 'balling-up' pretty bad, Sergeant!" remarked Redmond.  And, as
he spoke the "off" horse suddenly slipped and fell, and, plunging to its
feet again, a leg slid over the cutter's tongue.

"Whoa, now! whoa!" barked Slavin, with an oath, as the mettled,
high-strung animal began to kick affrightedly.  Slipping again it sank
down in the snow and remained still for some tense moments.

Like a flash Redmond sprang from the cutter, and rapidly and warily he
unhooked the team's traces.  This done he crept to their heads and
slipped the end of the tongue out of the neck-yoke ring.  Slavin by this
time was also on his feet in the snow, with the situation well in hand.
He clucked softly to his team, the fallen horse plunged to its feet again
and the next moment all was clear.  George, burrowing around in the snow
unearthed a big stone, with which he proceeded to tap the team's shoes
all round until the huge snow-clogs fell out.  In silence the two men
hooked up again and were soon on their way.

"H-mm!" grunted the big Irishman at last, eyeing his subordinate with a
sidelong glance of approval, "h-mm! teamster?"

"Oh, I don't know, Sergeant" responded Redmond deprecatingly, "of course
I've been around teams some--down East, on the old man's farm. . .  I
don't know that I can claim to be a real teamster--as you judge them in
the Force."

"H-mm!" grunted Slavin again, "ye seem tu have th' makin's anyway."  He
expectorated musingly.  "Wan time--down at Coutts 'twas--a young feller
was sint tu me for tu dhrive.  Mighty chipper gossoon, tu.  'Teamster?'
sez I--'Some!' sez he, as if he was a reg'lar gun at th' business--'but
I'm gen'rally reckoned handier wid a foursome 'n a single team.'"

"'Oh!' sez I, 'fwhere?'  An' he tould me--Regina.  Sez I thin ''tis
Skinner Adams's undershtudy ye must have bin?--for he was Reg'mentil
Teamster Sarjint there, an' sure fwas a great man wid a four-in-hand
team.'"

"'Fwat, ould Skinner Adams?' sez me bould lad, kind av contempshus-like,
'Humph! at shtringin' out four I have Skinner Adams thrimmed tu a peak.'
We was dhrivin' from th' station tu th' detachmint--same like tu we're
doin' now.  Whin we gits in I unhitches an' puts up th' team.  'Give us a
hand tu shling th' harniss off!' sez I tu him--an' me shmart Aleck makes
a shtab at ut wid th' nigh horse.  He was not quite so chipper--thin, an'
I noticed his hands thremblin', an' he was all th' time watchin' me close
how I did wid th' off harse.  I dhraws off wid th' britchin' on me
arrum--'Come!' sez I--an' he shtarts in--unbucklin' th' top hame-shtrap.

"'As ye were!' sez I 'that's enough!  I'm thinkin' th' on'y 'four' you
iver shtrung out me young flapdhoodle was a gang av prisoners, an'
blarney me sowl! ye shall go back tu th' Post right now, an' du
prisoner's escort agin for awhile.'"

They had now reached the top of the grade where the trail swung due east,
and faced a dazzling sun and cutting wind which whipped the blood to
their cheeks and made their eyes water.

"Behould our counthry eshtate!" said Sergeant Slavin grandiloquently,
with an airy wave of his arm, "beyant that big pile av shtones on th'
road-allowance."

He chirped to his team which broke into an even, fast trot, and presently
they drew up outside a building typical in its outside appearance of the
usual range Mounted Police detachment.  It was a fairly large dwelling,
roughly but substantially-built of squared logs, painted in customary
fashion, with the walls--white, and the shingled roof--red.  A
strongly-guyed flagstaff jutting out from one gable, and copies of the
"Game" and "Fire Acts" tacked on the door gave the abode an unmistakable
official aspect.  Over the doorway was nailed a huge, prehistoric-looking
buffalo-skull, bleached white with the years--the time-honoured insignia
of the R.N.W.M.P. being a buffalo-head, which is also stamped on the
regimental badge and button.

Dumping off the kit-bags, the two men drove round to the stable in the
rear of the main dwelling, where they unhitched and put up the team.  The
sergeant led the way into the house.  Passing through a small store-house
and kitchen they emerged into the living room.  On a miniature scale it
was a replica of one of the Post barrack-rooms, except that the table
boasted a tartan-rugged covering, that two or three easy chairs were
scattered around, and some calfskin mats partially covered the painted
hardwood floor.  The walls, for the most part were adorned with many
unframed copies of pictures from the brush of that great Western artist,
Charles Russell, and black and white sketches cut from various
illustrated papers.  Three corners of the room contained cots, one of
which the sergeant assigned to Redmond.  The room, with its big stove, in
a way looked comfortable enough, and was regimentally neat and clean and
homelike.

George peered into the front room beyond which bore quite a judicial
aspect.  At one end of it a small dais supported a severe-looking
arm-chair and a long flat desk, on which were piled foolscap, blank legal
forms, law-books, and the Bible.  In front was a long, form-like bench,
with a back to it.  At the rear of the room were two strongly-built
cells, with barred doors.  Around the walls were scattered a double row
of small chairs and, on a big, green-baize-covered board next the cells
hung a brightly burnished assortment of handcuffs and leg-irons.

"'Tis here we hould coort," Slavin informed him, "whin we have any
shtiffs tu be thried."

Opening the front door George lugged in his bedding and kit-bags and,
depositing them on his cot, flung off his fur coat, cap, and serge.
Slavin divested himself likewise and, as the burly, bull-necked man stood
there, slowly filling his pipe, Redmond was able to scan the face and
massive proportions of his superior more closely.

Standing well over six feet, for the presentment of vast, though
perchance clumsy, gorilla-like strength, George reflected with slight awe
that he had never seen the man's equal.  His wide-spreading shoulders
were more rounded than square; his deep, arching chest, powerful, stocky
nether limbs and disproportionately long, huge-biceped arms seeming to
fit him as an exponent of the mat rather than the gloves.  Truly a
daunting figure to meet in a close-quarter, rough-and-tumble encounter!
thought Redmond.  The top of his head was completely bald; his thick,
straight black brows indicating that what little close-cropped iron-gray
hair remained must originally have been coal-black in colour.  His
Irish-blue eyes, alternately dreamy and twinklingly alert, were deeply
set in a high-cheeked-boned, bronzed face, with a long upper-lipped,
grimly-humorous mouth.  Its expression in repose gave subtle warning that
its owner possessed in a marked degree the strongly melancholic,
emotional, and choleric temperament of his race.  There was no
moroseness--no hardness in it, but rather the taciturnity that invariably
settles upon the face of those dwellers of the range who, perforce, live
much alone with their thoughts.  Sheathed in mail and armed, that face
and bulky figure to some imaginations might have found its prototype in
some huge, grim, war-worn "man-at-arms" of mediaeval times.  Redmond
judged him to be somewhere in his forties; forty-two was his exact age as
he ascertained later.

In curious contrast to his somewhat formidable exterior seemed his mild,
gentle, soft-brogued voice.  And with speech, his taciturn face relaxed
insensibly into an almost genial expression, George noted.

Attracted by a cluster of pictures and photographs above and around the
cot in the corner opposite his own, the young fellow crossed over and
scanned them attentively.  Tacked up with a random, reckless hand, the
bizarre collection was typically significant of someone's whimsical,
freakish tastes and personality.  From the sublime to the ridiculous--and
worse--subjects pious and impious, dreamily-beautiful and lewdly-vulgar,
comic and tragic, also many splendid photographs were all jumbled
together on the walls in a shockingly irresponsible fashion.  Many of the
pictures were unframed copies cut apparently from art and other journals;
from theatrical and comic papers.

George gazed on them awhile in utterly bewildered astonishment; then,
with a little hopeless ejaculation, swung around to the sergeant who met
his despairing grin with benign composure.

"Whose cot's--"

"'Tis Yorke's," said Slavin simply.  It was the first time he had
mentioned that individual's name.  He struck a match on the seat of his
pants and standing with his feet apart and hands clasped behind his back
smoked awhile contentedly.

"Saw ye iver th' like av that for divarsiment?" he continued, with a wave
of his pipe at the heterogeneous array, "shtudy thim! an', by an' large
ye have th' man himsilf.  He's away on pay-day duty at th' Coalmore mines
west av here--though by token, 'tis Billy Blythe at Banff shud be doin'
ut, 'stead av me havin' tu sind a man from here.  He shud be back on
Number Four th' night."

His twinkling orbs under their black smudge of eyebrow appraised the
junior constable with faint, musing interest.  "A quare chap is Yorkey,"
he continued gently--shielding a match-flame and puffing with noisy
respiration--"a good polisman--knows th' Criminal Code from A tu Z--eyah!
but mighty quare.  I misdoubt how th' tu av yez will get along."  He
sighed deeply, muttering half to himself, "I may have tu take
shteps--this time! . . ."

A rather ominous beginning, thought George.  But, curbing his natural
curiosity, he resolutely held his peace, awaiting more enlightenment.
This not being forthcoming--his superior having relapsed once more into
taciturn silence--he turned again to Yorke's exhibits with pondering
interest.  Sounding far-off and indistinct in the frosty stillness of the
bleak foothills came the faint echoes of a coyote's shrill
"ki-yip-yapping"--again and again, as if endeavouring to convey some
insidious message.  George continued to stare at the pictures.  Gad! what
a strange fantastic mind the man must have! he mused--what rotten,
erratic desecration to shove pictures indiscriminately together like
that! . . .  Lack of space was no excuse.  Millet's "Angelus," "Ally
Sloper at the Derby," a splendid lithograph of "The Angel of Pity at the
Well of Cawnpore," Lottie Collins, scantily attired, in her song and
dance "Tara-ra-ra-boom-de-ay," Sir Frederick Leighton's "Wedded," a
gruesome depiction of a Chinese execution at Canton, an old-fashioned
engraving of that dashing, debonair cavalry officer, "Major Hodson," of
Indian Mutiny fame, George Robey, as a nurse-maid, wheeling Little Tich
in a perambulator, the grim, torture-lined face of Slatin Pasha, a
ridiculously obscene picture entitled "Two coons scoffing oysters for a
wager," that glorious edifice the "Taj Mahal" of India, and so on.
"Divarsiment" indeed!

To this ill-assorted admixture three exceptions only were grouped with
any sense of reason.  The central picture was a beautifully coloured
reproduction of Sir Hubert Herkomer's famous masterpiece "The Last
Muster."  Lovers of art subjects are doubtless familiar with this
immortal painting.  It depicts a pathetic congregation of old,
white-haired, war-worn pensioners attending divine service in the chapel
of Old Chelsea Hospital, with the variegated lights from the
stained-glass windows flooding them with soft gentle colours.  Flanking
it on either side were portraits of the original founders of this
historical institution in 1692--Charles II (The Merry Monarch) and his
kindly-hearted "light o' love" Sweet Nell Gwynn of Old Drury.

With curiously mixed feelings George finally tore himself away from
Yorke's pathetically grotesque attempt at wall-adornment.  Strive as he
would within his soul to ridicule, the pictures seemed somehow almost to
shout at him with hidden meaning.  As if a voice--a drunken voice, but
gentlemanly withall--was hiccuping in his ear: "Paradise Lost, old man!
(hic) Paradise Lost!"

And, mixed with it, came again out of the silence of the foothills the
coyote's faintly persistent mocking wail--its "ki-yip-yap" sounding
almost like "Bah!  Yah!  Baa!" . . .  Some lines of an old quotation,
picked up he knew not where, wandered into his mind--

  _Comedy, Tragedy, Laughter and Tears!
  Thou'rt rolled as one in the Dust of Years_!

With a sigh he turned to his own cot and began to unpack and arrange his
kit; in regulation fashion, and with such small faddy fixings customary
to men inured to barrack life.  Thus engaged the time passed rapidly.
Later in the day he assisted the sergeant in making out the detachment's
"monthly returns" and diary.  This task accomplished, in the gathering
dusk he attended "Evening Stables."  There were two saddle-horses beside
the previously-mentioned team.  A splendid upstanding pair, George
thought them.  He was good with horses; possessing the faculty of
handling them that springs only from a patient, kindly, instinctive love
of animals.

"Nay!  I dhrive mostly," Slavin was telling him, "buckboard an' team's
away handier for a man av weight like meself.  Eyah!" he sighed, "tho'
time was whin I cud throw a leg over wid th' best av thim.  Yorke--he
gen'rally rides th' black, Parson, so ye'll take th' sorrel, Fox, for yeh
pathrols.  He's a good stayer, an' fast.  Ye'll want tu watch him at
mounthin' tho'--he's not a mane harse, but he has a quare thrick av
turnin' sharp tu th' 'off'--just as ye go tu shwing up into th' saddle.
Many's th' man he's whiraroo'd round wid wan fut in th' stirrup an' left
pickin' up dollars off th' bald-headed.'  Well! let's tu supper."

With the practised hand of an old cook he prepared a simple but hearty
repast, upon which they fell with appetites keenly edged with the cold
air.

"Are ye anythin' av a cuk?"

Redmond grinned deprecatingly and then shook his head.

"Eyah!" grumbled Slavin, "seems I cannot hilp bein' cuk an' shtandin'
orderly-man around here.  I thried out Yorkey. . . .  Wan day on'y
tho'--'tis th' divil's own cuk he is.  'Sarjint!' sez he, 'I'm no
bowatchee'--which in Injia he tells me means same as cuk.  An' he tould
th' trute at that."

Some three hours later, as they lay on their cots, came to them the
faint, far-off _toot_! _toot_! of an engine, through the keen atmosphere.

"That's Number Four from th' West," remarked Slavin drowsily, "Yorkey
shud be along on ut.  Well! a walk will not hurt th' man if--"

He chuntered something to himself.

Half an hour elapsed slowly--three quarters.  Slavin rolled off his cot
with a grunt and strode heavily to the front door, which he opened.
Redmond silently followed him and together the two men stepped out into
the crisply-crunching hard-packed snow.  It was a magnificent night.
High overhead in the star-studded sky shone a splendid full moon, its
clear cold rays lighting up the white world around them with a sort of
phosphorescent, scintillating brilliance.

Though not of a particularly sentimental temperament, the calm, peaceful,
unearthly beauty of the scene moved George to murmur--half to himself:

  "_Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That dost not bite so nigh
    As benefits forgot, alas!
    As benefits forgot_."

To his surprise came Slavin's soft brogue echoing the last lines of the
old Shakespearian sonnet, with a sort of dreamy, gentle bitterness: "As
binifits forghot--forghot!--as binifits forghot! . . . .  Luk tu that
now! eyah! 'tis th' trute, lad! . . . . for here--unless I am mistuk,
comes me bould Yorkey--an' dhrunk as 'a fiddler's ---- again.  Tchkk! an'
me on'y just afther warnin' um. . . ."

And, a far-away black spot as yet, down the moonlit, snow-banked trail,
indistinctly they beheld an unsteady figure slowly weaving its way
towards the detachment.  At intervals the night-wind wafted to them
snatches of song.

"Singin', singin'," muttered Slavin, "from break av morrn 'till jewy
eve! . . .  Misther B---- Yorke! luks 'tis goin' large y'are th' night."

Nearer and nearer approached the stumbling black figure, weaving an
eccentric course in and out along the line of telephone poles; and, to
their ears came the voice of one crying in the wilderness:--

  "_O, the Midnight Son! the Midnight Son! (hic)
  You needn't go trottin' to Norway--
  You'll find him in ev'ry doorway--_"

A sudden cessation of the music, coupled with certain slightly
indistinct, weird contortions of the vocalist's figure, apprised the
watchers that a snow-bank had momentarily claimed him.  Then, suddenly
and saucily, as if without a break, the throbbing, high-pitched tenor
piped up again--

  "_You'll behold him in his glory
  If you on'y take a run (hic)
  Down the Strand--that's the Land
  Of the Midnight Son_."

Dewy eve indeed!--a far cry to the Strand! . . .  How freakish sounded
that old London variety stage ditty ridiculing the nightly silence of the
great snow-bound Nor' West.  Redmond could not refrain an explosive,
snorting chuckle as he remarked the erratic gait of the slowly
approaching pedestrian.  As Slavin had opined, he was "going large."  His
vocal efforts had ceased temporarily, and now it was the junior
constable's merriment that broke the frosty stillness of the night.

But Slavin did not laugh.  Watchfully he waited there--curiously still,
his head jutting forward loweringly from between his huge shoulders.

"Tchkk!" he clucked in gentle distaste--"In uniform . . . an' just afther
comin' off the thrain! . . .  th' like av that now 'tis--'tis
scandh'lus! . . ."

Suddenly Redmond shivered, and his mirth died within him.  The air seemed
to have become charged with a tense, ominous something that filled him
with a great dread--of what? he knew not.  He felt an inexplicable
impulse to cry out a warning to that ludicrous figure, whose crunching
moccasins were now the only sounds that broke the uncanny stillness of
the night.  To him, the whole scene, bathed in the cold brilliance of its
moonlit setting, seemed ghostly and unreal--a disturbing dream of comedy
and tragedy, intermingled.

Inwards, between the telephone poles, the man came stumbling along,
gradually drawing nigh to the motionless watchers.  Halting momentarily,
during his progress he made a quick stooping action at the base of one of
the poles, as if with vague purpose, which action was remarked at least
by Redmond.

Then, for the first time, he seemed to become aware of their presence,
and making a pitiful attempt to dissemble his condition and assume a
smart, erect military carriage he waved his riding-crop at them by way of
salutation.  Something in his action, its graceful, airy mockery, trivial
though it was, impressed the gestures firmly in Redmond's mind.  He
became cognizant of a flushed, undeniably handsome face with reckless
eyes and mocking lips; a slimly-built figure of a man of medium height,
whose natural grace was barely concealed by the short regimental fur coat.

