CHAPTER X
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
SHAKESPEARE.
Number Six, from the East, drew up at the small platform of Davidsburg and presently steamed slowly on its way westward, minus three passengers.
"Well, bhoys," said Sergeant Slavin to his henchmen, "here we are—-back tu th' land av our dhreams wanst more. Glory be! But I'm glad tu be quit av that warrm, shtinkin' courthroom. Denis Ryan—th' ould rapparee, he wint afther us harrd—in that last case. Eyah! But I thrimmed um in th' finals. Wan Oirishman cannot put ut over another wan."
He softly rubbed his huge hands together. "Five years! That'll tache
Mishter Joe Lawrence tu go shtickin' his brand on other people's cattle!
But—blarney me sowl! Ryan sure is a bad man tu run up agin when he's
actin' for th' defence."
The trio had just returned from a Supreme Court sitting where they had been handling their various cases. It was a gloriously sunny day in June. A wet spring, succeeded by a spell of hot weather, had transformed the range into a rolling expanse of green, over which meandered bunches of horses and cattle, their sleek hides and well-rounded bodies proclaiming abundant assimilation of nourishing pasture.
To men who for the past week had of necessity been confined within the stifling atmosphere of a crowded court-room, their present surroundings appealed as especially restful and exhilarating. During their absence their horses had been enjoying the luxury of a turn-out in the fenced pasture at the rear of the detachment, where there was good feed and a spring.
The murder of Larry Blake the previous winter still remained a baffling mystery. Locally it had proved, as such occurrences usually do, merely a proverbial nine days wonder. Long since, in the stress and interest of current events, it had faded more or less from the minds of all men, excepting the Mounted Police, who, though saying little concerning it, still kept keenly on the alert for any possible clue. Equally mystifying was the uncanny disappearance of the hobo—Drinkwater. So far that individual had succeeded in eluding apprehension, although minute descriptions of him had been circulated broadcast to police agencies throughout Canada and the United States.
"Eyah!" Sergeant Slavin was wont to remark sagely: "'Tis an ould saying bhoys—'Murdher will out'—we'll sure dhrop onto it sooner or lather, an' thin belike we'll get th' surprise av our lives—for I firmly believe, as Kilbride said—'t'will prove tu be some lokil man who had a grudge agin' pore Larry for somethin' or another. So—just kape on quietly watchin'—an' listh'nin, an' we'll nail that fella yet."
Just now that worthy was surveying his subordinates with a care-free smile of bonhomie. "Guess we'll dhrop inta th' shtore on our way up" suggested he, "see'f there's any mail, an' have a yarn wid ould MacDavid."
Half way up the long, winding, graded trail that led to the detachment, the trio turned into another trail which traversed it at this point. Following this for some few hundred yards westward they reached the substantial abode of Morley MacDavid, who was, as his name suggested, the hamlet's oldest settler and its original founder.
His habitation—combining store, post-office, and ranch-house—was a commodious frame dwelling, unpretentious in appearance but not wanting in evidences of prosperity. Its rear presented the usual aspect of a ranch, with huge, well-built barns and corrals. Although it was summer, many wide stacks of hay and green oats, apparently left over from the previous season, suggested that he was a cautious man with an eye to stock-feeding during the winter months. To neglect of the precaution of putting up sufficient feed to tide over the severe weather might be attributed most of the annual ranching failures in the West. The MacDavid establishment bore a well-ordered aspect, unlike many of the unthrifty, ramshackle ranches, of his neighbours. The fencing was of the best, and there were no signs of decay or dilapidation in any of the buildings. Dwarf pines were planted about and a Morning Glory vine over-ran the house, giving the place an air of restful domesticity. As they entered the store the trio noticed a saddle-horse tied to the hitching-rail outside.
They were greeted jovially by MacDavid himself. Lounging behind his store-counter, with his back up against a slung pack of coyote skins, he was listening in somewhat bored fashion to a talkative individual opposite. He evidently hailed their arrival as a welcome diversion. In personality, Morley MacDavid was an admirable type of the western pioneer. A tall, slimly-built, but wiry, active man of fifty, or thereabouts, with grizzled hair and moustache. Burnt out and totally ruined three successive times in the past by the depredations of marauding Indians, the fierce, indomitable energy of the broken man had asserted itself and enabled him finally to triumph over all his mischances. Aided in the struggle by his devoted wife, who throughout the years had bravely faced all dangers and hardships with him, he had eventually accumulated a hard-won fortune. In addition to the patronage that he received from the local ranches, he conducted an extensive business trading with the Indians from the big Reserve in the vicinity. A man of essentially simple habits, through sentiment or ingrained thriftiness, he disdained to abandon the routine and the scenes of his former active life, although his bank-balance and his holdings in land and stock probably exceeded that of many a more imposing city magnate.
