Far back in the long ago time an Indian woman lay in her teepee dying and with her last breath called her lover's name. And many miles away her lover heard. He pulled up his dog-train and stood beside the cariole, and listening to the silence, cried, "Who calls?"
The French Canadian voyagers would tell that story of the Indian who heard a spirit voice, and answering cried, "Qu' Appelle?" From that cry was the valley named, and the old Hudson's Bay Fort is still called Qu'Appelle.
On the hillside overlooking the fort stood our log shanties of the police detachment, but Inspector Sarde, the officer commanding, and his new wife had quarters at the hotel.
I was posted to Sarde's detachment and as all soldiers know, when an officer commanding is down upon any trooper he can easily drive the man to mutiny, desertion or suicide within the first few weeks. Sarde did his very best to that intent, hazed me, nagged at me, goaded me, set traps to catch me in some lapse of temper, told me off to impossible duties and used false charges to give me ruthless punishment. My pay was collected in fines, the other fellows had their leave stopped on my account that they might be turned against me, and once I passed a night in the cells with a hundred degrees of frost. Of course I deserved all I got, and made no moan because I had so richly earned Sarde's hatred. He put me on my mettle, forced me to excel in every duty, made me the best man in his command, set me to keep the other chaps in good spirits and make him a good example in the way of manners.
Of course, our men told nothing to civilians about affairs within our family; but passers-by on the road who saw me undergoing punishment, began to spread the scandal until nobody in the place would speak to Sarde or call upon his wife.
Buckie, the dear chap who first had introduced me to the outfit, was recently transferred to this division, and posted to Fort Qu'Appelle. He was my friend in very bitter need, feeding me coffee when I was like to freeze on pack drill, rousing the other fellows until they would perjure themselves to the eyes in my defense, getting me help with my extra work, turning the crowd against Sarde. And then he used to comfort me in private.
One Sunday afternoon Sarde was away to Troy, and Buckie helped me at the stable where I had to set the ring for a stove-pipe in the roof of an A tent. For some time we were busy while we measured and cut the canvas. Then, sitting on up-ended buckets in the warm dusk, we began the stitching. After a morning talk with Sarde I felt so ill that I asked Buckie if the man intended to kill me.
"Sarde," answered Buckie, "says he'll tone you down or kill you, one or the other. You need it a whole lot. Why? Because you'd got to think you were Adam before the creation of Eve. The world is not inhabited entirely by one Blackguard. Suppose you think about somebody else for a change."
That was straight from the shoulder anyway. Since first I had seen him a rookie of the rookiest, he had become tremendously grown-up into the very stock pattern of buck policeman.
"The C Troop crowd," he went on, "think you're the sort of bounder who needs to live in lime-light on salvos of applause."