Halting unsteadily within the regulation three paces pending salute, he
struck an attitude commonly affected by Mr. Sothern, in "Lord Dundreary,"
and jauntily twirled his crop, the while he declaimed:--

  "_Waltz me round again, Willie, Willie,
  Round and round and--_"

"_Round_!" finished Slavin, with a horrible oath.  There seemed something
shockingly aboriginal--simian--in the swift, gorilla-like clutch of his
huge dangling hands, as they fastened on the throat and shoulder of the
drunken man and whirled him on his back in the snow--something deadly and
menacing in his hard-breathing, soft-brogued invective:

"Yeh bloody nightingale! come off th' perch! . . .  I'm fed up wid
yeh!--I'll waltz yeh!--I'll tache yeh tu make a mock av Burke Slavin,
time an' again!  I'll--"

Redmond interposed, "Steady, Sergeant!" he implored shakily, his hand on
his superior's shoulder, "For God's sake--"

But Slavin, in absent fashion, shoved him off.  He seemed to put no
effort in the movement, but the tense muscular impact of it sent Redmond
reeling yards away.

"Giddap, Yorkey!  God d----n ye for a dhrunken waster!--giddap! or I'll
put th' boots tu yeh!"  Terrible was the menace of the giant Irishman's
face, his back-flung boot and his snarling, curiously low-pitched voice.

"No! not Burke, old man! . . . ah, don't!" gasped the rich tenor voice
pleadingly from the snow--"ah, don't, Burke! . . . remember,
remember . . .  St. Agnes' Eve--

  "St. Agnes' Eve.  Ah! bitter chill it was,
  The--"

It broke--that throbbing voice with its strange, impassioned appeal.  Far
away over the snow the faint, silvery ring of a locomotive gong fell upon
the ears of the trio almost like the deep, solemn tolling of bells.

Then slowly, and seemingly in pain, the prostrate man arose.

And yet!  Redmond mused, sorry a figure as he cut just then, minus
fur-cap and plastered with snow, alone with the shame which was his, he
had an air, a certain dignity of mien, this man, Yorke, which stamped him
far above the common run of men.

The junior constable, as he noted the dark hair, silvering and worn away
at the temples, adjudged him to be somewhere between thirty and
forty--thirty-five was his exact age as he ascertained later.

Now, with the air of a fallen angel, he stood there in the cold,
snow-dazzling moonlight; his face registering silent resignation as to
whatever else might befall him.  The sergeant had stepped forward.
Redmond looked on, in dazed apprehension.  A solemn hush had fallen upon
the strange scene, and stranger trio.  Their figures flung weird,
fantastic shadows across the diamond-sparkling snow-crust.  George
glanced at Slavin, and that individual's demeanor amazed him still
further.  The big man's face was transformed.  There seemed something
very terrible just then in the pathetic working of his rugged features,
as if he were striving to allay some powerful inward emotion.  Then
huskily, but not unkindly--as perchance the father may have spoken to the
prodigal son--came his soft brogue:

"Get yu tu bed, Yorkey! get yu tu bed, man! . . . an' thry me no
more! . . . ."

Mutely, like a child, Yorke obeyed the order.  Glancing at Redmond he
turned and walked unsteadily into the detachment.

Perturbed and utterly mystified at the sordid drama he had witnessed, its
amazing combination of brutality and pathos, George remained rooted to
the spot as one in a dream.  Instinctively though, he felt that this was
not the first time of its enactment.  Mechanically he watched the door
close; then sounding far off and indistinct, Slavin's hoarse whisper in
his ear brought him down to Mother Earth again with a vengeance:

"Did ye mark him stoop an' 'plant' th' 'hootch?'"

George nodded.  "I wasn't quite wise to what he was at," he answered.

"Let us go get ut!" said Sergeant Slavin grimly, marching to the spot, "I
will not have dhrink brought into th' detachment! . . . 'tis against
ordhers."

He bent down, straightened up, and turning to Redmond who had joined him
exhibited a bottle.  He held it up to the light of the moon.  It appeared
to be about half empty.  Extracting the cork, he smelt.

"'Tis whiskey," he murmured simply--much as Mr. Pickwick said: "It is
punch."  He made casual examination of the green and gold label.
"'Burke's Oirish,' begob! . . . eyah! a brave ould uniform but"--he
turned a moist eye on his subordinate--"a desp'ritly wounded souldier
that wears ut--betther out av pain.  'Tis an' ould sayin': 'Whin ye meet
th' divil du not turn tail but take um by th' harns.' . . .  Bhoy!  I
thrust the honest face av yeh--I have tuk tu ye since th' handy lad ye
showt yersilf with that team mix-up th' morn."

Redmond, mollified, grinned shiveringly.  "I don't mind a snort,
Sergeant," he said, "it's d----d cold out here.  Beer's more in my line
though.  Salue!"

He took a swallow or two; the bottle changed hands.

"Eyah!" remarked Slavin sometime later--cuddling the bottle at the "port
arms."  "'Tis put th' kibosh on many a good man in th' ould Force has
this same dhrink.  Th' likes av Yorkey there"--he jerked his head at the
lighted window--"shud never touch ut--never touch ut! . . .  Cannot
flirrt wid a bottle--'tis wedded they wud be tu ut.  Now meself"--he
paused impressively--"I can take me dhrink like a ginthleman--can take
ut, or lave ut alone."

Absorptive demonstration followed.  Came a long-drawn, smacking "Ah-hh!"
"A sore thrial tu me is that same man," he resumed, "wan more break on
his part, as ye have seen this night . . . an' I musht--I will take
shteps wid um."

"Why don't you transfer him back to the Post?" queried George,
wonderingly, mindful of how swiftly that disciplinary measure had
rewarded his own reckless conduct at the Gleichen detachment.  "He's got
nothing on you, has he?"

"_Fwhat_?" . . . Slavin, turning like a flash, glared sharply at him out
of deep-set scowling eyes, "Fwhat?"

Tonelessly, George repeated his query,

Slavin's glare gradually faded.  "Eyah!" he affirmed presently, "he
has! . . ." came a long pause--"but not as yu mane ut . . . oh! begorrah,
no!"  His eyes glittered dangerously and his wide mouth wreathed into an
unholy grin, "'Tis a shmart man that iver puts ut over on me at th'
Orderly-room. . .  Fwhy du I not sind him into th' Post? . . . eyah! fwhy
du I not? . . ."

Chin sunk on his huge chest, he mused awhile.

George waited.

"Listen, bhoy!"  A terrible earnestness crept into the soft voice.  "I'll
tell ye th' tale. . . .  'Twas up at th' Chilkoot Pass--in the gold rush
av '98. . . .  Together we was--Yorkey an' meself--stationed there undher
ould Bobby Belcher.  Wan night--Mother av God! will I iver forghet ut?
Bitther cowld is th' Yukon, lad; th' like av ut yu' here in Alberta du
not know.  Afther tu crazy lost _cheechacos_ we had been that day.  We
found thim--frozen. . . .  A blizzard had shprung up, but we shtrapped
th' stiffs on th' sled an' mushed ut oursilves tu save th' dogs.

"I am a big man, an' shtrong . . . . but Yorkey was th' betther man av us
tu that night--havin less weight tu pack.  I was all in--dhrowsy, an'
wanted tu give up th' ghost an' shleep--an' shleep. . . .  Nigh unto
death I was. . . ."

The murmuring voice died away.  A shudder ran through the great frame at
the remembrance, while the hand clutching the bottle trembled violently.
Unconsciously Redmond shook with him; for the horror Slavin was living
over again just then enveloped his listener also.

"But Yorkey," he continued "wud not let me lie down. . . .  God! how that
man did put his fishts an' mucklucks tu me an' pushed an' shtaggered wid
me' afther th' dogs, beggin' an' cursin' an' prayin' an' callin' me names
that ud fairly make th' dead relations av a man rise up out av their
graves. . . .  Light-headed he got towards th' ind av th' thrail, poor
chap! shoutin' dhrill-ordhers an' Injia naygur talk, an' singin' great
songs an' chips av poethry--th' half av which I misremimber--excipt
thim--thim wurrds he said this night.  'Shaint Agnus Eve,' he calls ut.
Over an' over he kept repeathin' thim as he helped me shtaggerin'
along. . . 'God!' cries he, betune cursin' me an' th' dogs an' singin'
'Shaint Agnus Eve'--'Oh, help us this night! let us live, God! . . . oh,
let us live!--this poor bloody Oirishman an' me! . . .'"

The sergeant's head was thrown back now, gazing full at the evening star
the moonbeams shining upon his upturned, powerful face.  Cold as was the
night Redmond could see glistening beads of sweat on his forehead.  As
one himself under the spell of the fear of death, the younger man
silently watched that face--fascinated.  It was calm now, with a great
and kindly peace.  Slowly the gentle voice took up the tale anew:

"We made ut, bhoy--th' Post--or nigh tu ut . . . in th' break av th'
dawn. . . .  For wan av th' dogs yapped an' they come out an' found us in
th' snow. . . .  Yorkey, wid his arrums round th' neck av me--as if he
wud shtill dhrag me on . . . . an' cryin' upon th' mother that bore
um. . . .  Tu men--in damned bad shape--tu shtiffs . . . . an' but three
dogs lift out av th' six-team we'd shtarted wid. . . .  So--now ye know;
lad! . . .  Fwhat think ye? . . ."

What George thought was: "Greater love hath no man than this."  What he
said was: "He's an Englishman, isn't he?"

Slavin nodded.  "Comes of a mighty good family tu, they say, but 'tis
little he iwer cracks on himself 'bout thim.  Years back he hild a
commission in some cavalry reg'mint in Injia, but he got broke--over a
woman, I fancy.  He's knocked about th' wurrld quite a piece since thin.
Eyah! he talks av some quare parts he's been in.  Fwhat doin'?  Lord
knows.  Been up an' down the ladder some in _this_ outfit--sarjint one
week--full buck private next.  Yen know th' way these ginthlemin-rankers
run amuck?"

"How does he get away with it every time?" queried Redmond.  "Hasn't any
civilian ever reported him to the old man?"

"Yes! wance--an' 'Father,' th' ould rapparee! he went for me baldheaded
for not reporthin' ut tu."

With a sort of miserable heartiness Slavin cursed awhile at the
recollection.  "Toime an' again," he resumed, "have I taken my hands tu
um--pleaded wid um, an' shielded um in many a dhirty scrape, an' ivry
toime sez he, wid his ginthlemin's shmile: 'Burke! will ye thry an'
overlook it, ould man?' . . .  Eyah! he's mighty quare.  For some rayson
he seems tu hate th' idea av a third man bein' here, tho' th' man' wud
die for me.  Divil a man can I kape here, anyway.  In fwhat fashion he
puts th' wind up 'him, I do not know; they will not talk, out av pure
kindness av heart an' rispict for meself, I guess.  But--a few days here,
an' bingo!--they apply for thransfer.  Now ye know ivrythin', bhoy--fwhat
I am up against, an' fwhy I will not 'can' Yorkey.  Ye've a face that
begets thrust--do not bethray ut, but thry an' hilp me.  Bear wid Yorke
as best ye can--divilmint an' all--for my sake, will yeh?"

Not devoid of a certain simple dignity was the grim, rugged face that
turned appealingly to the younger man's in the light of the moon.

And Redmond, smiling inscrutably into the deep-set, glittering eyes,
answered as simply: "I will, Sergeant!"

He declined an offer.  "_Nemoyah_!  (No) thanks, I've had enough."

For some unaccountable reason, Slavin smiled also.  His huge clamping
right hand crushed George's, while the left described an arc heavenwards.
Came a throaty gurgle, a careless swing of the arm, and--

  "Be lay loike a warrior takin' his rist,
  Wid his--

"I misrimimber th' tail-ind av ut," sighed Sergeant Slavin, "'Tis toime
we turned in."


In silence they re-entered the detachment.  Yorke, minus his moccasins,
fur-coat and red-serge, lay stretched out upon his cot sleeping heavily,
his flushed, reckless, high-bred face pillowed on one outflung arm.
Above him, silent guardians of his rest, his grotesque mixture of prints
gleamed duskily in the lamp-light.

Into Redmond's mind--sunk into a deep oblivion of dreamy, chaotic
thought--came again Slavin's words:

"Shtudy thim picthures, bhoy! an', by an' large ye have th' man himsilf"

Soon, too, he slept; and into his fitful slumbers drifted a ridiculously
disturbing dream.  That of actually witnessing the terrible scene of the
long-dead Indian Mutiny hero, Major Hodson, executing with his own hand
the three princes of Oude.

_Inshalla_! it was done--there! there! against the cart, amidst the
gorgeous setting of Indian sunset and gleaming minaret.  "Deen!  Deen!
Futteh _Mohammed_!" came a dying scream upon the last shot--the smoking
carbine was jerked back to the "recover"--a moment the scarlet-turbaned,
scarlet-sashed English officer gazed with ruthless satisfaction at his
treacherous victims then, turning sharply, faced him.

And lo! to Redmond it seemed that the stern, intolerant,
recklessly-handsome countenance he looked upon bore a striking
resemblance to the face of Yorke.




CHAPTER IV

  _Burn'd Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire,
  And shook his very frame for ire,
  And--"This to me!" he said,--_
                              MARMION


Early on the morrow it came to pass that Sergeant Slavin, cooking
breakfast for all hands, heard Yorke's voice uplifted in song, as that
worthy made his leisurely toilet.  He shot a slightly bilious glance at
Redmond, who, "Morning Stables" finished, lounged nearby.

"Hear um?" he snorted enviously.  "Singin'! singin'!--forever
singin'!--eyah! sich nonsince, tu."

But, to George, who possessed a musical ear, the ringing tenor sounded
rather airily and sweetly--

  "_Hark! hark! the lark at Heaven's Gate sings,
    And Phoebus 'gins arise,
  His steeds to water at those springs--_"

"Fwhat yez know 'bout that?"  Slavin forked viciously at the bacon he was
frying.  "Blarney my sowl! an' him not up for 'Shtables' at all! . . ."

  "_With ev'rything that pretty is:--
  My lady sweet, arise! arise!
  My lady sweet, arise!_"

"My lady shweet!"--Slavin snorted unutterable things.

Yawning, the object of his remarks sauntered into the kitchen just then,
and, deeming the occasion now to be a fitting one, the sergeant
introduced his two subordinates to each other.

Yorke, with a bleak nod and handshake, swept the junior constable with a
swiftly appraising glance.  As frigidly was his salutation returned.
Redmond remarked the regular features, suggestive rather of the ancient
Norman type, the thin, curved, defiant nostrils and dark, arching
eyebrows.  The face, with its indefinable stamp of birth and breeding was
handsome enough in its patrician mould, but marred somewhat by the lines
of cynicism, or dissipation, round the sombre, reckless eyes and
intolerant mouth.  He had a cool, clear voice and a whimsical,
devil-may-care sort of manner that was apparently natural to him, as was
also a certain languid grace of movement.  He possessed an irritating
mannerism of continually elevating his chin and dilating his curved
nostrils disdainfully in a sort of soundless sniff.  Beyond a slight
flush he showed little trace of his previous night's dissipation.

"Where do you hail from?" he enquired of George with casual interest over
the mess-table later.

"Ontario," replied George laconically, "my people are farmers down there."

For a moment Yorke's arched brows lifted in puzzled surprise--came a
repetition of his offensive sniffing mannerism; and he stared pointedly
away again.  It was difficult to be more insulting in dumb show.

George, mindful of his promise to Slavin, groaned inwardly.  "I am going
to hate this fellow" he thought.

The sergeant, from the head of the table, kept a keen watch upon the pair.

"An' fwhat?" came his soft brogue, by way of diversion, "an' fwhat made
yu' take on th' Force?"

"Oh, I don't know!"  Wearily, George shoved his hands deep into his
pockets and leant back in his chair.  "Old man's pretty well fixed--now.
He's a member of the legislature for ---- County.  I was at McGill for
some terms--medicine."  A hopeless note crept into his tones.  "I fell
down on my exams . . . ran amuck with the wrong bunch an' all
that--an'--an' . . .  kind of made a mess of things I guess. . . .  Went
broke--came West. . . .  That's why. . . ."

With a forlorn sort of forced grin he gazed back at his interlocutor.
Yorke, unheeding the conversation, continued his breakfast as if he were
alone.

"H-mm!" grunted Slavin, summing up the situation with native simplicity,
"That's ut, eh?--but, for all ye have th' spache an' manners av a
ginthleman--ranker somehow--somehow I misdoubt ye're a way-back waster
like Misther Yorkey here!"

That hardened "ginthleman," absently sipping his coffee, flung a
faintly-derisive, patient smile at his accuser.  A perfect understanding
seemed to exist between the two men.  Redmond, musing upon the
pathetically-sordid drama he had witnessed not so many hours since,
relapsed into a reverie of speculation.

The silence was suddenly broken by the sharp trill of the telephone.
Slavin arose lethargically from the mess-table and answered it.

"Hullo! yis!  Slavin shpeakin'!  Fwat?--all right Nick!  I'll sind a man
shortly an' vag um!  So long!  Oh, hold on, Nick! . . .  May th' divil
niver know ye're dead till ye're tu hours in Hivin!  Fwhat?--Oh, thank
yez!  Same tu yez!  Well! . . . so long!"

"Hobo worryin' Nick Lee at Cow Run.  Scared av fire in th'
livery-shtable.  Go yu', Yorkey!"  He eyed George a moment in curious
speculation.  "Yu' had betther go along tu, Ridmond!  Exercise yez harse
an'"--he lit his pipe noisily--"learn th' lay av th' thrails."  He turned
to the senior constable.  "If ye can lay hould av th' J.P. there, get
this shtiff committed an' let Ridmond take thrain wid um tu th' Post.
Yu' return wid th' harses!"