The newcomers, disposing themselves comfortably upon various sacked commodities, proceeded to smoke and casually inspect the voluble stranger. He was a tallish, well-built man nearing middle-age, with a gray moustache, a thin beak of a nose, and a bleached-blue eyes. He was dressed in an old tweed suit, obviously of English cut, a pair of high-heeled, spurred riding-boots and a cowboy hat. Vouchsafing a brief nod to the visitors he continued his conversation with MacDavid.
"Ya-as," he was drawling, "one of the most extraordinary shots you ever heard of, Morley! I was between the devil and the deep sea—properly. There was the bear—rushing me at the double and there was the cougar perched growling up on the rock behind me. I made one jump sideways and let the bear have it—slap through the brain, and . . . that same shot, sir, ricocheted up the face of the rock and killed the cougar—just as he was in the act of springing! By George, y'know, it was one of the swiftest things that ever happened!"
A tense silence succeeded the conclusion of this thrilling narrative.
MacDavid re-lit his pipe and puffed thoughtfully awhile. "Eyah," he remarked reminiscently, "feller does run up against some swift propositions now an' again. I mind one time I was headin' home from Kananaskis, an' a bear jumped me from behind a fallen log. The lever of me rifle jammed so, all I could do was to beat it—in a hurry—an' I sure did hit th' high spots, you bet! It was in th' early spring an' th' snow still lay pretty deep, but—I'd got a twenty yards start of that bear, an' I finally beat him to it an' made my get-away."
The stranger whistled incredulously. "Wha-a-tt!" he almost shouted, "D'ye mean to tell me that bear got within twenty yards of you and couldn't catch you? Why, man! It's incredible!"
"Fact," replied MacDavid calmly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "It was this way: It was near th' edge of th' bush where th' bear first jumped me, an'—just as we hit th' open ground—one o' them warm Chinook winds sprung up behind us, travellin' east. . . .
"Man!" He paused impressively. "The way that wind started in to melt th' snow was a corker—just like lard in a fryin'-pan. But—I just managed to keep ahead of it an' while I had a good, hard surface of snow to run on, the bear—why he was sloppin around in th' slush in my wake—couldn't get a firm foothold, I guess. . . ."
His keen blue orbs stared full into the bleached ones of his vis-à-vis.
"I figure that there Chinook an' me an' th' bear must have been all travellin' 'bout th' same line of speed—kind of swift. After a mile or two of it, th' bear—he got fed up an' quit cold," he ended gravely. "Why—what's your hurry, Fred?"
But that individual, feebly raising both arms with a sort of hopeless gesture, suddenly grabbed up his mail and beat a hasty retreat to his horse.
The hoof-beats died away and MacDavid turned to the grinning policemen. "Fred Storey," he said, in answer to their looks of silent enquiry. "Runs th' R.U. Ranch, out south here. Not a bad head, but"—he sighed deeply—"he's such an ungodly liar. I can't resist gettin' back at him now an' again—just for luck. He's up here on a visit—stayin' with th' Sawyers."
"H-mm!" ejaculated Yorke, "seems to me I've got a hazy recollection of meeting up with that fellow before—somewhere. In a hotel in High River, I think it was. Beggar was yarning about Cuba, I remember."
"Bet it was hazy all right," was Redmond's sarcastic rejoiner, "like most of your bar-room recollections, Yorkey." He gave vent to a snorting chuckle. "That 'D'you know? Ya! ya!' accent of his reminds me of that curate in 'The Private Secretary.' I saw it played to Toronto, once."
At this juncture the door opened, and a trio of Indians padded softly into the store with gaily-beaded, moccasined feet. Two elderly bucks and a young squaw. The latter flashed a shy, roguish grin at the white men, and then with the customary effacement of Indian women withdrew to the rear of the store. Squatting down, all huddled-up in her blanket, she peered at them with the incurious, but all-seeing stare of her tribe. George got an impression of beady black eyes and a brown, rounded, child-like face framed in a dazzling yellow kerchief.
The two bucks, with a momentary gleam of welcome wrinkling their ruthless, impassive features, exchanged a salutation with MacDavid in guttural Cree, which language the latter spoke fluently. They were clothed in the customary fashion of their tribe—with a sort of blanket-capote garment reaching below the knee, their lower limbs swathed in strips of blanket, wound puttee-wise. Battered old felt hats comprised their head-gear, below which escaped two plaited pig-tails of coarse, mane-like, black hair, the latter parted at the nape of the neck and dangling forward down their broad chests.
Slavin and Yorke hailed them familiarly. The elder buck rejoiced in the sonorous title of "Minne-tronk-ske-wan," but divers convictions for insobriety under the Indian Liquor Act, and the facetious tongue of Yorke, had contorted this into the somewhat opprobrious nickname of "Many Drunks." His companion was known as "Sun Dog."
