CHAPTER I
"Think of your sins,
What made you a soldier a-serving the Queen:
God save the Queen,
And God save the duffer who thinks of to-morrow.
God save the man who remembers his sorrow,
God save the man who can think of the past,
Sundown at last:
Here's rest for the past, and here's hope for the morrow!"
That is exactly what the bugle said to a man who was sitting on the edge of the bench-land in the evening calm. He was a very big man, dressed in a grey woollen undershirt, worn-out riding-breeches with a two-inch yellow stripe down the legs, and jack-boots. By his side lay a broad grey slouch-hat, such as cowboys wear; on his knees a bath-towel—dry; and in his neighbourhood lingered a faint aroma of stables. The man's bare arms were like the thighs of an average sinner, his shoulders, thighs, breast, neck, all of gigantic strength and beauty, a sight that would have appealed to any athlete as beyond the loveliness of women.
The setting sun just touched his wavy, crisp, black hair with a lustre of metal. Again, his face, still, strong, silent, had an odd suggestiveness of a bronze statue, that of something Greek but uncanny, a faun, perhaps, or a satyr. The hair, sweeping low over his brows, might almost conceal incipient horns; his ears might have been tufted; his features defying all the rules—stuck on anyhow; the subtle devilry of his deep black eyes, the ugly fascination, the whimsical dignity; the bearing lofty, defiant, almost magnificent; and again, an air, indefinite enough, of sorrowful majesty;—how well everything about the man fitted one name—the Blackguard.
That was La Mancha's name, by consent of the five troops of the Mounted Police; and somehow the common use of it conveyed no sense of reproach but rather of endearment. From the Commissioner down to the smallest recruit the whole five hundred were half-afraid of him, except one man; yet no civilian ventured to speak ill of the Blackguard, or he would have had his head punched. To say bad things about the Blackguard was to slight the Force.
And the one man who did not fear this latter-day satyr, who ruled him as mind rules matter, was a certain little Corporal, who, with a neat briar pipe well alight, was picking his dainty way over the gravel—coming down from the camp in the evening calm. This was Corporal Dandy Irvine, with a sunburnt face, a neatly-pointed moustache, the buttons of his scarlet jacket glowing like gold in the light, whose clothes always fitted, whose forage-cap was correctly poised on three hairs, whose boots and spurs were always brilliantly polished. And now he just touched the Blackguard to show that he was present, and sat down beside him without any remarks whatever. So, for five minutes, the two looked gravely out over the valley like Dignity and Impudence, both too lazy to speak.
They were looking across the Kootenay Valley—the upper Kootenay, from a tongue of the bench-land made by the deep gulch of Wild Horse Creek where it came down from the mountains. At their backs rose the huge timbered foothills of the Rocky Mountains; opposite, across the vast Kootenay trench, rose the still mightier foothills of the Selkirks, and high above the deepening purple of the forests soared the clear cool azure of the snows up into the silence of those sharp-cut Alps, reaching away forever and forever to north and south against the roseate translucent afterglow. Down yonder the river wandered crimson through misty prairies, where the trees stood in clusters pointing up, as the sentinel stars came one by one on guard.
"Dandy," said the Blackguard, without stirring, "lend me five dollars."
Without comment the little Corporal took from his breast-pocket a slender roll of notes, one of which he surrendered.
"Five dollars." The Blackguard took the crisp paper, spreading it out upon his knee. "I was wondering whether there was anybody in the world who cared five dollars for me. Here, take it back—I don't want it."
"Stick to it, Blackguard,—stick to it. You've been fined a month's pay every month since last December; and I guess you'll keep up the motion every month till your time's out—stick to it."
"I'll keep up the motion," said the Blackguard vindictively. "I'll get drunk to-night. They fine me because they can't spare me off duty, and because they've jolly well proved that there isn't a guard-house in the Territories strong enough to hold me over night."
The Corporal chuckled. "How about number five cell at Regina?"
"Number five cell be ——. It was nine months last time."
"Look here, La Mancha. That nine months sticks in my gizzard. I ought to have been punished, not you."
"Take off your serge!" By taking off the serge jacket which bore his double chevron as corporal, Dandy could surrender the protection given by his rank, and become a plain trooper like the Blackguard. The summons was a challenge to fight.