"Why can't Redmond nip down there on a way-freight and do the whole
thing?" said Yorke, a trifle sulkily.  "It seems rot sending two men
mounted for one blooming hobo."

"Eyah!" murmured Slavin with suspicious mildness, "'tis th' long toime
since I have used me shtripes tu give men undher me wan ordher twice."

Yorke flashed a slightly apprehensive glance at his superior's face.
Then, without another word, he reached for his side-arms, bridle, and
fur-coat.  He knew his man.

Redmond followed suit and they adjourned to the stable.

"I saw that beggar yesterday--on my way up," remarked George,
ill-advisedly.

Yorke stared.  "The hell you did! . . . why didn't you vag him then?" he
retorted irritably.

Bursting with silent wrath at the "choke-off," with difficulty Redmond
held his peace.  In silence they saddled up and leading the horses out
prepared to mount.  Yorke swung up on the splendid, mettled
black--"Parson."  He had an ideal cavalry seat, and as with an easy grace
he gently controlled his impatient horse, with an inscrutable, mask-like
countenance he watched Redmond and the sorrel "Fox."

With toe in the leather-covered stirrup the latter reached for the
saddle-horn.  Poor George! fuming inwardly over one humiliation caused
him shortly to be the recipient of another.  Too late to his preoccupied
mind came Slavin's warning of the day before.

Like a flash the sorrel whirled to the "off-side" and Redmond, swung off
his balance, revolved into space and was pitched on his hands and knees
in the snow.  Fortunately his foot had slipped clear of the stirrup.  In
this somewhat ignominious position dizzily he heard Yorke's mocking tones:

"What are the odds on Fox, bookie? . . .  I'd like a few of those dollars
when you've quite finished picking them all up."

With an almost superhuman effort the young fellow controlled himself once
more as he arose.  Not lightly had he given a promise.  Silently he
dusted the snow from his uniform and strode over to where the sorrel
awaited him.  The horse had made no attempt to run away; apparently being
an old hand at the game.  It now stood eying its dupe, with Lord knows
what mirth tickling its equine brain.

Slipping the "nigh" rein through the saddle-fork, then back to the
cheek-strap again, George snubbed Fox's head towards him, making it
impossible for the horse to whirl to the "off" as before.  Warily and
quietly he then swung into the saddle and the two men set off.

A few yards from the front of the detachment Yorke suddenly pulled up
and, dismounting, felt around in the snow at the base of a
well-remembered telephone-pole.  It was Redmond's hour to jeer now, if he
had been mindful to do so.  But another usurped that privilege.

A queer choking sound made them both turn round.  Slavin, his grim face
registering unholy mirth, lounged in the doorway.

"Fwhat ye lukkin for, Yorkey?"

"Oh, nothing!" came that gentleman's answer.

"Ye'll find ut in th' bottle thin."

Insult was added to injury by the sergeant casually plucking that article
from it's "rist" and chucking it over.

Yorke's face was a study.  "Oh!" cried he dismally, "what wit! . . . give
three rousing cheers!" . . .  He mounted once more.  "Well! there's no
denying you are one hell of a sergeant!"

That worthy one grinned at him tolerantly.  "Get yez gone!" he spat back,
"an' du not linger tu play craps on th' thrail either--th' tu av yez!"

Long and grimly, with his bald head sunk between his huge shoulders, he
gazed after the departing riders.  "Eyah! 'tis best so!" he murmured
softly, "a showdown--wid no ould shtiff av a non-com like meself tu butt
in. . . .  An', onless I am mistuk that same will come this very morn,
from th' luks av things. . . .  Sind th' young wan is as handy wid his
dhooks as Brankley sez he is! . . .  Thin--an' on'y thin will there be
peace in th' fam'ly."

He re-lit his pipe and, shading his eyes from the snow-glare focussed
them on two rapidly vanishing black specks.  "I wud that I cud see ut!"
he sighed, plaintively, "I wud that I cud see ut!"

It was a glorious day, sunny and clear, with the temperature sufficiently
low to prevent the hard-packed snow from balling up the horses' feet.
The trail ran fairly level along a lower shelf of the timber-lined
foothills, which on their right hand sloped gradually to the banks of the
Bow River in a series of rolling "downs."  Sharply outlined against the
blue ether the Sou' Western chain of the mighty "Rockies" reared their
rosily-white peaks in all their morning glory--silent guardians of the
winter landscape.

Deep down in his soul young Redmond harboured a silent, dreamy adoration
for the beauty of such scenes as this.  Under different conditions he
would have enjoyed this ride immensely.  But now--with his mind a
seething bitter chaos consequent upon his companion's incomprehensible
behavior towards him, he rode in a sort of brooding reverie.  Yorke was
equally morose.  Not a word had fallen from their lips since they left
the detachment.

Right under the horses' noses a big white jack-rabbit suddenly darted
across the snow-banked ruts of the well-worn trail, pursuing its leaping
erratic course towards a patch of brush on the river side.
Simultaneously the animals shied, with an inward trend, cannoning their
respective riders together.  Yorke reined away sharply and glared.

"Get over'" he said curtly, "don't crowd me!"

He spoke as a Cossack hetman might to his sotnia, and, at his tone and
attitude, something snapped within Redmond.  To his already overflowing
cup of resentment it was the last straw.  His promise to Slavin he flung
to the winds, and it was replaced with vindictive but cool purpose.

"Showdown!" he muttered under his breath, "I knew it had to come!"  He
was conscious of a feeling of vast relief.  Aloud he responded, blithely
and rudely, "Oh! to hell with _you_!"

Yorke checked his horse with a suddenness that brought the animal back
onto its haunches.  Sitting square and motionless in the saddle for a
moment he stared at George with an expression almost of shocked
amazement; then his face became convulsed with ruthless passion.

The junior constable had pulled up also, and now wheeling "half-left" and
lolling lazily in his saddle with shortened leg stared back at his enemy
with an expression there was no mistaking.  His debonair young face had
altered in an incredible fashion.  Although his lips were pursed up with
their whistling nonchalance his eyes had contracted beneath scowling
brows into mere pin-points of steel and ice.  He looked about as docile
as a young lobo wolf--cornered.

"Ah!" murmured Yorke, noting the transformation; and he seemed to
consider.  He had seen that look on men's faces before.  Insensibly,
passion had vanished from his face; the bully had disappeared; and in his
place there sat in saddle a cool, contemptuous gentleman.

"Are you talking back to me?" he said.  He did not look astounded
now--seemed rather to assume it.

Redmond's scowling brows lifted a fraction.  "Talking back?" he echoed,
"sure!  Who the devil do you think you're trying to come 'the Tin Man'
over?"

Reluctantly Yorke discounted his first impressions.  Here was no
self-conscious bravado.  Warily he surveyed George for a moment--the cool
appraising glance of the ring champion in his corner scanning his
challenger--then, swinging out of the saddle, he dropped his lines and
began to unbuckle his spurs.

There was no mistaking his actions.  Redmond followed suit.  A few
seconds he looked dubiously at his horse, then back at Yorke.

"Oh, you needn't be scared of Fox beating it," remarked that gentleman a
trifle wearily, "he'll stand as good as old Parson if you chuck his lines
down."

Shading his eyes from the sun-glare he took a rapid survey of their
surroundings, then led the way to a wind-swept patch of ground, more or
less bare of snow.  Arriving thither, as if by mutual consent they flung
off caps, side-arms, fur-coats and stable-jackets.  Yorke, a graceful,
compactly-built figure of a man, sized up his slightly heavier opponent
with an approving eye.

"You strip good" he said carelessly.  "Well! what's it to be? . . .
'muck' or 'muffin'?"

"'Muffin' of course!" snapped Redmond angrily, "what d'ye take me for?--a
'rough-house meal ticket'?"

"All right!" said Yorke soothingly, "don't lose your temper!"

It may have been a shrewdly-calculated attempt to attain that end; and
yet again it may have been only sheer mechanical habit that prompted him
to stretch forth his hands in the customary salute of the ring.

With an inarticulate exclamation of rage the younger man struck the
proffered hands aside and led with a straight left for the other's head.
Yorke blocked it cleverly and fell into a clinch.

"Ah!" murmured Yorke in his antagonist's ear with a sinister smile,
"rotten manners! for just that, my buck, I'll make you scoff 'muffin'
'till you're quite poorly!"

Working his arms cautiously, he sprang clear of the clinch, then, rushing
his man and feinting for the ribs, he rocked Redmond's head back with two
terrific left and right hooks to the jaw.

The jarring sting of the punches, although dazing him slightly, brought
Redmond to his senses, as he realized how vulnerable his momentary loss
of temper had rendered him.  He now braced himself with dogged
determination and, covering up warily, circled his adversary with clever
foot-work.  Yorke, tearing in again was met with one of the crudest jabs
he had ever known--flush in the mouth.  Gamely he retaliated with a
stinging uppercut and a right swing which, coming home on Redmond's
cheek-bone, whirled him off his balance and sent him sprawling.

Dazed, but not daunted, he scrambled to his feet.  Yorke, blowing upon
his knuckles with all the air of an old-time "Regency blood," waited with
heaving chest and scornful, narrowed eyes.

"Want to elevate the sponge?" he queried sneeringly.

"No!" panted George grimly, "it was you started the whole rotten dirty
business, and, by gum! I'll finish it!"

Dancing in and out he drew an ineffective left from his opponent and
countered with a pile-driving right to the heart.  Yorke gave vent to a
groaning exclamation and turned pale.  He spat gaspingly out of his
mashed lips and propped Redmond off awhile; then, suddenly springing in
again he attempted to mix it.  George was nothing loath, and the two men,
standing toe-to-toe, slugged each other with a perfect whirlwind of
damaging punches to face and body.

Even in the giddy whirl of combat, in either man's heart now was a wonder
almost akin to respect for each other's ring knowledge and gameness.  It
was not George's first bout by many, but the physical endurance of this
hard, clean-hitting Corinthian of a man was an astounding revelation to
him; the science of the graceful, narrow-waisted figure was still as
quick and as punishing as a steel trap.

Yorke, for his part, reflected with bitter irony how utterly erroneous
had been his primary calculations--how Nemesis was hard upon his heels at
last in the guise of this relentless youngster, who fought like a
college-bred "Charley Mitchell."

Ding! dong!--hook, jab, uppercut, block, and swing; in and out, back and
forth, side-stepping and head-work--one long exhausting round.  Flesh and
blood could not stand the pace--though it was Redmond now who forced it.
Neither of the men was in training and the long strain began to tell upon
them both cruelly--especially upon the veteran Yorke.  Still, with
frosted hair and streaming faces, the sweat-soaked, bruised and bleeding
combatants staggered against each other and strove to make play with
their weary arms, until utter exhaustion rang the time gong.

Gasping and swaying to and fro, his puffed lips wreathed into a ghastly
semblance of his old scornful smile, Yorke dropped his guard and stuck
out his chin.  He mouthed and pointed to it tauntingly.  In spite of
himself, a sorry grin flickered over George's battered, weary young face.
He mouthed back--speech was beyond either; sagging at the knees he reeled
forward and his right arm went poking out in a wobbling, uncertain punch.

It glanced harmlessly over Yorke's shoulder, but the violent impact of
his body sent the other heavily to the ground.  An ineffectual struggle
to maintain his equilibrium and he, too, fell--face downwards, with his
head pillowed on Yorke's heaving chest.




CHAPTER V

  We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
      Baa!  Baa!  Baa!
  We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
      Baa--aa--aa!
  Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
  Damned from here to Eternity,
  God ha' mercy on such as we,
      Baa!  Yah!  Bah!
                    KIPLING


A great peace lay upon the frozen landscape--the deep, wintry peace of
the vast, snow-bound Nor'West.  A light breeze murmured over the crisping
snow, and moaned amongst the pines in the timber-lined spurs of the
foothills.  High overhead in the sunny, dazzling blue vault of heaven a
huge solitary hawk slowly circled with wide-spread, motionless wings,
uttering intermittently its querulous, eerie whistle.

Awhile the two exhausted men lay gasping for breath--absolutely and
utterly spent.  Suddenly Yorke shivered violently and sighed.  Redmond
raised himself off the prostrate form of his late opponent and,
staggering over to the pile of their discarded habiliments, slowly and
painfully he donned his fur coat and cap; then, picking up Yorke's, he
stumbled over to the latter.  The senior constable was now sitting up,
with arms drooping loosely over his knees.  George wrapped the coat
around the bowed shoulders and put on the cap.

"You're cold, old man!" he said simply.  "We'd best get our things on
now, and beat it."

Wearily Yorke raised his head, and, at something he beheld in that
disfigured, but unalterably-handsome face, Redmond's heart smote him.

Often in the past he had fondly imagined himself nursing implacable,
absolutely undying hatreds; brooding darkly over injuries received in
fancy or reality, planning dire and utterly ruthless revenge, etc.  But,
deep, deep down in his boyish soul he knew it to be only a dismal
failure--that he could not keep it up.  His was an impulsive, generous
young heart--equally quick to forgive an injury as to resent one.  Now in
his pity and misery he could have cried--to see his erstwhile enemy so
hopelessly broken in body and spirit.

Therefore it did not occur to him that it was sheer sentimental absurdity
on his part now to drop on one knee and put his arms around that
shivering, pride-broken form.

"Yorkey!" he mumbled huskily, "old man! . . .  Yor--"

He choked a bit, and was silent.

Waveringly, a skinned-knuckled, but sinewy, shapely hand crept out and
gently ruffled Redmond's curly auburn hair.  Vaguely he heard a voice
speaking to him.  Could that tired, kind, whimsical voice belong to
Yorke?  It said: "Reddy, my old son! . . . we're still in the ring,
anyway. . . .  Seems--do what we would or could--we couldn't poke each
other out. . . ."

Came a long silence; then: "If ever a man was sorry for the rotten way
he's acted, it's surely me right now. . . .  Got d----d good cause to be
p'raps. . . .  I handed it to you about the sponge . . . egad!  I
well-nigh came chucking it up myself--later.  My colonial oath! but
you're the cleverest, gamest, hardest-hitting young proposition I've ever
ruffled it out with! . . .  Where'd you pick it up?  Who's handled you?"

George slowly rose to his feet.  "Man named Scholes--down East" he
answered.  He eyed Yorke's face ruefully and, incidentally felt his own,
"I used to do a bit with the gloves when I was at McGill.  Talking about
sponges!--I only wish we had one now to chuck up--in tangible form."

He abstracted the other's handkerchief and, rolling it with his own into
a pad dabbed it in the snow.  Yorke winced.  "Hold still, old thing!"
said Redmond, "we'll have to clean off a bit ere we hit the giddy trail
again."

For some minutes he gently manipulated the pad.  "There! you don't look
too bad now.  Have a go at me!"

Figuratively, they licked each other's wounds awhile.  Yorke had grown
very silent.  Chin in hands and rocking very slightly to and fro, all
huddled up in his fur coat, he gazed unseeingly into the beyond.  His
face was clouded with such hopeless, bitter, brooding misery that it
worried Redmond.  He guessed it to be something far deeper than the
memory of their recent conflict.  He strove to arouse the other.

"Talk about game cocks!" he began lightly.  "Ten years ago, say! you must
have been a corker--regular 'Terry McGovern'."

"Eh?"  Yorke's far-away eyes stared at him vaguely.  "I was in India
then.  Army light-weight champion in my day.  Slavin wasn't joshing much
at breakfast, by gum! . . .  Now we're here! . . .  We're a bright pair!"
He made as though to cast snow upon his head, "Ichabod!  Ichabod! our
glory has departed!"

He lifted up his tenor voice, chanting the while he rocked--

  "_Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
  Damned from here to Eternity,
  God ha' mercy on such as we,
      Baa!  Yah!  Bah!_"

Redmond flinched and raised a weakly protesting hand.  "Don't, old man!"
he implored miserably, "don't! what's the--"

"Eh!" queried Yorke brutally--rocking--"does hurt?"

  "_If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
  And all we--_"

"No! no! no!  Yorkey!" George's voice rose to a cry, "not that! . . .
quit it, old man! . . . that's one of the most terrible things Kipling
ever wrote--terrible because it's so absolutely, utterly hopeless. . . ."

"Well, then!" said Yorke slowly--

  "_Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?_"

"It wasn't beer," muttered Redmond absently, "it was whiskey.  Slavic and
I drank it."  With an effort he strove to arouse himself out of the
despondency that he himself had fallen into.

"Listen! . . .  Oh! quit that d----d rocking, Yorkey! . . .  Listen now!
we've put up a mighty good scrap against each other--we'll call that a
draw--let's put up another against our--well! we'll call it our rotten
luck . . .  D----n it all, old man, we're not 'down an' outs' doing duty
in this outfit--the best military police corps in the world! . . .  Let's
both of us quit squalling this eternal 'nobody loves me' stuff!  This
isn't any slobbery brotherly love or New Jerusalem business, or anything
like that, either.  I'm not a bloomin' missionary!"  He qualified that
assertion unnecessarily to prove it.  "But let's stick together and back
each other up--just us two and old man Slavin--make it a sort of 'rule of
three.'  We can have a deuce of a good time on this detachment
then! . . ."

He spoke hotly, eagerly, with boyish fervour, his soul in his eyes.

Yorke remained silent, with averted eyes.  That imploring, wistful,
bruised young countenance was almost more than he could stand.  George,
dropping on one knee beside him put a tremulous hand on the senior
constable's shoulder.  "What's wrong, Yorkey?" he queried.  He shook the
bowed shoulder gently.  "What's made you consistently knock every third
buck that's been sent here? 'till they got fed up, and transferred? . . .
They tried to put the wind up me about it at the Post.  What's bitin'
you?  I don't seem to get your angle at all!"

