CHAPTER XX
The shooting season was at hand. At frequent intervals along the fence lines of O Bar O, big square slabs of white enamelled wood were nailed to fence posts, bearing in great black letters the legend:
TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN
Punished to fullest extent of law.
BEWARE THE DOGS
P. D. McPherson, Owner.
These daunted not the more persistent and intrepid of the hunters, who slipped into this game paradise through the medium of the gate under the Ghost River Bridge on the Banff Highway. Pitching camp near the road, they penetrated up the great canyon and into the luring woods of the forbidden country.
Duncan Mallison, whose vacation was drawing to a close, resented any intrusion upon his privacy. He had begun almost to regard the place as his own private and personal preserve. Trespassers irritated and interrupted him. Reluctantly, he made a final shoot of Hungarian partridge and prairie chicken—enough to go the rounds of the newspaper office—packed his camping outfit, and prepared to depart from the vicinity of O Bar O.
He had a moderately good feature story, but had been obliged to do a lot of padding, elaborating and exaggerating on the amount of gambling done and the odds on P. D. He was not satisfied with his “story.” He just “sniffed the edges” of a story big enough to syndicate in a dozen or more papers over the country and perhaps find a place also across the line. His nose for news and his inherent sense of romance scented another kind of story at O Bar O. This Englishman—whatever his name was (of course, Cheerio was merely a nickname) interested the reporter. It was plain that he was no ordinary ranch hand. Who, then, was he, and what was he doing working on a ranch?
“Younger son,” and, for that matter, older sons, were not uncommon in the Alberta ranching country. It was in fact, an ideal place, for the disposal of ne’er-do-wells, and if they had the “stuff” in them to make real men of them. The reporter had come into contact with a great many of these quite likable chaps from the old country, especially upon those periodical occasions when remittances from home were due, they came to town to spend a monthly allowance in a single night, or several days of unadulterated spreeing. They were not noted especially for their love of work, though there was good stuff in most of them as was proved when the war broke out and a large percentage of the men who marched from Alberta were of English birth.
This Cheerio fellow was somehow different. Mallison could not exactly place him. He worked. In point of fact, Cheerio was reputed to be one of the best workers at O Bar O and really earned his modest $50 a month. Nevertheless, the newspaper man recognised him at once as a man of education and breeding. Mallison had heard the story of the branding, and of the confession that had followed. Sandy was prone to exaggeration, and the reporter, sifting the facts in the case, was disposed to question whether this incident should be regarded seriously. From Cheerio himself he learned scarcely nothing. Several times intent upon acquiring a real interview with the man, he was exasperated to discover after Cheerio had left him that Cheerio, on the contrary, had interviewed him. He was extremely interested, apparently, in newspaper work, and asked the reporter many questions concerning the sort of papers supported by the City of Calgary, and also what opportunity there might be for a man to get a berth on one of these as a caricaturist or newspaper artist.
Ruminating over the matter, the reporter lay flat upon the ground on his back, hands under the back of his head, staring straight up at the interlacing branches of a giant spruce tree, through which the sunlight glistened and danced. Presently his reverie was disturbed. There was the flurry and flutter of wings and up out of the bush there arose a couple of grouse—wavered above his head a moment, then dropped down behind the somewhat fantastic rock that jutted out above the river.
“Doggone those hunters!”
They were a distinct menace in the woods of O Bar O. They shot at anything and everything.
The bushes at the back of the reporter were violently agitated, and a fat red face presently was thrust cautiously through. A man carrying a shot-gun, and dressed in knickers and khaki hunting coat with numerous little shell pockets, trod through the bush. Reporter and hunter scowled at each other. Here was no entente cordiale.
“Did you see where my birds dropped?”
“Did you see those trespass signs along the road?” was the reply.
“Did you see them yourself?” retorted the other.
“You bet I did, and I’m here to see that others see them, too.”
Turning back his coat, Mallison revealed a bright star pinned to his vest. Now, that star represented the fact that the reporter had certain rights at fires and other places where the press is permitted to be represented; but to the hunter it looked fearfully like the star that a game warden might carry. He essayed a conciliating laugh, while backing hastily toward the exit at the bridge outside of which his Studebaker was parked. He got into it in a great hurry.
Grinning, Mallison sat up, his eye upon the out-jutting rock where the grouse had fallen. Lazily he stretched himself; leisurely he climbed up the cliff to the rock and lightly he dropped down in Cheerio’s cave.
He swung around in a circle, blinking his eyes and emitting a long, amazed whistle.
For the next half hour he was a very busy reporter. Aladdin’s cave could have afforded him no more satisfaction or interest.
The Indian pictures were ranged along a shelf in the natural gallery that stretched under the rock for a space of about thirty feet. It was amply lighted and completely sheltered. As Mallison went down the line of pictures he realized that here was indeed a rare find.
Colour had been splashed prodigally upon the canvasses. Maroon, lemon, magenta, scarlet, vivid purple, cerise, blues, flame colour. Indian colours! Indian faces! Here was more than a mere tribe of Indians. The artist had stamped indelibly upon the canvas a revelation of the history of a passing race. He had painted the Iliad of the Indian race.
Here was an ancient chief, grave, stern as a judge, with the dignity of a king and a pride that all the squalor and poverty and starvation of a long, hard life, the repression and tyranny at the hands of successive Indian agents and parasites upon his race, had been unable to quench.
Here, the infinitely old and wrinkled, toothless, witch-like great-great-grandmother of the tribe, a crone who mumbled prophetic warnings to which the lightest-hearted paid superstitious heed. And here the blind Medicine Man.
Smiling, wheedling, begging, the pleasantly-plump shining-faced squaws. The Braves, young and old, variously clad, some clinging to the garb of their ancestors, or wearing the holiday dress, gaudy Hudson’s Bay blankets and rugs and headdresses of eagle or turkey feathers; others in the half cowboy, half Indian clothes, and others again poorly attired in the mockery of the white man’s clothes.
Thin faces, deep and hungry-eyed, with that subdued look that tells not so much of the conquering hand of the white man as of the insidious effects of the great white plague.
Tragic faces of half-breeds, pawns of an undesired fate. Something of smouldering wildness, something of sadness, something of intense longing and wistfulness looked from the strange eyes of the breeds, legally white and permitted the “privilege” of the franchise, subject to conscription and taxation, yet doomed to live among their red kindred.
Beauty peered from the half-lifted ragged magenta shawl of an Indian Madonna, upon whose back the tiny blonde head of a blue-eyed papoose told a story more eloquent than words.
This, then, was the “find” of the newspaper man. Of the pictures, he selected six. He had no compunction about helping himself. It was part of his trade, and he had discovered the cave. What is more, he cherished the enthusiastic ambition of making the unknown artist famous. There were people in Calgary who would appreciate what this man had done. Mallison intended to show his find to these connoisseurs.
From the Indian pictures, he turned to the portfolio of sketches. Several of Sandy and the ranch hands, one of Bully Bill, with the quid of tobacco in his cheek, a characteristic bit of old P. D., one of Viper at the heels of the milk cows, a stream of cattle pouring over the hill, and—Hilda! One hundred and eighteen sketches of Hilda McPherson. Now the reporter understood, and he chuckled with sympathy. He did not blame the man. He had seen Hilda!
From the portfolio, Mallison selected two or three sketches of P. D., one of Sandy, three of Hilda, and a single photograph of Cheerio, taken evidently in France, and in uniform. He was easily recognizable. There was no mistaking that boyish and friendly smile, that seemed somehow to irradiate and make singularly interesting the essentially sensitive features of the young Englishman.