CHAPTER IV
An hour later, when the sun was high in the heavens, Mr. Ramsay, attended by a "common soldier," set out in state westward for the Selkirk Mountains. The Englishman's feelings were mixed, firstly with admiration for the common soldier's ease in the saddle, for his coal-black charger, standing sixteen hands, clumsy as a dray-horse, the one weight-carrying animal in D Division, for the belt weighed down at one side with a ponderous service revolver, and glittering all across his back with twenty cartridges of burnished brass like a serpent of golden fire. His second feeling was pride at being sent out with such an escort, for the Blackguard on horseback was magnificent. His third feeling was poignant humiliation over what had passed when, in presence of a dozen grinning troopers, he had tried to mount the gentle brown mare at the lines.
"If you will mount on the off side," was La Mancha's stinging comment, "she'll kick off your head to begin with."
Then somebody had made a remark about his riding-breeches, which came from the most expensive tailor in London. "Why, you idiot, they're for swimming. Don't you see the baggy parts blow like footballs to keep the duffer afloat?" He had not caught some further remarks about his leggings, but a chill went up his back at the thought of it. All across the continent he had looked in vain for such baggy riding-breeches, such leather leggings, such loud-checked tweed as his tailor had insisted upon in Conduit Street. Such things were not worn in Canada.
But now, away from the atmosphere of that camp, in which he had scarcely dared to breathe, away from the troopers who had looked upon him as a sort of penny toy, and the officers who had failed to see how much he needed rest after yesterday's ride, Mr. Ramsay felt that he must shake off his diffidence.
They had reached the river, and, as the Blackguard slacked rein in mid-stream to let the big horse drink, Mr. Ramsay did the same, not observing that he had halted his animal so far forward that the water went down muddy and foul for the other. The Blackguard favoured him with a glance of some virulence, and went on a little. On the far bank there was more humiliation—dismounting to recinch the saddles after the western custom, the shortening of his own stirrup leathers, then the mounting, this time a little better done.
"Blackguard," said Mr. Ramsay, meaning to be distantly affable, as became their social relations; but the soldier looked round to favour him with a prolonged stare. Then, drawing a deep breath—
"If you want to call me, don't trouble to speak, just whistle—so"—
At the whistle a dog came leaping out from some bushes by the river. "Why, it's Powder! Come along, then, dear old chap!"
So for some time, while they paced slowly over the meadows and climbed the high bench beyond, the common soldier and the dog made perfect company, while the Tenderfoot rode behind full of bitterness.
"My good man," he said at last, irritably, drawing abreast, "the day before yesterday I left Windermere on horseback—I'd never been on the back of a horse in all my life."
"So I see;" said the Blackguard, glancing over the other with scorching criticism.
"I was frightened to death, but whatever you think of me I can keep my cowardice to myself."
"So I observe. Sure sign of a thoroughbred!" said the Blackguard gravely. "Now, if you pick up Powder by the tail, he won't let out a whimper."
Mr. Ramsay looked at the animal, which was piebald red and white like a cow, exhibited in its person symptoms of about eighteen different kinds of dog, and had not the slightest vestige of a tail, not even a bud. The Tenderfoot tried to be freezingly polite.
"Fit for the Dogs' Home, I should think."
"No," said the Blackguard, "he's very rare—thoroughbred of his kind—the only known specimen. He's getting sick of this expedition already. Go you home, Powder!"
Powder, assuming an expression of disdain, hopped off languidly on three legs.
"He's official dog to D Troop," explained the Blackguard; "draws his rations out of the hindquarters of every civilian dog within ten miles."
Mr. Ramsay took a case from his pocket, and with much gravity and puppyish affectation drew out a cigar, which, with vigorous balancing in the saddle, he managed to light, throwing the flaming match beside the trail.
The Blackguard, greatly amused, pulled up, dismounted, quenched an incipient fire with his foot, then, swinging easily into the saddle, remarked upon certain penalties for setting the country alight.
Mr. Ramsay maintained a scornful silence. Neither this, nor the distant affability, nor the freezing politeness had been quite a success, but there was still a trace of condescension in his voice when he remarked experimentally upon the shot-gun slung in place of a carbine on the horn of La Mancha's saddle.
"Ah, my good fellow, what kind of shooting do you expect?"