"Oh, I don't know!"  Yorke coughed and spat drearily.  "Kind of rum
reason, you'll think.  Long story--too long--dates back.  Listen then!
Ten years back, in the pride of my giddy youth, I held a Junior Sub's
commission in the ---- Lancers--in India.  This is just a synopsis of
my case, mind! . . .  Well! the regiment was lying at Rawal Pindi, and--I
guess I kind of ran amuck there--got myself into a rotten
_esclandre_--entirely my own fault I'll admit:

  _Man is fire, and Woman is tow,
  And the Devil, he comes and begins to blow--_

the same old miserable business the world's fed up with.  Since then
seems I've kind of made a mess of things.  Burke Slavin's about
right--his estimate of me."  He sighed with bitter, gloomy retrospection.
"I've always had a queer, intolerant sort of temperament.  If I'd lived
in the days of the Indian Mutiny I guess I'd have been in 'Hodson's
Horse'."  (Redmond started, remembering his curious dream.)  "He was a
man after my own heart," Yorke continued slowly, "resourceful, slashing
sort of beggar . . . he ruffled it with a high hand.  Bold and game as
Sherman, or Paul Jones, but as ruthless as Graham of Claverhouse.  He put
the ever-lasting fear into the rebels of Oude--something like Cromwell
did in Ireland.  My old Governor served through the Mutiny--he's told me
stories of him.  My God!"

He drew his fur coat closer round him.  "Well!"--Redmond watched the
sombre profile--"as I was saying . . .  I 'muckered'. . . .  Since then,
with the years, I guess I've been climbing down the ladder of illusions
till I'm right in the stoke-hole, and Old Nick seems to grin and whisper:
'As you were! my cashiered Sub.--As you were!' every time I chuck a brace
and try to climb up again.  How's that for a bit of cheap cynicism?"--the
low, bitter laugh was not good to hear--"Man!"--the brooding eyes
narrowed--"I've sure plumbed the depths--knocking around, with the right
to live.  Port Said, Buenos Aires, Shanghai. . . .  I've certainly
travelled.  Some day I'll throw the book at you.  Now--substance and
ambition gone by the board long ago, and mighty little left of principle
I guess--I am--what I am--everything except a prodigal, or a
remittance-man--I never worried them at Home--that way. . . ."

He spoke with a sort of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more
than that individual cared to show.  Redmond felt it was useless to offer
mere conventional sympathy in a case like this.  He did the next best
thing possible--he remained silently attentive and let the other run on.

"You take three men now--stationed in the same detachment," resumed Yorke
wearily, "by gum! they're thrown together mighty close when you come to
think of it.  It's different to the Post, where there's a crowd.  Life's
too short to start in explaining minutely just what that difference is.
Fact remains! . . . to get along and pull together they've got to like
each other--have something in common--give and take.  Otherwise the
situation becomes d----d trying, and trouble soon starts in the family."

"By what divine right I should consider myself qualified to--to--Oh! shut
up, you young idiot! . . ."  Redmond, forehead pressed into the speaker's
shoulder, giggled hysterically in spite of himself--"Shut up! d'you hear?
or I'll knock your silly block off!"

The two bodies shook, with their convulsive merriment.  "You can't do it!
old thing," came George's smothered rejoinder, "and you know darned well
you can't--now! . . .  Go on, you bloomin' Hodson!--proceed!"

Yorke gave vent to a good-natured oath.  "Hodson? . . . you do me proud,
my buck! . . .  Well now!--this 'three men in a boat' business! . . .
I'll admit I 'rocked' it with Crampton.  I virtually abolished him
because--oh! I couldn't stick the beggar at all.  I simply couldn't make
a pal of him.  He was fairly good at police work, but a proper cad, in my
opinion.  Always swanking about the palatial residence he'd left behind
in the Old Country.  He called it ''is 'ome' at that.  Typical specimen
of the middle-class snob.  Followed Taylor.  Thick-headed, serious-minded
sort of fool.  Had great veneration for 'his juty.'  No real knowledge of
the Criminal Code, and minus common sense, yet begad! the silly beggar
tried to be more regimental that the blooming Force is itself.  I
systematically put the wind up to him 'till he got cold feet and quit."

Redmond recalled the fact that Taylor had been his predecessor.
"Followed!" he echoed mockingly, looking up at his handiwork.

Yorke, with a twisted smile glanced down at the bruised, but debonair
young face.  Benevolently he punched its owner in the back.
"Followed . . . a certain young fellow, yclept 'Nemesis'," he said, "I
sized you up for one of these smart Alecks--first crack out of the box,
and egad! I think I'm about right."

Said Redmond, "How about our respected sergeant? we seem to have
forgotten him."

"Slavin?" ejaculated the senior constable; and was silent awhile.  There
was no levity in him now.  Slowly he resumed, "I guess as much as it's
humanly possible for two men to know each other--down to the bedrock,
it's surely Burke Slavin and I.  Should too, the years we've been
together.  The good old beggar! . . .  We slang each other, and all
that . . . but there's too much between us ever to resent anything for
long."

"I know," said Redmond simply, "he told me himself--last night."

"Eh?" queried Yorke sharply.  "My God! . . .  Tchkk!" he clucked, and
burying his hands in his face he gave vent to a fretful oath.  "My God!"
he repeated miserably, "I'd forgotten--last night! . . .  I sure must
have been 'lit' . . . to come that over old Burke. . . ."

"You sure were!" remarked Redmond brutally.

"Keats' 'St. Agnes' Eve'! . . .  Oh, Lord!" . . .  He drew in his breath
with a sibilant hiss, "There seems something--something devilish about--"

"I know!  I know!" breathed Yorke tensely, "what . . . you mean."  His
haggard eyes implored Redmond's.  "No! no! never again . . .  I swear
it. . . ."

There came a long, painful silence.  "See here; look!" began Yorke
suddenly.  He stopped and surveyed George, a trifle anxiously.
"Mind! . . . I'm not trying to justify myself but--get me right about
this now.  Don't you ever start in making a mistake about Slavin--blarney
and all.  No, Sir!  I tell you when old Burke runs _amôk_ in those
tantrums he's a holy fright.  He'd kill a man.  Might as well run up
against a gorilla."

A vision of the huge, sinister, crouching figure seemed to rise up in
Redmond's mind--the great, clutching, _simian_ hands.

"In India," continued Yorke, "we'd say he'd got a touch of the 'Dulalli
Tap.'  The man doesn't know his own strength.  I was taking an awful
chance--getting his goat like that last night.  It's a wonder he didn't
kill me.  He's man-handled me pretty badly at times.  Oh, well!  I guess
it's been coming to me all right.  Neither of us has ever dreamt of going
squalling to the Orderly-room over our . . . differences.  I don't think
Burke's ever taken the trouble to 'peg' a man in his life.  Not his way.
'I must take shteps!' says he, and 'I will take shteps!' and when he
starts in softly rubbing those awful great grub-hooks he calls
hands--together! . . . well! you want to look out."

Lighting a cigarette he resumed reminiscently: "They were a tough crowd
to handle up in the Yukon.  The devil himself 'd have been scared to butt
in to that 'Soapy Smith' gang; but, by gum! they were afraid of Slavin.
He doesn't drink much now, but he did then--mighty few that didn't--up
there--and I tell you, even our own fellows got a bit leery of him when
he used to start in 'trailing his coat.'  They were glad when he 'came
outside.'  That's one of the reasons why he's shoved out on a prairie
detachment.  He wouldn't do at all for the Post.  He never reports in
there more than he has to--dead scared of the old man, who's about the
only soul he is afraid of on earth.  The O.C.'s awful sarcastic with him
at times, and that gets Burke's goat properly.  He sure does hate getting
a choke-off from the old man."

He grinned guiltily.  "That's why he prefers to wash the family linen
strictly at home--what little there is.  But, sarcasm and all, the O.C.
gives him credit for being onto his job--and it's coming to him, too.
He's quick acting and he's got the Criminal Code well-nigh by heart.
Regular blood-hound when he starts in working up a case."

He yawned, and rising stiffly to his feet stretched his cramped limbs.
"We-ll!  Reddy, my giddy young hopeful!--Now we've fallen on each other's
ruddy necks and kissed and wept and had a heart-to-heart talk we'll--"

"Aw, quit making game, Yorkey!  Is it a go?  You know what I said?"

Strangely compelling, Yorke found that bruised, eager, wistful young
face, with its earnest, honest eyes.  "All right!" he agreed, with
languid bonhomie.  "You've certainly earned the office of Dictator, and,
as I remarked--we really have quite a lot in common.  Mind, though, you
don't repent of your bargain.  One thing!" the curved, defiant nostrils
dilated faintly, "Seems the world always has use for us runagates in one
capacity.  It's just the likes of us that compose the rank and file of
most of the Empire's military police forces.  Who makes the best M.P.
man, executing duty, say, in a critical life-and-death hazard?  The
cautious, upright, model young man, with a tender regard for a whole skin
and a Glorious Future?  Or the poor devil who's lost all, and doesn't
care a d----n?  We tackle the world's dangerous, dirty criminal work
and--swank and all--Society don't want to forget it."

He pointed to their horses who were playfully rearing and biting at each
other in equine sport.  "Look at old Parson and Fox tryin' to warm
themselves?  Bloomin' fine example we've set 'em.  Well! _allons_! _mon
camarade_, let's up and beat it."




CHAPTER VI

  _A deed accursed!  Strokes have been struck before
    By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
  If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
    But this foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out._
                                        THOMAS TAYLOR


Hastily dressing, the two policemen mounted and took the trail once more.
Side by side as they rode along, in each man's heart was an estimate of
the other vastly different from that with which they started out that
memorable morning.

Yorke, his spirits now fully recovered, became quite companionably
communicative, relating picturesque, racy stories of India, the Yukon,
and other countries he had known.  George, in receptive mood, listened in
silent appreciation to one of the most fascinating _raconteurs_ he had
ever met in his young life.  Incidentally he felt relieved as he noted
his comrade now tactfully avoiding morbid egotism--dwelling but lightly
upon the milestones that marked his chequered career.

The bodily stiffness and soreness, consequent upon their recent bout, was
now well-nigh forgotten, though occasionally they laughingly rallied each
other as the sharp air stung their bruised faces.  They were just
surmounting the summit of a long, steep grade in the trail.

Said Redmond dubiously: "See here; look!  I'm darned if I like getting
the freedom of the City of Cow Run sportin' such a pretty mug as this!
How many more miles to this giddy burg, old thing?"

Yorke grinned unfeelingly.  "Hard on nine miles to go yet.  We're about
half way.  _Isch ga bibble_! . . . open your ditty-box and sing! you
blooming whip-poor-will."

  "A werry heart goes all the way,
  But a sad one tires in a mile a';
  A--"

The old lilt died on his lips.  With a startled oath he reined in sharply
and, shielding his eyes from the sun-glare, remained staring straight in
front of him.  They had just topped the crest of the rise.  The eastward
slope showed a low-lying, undulating stretch of snow-bound country,
sparsely dotted with clumps of poplar and alder growth, through which the
trail wound snake-like into the fainter distance.  Southwards, below the
rolling, shelving benches, lay the river, a steaming black line, twisting
interminably between frosty, bush-fringed banks.

No less startled than his companion, Redmond pulled up also and stared
with him.  Not far distant on the trail ahead of them they beheld a dark,
ominous-looking mass, vividly conspicuous against the snow.  Suddenly the
object moved and resolved itself unmistakably into a horse struggling to
rise.  For an instant they saw the head and the fore-part of the body
lift, and then flop prone again.  Close against it lay another dark
object.

"Horse down!" snapped Yorke tersely.  "Hell!" he added, "looks like a man
there, too! come on quick!"

Responding to a shake of the lines and a fierce thrust of the spurs,
their horses leapt forward and they raced towards their objective.

"Steady! steady!" hissed Yorke, checking his mount as they drew near the
fallen animal and its rider, "pull Fox a bit, Red!  Mustn't scare the
horse!"

Slackening into a walk, they flung out of saddle, dropped their lines,
crouched, and crept warily forward.  The horse, a big, splendid
seal-brown animal, had fallen on its right side, with its off fore-leg
plunged deep in a snow-filled badger-hole.  The body of the man lay also
on the off-side with one leg under his mount.  The stiffened form was a
ghastly object to behold, being literally encased in an armour-like shell
of frozen, claret-coloured snow.

At the approach of the would-be rescuers the poor brute whinnied
pitifully and made another ineffectual attempt to rise.  Yorke flung
himself onto the head and held it down, while George dived frantically
for the man's body, and tugged until he had got the leg from under.

"Hung up! by God!" gasped the former, "his foot's well-nigh through the
stirrup!"

Redmond, ex-medical student, made swift examination.  "Dead!" he
pronounced with finality, "Good God! dead as a herring!  The man's been
dragged and kicked to death!"  He made a futile effort to release the
imprisoned foot.

"No! no!" cried Yorke sharply, "no use doing that if he's dead.
Coroner's got to view things as they are."

The horse began to struggle again painfully.  Peering down the
badger-hole they could see the broken bone of its leg protruding bloodily
through the skin.  Yorke released one hand and reached for his gun.

"Poor old chap!" he said, "we'll fix you.  Quick Red! pull the body as
far back as the stirrup-legadeiro'll go!  That'll do!  There, old
boy! . . ."

And with practised hand he sent a merciful bullet crashing through brain
and spinal cord.  The hind legs threshed awhile, but presently, with a
muscular quiver they stiffened and all was still.  Yorke, releasing his
hold struggled to his feet, and the two men stared pityingly at what lay
before them.  What those merciless, steel-shod hoofs had left of the head
and the youthful body indicated a man somewhere in his twenties.  His
ice-bound outer clothing consisted of black Angora goatskin chaps and a
short sheepskin coat.

"Can't place him--like this," muttered Yorke, after prolonged scrutiny,
"but I seem to know the horse."

Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation--something between a groan and a
cry.  Redmond, startled at a new horror apparent on the other's ghastly
face, clutched him by the arm.

"What's up?" he queried tensely.

Yorke struggled to speak.  "Fox!" he gasped presently--"this
morning. . . .  I never told you.  My God!--You might have got hung up
like this, too."

"No! no!  Yorkey!" Redmond almost shouted the disclaimer, "Slavin wised
me up to that trick of his yesterday.  I forgot.  It was my own fault I
got piled like that.  Forget it, old man!  I say forget it!"

He shook the other's arm with a sort of savage gentleness.

A look of vague relief dawned on Yorke's haggard face.  "Ay, so!" he
murmured, and paused with brooding indecision.  "That's absolved my
conscience some, but not altogether."

They remained silent awhile after this.  Presently Yorke pulled
himself together and spoke briskly and decisively.  "Well, now! we'll
have to get busy.  Blair's place is only about three miles from
here--nor'east--they're on the long-distance 'phone.  Doctor Cox of Cow
Run's the coroner for this district.  If I can get hold of him I'll get
him to come out right-away--and I'll notify Slavin."

Catching up his horse he swung into the saddle.  "I'll be back here on
the jump.  You stick around, and say, Reddy, you might as well have a
dekko at the lay of things while you're waiting.  Where he came off the
perch, how far he's been dragged, and all that.  Be careful though, keep
well to the side and don't foul up the tracks.  And don't get too far
away, either!"

He galloped off and soon disappeared over a distant rise.  Left to
himself George mounted Fox and set to work to follow out the senior
constable's instructions.


"Well?" queried Yorke, swinging wearily out of his saddle an hour or so
later, "How'd you make out?  Find the place where he flopped?  Rum sort
of perch you've got there--you look like Patience on a monument!"

George, seated upon the rump of the dead horse, nodded and grunted
laconic response: "Sure.  'Bout two miles down the trail there.  How'd
you get along, Yorkey?  Did you raise Slavin and the coroner?"

"Got Slavin all hunkadory," said the senior constable briefly, "he should
be here soon, now.  Dr. Cox'd just left for Wilson's, two miles this side
of Cow Run.  They're on the 'phone, too; so I left word there for him to
come on here right away."  He seated himself alongside the other.

Awhile they carried on a desultory, more or less speculative conversation
anent the fatality, until they grew morbidly weary of contemplating the
poor broken body.  Yorke slid off the dead horse suddenly.

"Wish Slavin were here!" he said, "let's take a dekko from the top of the
rise, Reddy, see'f we can see him coming.  I'm getting cold sitting here."

Redmond, nothing loath, complied.  Mounting, they turned back to the
summit of the ridge.  Reaching it, the jingle of bells smote their ears,
and they espied the Police cutter approaching them at a rapid pace.

"Like unto Jehu, the son of Nimshi!" murmured Yorke, "he's sure springing
old T and B up the grade."

Sergeant Slavin pulled up his smoking team along-side his two mounted
subordinates.  "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?"

Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details.  At one point in his
narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?"
And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey."

The sergeant listened, but absently.  To them it did not seem exactly to
be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an
exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward
mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.

"Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu--th' pair av yez," he
remarked casually.

Remembrance smote the two culprits.  They exchanged guilty glances and
swallowed the home-thrust in silence.

Slavin clucked to his team.  "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he.

Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter
following in their wake.  If their consciences would have permitted them
to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering
unholy delight.

Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--"

"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce.  "You can't fool him! . . .
_Isch ga bibble_, anyway!"

"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over
again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!"  "'Tis so they name each other--now!
Blarney me sowl!  'Tis come about!  Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av
thim.  Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last!  Eyah!  I wud have
given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat."  He sighed deeply.

