Here, during the next few months, he became acquainted with various members of the scattered posts of the Royal North West Mounted Police. Craving companionship, and with the recollections of his late military experiences still fresh within him, he joined that Force, and after passing through the inevitable curriculum of their headquarters at Regina, he was eventually transferred to L Division.
Several notable stock-stealing cases, in which his fearless ability and previous range experience enabled him to obtain long term convictions on the offenders, soon brought him under the favorable notice of his superiors, who recognized his worth in this particular line, and in a little less than four years he was promoted to the rank in which we find him in the beginning of this story.
CHAPTER VI
“Whoo-oh!—Steady!... Let’s git me cigarette lit!
Oh, a cow-puncher’s curse on that frizzling sun!
There!... Whoop!... Go to her, goldarn it!
Yu’ dirty, mean, locoed old son of a gun!”
—Bronco-Buster’s Chorus
Morning came, and with it a visit from one Gallagher, a middle-aged bachelor, his nearest neighbor, whose ranch lay about a mile distant. The Sergeant, seated outside the door, in the sun, smoking an after-breakfast pipe, greeted the newcomer civilly as he lowered himself stiffly out of the saddle, and waited for the other to divulge his business.
Nature had not been kind to Mr. Gallagher in regard to his physiognomy, and Ellis, whenever he contemplated that homely visage, from certain canine peculiarities therein, always mentally labeled him “Old Dog-face.” It was an ugly, repellant countenance in a way, but the eyes were those of an honest man, and the thick lips expressed a species of genial humor.
Meeting each other casually at the usual weekly mail gatherings, Benton was always conscious of a kind of surly friendliness on Gallagher’s part, that showed up in marked contrast to the silent, mistrustful antipathy, with which many of those present generally regarded him; which attitude, be it remarked, worried the Sergeant but little. The rancher broached the subject of his visit with little preamble.
“Old man Tucker, from Fish Creek, was over wantin’ to see yu’ yesterday, Sargint. Didn’t find yu’ in, so he come around to my place before he went back.”
“Oh,” said Ellis absently, and with a slight trace of weary irritation in his tones; “what’s bitin’ that old fool now—was he full?”
It was curiously noticeable that, when back amidst the habitues and surroundings of his former life and calling, how naturally he reverted to the terse, ungrammatical speech of the range.