"Side-hill hens," the Blackguard waxed serious.
"What are they? We have none at home."
"Oh, in this mountain country the prairie chickens have one leg shorter than the other, so that they can graze along the slopes."
"But then, they could only go one way! It sounds like nonsense."
"Quite true, though; they keep to the right. I'll show you their notice-boards presently. Then higher up we may get a few chiffons, or a brace of fichus."
"I never heard of your local game. Very inferior sport, I should suppose."
"Yes. The chiffon is only a four-legged bird—grows fur and teeth."
"Of course, you mean it's an animal?"
"No—plain bird. And the fichu is more curious still. We only get hen birds now, because the cock birds are all extinct."
"Aw—nonsense! How could they breed?"
"They don't," said the Blackguard sorrowfully.
By this time Mr. Ramsay was full of misgivings, but gaining the top of the bench-land, the Blackguard led off at a trot which soon shook not only misgivings out of the Tenderfoot, but also several vital organs, and even one or two distinctly profane remarks when he lost the cigar. He was so sore after yesterday's travelling that every jerk spelt agony, and nothing but courage withheld him from crying aloud.
"Sore tail, eh?" said La Mancha at last, and, loosing rein, let his horse break into a fresh pace, the delightfully easy canter known in the west as a "lope." "Is that better?"
"Haw! I could keep this up all day. You need not consider me."
So they went on across the gently rolling grass land, past many a graceful thorp of pines and bluff of tremulous aspen, through meadow lands ablaze with big yellow daisies and swaying acres bright with golden rod. The air was rich with perfume from the woods, where unseen birds rang out ecstatic songs; canaries flaunted their gorgeous hues from branch to branch, and humming-birds whirring each like an emerald in his mist of wings over the blossoms of rich scented briar. Great gardens of wild roses mile by mile, steeped with intoxicating perfume, then cedars towering out of the dreamy heat, then of a sudden they entered a green twilight of forest, cool, still, mysterious, like some ghostly sea where coral red along the misty aisles great trees went up into a cloud of leaves. So the Blackguard drew rein as though it were irreverent to canter into church, and mile after mile the trail went upward into the shadow, steeper and steeper as they neared the hills.
Suddenly the green gloaming parted ahead, framing the blue haze of an abrupt mountain; then, as though out of some submarine cavern, the riders came into an open glade at the very base of the Selkirk range, where the afternoon sun half-blinded them. On either hand steep wooded heights shot up into mid-sky—between them a winding meadow barred just ahead with a great snake fence, save where there came forth a rumbling stream, milk-white because it had sprung full-grown from the mills of the gods—from the far-away glacier of the Throne.
The Blackguard let out a long "halloo," answered at once by a rifle shot; and the Tenderfoot was just in time to see a whiff of blue smoke against the big snake fence.
"Two cowboys in camp," explained the Blackguard as they rode forward; "they've made the fence to corrall old General Buster's bulls."
"Aw—a pretty rough lot, I suppose."
"Be civil, or they'll eat you," the Blackguard grinned; "they always shoot at sight unless you halloo their password. That's why I yelped. They're cannibals too. Have you much money on you? Well, it's too late to save it now—so hope for the best."
Thus prejudiced against the cowboys, Mr. Ramsay found their appearance displeasing. Both men wore blue shirts with large pearl buttons arranged in a shield pattern on the breast, and heavy leather "chaparejos" leggings, suspended from a revolver belt; one pair with leather fringes all down the outer seam, the other completely faced with the hairy black bearskin. Black Bear was a swarthy Mexican, ominously scowling, and adorned with large gold earrings; Leather, who answered to the uncouth name Arrapahoe Bill, was a lengthy hard fair sinner, whose tawny hair curled down well over his neck.
"Ho-la, the blackguard!" was Black Bear's greeting, followed by a torrent in guttural Spanish, while the horses were being rapidly unsaddled and turned loose to graze within the fence. As to Arrapahoe Bill, one glance at the Tenderfoot's baggy breeches reduced him to ominous silence.
"Well, Bill—how's tricks?" said the Blackguard afterwards, lying at ease before the tent, while he watched the Mexican's cookery of coffee and venison.
"Tricks?" growled Arrapahoe Bill, pointing at Mr. Ramsay,—"where did you get that?"