They reached the fatal spot.  Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the
cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the
gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.

"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the
frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up?  Got th' lay av fwhere ut
happened?"

Redmond made affirmative response.

"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.

"Eyah!  Onless I am vastly mishtuk.  Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!
Fwhat yez a-scared av?  Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"

He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of
leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular
patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder.  Shorn of the thick,
seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible.  Enlightenment
came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder.

"D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere!  It's
'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse.  Tchkk! this must be him.  My God!"

"Shure!" snapped Slavin testily.  "Wake up!  Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man?
One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!"  He tenderly pocketed the
clippers.  "Yes! ye shud know him!"--dryly--"lukked troo th' bottom av a
glass wid him often enough."

"Let's see'f he's got any letters or anything in his pockets--to make
sure!" began Redmond eagerly.  Suiting the action to the word he bent
down to investigate.  But Slavin intruded a huge arm.  "Hould on, bhoy!"
he said, with all an old policeman's fussiness over rightful procedure.
"Du not touch!  That is th' coroner's bizness.  Did they not dhrill that
inta yeh at Regina?"

He stared thoughtfully at the corpse.  "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah!
dhrink an' th' divil!"--sadly.  "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye
come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . .
shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man."  Austerely he
glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this same dhrink!"

"How do you know the poor beggar was drunk?" queried the latter, a trifle
sulkily.  "He may have been as sober as you or I."

"Shpeak for yehsilf!" retorted Slavin dryly, "Ah! this must be Docthor
Cox comin' now!"

A cutter containing two men was approaching them rapidly.  Presently it
drew up alongside the group and a short, rotund gentleman, clad in furs,
sprang out and came swiftly, bag in hand.  He was middle-aged, with a
gray moustache and kind, alert, dark eyes.  Greeting the policemen
quietly, he turned to the broken body.

"Tchkk! good God!"  He shook his head sadly.  Redmond thought he had
never seen a medical man so unprofessionally shocked.  Presently he
straightened up and turned to Slavin.  "Can you identify him, Sergeant?"

That worthy nodded.  "Eyah! 'tis Larry Blake, I'm thinking Docthor.  Best
frisk him now an' see, I guess.  Maybe he has letthers."

Hastily diving into his bag the coroner produced a pair of long keen
scissors and slit the short, frozen sheepskin coat.  In the breast-pocket
of the coat underneath, amongst other miscellany two old letters rewarded
his search.  He glanced at the superscriptions and handed them up to
Slavin.

"Larry Blake it is," he said.  He felt the soggy, pulped head.  "Skull's
stove right in.  Any one of these smashes would have sufficed to kill
him."  He clipped the hair around a ghastly gaping crevice at the base of
the head.

Suddenly he peered closely, uttered an exclamation, peered again and drew
back.  "Sergeant!" he said sharply, "D'ye see that?--No need to ask you
what that is!"  In an unbroken portion of the back of the skull he
indicated a small, circular orifice.  The trio craned forward and made
minute examination.  Slavin ejaculated an oath and glanced up at
Yorke--almost remorsefully.

"I take ut all back," he said.  Meeting the coroner's blank, enquiring
stare he added: "Booze, Docthor--we thought ut might be. . . .  Yeh know
Larry!"

The physician of Cow Run nodded understandingly.  Slavin bent again and
made close scrutiny of the bullet-hole.  "_Back_ av th' head, no powdher
marks!"  He straightened up.  "Docther, are ye thru?  All right, thin!
Guess we'll book up an' start in."

Methodically they all produced note-books and entered the needful
particulars.  The lanky individual who had driven the coroner out brought
forward a tarpaulin and spread it on the ground.  With some difficulty
the over-shoed foot was disengaged from the imprisoning stirrup, the body
rolled in the tarpaulin and deposited in the rear of the doctor's cutter.
The saddle and bridle were flung into the Police cutter.  They then
rolled the dead horse clear of the trail.

That night the coyotes held grim, snarling carnival.

Slavin turned to Redmond.  "Ye've located th' place, eh?"  The latter
nodded.  "All right, thin, get mounted, th' tu av yez, an' lead on!"

Keeping needfully wide of the broad, claret-bespotted swath in the snow,
the party started trailing back.  Yorke and George rode ahead.  The
latter glanced around to make sure of being out of earshot of their
sergeant.

"We-ll of all the hardened old cases! . . .  Slavin sure does crown 'em!"
he muttered to his comrade.

"Hardened!"  Yorke laughed grimly.  "You should have seen him up in the
Yukon!  The man's been handling these rotten morgue cases 'till he'd
qualify for the Seine River Police.  He's got so he ascribes well-nigh
everything now to 'dhrink an' th' divil.'"  His face softened, "but I
know the real heart of old Burke under it all."

About two miles down the trail Redmond halted.

"Here it is!" he said.  And he indicated an irregular, blood-soaked,
clawed-up patch in the snow where the sanguinary swath ended.  They
dismounted.  Slavin drawing up alongside the coroner's cutter handed over
his lines to the teamster.

"Now!" said he, "let's shtart in! . . .  Ye must have 'shpotted this on
yeh way up, Docthor?"  He pointed to the patch.

The latter nodded.  "Yes! we thought it must have happened here."

For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at
their surroundings.  The frozen landscape at this point presented a
singularly lonely, desolate aspect.  Flat, and for the greater part
absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile
to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible.
Far to the right-hand, more than a mile away, stretched the first of the
shelving benches, where the high ground sloped away in irregular jumps,
as it were, to the river.

"Best ye shtay fwhere ye all are," cautioned the sergeant, "'till I size
up th' lay av things a bit.  I du not want th' thracks fouled up.  H-mm!
let's see now!"  He remained in deep, thoughtful silence a space.
"Thravellin' towards us," he muttered--"th' back av th' head!"

Hands clasped behind bent back, and with head thrust loweringly forward
from between his huge shoulders he paced slowly down the trail for some
hundred yards.  That grim, intent face and the swaying gait reminded
Redmond of some huge bloodhound casting about for a scent.

Halting irresolutely a moment, Slavin presently faced about and returned.
"Wan harse on'y!" he vouchsafed to their silent looks of enquiry.  "He
had not company.  Must have been shot from lift or right av th' thrail."
He stared around him at the bare sweep of ground.  "Now fwhere cud any
livin' man find cover here in th' full av th' moon, tu get th' range wid
a small arm?  He wud show up agin' th' snow like th' ace av shpades an'
he thried."

Suddenly his jaw dropped and he stiffened.  "Ah-hh!" His eyes rivetted
themselves on some object and his huge arm shot out.  "Fwhat's yon?"

They all stared in the direction he indicated.  Plastered with frosted
snow, until it was all but undiscernible against its white background,
lay an enormous boulder--a relic, perchance, of some vast pre-historic
upheaval.  It was situated at an oblique angle to the trail, about a
hundred yards distant.

With stealthy, quickened steps Slavin made his way towards it.  Tensely
they watched him.  In each man's mind now was a vague feeling of
certainty of something, they knew not what.  They saw him reach the
boulder, walk round it and stoop, peering at its base for a few moments.
Then suddenly he straightened up and beckoned to them.

"Thread in file," he called out warningly.  Yorke led, and, treading
heedfully in each other's foot-marks, they reached the spot.  Slavin
silently pointed downwards.  There, plainly discernible on the surface of
the wind-packed, hard-crusted snow, were the corrugated imprints of
overshoed feet--coming and going apparently in the direction of the
previously mentioned coulee.

Redmond indicated two rounded impressions at the foot of the boulder,
with two smaller ones behind.  "Must have hunched himself on his knees
behind, eh?" he queried in a low voice.

Slavin nodded.  The rays of the westering sun coming from back of a cloud
glinted on something in the snow, a few feet away from the tracks.  It
caught Yorke's eyes and with an exclamation he picked it up.

  "_--gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled--_"

he quoted.  "Here you are, Burke!"

Slavin uttered a delighted oath as he examined the small, bottle-necked
shell of the automatic variety.  ".38 Luger!" he said.  "A high-pressure
'gat' like that is oncommon hereabouts!"  Passing it on to the coroner he
whistled softly.  "My God!  Fwhativer sort av a gun-artist is ut
that--even allowin' for th' moonlight--can pick a man off thru' th' head
wid a revolver at this distance? . . . an' wan shell on'y? . . .  'Soapy
Smith' himself cu'dn't have beat this!"

He proceeded to sift some fine, crisp snow in one of the imprints, then,
producing an old letter from his pocket, he flattened out the
type-written sheets of foolscap therein.  Placing the blank side of the
sheet face-downwards upon the imprint he pressed down smartly.  The
result was a very fair impression of the footmark, which he immediately
outlined in pencil.

A strange ominous silence fell upon the group.  Deep in wild, whirling
conjecture, each man gazed about him.  The desolate, sinister aspect of
their surroundings struck them with a sudden chill.  Yorke voiced the
general sentiment.

"My God!" he said in a low voice, "but it sure is dreary!"

With a final, self-satisfying survey at his "lay av things" Slavin
stepped well to the side of the incriminating foot-prints.  "Come on!" he
said "get in file behint me!  We will follow this up!"

Silently they obeyed and padded in his rear.

"D----d big feet, whoever owns 'em," remarked Redmond to Yorke.

Slavin heard him.  "Ay!" he flung back grimly.  "An' they will shtand on
th' dhrop yet--thim same feet!"

The tracks returning in the direction of the coulee presented a vast
contrast to the approaching imprints.  Where the latter denoted an even,
steady stride, the former ran in queer, irregular fashion--sometimes
bunched together, and at others with wide spaces between.

"'On th' double!'" remarked Slavin observantly.

"Must have got scairt!"

"Ah!" murmured the coroner, reflectively, "though the Bible doesn't
expressly state so, I guess Cain, too, got on the 'double' as you call
it--after he killed Abel."

They finally reached the coulee where the tracks, debouching from the
steep edge, passed along its rim and presently descended the more shallow
end of the draw.  Their leader eventually halted at the foot of a small
cotton-wood tree where the human foot-prints ended.  There in the snow
they beheld a hoof-trampled space, which, together with broken twigs,
indicated a tethered horse.

This served for comment and speculation awhile.

The sergeant, producing a small tape measure dotted down careful
measurements of the over-shoed imprints and their length of stride, also
the size of the shod hoof-marks.

Redmond drew his attention to blood-stains in several of the latter.
"Shod with 'never-slip' calks, Sergeant!" he said.  "Must have slipped
somewhere and 'calked' himself on the 'coronet,' I guess?"

"Eyah!" muttered Slavin approvingly, "Th' 'nigh-hind' 'tis, note,
bhoy! . . . 't'will serve good thrailin' that.  Well, let's follow ut on!"

Wearily his companions plodded on in his wake.  The tracks, after
following the draw for a short distance, suddenly wound up a steep,
narrow path on the left side of the coulee.  Reaching the surface of the
level ground, they circled until they struck into the main trail east
again, about a mile below where the party had left their horses.  Here,
merged amongst countless others on the well-travelled highway, they
became more difficult to trace, though occasionally the faint
blood-stains proclaimed their identity.

Slavin pulled up.  "Luks as if he'd shtruck back tu Cow Run again," he
said with conviction.  "Must have come from there, tu--thracks was goin'
and comin' an' ye noticed, fwhin we climbed out av th' coulee back there.
We must luk for a harse wid th' nigh-hind badly 'calked.'  Yorkey! yu'
get back an' tell that Lanky Jones feller tu come on.  Hitch yez own
harses behint our cutter an' take th' lines."  He squinted at the sun and
pulled out his watch.  "'Tis four o'clock, begob!  Twill turn bitther
cowld whin th' sun goes down."

The coroner smiled knowingly.  "Talking about 'calks'!" he remarked; and
diving into the deep recesses of his fur coat he produced a
comfortable-looking leather-encased flask.  "A little 'calk' all round
won't hurt us after that tramp, Sergeant!" he observed kindly.

Their transport presently arriving, they proceeded on their way to Cow
Run, Yorke and Redmond watching carefully for any tracks debouching from
the main trail.  Occasionally they dismounted to verify the incriminating
hoof-prints which still continued eastward.  In this fashion they finally
drew to the level of the river, where the trail forked; one arm of it
following more or less the winding course of the Bow River back westward.
At this junction they searched narrowly until they found unmistakable
indication of the blood-tinged tracks still heading in the direction of
Cow Run.

"What was that case of yours, Yorkey?" enquired Redmond.  "You know--what
Slavin was talking about?"

"Mix-up over that horse," replied Yorke laconically, "disputed ownership.
A chap named Moran tried to run a bluff over Larry that he'd lost the
horse as a colt.  They got to scrapping and I ran 'em both up before
Gully, the J. P. here.  Moran got fined twenty dollars and costs for
assaulting Blake.  Say! look at that sky!  Isn't it great?"

They turned in their saddles and looked westward.  Clean-cut against a
pale yellow-ochre background and enveloped in a deep purple bloom, the
mighty peaks of the distant "Rockies" upreared their eternal snow-capped
glory in a salute to departing day.  Above, where the opaline-tinted
horizon shaded imperceptibly into the deep ultramarine of evening, lay
glowing streamers of vivid crimson cloud-bank edged with the gleaming
gold of the sunset's after-glow.

It was a soul-filling sight.  Against it the sordid contrast of the
sinister business in hand smote them like a blow from an unseen hand, as
they resumed their monotonous scanning of the trail on its either side.

Yorke presently voiced the impression in both their hearts.  "My God'" he
murmured "the bitter irony of it!  'Peace on Earth, goodwill towards
men' . . . and this!--what?"




CHAPTER VII

  _Oh!  Bad Bill Brough, a way-back tough
    Raised hell when he struck town;
  With gun-in-fist met Sergeant Twist--
    It sure was some show-down_.
                              BALLAD OF SERGEANT TWIST


Cow Run was reached in the gathering dusk.  Seen under winter conditions
the drab little town looked dreary and uninviting enough as the party
negotiated its main street.  A frame-built hotel, a livery-stable, a
small church, a school-house, a line of false-fronted stores, and some
three-score dwellings failed to arouse in George an enthusiastic desire
to become a permanent resident of Cow Run.

The corpse they deposited temporarily in an empty shack situated in the
rear of the doctor's residence.  From long usage this place had come to
be accepted as the common morgue of the district.  After arranging
details with the coroner anent the morrow's inquest, and carefully
searching the dead man, the sergeant and his two subordinates repaired to
the livery-stable to put up their horses.

Nicholas Lee, the keeper of this establishment greeted them with wheezy
cordiality, apportioned to them stable-room and guaranteed especial care
of their horses.  In appearance that worthy would have made a passable
understudy for the elder Weller, being red-faced, generous of girth and
short of breath.  In addition to his regular calling he filled--or was
supposed to fill--the office of "town constable" and pound-keeper.  A
sort of village "Dogberry."  Incidentally it might be mentioned that he
also could have laid claim to be a "wictim of circumstances"; having but
recently contracted much the same sort of hymeneal bargain as did the
Dickensian character.  The sympathy of Cow Run, individually and
collectively, was extended to him on this account.

From his somewhat garrulous recital of the day's events it was
satisfactorily evident to his hearers that wind of the murder had not
struck Cow Run as yet.  For obvious reasons Slavin had enjoined strict
secrecy upon Lanky Jones, Lee's stable-hand.

"Ar!" wheezed Lee.  "It's a good job yu' fellers is come.  That ther
'Windy Moran's' bin raisin' hell over in the hotel th' las' two days.  He
got to fightin' ag'in las' night with Larry Blake--over that hawss.  Bob
Ingalls an' Chuck Reed an' th' bunch dragged 'em apart an' tol' Larry to
beat it back to his ranch--which he did.  Windy--they got him to bed, an'
kep' him ther all night, as he swore he'd shoot Larry.  He's still over
ther, nasty-drunk an' shootin' off what he's goin' t' do."

He rubbed his hands in gleeful anticipation, gloating deeply in his
throat: "Stirrin' times! ar! stirrin' times! . . .  Now--'bout that ther
hobo, Sargint--"

"Aw! damn th' hobo!" exploded Slavin impatiently.  "Here, Nick! show me
Windy's harse.  Fwhat?  Niver yeh mind fwhat for . . . now!  Yu'll know
all 'bout that later."

His native curiosity balked, the old gossip, with a slightly injured air,
indicating a big sorrel saddle-horse standing in a stall opposite the
Police team.  Slavin backed the animal out.  It seemed to be lame.  With
fierce eagerness they examined its "nigh-hind" leg--and found what they
sought for.

For there--where the hair joins the hoof, technically known as the
"coronet"--was a deep, jagged wound, such as is caused usually by a horse
slipping and jabbing itself with sharp-pointed shoe-calks.  The hoof
itself was stained a dull red where the blood had run down.  Slavin
picked up a fore-foot and exhibited to them the round-pointed, screwed-in
calks, commonly known as "neverslips."  He took the measurements of the
shoe and glanced at his note-book.

Finally, with a significant gesture and amidst dead silence, he thrust
the book back in his pocket.  Handing over the horse to Lee he bade him
tie it up again.

Wordlessly, the trio exchanged mystified glances.  "See here; look,
Nick!"  Slavin grasped the livery-man's fat shoulder and looked grimly
into the startled, rubicund face.  "I'm a-goin' tu put a question tu yeh,
an' 'member now. . . .  I want yeh tu think harrd! . . .  Now--whin Larry
Blake came in tu saddle-up an' pull out last night was that ther sorrel
o' Windy's still in th' stable--or not?"

"Eh?" gasped Lee at last, "I dunno!  Me nor Lanky wasn't around when
Larry pulled out.  We was over t' th' hotel, Sarjint."