"I'll keep on my serge," said Dandy; "you're too big, Blackguard."
"Then don't talk rot about number five cell. Here's Pup La Mancha, my brother, deserting, and you and me and that fool Pocock overtaking him at Lane's stopping-place. Suppose you let him go, Shifty Lane reports you at headquarters. Suppose you don't let him go, you get my brother, the Pup, a year in the cells. Suppose I let him escape and take his place, I get nine months. After all, what's nine months? I shall be blazing drunk to-night, and maybe get it again!"
"Why can't you behave yourself?"
"Why should I, Dandy? Now you've got a mother, Dandy, who gets a letter from you every week.
"'Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on.'
She's the kindly light, I suppose, but mine went out. And you've got a girl, Dandy, who believes you're a brass saint with a tin halo, which you're not, and who loves you except when she happens to love some other Johnny, which is all the same thing. I've been in love, too, with heaps of girls, two or three at a time generally, hating each other like so many Antipopes. I have a photograph-album—you've seen it in my kit-bag—of all the girls I ever really loved, except a small collection which got burnt up in a hotel fire. I tried to be good, more or less, for each of them, except when they liked me bad; and even now I could be tolerably straight, with an occasional holiday to let off steam, if I had somebody who cared."
"I care," said Dandy moodily.
"Oh, you don't count. You're only a whiff, a spit, and a damn like a Russian cigarette."
"But you have people—your family."
"Yes, I've got a brother in London, an awful snob,—also a sister."
"La Mancha, I saw the name in some paper—the Duke of—Duke of Something—Spanish Ambassador to the Court of St. James'—but, Blackguard!"—
"Well?"
"Is that your"—
"Yes, that's the Snob."
"But from what I saw he must be an awful bad lot."
The Blackguard's eyes flashed ominously. "Drop that. If you talk bad about my people I'll have to chuck you into the river. Then you'll get wet."
"And you'll be sorry. Are all your people such swells?"
For answer the Blackguard drew from beneath his undershirt a crucifix which hung from a slender chain of gold about his neck. "That's from one of my relations,"—he kissed it reverently,—"Isabella—God bless her—of Spain."
"Why, Blackguard, are you of the Blood-Royal—a prince?"
"Not quite that,—I suppose in English I should be Lord So-and-so. Regimental Number 1107, Constable La Mancha, my lord—ahem—you are charged with having, on the night of the 18th instant, been drunk, and assaulted the guard; also with having, on the night of the same instant, set the guard-room on fire; also with having, on the same night, et cetera.— Sounds well,—eh, Dandy?"
The Corporal laughed. "We've been together four years now, and this is the first time you told me a word about yourself. We have lots of gentlemen in the ranks—I suppose I'm a gentleman myself if it comes to that, but"—
"A fat lot of use it is, eh?"
"That's so. What were you doing all those years in England?"
"Military attaché at the Legation until I had my last big row with the Snob. You see, I met a woman at a Foreign Office reception—a regular cat—and found her out for a she-spy in the secret service of—let's say Russia. When the Snob took to fooling around after her, I warned him; but he only thought I was jealous, and called me names. So we had a row, and I gave him a black eye, Eton style. Then I had to give him another to make it even. After that, of course, all was over between us. I took some keys off him, plundered the safe, told him what train I should catch, the name of the steamer—gave him every chance if he wanted a public scandal. He didn't want a scandal—might have cost him his job, so now he's the Ambassador and I'm the Blackguard. That's all."
"Poor devil!"
"Yes, poor devil," yawned the Blackguard cheerfully, as he stood up to stretch himself. "Anything fresh?"
"Nothing much." The Corporal was brushing some dead grass from his breeches. "There's a civilian at the officers' mess, came from Golden City by the 'Duchess' and rode over from Windermere. He's bound for the Throne Mine."
The Blackguard looked across the valley and saw one glimmering light far up on the mountains—the light of the Throne Mine.
"Well," he said, "I'm off to the canteen."
"Don't be a fool! Come and play poker in my tent."
"What's the use?" The Blackguard laid his hand on Dandy's shoulder. "You're a good fellow. I know jolly well what you mean, but I've got a devil—Good-night—and an appointment with Mother Darkie."
Then the Corporal turned sorrowfully away.