CHAPTER XI
One of the Blackguard's endearing traits had always been his generosity—boundless in that when he had nothing of his own to give he lent and gave things that were not his own, causing thereby much internecine strife. The only time he had ever been known to be worsted in fair fight was after lending to an intending deserter the shot-gun which he had borrowed from Buckeye Blossom, heavy-weight champion of Medicine Hat. But now he had got religion, and had fought two pitched battles for the right to read his Bible. Not that the boys cared much what was his choice of literature, it being all the same to the crowd whether he amused himself with the Bible, or a dictionary, or the New York Police Gazette, provided that he kept it to himself; but the Blackguard, for want of practice in the art, found it convenient to read like a schoolboy, aloud. Hence the pitched battles, which resulted in undisturbed readings from the Gospels, mingled with a running commentary, so naive, so quaint, and so exceedingly funny, that the audience waxed daily in numbers, until, for peace and quiet, the reader betook himself to the shelter of the woods. Here he read daily, expounding the Scriptures to an audience of disdainful squirrels and song-birds.
But to return to the matter of his generosity.
The immediate outcome of his queer religion was that the Blackguard became more avaricious than Shylock. When his chum, Dandy Irvine, sent him that box of cigars from Windermere, instead of giving them all away to his friends, he sold them two for a shilling. Some brought cash, with which, and a little credit, he bought a further supply; but for the most part the boys accepted the trading as a joke, running up accounts which they imagined to be purely fictitious. Then pay-day came, when the Blackguard was able for the first time to partially release his left arm, when, also for the first time, he had staff-pay not hypothecated by any previous fine. After the parade he went to all his debtors.
"Little Murphy, you owe me one dollar for cigars."
"Oh, come off," said little Murphy innocently. "What game do you think you're playing at?"
"Pay or fight," said the Blackguard.
Murphy paid, also all the others, big and little, when the Blackguard went about smiling grimly upon his customers. But if he was ruthless in exacting cash or black eyes, La Mancha was punctilious as to the payment of his own debts—in cigars. He became wholesale dealer to the sergeants' mess and the canteen, imported pipes, dealt in shot-guns, ornamental revolvers, books, and musical instruments. His mouth organs, tin whistles, and concertinas became a far worse nuisance in the valley than ever the Indians had been, but even these had comparatively little to say compared with La Mancha's pigs. Possibly the story of Daniel led to the cornet, concertina, Jews' harp, mouth organ, penny whistle, oboe, and all kinds of music; by La Mancha's own confession, the matter of the Gadarene swine suggested a litter of pigs, bought cheap from a rancher, raised on the cook's hitherto misapplied slops, and ultimately sold at a handsome profit to the Quartermaster. All this was a matter of time, but under enormous disadvantages, despite the delay and inconvenience caused by almost incessant travelling on duty, the Blackguard was reputed long before autumn to be the richest man in D Troop.
But to return to a much earlier date. When the Tenderfoot's luggage was brought over from Windermere, Dandy Irvine, who was then at headquarters, volunteered its safe delivery at the Throne Mine in consideration of leave for hunting between Saturday and Monday. It was then that the Blackguard wrote his first letter to Miss Violet Burrows. Letter-writing in camp is always a serious matter, because the needful materials must be borrowed or improvised. When a recruit first joins, he is apt to write mainly to frighten his mother with the assumption of mythical surroundings borrowed from inexpensive fiction, thus:—
"DEAR MOTHER,—
"I write in the saddle, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by hostile Indians, a sword in one hand and a revolver in the other." [Then the young imagination flags.] "There is no news, but please write soon,—and send some money, as washing is awfully expensive.
"YOUR LOVING SON."
But a hardened sinner like the Blackguard writes seldom or never, finding the pen awkward after shovel, axe, and gun; so the epistle to Miss Burrows, of course a strictly private communication, was delivered painfully, tongue in cheek, head askew, with a perhaps too copious discharge of ink.
Miss Violet read it with such a disdainful tilt of her little pert nose that the blotted characters were well-nigh out of range. She was sitting during the Sunday rest at the cliff edge, with Dandy Irvine on one side and Mr. Ramsay, jealously observant, on the other. "Humph," she looked sideways at the glowing scarlet of Dandy's serge jacket, then at his shining boots and glittering spurs, "he came up here," she said, "in an undershirt and one of those flappy hats. Besides, he was all dusty."