Slavin released the man's shoulder with a testy, balked gesture.  "Yes!
enjoyin' th' racket an' dhrunk like th' rist, I guess! . . .  'Tis a
foine sort av town-constable yez are!"

Nick Lee maintained his air of injured innocence.  "I came round here
'bout midnight, anyways!" he protested.  "I always do--jes' t' see 'f
everythin's all right.  That hawss was in then, I will swear--'cause I
'member his halter-shank'd come untied and I fixed it.  Ev'rythin' in th'
garden was lovely 'cep' fur that 'damned hobo sneakin' round.  He was
gettin' a drink at th' trough an' I chased him.  But he beat it up inta
th' loft an'--I'm that scared of fire," he ended lamely, "I never lock up
fur that."

Slavin nodded wisely.  "Yes!  I guess he made his getaway from yu'--easy.
Mighty long toime since yuh've bin able tu dhrag yeh're guts up that
ladder--lit alone squeege thru' th' thrap-dhure.  Bet Lanky does all th'
chorin'."  He glanced around him impatiently, "But this here's all
talk--it don't lead nowheres.  Hullo! this is Gully's team, ain't it?"
He indicated a splendid pair of roans standing in a double stall nearby.

"Yes!" said Lee, "he pulled in las' night t' catch th' nine-thirty down
t' Calgary.  He ain't back yet."

"Fwas he--" Slavin checked himself abruptly--"fwhat toime did he get in
here?"

"'Bout nine."

"Fwhat toime 'bout fwas ut whin this racket shtarted up betune Windy an'
Larry?"

"Oh, I dunno, Sarjint!--'bout nine, may be--as I say I--"

"Come on!" said the sergeant, abruptly, to his men, "let's go an' eat.
Luk afther thim harses good, Nick," he flung back in a kind tone.

Outside in the dark road they gathered together, bandying mystified
conjecture in low tones.  "'Tis no use arguin', bhoys," snapped Slavin at
last, wearily, "we've got tu see Chuck Reed an' Bob Ingalls an' Brophy av
th' hotel.  Their wurrd goes--they're straight men.  If they had Windy
corralled all night, as Nick sez . . . fwhy! . . . that let's Windy out."

He was silent awhile, then: "That harse av Windy's," he burst out with an
oath, "I thought 't'was a cinch.  Somethin' passin' rum 'bout all this.
There's abs'lutely no mistake 'bout th' harse.  Somebody in this
god-forsaken burg must ha' used him tu du th' killin' wid.  Well, let's
get on."

Suddenly, as they neared the hotel, a veritable bedlam of sound fell upon
their ears, apparently from inside that hostelry--men shouting, a dog
barking, and above all the screeching, crazed voice of a drunken man.

The startled policemen dashed into the front entrance, through the office
and across the passage into the bar beyond, from whence the uproar
proceeded.

"Help!  Murder!  Pleece!" some apparently high-strung individual was
bawling.  A ludicrous, but nevertheless dangerous, sight met their eyes.

A motley crowd, composed mainly of well-dressed passengers from off the
temporarily-stalled West-bound train and a sprinkling of townsfolk, were
backed--hands up--into a corner of the bar by a big, hard-faced man clad
in range attire who was menacing them with a long-barrelled revolver.  He
was dark-haired and swarthy, with sinister, glittering eyes.  One
red-headed, red-nosed individual had apparently resented parting with the
drink that he had paid for; as in one decidedly-shaky elevated hand he
still clutched his glass, its whiskey and water contents slopping down
the neck of his nearest unfortunate neighbour.

"Mon!" he apologized, in tearful accents, "Ah juist canna help it!"

"Pitch up!" the "bad man" was shrieking, "Pitch up! yu' ----s!--That
d----d Blake--that d----d Gully!  Stealin' my hawss away'f me an' gittin'
me fined!  I'll git back at somebody fur this!  _Pleece_! yes!--yeh kin
holler '_Pleece_!'--Let me get th' drop on th' red-coated, yelluh-laigged
sons of ----!  Ah-hh!"--His eyes glittered with his insane passion, "Here
they come!  Now! watch th' ----s try an' arrest me!"

Fairly frothing at the mouth, the man, at that moment working himself
into a frenzy, was plainly as dangerous as a mad dog.  Drunk though he
undoubtedly was, he did not stagger as he stepped to and fro with
cat-like activity, his gun levelled at the policemen's heads.  It was an
ugly situation.  Slavin and his men taken utterly by surprise hesitated,
as well they might; for a single attempt to draw their sidearms might
easily bring inglorious death upon one or another of them.

We have noted that on a previous occasion Redmond demonstrated his
ability to think and act quickly.  He upheld that reputation now.  Like a
flash he ducked behind Slavin's broad shoulders and backed into the
passage.  Picking up at random the first missile available--to wit--an
empty soda-water bottle, he tip-toed swiftly along the passage to a door
opening into the bar lower down.  This practically brought him
broadside-on to his man.  A moment he peered and judged his distance
then, drawing back his arm he flung the bottle with all his force.  At
McGill he had been a base-ball pitcher of some renown, so his aim was
true.  The bottle caught its objective full in the ear.  With a scream of
pain the man staggered forward and clutched with one hand at his head,
his gun still in his grip sagging floorwards.

Instantly then, Yorke, who was the nearest, sprang at him like a tiger
and, ranging one arm around his enemy's bull neck, strove with the other
to wrest the gun from his grasp.  It was a feat however, more easily
imagined than accomplished--to disarm a powerful, active man.  The tense
fingers tightened immediately upon the weapon and resisted to their
uttermost.  Slavin and Redmond both had their side-arms drawn now, but
they were afraid to use them, on Yorke's account.  The combatants were
whirling giddily to and fro, the muzzle of the gun describing every point
of the compass.

Taking a risky chance, Slavin, watching his opportunity suddenly closed
with the struggling men and, raising his arm brought the barrel of his
heavy Colt's .45 smashing down on the knuckles of the crazed man's
gun-hand.  Instantaneously the latter's weapon dropped to the floor.

Bang!  The cocked hammer discharged one chamber--the bullet ricocheting
off the brass bar-rail deflected through a cluster of glasses and
bottles, smashing them and a long saloon-mirror into a myriad splinters.
But few of the company there escaped the deadly flying glass, as
badly-gashed faces immediately testified.  It all happened in quicker
time than it takes to relate.

"'Crown' him!" gasped Yorke, still grimly hanging onto his man, "'Crown'
the ---- good and hard!"

Redmond sprang forward, grasping a small, shot-loaded police "billy," but
Slavin interposed a huge arm.

"Nay!" he said sharply, and with curious eagerness, "Du not 'chrown' um
bhoy! lave um tu me!"  And he grasped one of the big, struggling man's
wrists firmly in a vise-like grip.  "Leggo, Yorkey!"

The latter obeyed with alacrity, and stooping he picked up the fallen
gun.  He had an inkling of what was coming.

"Ah-hh!" Slavin gloated gutterally, as he whirled his victim giddily
around and brought the man up facing him with a violent jerk--"Windy
Moran, avick!"--softly and cruelly--"me wud-be cock av a wan-harse
dump!--me wud-be 'bad-man'! . . .  Oh, yes! 'tis both shockin' an' brutil
tu misthreat ye I know but--surely, surely yeh desarve somethin' for all
this!"  And he drew back his formidable right arm.

Smack!  The terrific impact of that one, terrible open-handed slap nearly
knocked his victim through the bar-room wall.  The head rocked sideways
and the big body turned completely round.  Eyes rushing water and one
profile now resembling a slab of bloodied liver, the man reeled about in
a circle as if bereft of sight.

"Oh-hh!--Ooh!--No-o!--Ah-hh!"  The wild, moaning cry for quarter came
gaspingly out of puffed, blood-foamed lips.  But there was no mercy in
Slavin.  He looked round at the wrecked bar, the glass-slashed bleeding
faces of his men and the rest of the saloon's occupants.  He thought upon
many things--how near ignoble death many of them had been but a few
minutes before--upon insult and threat flaunted at them by a drunken,
ruffling braggadocio!--and he jerked the latter to him once more.

But his two subordinates jumped forward and made violent protest.
"Steady!"  It was Yorke now who appealed for leniency--"Go easy, Burke!
for God's sake!  You've handed him one good swipe--if he get's another
like that he'll be all in--won't be able to talk.  Let it go at that!"

The sergeant remained silent, breathing thickly and glaring at his
prisoner with sinister, glittering eyes, and still retaining the latter's
wrist in his iron grip.  But eventually the force of Yorke's reasoning
prevailed with him.  Drawing out his hand-cuffs he snapped them on the
man's wrists and haled him roughly out of the bar into the hotel office.
The crowd, recovering somewhat from their scare, would have followed, but
he curtly ordered them back and closed the door.

"Brophy!"  He beckoned the angry, frightened hotel-proprietor forward.
"Is Bob Ingalls and Chuck Reed still in town?"

"Sure!" replied the latter, "They was both in here 'bout half an hour
ago, anyways."

Slavin turned to Yorke.  "Go yu an' hunt up thim fellers an' bring thim
here!" he ordered.

"Ravin'--clean bug-house! that's what he is!" wailed Brophy.  "That bar
o' mine! oh, Lord!  Yu'll git it soaked to yu' this time, Windy, an'
don't yu' furgit it!"

The prisoner paid no attention to the landlord's revilings.  Slumped down
in a chair he had relapsed into a sort of sulky stupor, though he cringed
visibly whenever Slavin bent on him his thoughtful, sinister gaze.

Presently Yorke returned, bringing with him two respectable-looking men,
apparently ranchers, from their appearance.

Slavin nodded familiarly to them.  "Ingalls!" he addressed one of them
"I'm given tu undhershtand that yuh an' Chuck Reed there tuk charge av
this feller--" he indicated the prisoner--"last night, whin he had that
racket wid Larry Blake in th' bar?  Fwhat was they rowin' over?"

"That hawss o' Blake's mostly," was Ingalls' laconic answer.  "Course
they was slingin' everythin' else they could dig down an' drag up, too."
He chewed thoughtfully a moment, "We had some time with 'em," he added.

"Shore did!" struck in Reed.  "We was scared fur Larry, so we told him to
beat it home--which he did--an' then we got Windy up to bed an' stayed
with him nigh all night."

Slavin looked at Brophy interrogatively.  "Yuh can vouch for this, tu,
Billy?  He's bin in yu're place iver since th' throuble smarted?"

Brophy nodded.  "Yes! d----n him!  I wish he had got out before this
bizness started.  Yes! he's bin here right along, Sarjint! why?--what's
up?"

Slavin evaded the direct question for the moment.  Silently awhile he
gazed at the three wondering faces.  "Now, I'll tell yez!" he said
slowly.  And briefly he informed them of the murder--omitting all detail
of the clues obtained later.  They listened with wide eyes and broke out
into startled exclamations.  The prisoner struggled up from the chair,
his bruised, ghastly face registering fear and genuine astonishment.
Redmond shoved him back again.

"If any feller thinks--"  Moran relapsed into maudlin, hysterical
protestations of innocence, calling upon the Deity to bear witness that
he was innocent and had no knowledge whatever of how Blake came to his
death.

Eventually silence fell upon all.  Slavin cogitated awhile, then he
turned to Brophy.  "Who else was in, Billy?  Out av town fellers I mean,
fwhin this racket occurred betune these tu?  Thry an' think now!"

Brophy pondered long and presently reeled off a few names.  Slavin heard
him out and shook his head negatively.  "Nothin' doin' there!" he
announced finally, "Mr. Gully was in, yuh say?  Did he see anythin' av
this row?"

"Cudn't help it, I guess," replied Brophy.  "He just come inta th' office
for his grip while it was a-goin' on.  He beat it out quick for th'
East-bound as had just come in.  Said he was runnin' down to Calgary.  He
ain't back yet.  Guess he wudn't want to go gettin' mixed up in anythin'
like that, either--him bein' a J. P."

Slavin looked at Yorke.  "Let's have a luk at that gun av Moran's!" he
remarked.  "Fwhat is ut?"

Yorke handed the weapon over.  "'Smith and Wesson' single-action," he
said.  "Just that one round gone."

"Nothin doin' agin'," muttered Slavin disappointedly.  He broke the gun
and, ejecting the shells put all in his pocket.  He then turned to Moran.
"D----d good job for yu'--havin' this alibi, Mister Windy!" he growled,
"don't seem anythin' on yu' over this killin'--as yet!  But yez are goin'
tu get ut fwhere th' bottle got th' cork for this other bizness, me man!"

And he proceeded to formally charge and warn his prisoner.

"Give us a room, Brophy!" he said, "a big wan for th' bunch av us--an'
lave a shake-down on th' flure for this feller!"

Preceded by the landlord the trio departed upstairs, escorting their
prisoner.  Alone in the room they discussed matters in lowered tones;
Slavin and Yorke not forgetting to compliment Redmond on his presence of
mind--or, as the sergeant put it: "Divartin' his attenshun."

The big Irishman scratched his chin thoughtfully.  "I must go wire th'
O.C. report av all this.  Sind Gully comes back on th' same thrain wid
Inspector Kilbride to-morrow.  Thin we can go ahead--wid two J.P.s tu
handle things.  Yuh take charge av Mr. Man, Ridmond!  Me an' Yorke will
go an' eat now, an' relieve yuh later."




CHAPTER VIII

  "The Court is prepared, the Lawyers are met,
    The Judges all ranged, a terrible show!"
  As Captain Macheath says,--and when one's arraigned,
    The sight's as unpleasant a one as I know.
                                        THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS.


"Orrrdher in Coort!" rang out Sergeant Slavin's abrupt command.  It was
about ten o'clock the following morning.  The hotel parlour had been
hastily transformed into a temporary court-room.  A large square table
had been drawn to one end of the room and two easy chairs placed
conveniently behind it.  Fronting it was a long bench, designed for the
prisoner and escort.  In the immediate rear were arranged a few rows of
chairs, to accommodate the witnesses and spectators.

The sergeant's order, prompted by the entrance of the two Justices of the
Peace, was the occasion of all present rising to attention, in customary
deference to police-court rules.  One of the newcomers, dressed in the
neat blue-serge uniform of an inspector of the Force, was familiar to
Redmond as Inspector Kilbride, who had been recently transferred to L
Division from a northern district.  He had close-cropped gray hair and a
clipped, grizzled moustache.  Though apparently nearing middle-age he
still possessed the slim, wiry, active figure of a man long inured to the
saddle.

The appearance of his judicial confrere fairly startled George.  He was a
huge fellow, fully as tall and as heavy a man as Slavin, though not so
compactly-built or erect as the latter.  Still, his wide, loosely-hung,
slightly bowed shoulders suggested vast strength, and his leisurely
though active movements indicated absolute muscular control.  But it was
the strangely sombre, mask-like face which excited Redmond's interest
most.  Beneath the broad, prominent brow of a thinker a pair of deep-set,
shadowy dark eyes peered forth, with the lifeless, unwinking stare of an
owl.  Between them jutted a large, bony beak of a nose, with finely-cut
nostrils.  The pitiless set of the powerful jaw was only partially
concealed by an enormous drooping moustache, the latter reddish in colour
and streaked with gray, like his thinning, carefully brushed hair.  His
age was hard to determine.  Somewhere around forty-five, George decided,
as he regarded with covert interest Ruthven Gully, Esq.,
gentleman-rancher and Justice of the Peace for the district.

The two Justices took their places with magisterial decorum, the
witnesses seated themselves again, and, all being ready, the sergeant
opened the court with its time-honoured formula.

The inspector glanced over the various "informations" and handed them
over to his confrere for perusal.  A brief whispered colloquy ensued
between them, and then the local justice settled himself back in his
chair, chin in hand.  Inspector Kilbride addressed the prisoner who had
remained standing between Yorke and Redmond, and in a clear, passionless
voice proceeded to read out the several charges.

"Do you wish to ask for a remand, Moran?" he enquired, "to enable you to
procure counsel?"

"No, sir!"  Moran's sullen, insolent eyes suddenly encountering a
dangerous, steely glare from Kilbride's gray orbs he wilted and
immediately dropped his belligerent attitude.  "No use me hirin' a
mouthpiece," he added, "as I'm a-goin' t' plead guilty t' all them
charges."

"Ah!"  The inspector thoughtfully conned over the "informations" once
more.  "Sergeant Slavin," said he presently, "what are the particulars of
this man's disorderly conduct?"

He listened awhile to the sergeant's evidence, occasionally asking a
question or two, but Mr. Gully remained in the same silent, brooding,
inscrutable attitude which he had adopted at the commencement of the
proceedings.  Though apparently listening keenly, his shadowy eyes
betrayed no interest whatever in the case.

Of that face Yorke had once remarked to Slavin: "That beggar's mug fairly
haunts me sometimes. . . .  He's a good fellow, Gully,--but, you
know--when he gets that brooding look on his face . . . he's the living
personification of a western Eugene Aram."

And Slavin, engaged in shredding a pipeful of tobacco had mumbled
absently "So?--Ujin Airum!--I du not mind th' ould shtiff--fwhat was his
reg'minthal number?"

The sergeant finished his evidence; Kilbride swung round to his
fellow-justice once more and they held a whispered consultation, the
latter making emphatic gestures throughout the colloquy.  This ending the
inspector turned to the prisoner.

"You have pleaded guilty to each of these charges.  Have you anything to
say?--any explanation to offer for your reckless, disorderly conduct?"

The prisoner swallowed nervously and shuffled with his feet.  "Guess I
was drunk," he said finally, "didn't know what I was doin'."

