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3f f CT,,^,-71<^C\^p 
 
 TI 
 
 SMII 
 
^ip^" 
 
 ■fnp 
 
 ONE OF 
 
 THE BROKEN BRIGADE 
 
 BY 
 
 CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY 
 
 AUrnOR OF "SNAP," "GOLIi GOLD IN CABIBOO," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1897, 
 
 {All rights reserved.') 
 
^k/3 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. In the "Old Country" 
 
 II. In the City op Sunshine 
 
 III. The Hired Man 
 
 IV. The Camp at Shawnigan 
 
 V. The Fool-Hen's Play ... 
 
 VI. "Vengeance is Mine " 
 VII. In the House op Pain 
 
 • • ■ • > • 
 
 PAGi'; 
 
 3 
 
 21 
 
 ... 42 
 
 67 
 
 ... 70 
 
 84 
 
 ... 101 
 
 ^1 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 I. At Battle Creek ... ... ... ... 119 
 
 II. How some Englishmen make their Piles ... 13.3 
 
 in. A Determined Gibber ... ... ... 142 
 
 IV. At Farwell Outpost ... ... ... 150 
 
 V. The Stage held up ... ... ... ... 108 
 
 VI. Man-hunting ... ... ... ... 183 
 
 VII. Christmas Eve ... ... ... ... 199 
 
 VIII. In the Heart op the Storm ... ... 210 
 
 IX. In the Crees' Dead-Tent ... ... ... 229 
 
 X. The Note op a Hunting Hound ... ... 241 
 
 XL The Plot ... ... ... ... ... 255 
 
 Xlt. The Tryst at Sundown ... ... ... 264 
 
 Postscript ... ... ... ... ... 278 
 
 1677;ii 
 
mm 
 
 r,-J I ! 
 
 
 I, U 
 
 P 
 
 |:f 
 
I 
 
 V 
 
 \'\ M 
 
 PART I. 
 
 \ 
 
 n 
 
ONE OV THE BROKEN BMGADE. 
 
 -*o*- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN THE "OLD COUNTRY. 
 
 It was night in the north-west corner of Berkshire, a 
 night in late summer. The times of the cuckoo, of 
 the early singing and building of birds, the times 
 of primrose and daffodil had passed ; the promises of 
 spring had been kept, and the harvest which summer 
 had ripened stood ready for the reaper. But the 
 day's labour was over in the valley of the Thames, 
 and a sweet sleepy hush rested upon the hazy 
 water - meadows from which came already the 
 fragrance of the new-mown hay. Nature had put 
 her tired world to sleep, and the world slept well. 
 Where old Squire Verulam sat with his guests, at 
 the window opening upon the Manor House lawn, 
 it was so dark under the limes that a new-comer 
 
4 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 would only have detected the other men's presence 
 l)y the star-like points of their cigarettes. 
 
 Even when any of them spoke, which was not 
 often, their tones were so low that they were barely 
 audible above the whir and hum of the thousands of 
 night moths greedily drinking the honied dew from 
 the Manor House roses or darting about the great 
 geranium beds. The only sounds worth mentioning 
 which brokp the sweet silence were the call of an 
 owl, or the occasional splash of a heavy trout feeding 
 in the darkness of the pool below. 
 
 Even the moon slumbered as yet, though by-and- 
 by she would rise in her fulness and reveal to men 
 the beauties of sleeping England. The whole atmo- 
 sphere was charged with restfulness and peace, so that 
 even the voice of youth was hushed in unconscious 
 sympathy with the spirit of the time and place. 
 
 If any one had sought all the world over for a home 
 for an Englishman to live in, for a corner rich with 
 all the pleasures that a country life can give, he 
 would have found no more perfect Eden than the 
 valley of Kingdon-on-Thames. 
 
 There are lotus lands in the tropics where the 
 colours of sea and sky and flower are more vivid tju<u 
 
IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 $ 
 
 any colours known in old Berkshire, where the scent 
 of flowers is heavier, the growth of foliage more 
 luxuriant, the earth a richer mother, and the sun a 
 fiercer and more constant lover, 'nit these lands do 
 not suit English muscle and bone. 
 