They now proceeded to shake hands all around. "How! Many Drunks!" shouted Yorke. Pointing to Redmond, he added "oweski skemoganish" (new policeman). With a ferocious grin, intended for an ingratiating smile of welcome, Many Drunks advanced upon George, with outstretched hand. In a rapid aside Yorke said: "Listen, Reddy, to what he says, he only knows six or seven words of English, but he's as proud as Punch of 'em—always likes to get 'em off on a stranger. Don't laugh!"
Within a pace of Redmond that gentleman halted. "How!" he grunted, and, pausing impressively drew himself up and tapped his inflated chest, "Minne-tronk-ske-wan! . . . great man!—me—"
And then Redmond nearly choked, as Many Drunks, with intense gravity, proudly conferred upon himself the most objectionable title that exists in four words of the English language—rounding that same off with a majestic "Wah! wah!"
Turning, George beheld himself the target of covert grins from the others, who evidently were familiar with Many Drunks' linguistic attainments. Sun Dog merely uttered "How! Shemoganish." He did not profess ability to rise to the occasion like his companion.
Yorke, who was evidently in one of his reckless, rollicking moods, proceeded to make certain teasing overtures to Many Drunks. His knowledge of Cree being nearly as limited as that worthy's knowledge of English, he enlisted the aid of MacDavid as interpreter. The dialogue that ensued was something as follows:
"Tell him I'm fed up with the Force and am thinking seriously of going to live on the reserve—monial nayanok-a-weget—turn 'squaw-man'—'take the blanket.'"
MacDavid translated swiftly, received the answer, and turned to Yorke.
"He says 'Aie-ha! (yes) You make good squaw-man.'"
"Ask him—if I do—if he'll muskkatonamwat (trade) me the young lady over in the corner there, for two bottles of skutiawpwè (whiskey)."
"He says 'Nemoyah!' (no)—if he does that, you'll turn around and kojipyhôk (arrest) him for having liquor in his possession."
"Tell him—Nemoyah! I won't."
"He says Aie-hat ekwecè! (Yes, all right) you can have her. Says she's his brother's wife's niece. But he says you must give him the two bottles of skutiawpwè first, though."
The object of these frivolous negotiations had meanwhile covered her head with the blanket, from the folds of which issued shrill giggles. Sun Dog, who had been listening intently with hand scooped to ear (he was somewhat deaf), now precipitated himself into the discussion. Violently thrusting his elder companion aside he commenced to harangue MacDavid in an excited voice and with vehement gestures of disapprobation of the whole proceedings. The trader translated swiftly:
"He says Nemoyah!—not to give the bottles to Many Drunks, as when he gets full of skutiawpwè he raises hell on th' reserve, an' there's no livin' with him. Says he beats up his squaw an' starts in to scalp th' dogs an' chickens."
"Shtop ut!" bawled Slavin, "d'ju hear, Yorkey? . . . shtoolin' th' nitchie on tu commit a felony an' th' like, thataways!" He sniffed disgustedly. "Skutiawpwè an' squaws! . . . blarney me sowl! but ye've a quare idea av a josh. 'Tis a credit y'are tu th' Ould Counthry, an' no error. I do not wondher ye left ut."
"Sh-sh!" said that gentleman soothingly, "coarsely put, Burke! coarsely put! . . . Say Wine and Women, guv'nor! Wine and Women! If you were in India, Burke, they'd make you Bazaar-Sergeant—put you in charge of the morals of the regiment. Both items are all right—always providing you don't get a lady like Misthress Lee for a chaser. How'd you like to be in Nick's shoes? What 'shteps' would you take?"
Slavin stared at his tormentor, blankly, a moment. "Shteps?" he ejaculated sharply, "fwhat shteps?" . . . He leant back with a fervent sigh and softly rubbed his huge hands together. "Long wans, avick! . . . eyah, d——d long wans, begorrah!"
Many Drunks now realizing that he was merely the victim of a joke, scowled in turn upon Yorke. Muttering something to MacDavid he backed up against the wall and, squatting down, proceeded philosophically to fill his pipe.
"What's that he said?" queried Yorke of the interpreter, "I couldn't catch it."
The latter grinned. "He says—of all the white men he's ever met in his time, Stamixotokon[1] and my self are the only ones he's ever known to tell th' truth."
"It's my belief the beggar'd flirt with Mrs. Lee, himself, if he only got the chance" said Redmond laconically, "d'you recollect that day he picked her parcel up for her—how nice she was to him?"
"Eyah," said Slavin darkly, "I remimber ut! That man"—he darted an accusing finger at Yorke—"wud thry tu come th' Don Jewan wid anything wid a shkirrt on—from coast to coast. Flirrt? Yeh're tellin' th' trute, bhoy, yeh're tellin' th' trute! He'd a-made a good undhershtudy for ould Nobby Guy, down Regina."