The inspector's grey eyes glittered coldly.  "So?" he drawled ironically,
"the sergeant's evidence is to the contrary.  It would appear that you
were not so very drunk.  You were neither staggering nor incapable at the
time.  It was merely a rehearsal of a cheap bit of dime novel sort of
bar-room, rough-house black-guardism that no doubt in various other
places you have got away with and emerged the swaggering hero.  Where do
you come from?  Whom are you working for now?"

"Havre, Montana.  I'm ridin' fur th' North-West Cattle Company."

"Ah! well, let me tell you that sort of stuff doesn't go over on this
side, my man."  He considered a moment and picked up a Criminal Code.
"In view of your pleading guilty to these charges, and therefore not
wasting the time of this court unnecessarily, I propose dealing with you
in more lenient fashion than you deserve.  For being unlawfully in
possession of firearms you are fined twenty dollars and costs.  For
'pointing fire-arms,' fifty dollars and costs.  On the charge of
'resisting the police in the execution of their duty' you are sentenced
to six months imprisonment with hard labour in the Mounted Police
Guard-room at Calgary.  You are also required to make restitution for all
damage caused as the result of your fracas."

Moran squirmed and mumbled: "If I've got t' do time on the one charge I
might as well do it on th' rest, an' save th' money fur t' pay fur th'
damage."

"Very good!" agreed the inspector coldly.  He bent again to his confrere
and they conferred awhile.  Then he turned to the prisoner.  "Thirty days
hard labour then--on each of the first two charges--sentences to run
concurrently."  He paused a space, resuming sternly: "And let me tell you
this, Moran: in view of certain wild threats uttered by you in public you
have narrowly escaped being charged with the greatest of all crimes.  It
is indeed a fortunate thing for you that you have been able to produce a
reliable alibi.  All right, Sergeant! you can close the court.  Make out
that warrant of commitment and I and Mr. Gully will sign it later.  We're
going over to see the coroner."

The two Justices arose and passed out, the few witnesses and onlookers
drifting aimlessly in their wake.  Slavin lowered himself ponderously
into the chair just vacated by the inspector, lit his pipe, and,
whistling softly, commenced to fill out a legal form.  Yorke and Redmond
also took the opportunity to indulge in a quiet smoke as they chatted
together in low tones.  The former good-naturedly tossed a cigarette over
to the prisoner, with the remark: "Have a smoke, Windy--it's the last
you'll get for some time."

Moran, slumped in a tipped-back chair, blew a whiff of smoke from a
lop-sided mouth.  "Six months!" chanted he lugubriously, "an' they call
this a free country!--free hell!--

  "_Oh, bury me out on th' lone prair-ee,
  Where th' wild ki-oot'll howl over me,--_

"--might as well an' ha' done with it!"

They all laughed unsympathetically.  "'Tis mighty lucky for yuh thim
sintences run concurrently instid av consecutively," was the sergeant's
rejoinder, "or ut'd be eight months yez ud be doin' stid av six."

The front legs of Moran's chair suddenly hit the floor with a crash.
"Lookit here, boys," he said earnestly, "that ther big mag'strate--him as
you call Gully--is that his real name?  Wher does he come from?  What
countryman is he?"

"English!" answered Yorke shortly.  "Why?  D'ye think an Englishman has
to run around with a blooming alias?"

"Well, now, yu' needn't go t' git huffy with a man!" expostulated Moran,
with an injured air.  "Th' reason I'm askin' yu' is this": He paused
impressively, with puckered, thoughtful eyes.  "That same man--if it
ain't him--is th' dead spit of a man as once hit ---- County, in Montana
'bout ten years back.  Dep'ty Sheriff--I can't mind his name now.  It was
a hell of a tough county that--then.  Th' devil himself 'ud ha' bin
scairt t' start up in bizness ther."  He shook his head slowly.  "But I
tell yu'--when Mr. Man let up with his fancy shootin' it was th'
peaceablest place in th' Union.  Th' rough stuff'd drifted--what was left
above ground.  He dragged it too, later.  I never heered wher he went."

"Ah!" remarked Slavin pityingly, knocking out his pipe.  "Th' few shots
av hootch ye had tu throw inta yu' last night tu get ye're Dutch up must
be makin' ye see double, me man.  If th' rough stuff he run inta there
was on'y th' loikes av yersilf he must have shtruck a soft snap."  He
arose.  "Put th' stringers on him agin, Ridmond, an' take um upstairs an'
lock um up!  Yu'll be escort wid um tu Calgary whin th' East-bound comes
in--an' see here, look! . . .  I want ye tu be back here agin as soon as
iver ye can make ut back.  Tchkk!" he clucked fretfully, "I wish this
autopsy an' inquest was thru', so's we cud git down tu bizness.  Phew!
this dive's stuffy--let's beat ut out a bit!"

Standing on the sidewalk they gazed casually at the slowly approaching
figures of Inspector Kilbride and Mr. Gully.  The two latter appeared to
be engaged in a vehement, though guarded conversation--stopping every now
and again, as if to debate a point.

"Here cometh Moran's 'dep'ty sheriff,'" was Yorke's facetious comment.

"By gum, though!" Redmond ejaculated, "the beggar would make a good stage
marshal, wouldn't he? . . . with that Bret Harte, forty-niner's moustache
and undertaker's mug, and top-boots and all, what?"

"And a glittering star badge," supplemented Yorke dramatically, "don't
forget that! and two murderous-looking guns slanted across his hips and--"

"Arrah, thin! shut up, Yorkey!" hissed the sergeant in a warning aside,
"they'll hear yez.  Here they come."

Presently the five were grouped together.  Inspector Kilbride's stern
features were set in a thoughtful, lowering scowl.  Mr. Gully's tanned,
leathery countenance looked curiously mottled.

"Sergeant!"  The inspector clicked off his words sharply.  "This is a bad
case.  We've just been viewing the body--Mr. Gully and I."  With
mechanical caution he glanced swiftly round.  "Let's get inside and go
over things again," he added.

Seated in the privacy of the hotel parlour the crime was discussed from
every angle with callous, professional interest.  Kilbride and Slavin did
most of the talking, though occasionally Gully interpolated with question
and comment.  He possessed a deep, booming bass voice well-suited to his
vast frame.  His speech, despite a slightly languid drawl, was
unquestionably that of an educated Englishman.  Yorke and Redmond
maintained a respectful silence in the presence of their officer, except
to answer promptly and quietly any questions put directly to them.

Personal revenge they decided eventually could be the only motive.
Robbery was out of the question, as the personal belongings of the dead
man had been found to be intact, including a valuable diamond ring, about
a hundred and fifty dollars in bills, and his watch, papers, etc.  A
jovial, light-hearted young rancher, hailing originally from the Old
Country, a bachelor of more or less convivial habits, he had enjoyed the
hearty good-will of the country-side, incurring the enmity of no one,
with the exception of Moran, as far as they knew.  The latter's alibi
having established his innocence beyond doubt, no definite clues were
forthcoming as yet, beyond the foot-prints, the horse, and the "Luger"
shell.  Moran, too, they ascertained had ridden in alone, and was not in
the habit of chumming with anyone in particular.  Slavin had prepared a
list of all known out-going and incoming individuals on and about the
date of the crime.  This was carefully conned over.  All were, without
exception, well-known respectable ranchers, and citizens of Cow Run, to
whom no suspicion could be attached.

"No!" commented the inspector wearily, at length.  "In my opinion this
has been done by someone living right here in this burg--a man whom we
could go and put our hands on this very minute--if we only had something
to work on.  You'll see . . . it'll turn out to be that later.  Just
about the last man you'd suspect, either.  Cases like this--where the
individual has nerve enough to stay right on the job and go about his
business as usual--are often the hardest nuts to crack.  You remember
that Huggard case, Sergeant?"

Many years previous he and Slavin had been non-coms together in the
Yukon, and other divisions of the Force, and now, delving back into their
memories of crime and criminals, they cited many old and grim cases, more
or less similar to the one in hand.  Yorke and Redmond listened eagerly
to their narration, but Gully betrayed only a sort of taciturn interest.
If he had any experiences of his own, he apparently did not consider it
worth while to contribute them just then; though to Slavin and Yorke he
was known to be a man who had travelled far and wide.

"Ah!" remarked the inspector, a trifle bitterly.  "If only some of these
smart individuals who write fool detective stories, with their utterly
impracticable methods, theories, and deductions, were to climb out of
their arm-chairs and tackle the real thing--had to do it for their
living--they'd make a pretty ghastly mess of things I'm thinking.  It all
looks so mighty easy--in a book.  You can see exactly how the thing
happened, put your hand on the man who did it, and all that, right from
the start.  And you begin to wonder, pityingly, why the police were such
fools as Dot to have seen through everything right away."

He paused a moment, continuing: "This is a law-abiding country.  Crimes
like this are exceptional.  We're bound to get to the bottom of this
sooner or later.  When we do--there'll be quite a lot of things crop up
in our minds that we'll be wondering we never thought of before.  Let me
have another look at that paper imprint of that over-shoe, Sergeant!"

Silently, Slavin handed it over.  Kilbride scrutinized it carefully, and
again went over all notes and figures connected with the crime.  "Must
have been a tall man--possibly six feet, or over, from the length of the
stride," he muttered, "and heavy, from the depth of the imprint."  He
noted the distance from the big boulder to where the body had first
fallen.  "Gad!  what shooting! . . .  The man must have been a holy
fright with a revolver--to have confidence in himself to be able to kill
at that range.  I've never known anything like it.  Well! . . .  One sure
thing"--he laughed grimly--"you can't go searching every decent citizen
here for a Luger gun, or demanding to measure his feet--without
reasonable suspicion.  Why!  It might be you, Sergeant--or Mr. Gully,
here . . . you're both big men. . . ."

Long afterwards, well they remembered the inspector's random jest--how
Gully, with one hand slid into his breast, and the other dragging at his
great drooping moustache (mannerisms of his) had joined in the general
laugh with his hollow, guttural "Ha! ha!"

The inspector's levity suddenly vanished.  "That old fool of a
livery-stable keeper, Lee, or whatever his name is . . . if only he, or
someone had been around when the horse was brought back that night!
D----n it! there must have been somebody around, surely.  That's what
this case hinges on."

He looked at his watch.  "Well!  Work on that--to your utmost, Sergeant.
Stay right with it until you get that evidence.  You'll drop onto your
man sooner or later, I know.  That train should be in soon, now.  I'll
have to get back.  The Commissioner's due from Regina, sometime today,
and I've got to be on hand.  Wire the finding of the inquest as soon as
it's over, and send in a full crime-report of everything!"

He glanced casually at the bruised faces of Yorke and Redmond.  "You men
must have had quite a tussle with that fellow, Moran!" he remarked
whimsically.  "You seem to have come off the best, Sergeant.  You're not
marked at all."

"Some tussle all right, Sorr!" agreed that worthy evenly, his tongue in
his cheek.  "Yu' go git yu're prisoner, Ridmond, an' be ready whin that
thrain comes in.  Come back on the next way-freight west, if there's wan
behfure th' passenger.  We'll need yez."

Gully murmured some hospitable suggestion to Kilbride, and the two
gentlemen strolled into the wrecked bar.  The train presently arrived and
departed eastwards, bearing on it the inspector, Redmond, and his
prisoner.

"Strange thing," the officer had remarked musingly to Slavin, just prior
to his departure, "I seem to know that man Gully's face, but somehow I
can't place him.  He introduced himself to me on the train coming up.  Of
course I'm familiar with his name, as the J.P. here, but I can't recall
ever meeting him before."

Sometime later, Slavin and Yorke, who had just returned from the gruesome
autopsy and were busily making arrangements for the afternoon's inquest,
heard a loud, cackling commotion out in the main street.  They
immediately stepped outside the hotel to see what was the matter.

Advancing towards them, and puffing with exertion and importance, they
beheld Nick Lee, haling along at arm's length an unkempt individual whom
they judged to be the hobo who had disturbed his peace of mind.  A small
retinue of dirty urchins, jeering loafers, and barking dogs brought up
the rear.  The village "Dogberry" drew nigh with his victim and halted,
as empurpled as probably the elder Weller was, after ducking Mr. Stiggins
in the horse-trough.

"Sarjint!" he panted triumphantly "I did clim up that ther ladder!  I did
git thru' th' trap-door! . . . an'--I did ketch that feller!"  Suddenly
his jaw dropped, and he wilted like a pricked bladder.  "Why!  what's
up?" he queried with a crestfallen air, as he beheld Slavin's angry,
worried countenance.

"Damnation!" muttered the latter softly and savagely to Yorke.  "This
means another thrip tu Calgary--wid this 'bo'--an' me not able tu shpare
ye just now.  Fwhat wid all this other bizness I'd forgotten all 'bout
him.  An' we'd vagged him sooner Ridmond might have taken th' tu av thim
down tugither.  Da----."  The oath died on his lips and he remained
staring at the hobo as a sudden thought struck him.  His gaze flickered
to Yorke's face, and his subordinate nodded comprehensively.

Slavin beckoned to Lee.  "Take um inside the hotel parlour, Nick," he
ordered, "fwhere we hild coort this mornin.'  Yorkey, yu' go an' hunt up
Mr. Gully.  I don't think he's pulled out yet, has he, Nick?"  He spoke
now with a certain grim eagerness.

The livery-man made a gesture in the negative, and Yorke departed upon
his quest.  Slavin ushered Lee and the hobo into the room.  To the
sergeant's surprise he beheld the justice sitting at the table writing.
He concluded that that gentleman must have just stepped in from the rear
entrance of the hotel, or the bar, during his own and Yorke's temporary
absence.

At the entrance of the trio Gully raised his head and, with the pen
poised in his fingers, sat perfectly motionless, staring at them
strangely out of his shadowy eyes.  His face seemed transformed into a
blank, expressionless mask.  The sergeant leaned over the table and spoke
to him in a rapid aside.

"Ah!" murmured Mr. Gully, and he remained for a space in deep thought.
"Sergeant," he began presently, "I'll have to be pulling out soon.
Before we start in with this man . . . will you kindly step down to
Doctor Cox's with these papers and ask him to sign them?"

It seemed an ordinary request.  Slavin complied.

Returning some ten or fifteen minutes later he noticed Lee was absent.
The magistrate answered his query.  "Sent him round to throw the harness
on my team," he drawled, as he pored over a Criminal Code, "he'll be back
in a moment--ah! here he is."  And just then the latter entered, along
with Yorke.  The hobo was sitting slumped in a chair, as Slavin had left
him.  With one accord they all centred their gaze upon the unkempt
delinquent.  Ragged and unwashed, he presented a decidedly unlovely
appearance, which was heightened by his stubble-coated visage showing
signs as of recent ill-usage.  His age might have been anything between
thirty and forty.

The sergeant, a huge, menacing figure of a man, stepped forward and
motioned to him to stand.  "Now, see here; look, me man!" he said slowly
and distinctly, a sort of tense eagerness underlying his soft tones,
"behfure I shtart in charrgin' ye wid anythin' I'm goin' tu put a few
questions tu ye in front av this ginthleman"--he indicated the
justice--"He's a mag'strate, so ye'd best tell th' trute.  Now--th' night
behfure last--betune say, nine an' twelve o'clock . . . fwhere was
ye?"--he  paused--"Think harrd, an' come across wid th' straight goods."

A tense silence succeeded.  The hobo, the cynosure of a ring of watchful
expectant faces, mumbled indistinctly, "I was sleepin'--up in th' loft o'
th' livery-stable."

"Did yeh--" Slavin eyed the man keenly--"did yeh see--or hear--any fella
take a harse out av th' shtable durin' that time?"

Gully moved slightly.  With the mannerism he affected, his left hand
dragging at his moustache and his right slid between the lapels of his
coat, he leaned forward and fixed his eyes full upon the hobo's battered
visage.

Meeting that strange, compelling gaze the latter: stared back at him, his
face an ugly, expressionless mask.  He shuffled with his feet.  "Why,
yes!" he said finally, "I did heer a bunch o' fellers come in.  They was
a-talkin' all excited-like 'bout a fight, or sumphin'.  They was
a-hollerin', 'Beat it, Larry!  beat it!' t' somewun, an' I heered some
feller say: 'All right! give us my ---- saddle!' an' then it sounded like
as if a horse was bein' taken out.  I didn't heer no more after
that--went t' sleep.  I 'member comin' down 'bout th' middle o' th' night
t' git a drink at th' trough.  This feller come in then,"--he indicated
Lee.  "He hollered sumphin' an' started in t' chase me . . . so I beat it
up inta th' loft agin'."  He shivered.  "'T'was cold up ther--I well-nigh
froze," he whined.

The sergeant exhausted his no mean powers of exhortation.  It was all in
vain.  The hobo protested that he had neither seen nor heard anyone else
taking out, or bringing in, a horse during the night.

Slavin finally ceased his efforts and glowered at the man in silent
impotence.  "How come yez tu get th' face av yez bashed up so?" he
demanded.

"Fell thru' one o' th' feed-holes up in th' loft," was the sulky response.

"Fwhat name du ye thravel undher?"

"Dick Drinkwater."

"Eh?" the sergeant glanced critically at the red, bulbous nose.  "Fwhat's
in a name?" he murmured.  "Eyah! fwhat's in a name?"

Glibly the tramp commenced an impassioned harangue, dwelling upon the
hardness of life in general, snuffling and whining after the manner of
his kind.  How could a crippled-up man like him obtain work?  He thrust
out a grimy right hand--minus two fingers.  He had been a sawyer, he
averred.

Slavin sniffed suspiciously.  "Ye shtink av whiskey, fella!" he said
sharply.  "That nose, yeh name, an' a hard-luck spiel du not go well
together.  Fwhere did yu' get yu're dhrink?"

The hobo was silent.  "Come across," said Slavin sternly, "fwhere did ye
get ut?"

