During those few weeks at Winnipeg I had a couple of letters from my Brat who had taken to crutches and felt able-bodied. He told me that there was some rumor of Sarde getting married. The inspector had bought an engagement ring, also a girl's fur cap and coat which had gone by the stage sleigh to Helena where Widow Burrows lived. He had applied for transfer to depot at Regina as being nearer to civilization. My friend Buckie was in from Slide-out Detachment and was going on prisoners' escort to Regina.
In response I sent Brat my first poem, in celebration of Sarde's alleged engagement to Widow Burrows.
When the artful Meringue
Met the gay Macaroon,
And they sighed, and then sang
In the light of the moon—
'Twas there! 'Twas thus! 'Twas then
I met my first, my only love.
'Twas warm!
One day I was on sentry at the gate of Fort Osborne when a tramp came along the street, a bare-headed, red-haired hobo shivering in remnants of a jersey and broken down sea boots.
"I'd been in Roosia once," he told me afterward, "and you made me think of a Roosian grand dook I'd seen reviewing troops—wot chanct 'ad I got, eh?"
I remember being very comfy in fur cap, short buffalo coat, long stockings, moccasins, and my belt of burnished brass cartridges in the sunlight shone as a streak of blazing light. I asked the freezing sailor if he wanted to take on in the force. For answer he gulped at me, so I pointed out the way to the recruiting office. "Second door on the left. Good luck to you."
A few minutes after the tramp had gone to his fate a municipal policeman arrived, one of the famous Winnipeg giants. He inquired after a red-haired hobo, who was badly wanted for kicking a booking clerk of the Canadian Pacific through the office door which happened to be shut. The clerk was being removed to hospital.
Yes, I remembered seeing a person with red hair—of course, the very man. Ten minutes ago he had passed going toward Red River in a parachute.
The Winnipeg police giants are ponderous of understanding and sensitive to chaff.
The guard-house was not in use, and the men on guard lived in the barrack room. So there I was when, after my relief, I lay on my trestle half dressed, doing bed fatigue, my dog asleep beside me. Yes, I was eating dates when Red Saunders, the sailor hobo, came out from the medical ordeal.