“All lightee now, Miss Hilda. Chum Lee flix ’im fine. Slut ’im. Bang ’im. Slut ’im up till Mr. Cheerio come. Big fight!” Chum Lee’s eyes gleamed. “All same Holy Smoke bad man. Take ’im gun. Banfi! Sloot Mr. Cheerio. Velly good, now lide on lail.”
Hilda understood only that Holy Smoke had shot Cheerio.
She clutched the Chinaman’s arm, and forced herself to her feet. Pushing Chum Lee aside, Hilda made her way from the saddle shed, where they had laid her.
Outside, the sharp cold air of the Fall morning was like a dash of bitter water and brought its revivifying effect. Hilda turned in the direction of the voice she now heard clearly, for sound carries far in a country like Alberta, and although Hilda could clearly hear the voices of the men, they were in fact more than a mile from the ranch. She was obsessed with the idea that Cheerio had been killed and that her men had taken his murderer into the woods and were hanging him. Oh! she wanted a hand in that hanging. Everything primitive and wild in her nature surged now into being, as she made her way blindly down that incredibly long hill and ran stumblingly through the pasture lands to where the group of men were about some strange object that was tied and bound half sitting on a rail. Then Hilda understood, and waves of unholy joy swept over her in a flood. They were tarring and feathering Holy Smoke!
Above the deafening roar of the cheering shouting voices, presently rose the clear call of the one she knew. No fluttering, stammering tongue now. The voice of a captain, a leader among men:
“One, two, three! In she goes!”
The rail was swung back and forth, and at that “Three,” with a roar from twenty or thirty throats, it was released from the hands gripping it at either end and plunged into the muddy water of the shallow slough. It described a somersault. Head downward went the man they had tarred and feathered. The rail jerked over, and the head of Holy Smoke arose out of the water, a grotesque paste of mud and tar covering it completely. Loud shouts of glee arose from the men. They jeered and yelled to the struggling wretch in the water.
From the direction of the ranch, came the sound of the loud clanking breakfast bell of Chum Lee. In high good humour, with appetites whetted and vengeance satisfied, the men of O Bar O retraced their steps toward the ranch, prepared for that hearty breakfast which should stiffen them against the invigorating work of at last rounding up.
Cheerio alone remained by the slough, and Hilda, watching him from the little clump of bush, witnessed a strange and merciful act on his part; the sort of thing a man of Cheerio’s type was accustomed to do at the front, when an enemy, hors de combat, needed final succour. Cheerio thrust two long logs into the mud of the slough, very much as he had done when he had rescued the heifer in the woods. Now also he went out across the logs and cut the ropes that bound the man to the rail. Holy Smoke grasped after the logs, clung to them desperately, and Cheerio gave his stiff order to him to get off the place as expeditiously as possible if he valued his hide.
Having set the man free, Cheerio returned to the bank, stopped to clean the mud off his boots with a handy stick and then moved to follow after the men, now at a considerable distance.