"But then, you see," explained the Blackguard's champion, "he can afford to please himself as to appearances. If I were a great aristocrat I might do the same."
"A great what?"
"Don't you know? His brother is a Duke, Ambassador from Spain to the Court of St. James'; La Mancha's cousins are mostly emperors, kings, and grand dukes; the Cid was one of his ancestors, not to mention Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. Of course, he's only a Don, which means 'My lord,' but"—
"There," cried Miss Violet. "Oh, won't I give my Uncle beans—I'll teach him!"
"You must not neglect your filial duties, Miss Burrows; you must bring him up in the way he should go; it's your duty."
"Tell me some more."
"I will. Who let him leave the mountain before his arm was properly set? When he got back to camp he just managed to report to the Orderly Sergeant, then rolled off his horse in a dead swoon. You ought to have kept him here for a month."
Miss Burrows turned upon the Tenderfoot in withering scorn. "Your fault entirely!"
After that the Tenderfoot sulked.
"Tell me some more," said the lady.
"Well, two years ago, when we had our first scrapping match with the half-breeds, we got an awful thrashing. You've heard of Duck Lake Fight?"
"Sit up and listen." Miss Violet brought the Tenderfoot to attention with a very small pebble, which missed. "Oh, this is awfully jolly,—do go on!"
"There were ninety-four of us, police and civilians, caught in a trap by three hundred and sixty rebels. They were all round us under cover in a sort of horseshoe position, with a detachment stealing quietly through the bush to cut off our rear. We police unharnessed, drew up the sleighs in line by way of shelter, with one seven-pounder on the right, all in a mortal funk. Joe McKay, our half-breed interpreter, rode forward with Crozier to meet an Indian who came out with a white rag to talk. We thought they would argue all day, but suddenly the Indian made a grab at McKay's rifle; and Joe drew his revolver and riddled him. Then Crozier gave the order to fire, but Joe Howe, in charge of the gun, yelled out, 'You're right in our way, sir!'
"'Never mind me!' said Crozier. Then the rifles began to crackle on both sides, and our thirty-five civilians were detached off up a lane on the right. One of the police boys was sent to recall them, because the snow was waist-deep when once they got off the trail. The way was a sort of lane, with a fence on the left, bush on the right shutting off all view of the main crowd, and a log-house at the end full of loop-holes pouring out a most awful fire. You see, the half-breeds had filled that little house with all their crack marksmen, while our boys had nothing to aim at but logs and smoke. Men were falling thick, the snow was too deep for a charge, and there was no particular use for getting to that house anyway. At last, what was left of the party fell back, fighting hard, leaving their dead in the snow. But one of them wasn't dead, only wounded, and that was the policeman who had followed the civilians out of shelter. He saw the half-breeds swarming down from the cabin, Indians swinging their clubbed rifles to make sure of those who were down by cracking skulls. I guess that policeman was too far gone to care; he watched them lazily through a sort of haze, forgetting all about the full revolver slung on his belt. Of course, there were no white men left in sight, but Indians and half-breeds were swarming out from cover as our whole outfit, police and civilian, harnessed their teams for the retreat. But one of the police remembered having seen his own chum go out after the fools' charge of civilians, and never come back. Any other man would have tried his best to forget, but this chap broke away through the bush, waded in deep snow to where his chum lay among the dead, fired a few revolver shots to keep back the Indians, slung the wounded man over his shoulder, and brought him back to the main road just as the last sleigh was passing under cover of the rear-guard."
"What a hero!" cried the Tenderfoot. "Yes; that was the Blackguard, and the wounded man was me."
"Charlie," said Miss Violet after that interview, "why are you only a Tenderfoot?"
"You're always flinging that in my face. How can I help it?"
"Don't be cross. A Romeo by any other name would—. No, a quotation is worse than a rat-trap. But there is something wrong with you; I know there is. You don't wear pretty clothes like Mr. Irvine, you don't write me beautiful blotty love-letters like the Blackguard."
"How can"—
"Now, there you are again, flying at me like a sitting hen when I poke too hard. I took you to worship me on approval—you don't suit—you're too horrid; I shall give you a month's notice—so there! Now, as to giving you a 'character.' Of course, I don't want to be hard—so you be very good this month and—I'll see about it."