If Bandy Jones had not been singing Old King Cole—our version—at the time, my song would have been quite the success of the evening. All the fellows were gathered at Mother Darkie's buckboard a mile from camp. We put up the drinks by turn so far as our money went, and the liquor seemed to be a sort of delicate blend of sulphuric acid, fusel-oil and petrol flavored with rattlesnake poison, "Specially imported, Massa Blackguard." I tended bar with an arm round the wicked little negress, proposing to her at intervals. As to the entertainment, Bandy beat a bread pan and howled Indian war-songs while Tubby McImerish talked about an English tenderfoot—name o' Rams—found bushed at Horsethief Creek. "Calls me, 'me good man haw,' 'Yes, me deah fellah,' and 'How-d'ye-du-don't-y-know.' Just like old McBugjuice—more side than a jumped-up viceroy—and the crawler wearing putties and a helmet—bet you a dollar he did, then shut yer mouth—and don't yawp as if I was measles and you'd caught 'em. I'm tellin' yous about thish-yer little gawd-forbid, which I brung him into camp to play with the officers. He's improvin' their minds at the officers' mess. If you don't believe me you can see his wet balloon-sleeved pants hung by the cook fire, and Rich Mixed eating of 'em."
Calamity Smith was spouting anarchism, while Tribulation le Grandeur told us about his mare, shot at Fort Walsh in 1876. The pair made a sort of duet: "Abart the pore workin' man 'e call 'im ze abcess gettin' a fair show vot you call strangles, hein? I say fair show! So I say to ze major Walsh Down with the Queen! I say and let her take in washing says I she's got ze strangles all she's fit for! Down with the Government! no! no! no! I no shoot my mare! and lynch thim millionaires! Sacré nom de—pore workin' man—long live anarchy! She no keek any—Down with everybody! So I mak shoot my fusil and—and vot that you say about Queen Victoria, hein? Pore workin' man—I pull your nose, so. Yow! You traitor! Ur-r-r. How you lak me keel you, hein? Help! Help!"
"Time, boys! Time!" yelled Mutiny, jammed in between these soloists, and getting killed from both sides.
Enter Rich Mixed with the English tenderfoot's riding breeches, which he reverently laid at my feet. The trio between Mutiny, Tribulation and Calamity had become a triangular duel, while Bandy Jones led off the general salute with hoo-hoo band accompaniment on Mother Darkie's kitchen utensils.
"Now here comesh the Ge-ne-ran all ve-num and spleen,
And he ridesh like a sack, with a string round the middle-oh.
'S head's full of feathers, an' his heart's all woe,
So 'preshent' while the band plays (hic)-shave the Queen."
Are we condemned? We were all getting beastly drunk and yet I would not have you denounce my comrades. Calamity was one of the thirty men who arrested Sitting Bull's victorious army after the Custer massacre, and handed them as prisoners to the American cavalry. Tribulation arrested a cannibal lunatic, and single-handed brought him seven hundred miles through the northern forest in winter. Spud broke a world record in horsemanship, riding a hundred and thirty-two miles by sunlight of one summer day, on a horse who bucked him off at the finish. Mutiny was the very greatest of all our teamsters. McBugjuice was seven days lost after a blizzard, but won through alive. All had shared in heroic work for the state, and all alike were drunk. All lived a monastic life, denied the society of women, barred from every reasonable amusement, inured to privation and to self-denial. They belonged to a phase of history not to be measured by rule of thumb moralities, or judged by the cheap standards of cities, where men live for money, are plentiful and small.
For where men do the work of giants, the overstrain has always its reaction, and if they can not get drunk they will go mad. So I could name a dozen of our best men, the heroes of the force who went mad and shot themselves. The drunken times of the vikings, the conquistadors, the Elizabethans, the British conquerors, the American pioneers and those of Western Canada, are ages of energy and power, of genius and glory, while the sober epochs may well be those of weakness, fatigue, decay.
It is a comfort that we shall not be judged by Christians, but by Christ, with the Saviour's large, merciful understanding, His humorous toleration and sweet charity.
II
Soldier! Soldier! where are your breeches, pray?
Soldier! Soldier! Git up an' dust!
Where the deuce have yer hidden yer brains away?
Soldier! Soldier! Hustle or bust!
Busted the Bugler? Send him to Hawspital
Can't ye shut up that confounded row?
Show a leg, and no damned profanity—
Get up an' sweat for a shillin' a day.