That practically was the finish of the thing. There was, of course, a trial, at which Hicks and Bevans were convicted out of hand and duly sentenced to be hung—a sentence that was carried out with neatness and despatch in the near future. Also, I did manage, in the fullness of time, to deliver La Pere's ten thousand dollars without further gun-play.
Colonel Allen knew a good man when he saw one—he was not long in demonstrating that fact. When everything was straightened out, MacRae—urged thereto by Lyn—made a straightforward request for honorable discharge But he did not get it. Instead, the gray-haired Commissioner calmly offered him promotion to an Inspectorship, which is equivalent to the rank of a captain, and carries pay of two thousand a year. And MacRae, of course, accepted.
The day he cast off the old red jacket of the rank and file and put on the black uniform with braid looped back and forth across the front of it, and gold hieroglyphics on the collar, Piegan Smith and I stood up with him and Lyn and helped them get fitted to double harness. Not that there was any lack of other folk; indeed, it seemed to me that the official contingent of Fort Walsh had turned out en masse to attend the ceremony. But Piegan and I were the star guests.
Ah, well, we can't always be young and full of the pure joy of living. One must grow old. And inevitably one looks back with a pang, and sighs for the vanished days. But Time keeps his scythe a-swinging, and we go out—like a snuffed candle. We lived, though, we who frolicked along the forty-ninth parallel when Civilization stood afar and viewed the scene askance; but she came down upon us and took possession fast enough when that wild land was partly tamed, and now few are left of those who knew and loved the old West, its perils, its hardships, its bigness of heart and readiness of hand. Such of us as remain are like the buffalo penned in national parks—a sorry remnant of the days that were.