"I had a bottle with me when I come off th' train," said the other, "ther
was a drop left in an' I had it just now."

In the light of after events, well did Slavin and Yorke recall the
furtive appealing glance the hobo threw at Gully; well did they also
remember certain of Kilbride's words: "There'll be quite a lot of things
crop up in our minds that we'll be wondering we never thought of before."

The justice cleared his throat.  "Sergeant" came his guttural, booming
bass, "suppose!--suppose!" he reiterated suavely "on this occasion
we--er--temper justice with mercy--ha! ha!"  His deep hollow laugh jarred
on their nerves most unpleasantly.  "I need a man at my place just now,"
he went on, "to buck wood and do a little odd choring around.  Times are
rather hard just now, as this poor fellow says.  If you insist--er--why,
of course I've no other option but to send him down . . . you understand?
I would not presume to dictate to you your duty.  On the other hand . . .
if you are not specially anxious to press a charge of vagrancy against
this man I--er--am willing to give him a chance to obtain this work--that
he insists he is so anxious to find."

Slavin's face cleared and he emitted a weary sigh of relief.  "As you
will, yeh're Worship," he said.  "T'will be helpin' me out, tu . . . yeh
undhershtand?"  His meaning stare drew a comprehensive nod from Gully.
"I have not a man tu shpare for escort just now."

He turned to the hobo.  "Fwhat say yu', me man?" was his curt ultimatum,
"Fwhat say yu'--tu th' kindniss av his Worship?  Will yeh go wurrk for
him? . . .  Or be charged wid vagrancy?"

The offer was accepted with alacrity.  In the hobo's one uninjured optic
shone a momentary gleam of intelligence, as he continued to stare at
Gully, like a dog at its master.  The gleam was reflected in a pair of
shadowy, deep-set eyes, unblinking as an owl's.

Gully arose and looked at Lee.  "All right then! you can hitch up my
team, Nick!" he said, and that rotund worthy waddled away on his mission.
"Come on, my man" he continued to the hobo, "we'll go round to the
stable."  He turned to Slavin and Yorke, shedding his magisterial
deportment.  "Well, good-bye, you fellows!" he said, with careless
bonhomie.  He lowered his voice in an aside to Slavin.  "Sergeant, I
trust I shall see, or hear from you again shortly.  I would like to hear
the result of the inquest and--er--how you are progressing with the case."

A few minutes later they heard the silvery jingle of his cutter's bells
gradually dying away in the distance.  Slavin aroused himself from a
scowling, brooding reverie.  "G----d d----n!" he spat out to Yorke, from
between clenched teeth, "ther' goes another forlorn hope.  'Tis no manner
av use worryin' tho'--let's go get that jury empannelled!"  He uttered a
snorting chuckle as a thought seemed to strike him.  "H-mm!  Gully must
be getthin' tindher-hearthed!  Th' last vag we had up behfure him he sint
um down for sixty days."




CHAPTER IX

  _Take order now, Gehazi,
    That no man talk aside
  In secret with his judges
    The while his case is tried,
  Lest he should show them--reason
    To keep a matter hid,
  And subtly lead the questions
    Away from what he did._
                        KIPLING.


"Hullo!" quoth Constable Yorke facetiously, "behold one cometh, with
blood in her eye!  Egad!  Don't old gal Lee look mad?  Like a wet hen.  I
guess she's just off the train and Nick hasn't met her.  There'll be
something doing when she lands home."

It was about ten o'clock on the following morning.  The three policemen
(Redmond had returned on a freight during the night) were standing
outside the small cottage, next the livery-stable, the abode of Nick Lee
and his spouse.  After a casual inspection of their horses they were
debating as to possible suspects and their next course of action.
Yorke's remarks were directed at a stout, red-faced, middle-aged woman
who was just then approaching them.  She looked flustered and angry and
was burdened down with parcels great and small.  As she halted outside
the gate one of the packages slipped from her grasp and fell in the mud.
Unable to bend down, she gazed at it helplessly a moment.  Yorke,
stepping forward promptly, picked up the parcel, wiped it and tucked it
under her huge arm.

"Thank ye, Mister Yorke," she ejaculated gratefully, "'tis a gentleman ye
are," she glowered a moment at the cottage, "which is more'n I kin say
fur that mon o' mine, th' lazy good-fur-nothin', . . . leavin' me t' pack
all these things from th' train!"

Like a tug drawing nigh to its mooring--and nearly as broad in the
beam--she came to anchor on the front steps and kicked savagely at the
door.  A momentary glimpse they got of Nick Lee's face, in all its
rubicund helplessness, and then the door banged to.  From an open window
soon emerged the sounds as of a domestic broil.

"Talk av Home Rule, an' 'Th' Voice that breathed o'er Eden'," murmured
Slavin.  "Blarney me sowl! just hark tu ut now?"

From the cottage's interior came several high-pitched female squawks,
punctuated by the ominous sounds as of violent thumps being rained upon a
soft body, and suddenly the portal disgorged Lee--in erratic haste.  His
hat presently followed.  Dazedly awhile he surveyed the grinning trio of
witnesses to his discomfiture; then, picking up his battered head-piece
he crammed it down upon his bald cranium with a vicious, yet abject,
gesture.

"Th' missis seems onwell this mornin'," he mumbled apologetically to
Slavin, "I take it yore not a married man, Sarjint?"

"Eh?" ejaculated that worthy sharply, his levity gone on the instant.
"Who--me?"  Blankly he regarded the miserable face of his interlocutor,
one huge paw of a hand softly and surreptitiously caressing its fellow,
"Nay--glory be!  I am not."

"Har!" shrilled the Voice, its owner, fat red arms akimbo, blocking up
the doorway, "Nick, me useless man! ye kin prate t' me 'bout arrestin'
hoboes.  I tell ye right now--that hobo that was a-bummin' roun' here
t'other mornin's got nothin' on you fur sheer, blowed-in-th'-glass
laziness."

"Fwhat?"  Slavin violently contorting his grim face into a horrible
semblance of persuasive gallantry edged cautiously towards the irate
dame--much the same as a rough-rider will "So, ho, now!" and sidle up to
a bad horse.  "Mishtress Lee," began he, in wheedling, dulcet tones,
"fwhat mornin' was that?"

That lady, her capacious, matronly bosom heaving with emotion, eyed him
suspiciously a moment.  "Eh?" she snapped.  "Why th' mornin' after th'
night of racket between them two men at th' hotel.  Th' feller come
bummin' roun' th' back-door fur a hand-out--all starved t' death--just
before I took th' train t' Calgary."  She dabbed at the false-front of
red hair, which had become somewhat disarranged.  "La, la!" she murmured,
"I'm all of a twitter!"

"Some hand-out tu," remarked Slavin politely, "from th' face av um. . . .
Fwhat was ut ye handed him, Mishtress Lee, might I ask?--th' flat-iron or
th' rollin' pin?"

"I did not!" the dame retorted indignantly.  "I gave him a cup of coffee
an' sumphin' t' eat--he was that cold, poor feller--an' I arst him how
his face come t' be in such a state.  He said sumphin 'bout it bein' so
cold up in th' loft he come down amongst th' horses 'bout midnight--t'
get warmed up.  He said he was lyin' in one o' th' mangers asleep when a
feller brought a horse in--an' th' light woke him up an' when he went t'
climm outa th' manger th' horse got scared an' pulled back an' musta
stepped on this feller's foot--fur th' feller started swearin' at him an'
pulled him outa th' manger an' beat him up an'--"

But Slavin had heard enough.  With a most ungallant ejaculation he swung
on his heel and started towards the stable, beckoning hastily to Yorke
and Redmond to follow.

"Yu hear that?" he burst out on them, with lowered, savage tones.  "I
knew ut--I felt ut at th' toime--that shtinkin' rapparee av a hobo was
lyin'--whin he said he did not renumber a harse bein' brought back.  We
must go get um--right-away!"  His grim face wore a terribly ruthless
expression just then.  "My God!" he groaned out from between clenched
teeth, "but I will put th' third degree tu um, an' make um come across
this toime!  Saddle up, bhoys! while I go an' hitch up T an' B.
Damnation!  I wish Gully's place was on the phone!"

Some quarter of an hour later they were proceeding rapidly towards
Gully's ranch which lay some fifteen miles west of Cow Run, on the lower
or river trail.  A cold wind had sprung up and the weather had turned
cloudy and dull, as if presaging snow, two iridescent "sun-dogs"
indicating a forthcoming drop in the temperature.

Yorke and Redmond, riding in the cutter's wake, carried on a desultory.
Jerky conversation anent the many baffling aspects of the case in hand.
Gully's name came up.  His strange personality was discussed by them from
every angle; impartially by Yorke--frankly antagonistically by Redmond.

"Yes! he is a rum beggar, in a way," admitted Yorke, "not a bad sort of
duck, though, when you get to know him--when he's not in one of his
rotten, brooding fits.  He sure gets 'Charley-on-his-back' sometimes.
Used to hit the booze pretty hard one time, they say.  Tried the
'gold-cure'--then broke out again"--he lowered his voice at the huge,
bear-like back of the sergeant--"all same him.  I don't know--somehow--it
always seems to leave em' cranky an' queer--that.  Neither of 'em married
either--'baching it,' living alone, year after year, and all that, too."

"Better for you--if you took the cure, too!"  George flung at him
grinning rudely.  He neck-reined Fox sharply and dodged a playful punch
from his comrade.  "Yorkey, old cock, I'm goin' to break you from 'hard
stuff' to beer--if I have to pitch into you every day."

"You're an insultin', bullyin' young beggar," remarked Yorke ruefully.
"I'll have to 'take shteps,' as Burke says, and discipline you a bit,
young fellow-me-lad!  I don't wonder the old man pulled you in from
Gleichen.  Come to think of it, why, you're the bright boy that they say
well-nigh started a mutiny down Regina!  We heard a rumour about it up
here.  Say, what was that mix-up, Reddy?"

George chuckled vaingloriously.  "All over old 'Laddie'," he said.
"'Member that white horse?  I forget his regimental number, but he was
about twenty-five years old.  You remember how they'd taught him to chuck
up his head and 'laugh'?  I was grooming him at 'midday stables.'  Old
Harry Hawker was the sergeant taking 'stables' that day.  He was stalking
up and down the gangway, blind as a bat, with his crop under his arm, and
his glasses stuck on the end of his nose--peering, peering.  Well, old
Laddie happened to stretch himself, as a horse will, you know, stuck out
his hind leg, and old Harry fell wallop over it and tore his
riding-pants, and just then I said 'Laugh, Laddie!' and he chucked his
old head up and wrinkled his lips back.  Of course the fellows fairly
howled and Harry lost his temper and let in to poor old Laddie with his
crop.  It made me mad when he started that and I guess I gave him some
lip about it.  He 'pegged' me for Orderly-room right-away for
insubordination.'

"I pleaded 'not guilty' and got away with it, too.  Got all kinds of
witnesses--most of 'em only too d----d glad to be able to get back at
Harry for little things.  Laddie was a proper pet of the Commissioner's.
He used to go into No. Four Stable and play with the old beggar and feed
him sugar nearly every day."

Yorke laughed mischievously, and was silent awhile.  "Gully's knocked
about a deuce of a lot," he resumed presently.  "Now and again he'll open
up a bit and talk, but mostly he's as close as an oyster--and the way he
can drop that drawl and come out 'flat-footed' with the straight
turkey--why, it'd surprise you!  You'd think he was an out and out
Westerner, born and bred.  He's a mighty good man on a horse, and around
cattle--and with a lariat.  I don't know where the beggar's picked it up.
He claims he's only been in this country five years.  Talks mostly about
the Gold Coast, and Shanghai, and the Congo.  A proper 'Bully Hayes' of a
man he was there, too, I'll bet!  He never says much about the States,
though I did hear him talking to a Southerner once, and begad, it was
funny!  You could hardly tell their accents apart.

"Oh, he's not a bad chap to have for a J.P.  It's mighty hard to get any
local man to accept a J.P.'s commission, anyway.  They're most of 'em
scared of it getting them in bad with their neighbours.  Gully--he
doesn't care a d----n for any of 'em, though.  He'll sit on any case.
It's a good thing to have a man who's absolutely independent, like that.
I sure have known some spineless rotters.  No, we might have a worse J.P.
than Gully."

"Oh, I don't know," rejoined Redmond thoughtfully, "may be he's all
right, but, somehow . . . the man's a kind of 'Doctor Fell' to me--has
been--right from the first time I 'mugged' him.  Chances are though, that
it's only one of those false impressions a fellow gets.  What's up?"

Yorke, shading his eyes from the cutting wind was staring ahead down the
long vista of trail.  "Talk of the Devil!" he muttered, "why! here the
---- comes!" Aloud, he called out to Slavin.  "Oh, Burke! here comes
Gully--riding like hell, I know that Silver horse of his."

And, far-off as yet, but rapidly approaching them at a gallop, they
beheld a rider.

"Sure is hittin' th' high spots," remarked the sergeant wonderingly,
"fwhat th' divil's up now?"

Gradually the distance lessened between them and presently Gully, mounted
upon a splendid, powerfully-built gray, checked his furious pace and
reined in with an impatient jerk, a few lengths from the police team.
Redmond could not help noticing that Gully, for a heavy man, possessed a
singularly-perfect seat in the saddle, riding with the sure, free,
unconscious grace of an _habitué_ of the range.  He was roughly dressed
now, in overalls, short sheepskin coat, and "chaps."

He shouted a salutation to the trio, his usually immobile face
transformed into an expression of scowling anxiety.  "Hullo!" he boomed,
his guttural bass sounding hoarse with passion, "You fellows didn't meet
that d----d hobo on the trail, I suppose? . . .  I'm looking for him--in
the worst way!"

He flung out of saddle and strode alongside the cutter.  "About two hours
ago--'not more, I'll swear--I pulled out to take a ride around the
cattle--like I usually do, every day.  I left the beggar busy enough,
bucking fire-wood.  I wasn't away much over an hour, but when I got back
I found he'd drifted--couldn't locate him anywhere.

"Then I remembered I'd left some money lying around--inside the drawer of
a bureau in my bedroom--'bout a hundred, I guess--in one of these
black-leather bill-folders.  Sure enough, it's gone, too.  Damnation!"

He leaned up against the cutter and mopped his streaming forehead.  "I
was a fool to ever attempt to help a man like that out," he concluded
bitterly.  "It serves me right!"

"Well," said Slavin, with an oath, "th' shtiff cannot have got far-away
in that toime.  I want um as bad as yuh, Mr. Gully.  We were on th' way
tu yu're place for um.  See here; luk!"

Gully heard him out and whistled softly at the conclusion of the
narrative.  "Once collar this man, Sergeant," said he, "and--you've
practically got your case.  Make him talk?"--the low, guttural laugh was
not good to hear--"Oh, yes! . . .  I think between us we could accomplish
that all right! . . .  Yes-s!"

His voice died away in a murmur, a cruel glint flickered in his shadowy
eyes, and for a space he remained with folded arms and his head sunk in a
sort of brooding reverie.  Suddenly, with an effort, he seemed to arouse
himself.  "Oh, about that inquest, Sergeant," he queried casually, "what
was the jury's finding?  I was forgetting all about that."

"Eyah; on'y fwhat yuh might expect," replied the latter.  "Death by
shootin', at th' hand av some person unknown.  I wired headquarthers
right-away."  He made a slightly impatient movement.  "Well, we must get
busy, Mr. Gully; this shtiff connot be far away.  Not bein' on th'
thrail, betune us an' yu', means he's either beat ut shtraight south from
yu're place an' over th' ice tu th' railway-thrack, or west a piece, an'
thin onto th' thrack.  Yu'll niver find a hobo far away from th' line.
He'd niver go thrapsein' thru' th' snow tu th' high ground beyant.  Yuh
cud shpot him plain for miles--doin' that--comin' along."

"He's wearing old, worn-out boots," said Yorke, "got awful big feet, too,
I remember.  Of course this trail's too beaten up from end to end to be
able to get a line on foot-prints.  We might work slowly back to your
place, though, Mr. Gully, and keep a lookout for any place where he may
have struck south off the trail, as the Sergeant says."

It seemed the only thing to do.  The party moved leisurely forward, Gully
riding ahead of the cutter, Yorke and Redmond in its wake, as before,
well-spread out on either side of the well-worn trail.  Here, the snow
was practically undisturbed, affording them every opportunity of
discovering fresh foot-prints debouching from the main trail.  It was
rather exacting, monotonous work, necessitating cautious and leisurely
progress; but they stuck to it doggedly until sometime later they rounded
a bend in the river and came within sight of Gully's ranch, about a mile
distant.

Presently that gentleman pulled up and swung out of saddle.  "Half a
minute," he said, "my saddle's slipping!  I want to tighten my cinch."

The small cavalcade halted.  Slavin's restless eyes roving over the
expanse of unbroken snow on his left hand, suddenly dilated, and he
uttered an eager exclamation, pointing downwards with outflung arm.

"Ah," said he grimly, "here we are, I'm thinkin'!" And he clambered
hastily out of the cutter.

Yorke and Redmond, dismounting swiftly, stepped forward with him and
examined minutely the unmistakably fresh imprints of large-sized feet
angling off from the trail towards the bank of the frozen river.

"Hob-nailed boots!" ejaculated Yorke.  "Guess that must be him, all
right, Mr. Gully?"

The latter bent and scrutinized the imprints.  "Sure must be," he
rejoined, with conviction.  "A man walking out on the range is a
curiosity.  I can't think how I could have missed them--coming along.
But I guess I was so mad, and in such a devil of a hurry I didn't notice
much.  I made sure of catching up to him somewhere on the trail

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