"Oh, let me introduce you,—this is Mr. Ramsay from—Clapham Junction."
"How do?" said the cowboy stiffly.
"Come, Bill," the Blackguard seemed amused, "a cheerful specimen you are, you confounded old grizzly. Wake up and be civil."
"Mistah Ramsay from Clapham Junction," said the cowboy with difficulty, as though his tongue was stiff, "there ain't no civility whar I come from, but white men are always welcome, sah, among gentlemen."
"I am not, as you suppose, from Clapham Junction," said the Tenderfoot, thinking thus to mitigate the situation, "but—thanks all the same," he added lamely.
"Mistah Ramsay," continued the Blackguard, with a malicious grin, "is an English capitalist going up to see the Throne Mine."
"Huh!" the Mexican chuckled with a snarling laugh, "the outfit of the Throne Mine is gone loco."
"That means," explained La Mancha, "that the people at the Throne are lunatics."
"Really?"
"All yesterday they fire off guns—they have a fiesta. Then followed another torrent of guttural Spanish.
"A birthday party," explained La Mancha. "'Ware petticoats! It seems that they've got a woman up there—the Burrows girl, they call her; arrived since I was this way before."
"Perhaps," suggested the Tenderfoot stiffly, "Mr. Burrows has a niece or a daughter."
"Anyway, she's a good-looking piece, by all accounts. Wish I'd been up there for the birthday,—I like girls."
"Come, Mr. Tenderfoot." Arrapahoe Bill was cleaning his sheath knife by stabbing it into the earth. "Soldier, the kettle's a-boil. Sling in that coffee."
The soldier slung coffee and sugar into the camp kettle, let it boil a minute, then served the scalding stuff into four tin cups. Meanwhile Black Bear was busy filling four tin plates with a stew of reindeer. So the meal commenced, for three ravenous frontiersmen and one doubtful Britisher who had never before tasted venison, nor knew what manner of beast had furnished it.
"More girl deer," said the Black Bear in his dubious English.
"More what?" The Tenderfoot cast a glance of extreme suspicion at the stew.
"Dear girl, he means," explained the Blackguard,—"dear little Indian girl shot yesterday."
The Englishman, ghastly white, got up, clutching his breast with both hands, and walked away with great dignity into the woods.
"'Ware rattlesnakes!" shouted Arrapahoe Bill, with a grim chuckle; and then, knowing that the victim of this awful jest was beyond all fear of snakes, the three men laughed. Yet even while the Blackguard relished the flavour of the joke came its bitter aftertaste, which froze the grin on his face and made him follow Mr. Ramsay.
"Look here," he said, coming to where his charge leaned shaking against a tree, "don't be a fool! That dish, my Emerald, was venison, the meat of the cariboo, of the reindeer. You know what venison is?"
The Englishman turned slowly, looking over his shoulder with a glance of scorn and rage. "I know what you are," he said in a low even voice,—"I know what you are now."
"A blackguard, yes, I know. And yet—and yet—you needn't make such a fuss about it."
The Englishman turned full upon him, quite quiet, though the sweat stood upon his forehead in white drops. "I am a Tenderfoot—you laugh at me—think I'm afraid of you. I don't know your ways here, but I've read of them in books. There is one thing in common between us two. Will you fight?"
"No,—you're too small."
"I don't mean with fists. Go and borrow for me a revolver from those friends of yours—you have your own."
"You're a brave man," said the Blackguard, bantering, "but you see, my dear fellow, I can't fight, because my business is to keep you out of mischief."
"You needn't try to shuffle out of it now—fetch that revolver."
"Little stranger, I am a dead shot, I have killed men—worse luck—before now; while you never fired a gun in all your life."
"I choose your own weapons, you coward!"
"Little man, over all this country, from sea to sea, there's a flag"—the Blackguard took off his hat—"which does not allow any nonsense. We're not in the United States just now. I beg your pardon, I, Don José Santa Maria Sebastian Iago las Morẽnas de la Mancha, otherwise known as the Blackguard, beg your pardon. Come, don't be a silly ass!"
It was not what La Mancha said, nor the grace with which he spoke, the certain scornful simplicity as of a great aristocrat, which moved the Englishman. Rather it was the wonderful tender light in the man's eyes.
Ramsay's hand went out instinctively, and the two men were friends.