I don't like to think of what happened next, because I reckon that if I wash my outside I ought likewise to keep my inside clean and tidy with nice thoughts. Getting our horses, Curly and I rode back to Robbers' Roost, pulling up at the edge of the clearing just as the new moon lifted above the pines. The stench of death, black ruins, white ashes, dark patches where blood had dried upon the dust, everywhere broken corpses—coyotes creeping to cover, eagles flapping heavily away—my soul felt small and humble in that place. Black it was and silver under the moon, with something moving slow from corpse to corpse in search—a live man counting the dead. Something in the way he moved reminded me I must have known that man, but the little partner called to him all at once—
"Jim!" Her voice went low and clear across the silence. "Jim!"
CHAPTER XXVII
A SECOND-HAND ANGEL
Scouting cautious, and shying wide of settlements except when we had to buy chuck, I herded my youngsters up the long trail north. We took no count of the distance, we lost all tab of dates, but camped where game was plenty, pushed on when the sun was shining, holed up when the wind was too cold, and mostly lived by hunting. So we rode the winter through and came to the spring beyond, catching maybe more happiness than was good to have all at once.
One day, the snow being gone, and the prairie one big garden of spring flowers reaching away to the skyline, we happened to meet up sudden with a pony-soldier which he was lying under the shadow of his horse and playing tunes on a mouth-organ, heaps content with himself. His coat was red, his harness all glittering fine, his boots were shiny, his spurs had small cruel rowels. He said his chief was His Imperial Majesty Edward VII., that his tribe was the North-West Mounted Police, and his camp was called Medicine Hat, the same being close adjacent. We sounded him on robbers, but he seemed plumb ignorant, and said there was quite a few antelope if we cared for hunting.
Telling the youngsters to camp, I went butting along into Medicine Hat to prospect the same alone. It felt mighty strange to be in a town again, see the people walking around who belonged there, women and children especially, but the whisky I sampled felt right natural, and for all my snuffing and snorting I smelt nothing suspicious in the way of wolf-trap. So I traded with a lady who kept store for woman's clothing, such as she used herself, enough to load up my pack-horse. She certainly selected liberal to judge by the money I paid.
When I got back to camp expecting supper, I found the kids had been quarrelling, so that they weren't on speaking terms, and I had to introduce them. Jim was special haughty, but Curly got heaps interested in the clothes I'd bought, crowing and chuckling over everything. Her favorite game was playing at being a lady, but now she shied at committing herself.
"Shucks!" she flirted across to the far side of the fire. "I cayn't oppress Jim in them things—I'd get so tame and weak he'd sit on my haid!"