He settled himself comfortably and lit his pipe. "Eyah, th' good ould days, th' good ould days!" he resumed reminiscently, between puffs, "Hark now till I tell ye th' tale av ould Nobby!"
"Is that the man they used to Josh about, down Regina?" enquired Redmond.
"Used to say 'I'm a man of few words'?"
Slavin nodded affirmatively. "That's him, Sarjint in charrge av th' town station he was—years back. This is—whin I was Corp'ril at headquarthers. A foine big roosther av a man was Nobby, wid a mighty pleasant way wid um—'specially wid th' ladies. Wan night—blarney me sowl! Will I iver forghet ut? Nobby 'phones up th' Gyard-room reporthin' th' Iroquois Hotel on fire, an' requestin' th' O.C. for a shquad av men tu help fight ut, an' kape th' crowd back. So down we wint, a bunch av us. It sure was a bad fire all right. No lives was lost, but th' whole shebang was burnt tu th' ground. Kapin' th' crowd back was our hardest job. Du fwhat we cud, we cud not make some av th' silly fules kape back clear av th' danger-zone—wimmin an' all, bedad!
"By and by, a section av the wall tumbles an' quite a bunch av people got badly hurt—Nobby amongst thim. We dhragged thim out as quick as we cud an' laid them forninst th' wall av a buildin' near-by—awaithin' some stretcher-bearers. Nobby'd got his leg bruk, but he seemed chipper enough an' chewed th' rag wid us awhile. Next tu him was a wumman—cryin' something pitiful—she'd got her leg bruk, tu. Nobby rised him up on his elbow an' lukked at her.
"Now, 'tis powerful dhry wurrk, bhoys, fightin' fire, an' may be Nobby—well, I cannot account for ut otherwise—him havin' th' nerve' tu du' fwhat he did—onless p'raps 't'was just th' natch'ril tindher-hearthedness av th' man—thryin' for tu comfort her. Afther that wan luk tho', Nobby he 'comes tu th' halt,' so tu shpake, an' 'marks time' awhile considherin'—for becod, she was a harrd-lukkin ould case—long beyant mark av mouth.
"Presintly, sez he: 'I'm a man av few wurrds!—'tis of then I have kissed a young wumman!'—an' he thwirls th' big buck moustache av um very slow—'fwhy shud I not kiss an ould wan? . . .'—an' he did. . . .
"That's how th' man's throuble shtarted. Brought ut all on umsilf. Course at th' toime, fwhy! she slapped th' face av um an' called um all manner av harrd names—but, all th' same! she must have liked ut, for while they was convalescin' she was everlashtingly sendhin Nobby notes an' flowers an' such like. But for all that Nobby wud have no thruck wid her, for all she was a widder, well fixed—wid a house av her own an' lashuns av money. Whin they was both out av hospital she was afther urn again, an' du fwhat he cud he cud not shake that wumman.
"Th' ind av ut was, Nobby reports sick, an' th' reg'minthal docthor, ould 'Knockemorf' Probyn, gives um th' wance over. He luks over some papers an' sez he: 'A change an' a rist is fwhat yu' need, Sarjint Guy. There's a dhraft leavin' next week for Herschell Island[2]—I think I will mark yu up fur ut.'
"'Herschell Island?' sez pore Nobby, an' wid that he let's out a howl.
"'Tut, tut!' sez ould Knockemorf, who was wise tu th' man's throuble.
'Tis safer off there'll yu'll be, man, than here, I'm thinkin'.'
"He was shtandin' by th' Gyard-room gate that day-week whin th' dhraft marched out on their way tu enthrain—Nobby amongst thim. 'Good-bye, Docthor!' he calls out, tears in th' eyes av um, ''Tis sendhin me tu me grave y'are, God forgive yez!'
"'Nonsince!' shouts Knockemorf. 'Say yeh prayers an' kape yeh bowils opin, me man, an' ye will take no harrm!'
"Some sind-off! well!—time wint on, an' wan day I gets a letther from me ould friend, Ginger Johnson, who was stationed there tu, tellin' me all th' news. Nobby, sez he, was doin' fine, fat as a hog, an' happy as a coon in a melun patch. Wan day, sez he, a buck av th' name av Wampy Jones comes a runnin' inta th' Post, wid th' face av a ghost an' th' hair av um shtickin shtraight up. Said a Polar bear'd popped out forninst a hummock an' chased um—like tu th' tale av Morley, here. Nobby, sez Johnson, on'y grins at th' man, an' sez he: 'That's nothin'!' An' thin he shtarts in tellin' thim all 'bout this widder at Regina."
[1] Note by Author—The late Colonel Macleod, who for many years was Commissioner of the R.N.W.M. Police. He was greatly respected and trusted by all the Indian tribes.
[2] Note by Author—This island is in the Arctic Circle. The most northerly post of the R.N.W.M. Police.