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.