 Everlasting sunshine sri 3 the Anglo-Saxon's 
 strength, and in time weakens the iron Saxon will, 
 destroying the man's power to work even more effect- 
 ually than the cruel cold and grey monotony of the 
 far north, though that numbs the intellect and dwarfs 
 the body. Undoubtedly Kingdon contained all that 
 was best for the body of man, while not far down the 
 beautiful historic river, rose the grey piles of the 
 mother of modern learning, and further down, near 
 its mouth, lay the world's mart, from which all news 
 worth knowing, all things worth having, came almost 
 hourly to the little Berkshire village. 
 
 At Kingdon a man might have rested content from 
 the cradle to the grave, and yet what was it that was 
 happening at the garden window on the banks of old 
 Father Thames ? Just that "^Hch has happened a 
 thousand times in every village in our island ; just 
 that which has made our England the power she is. 
 There in the soft gloom of a sumraer night in the 
 
ONE OF THE BROKEN BlilGADE. 
 
 middle of the fairest farm-lands of his own county, 
 surrounded by the best God makes of clay anywhere 
 on earth, " the whisper " (as Eudyard Kipling calls it) 
 had come to a young strong heart yearning for the 
 lands " beyond the skyline, where the strange ways 
 go down." 
 
 For a long time no one had spoken. The "old 
 man," as every one (even his little daughter) called 
 liim, kept silently puffing away at his cigarette. As 
 a rule, Mr. Verulam was sixteen, in spite of his grey 
 hair, and many a practical joke set down to the credit 
 of some schoolboy staying at the Manor should in 
 justice have been credited to the squire. On the 
 night on which this story opens the old man had lost 
 his fun ; he was really sixty to-night, not sixteen, 
 and his eyes, as they rested dreamily on the dark 
 pool below the river, had no sparkle in them. He 
 was counting the cost, and half afraid of the venture, 
 for he knew Noel Johns and his weakness as well as 
 his strength ; he loved the boy and was proud of him, 
 with almost a father's pride ; and though there had 
 been times when he had been as enthusiastic as Noel 
 himself, times when he had even cold him that he 
 would be a fool to go on struggling in the " man- 
 
'.;■- T'^.iA.-jrBamf^ 
 
 IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 7 
 
 Stifled town," yet now that the eve of parting had 
 come, he could only see the dangers ahead, only 
 think of the six thousand miles which would soon lie 
 between the boy and himself, and of the changes 
 which the swift years might bring. The gallant 
 craft was safe in harbour now ; why should it tempt 
 the dangers of the seas ? The betting he knew was 
 not all one way in Noel's case. Far from it. In the 
 race of life he had enormous odds in his favour, and 
 yet sitting there, in the dark, the old man could 
 not help remembering that good looks, good education, 
 a fine ear for music, a mellow voice, great skill in 
 all games which Englishmen are proud to excel in ; 
 honesty, even, which could neither deceive nor (alas !) 
 distrust, good gifts, though they be at home, are not 
 all that a man needs in the colonies. Some of them 
 might as well be thrown overboard at starting ; and 
 even the others, under favourable circumstances, 
 may lead to the devil and the bankruptcy court as 
 speedily as vulgar vices. 
 
 Suddenly Noel, who was lying outside on the lawn, 
 put his hands to his mouth and emitted a long- 
 drawn, lugubrious imitation of a wolf's howl. " Oo- 
 whoo-oo-oo ! " the cry went ringing down the darkness 
 
p 
 
 
 B ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 of the river, and so unexpected was it that each of 
 the party started from his dreams, and Pussy 
 (Verulam's fair daughter), sitting in the French 
 window by the lamplight, sprang to her feet and 
 turned so pale that even the jester saw it, and 
 apologized after his fashion. 
 
 "Why, Pussy, are you developing nerves?" he 
 asked. "Who could have guessed it? If I had 
 thought it possible to frighten you, I would not have 
 been so stupid, but really I wanted to break the 
 'overpowering dilence of the prairie,' don't you 
 know ; and that is quite the orthodox way to do it. 
 It seems to me that I am likely to have my share 
 of silence by-and-by." 
 
 " Well, if you don't like silence, shall I play to 
 you, Noel ? " asked the girl. 
 
 "Yes, play. Pussy. They have all lost their 
 tongues to-night. Play some of our old favourites. 
 Let me light the candles for you," and he went to 
 the piano as he spoke. 
 
 " No, don't bother," she replied ; " I know all your 
 favourite songs by heart. I ought to. They were 
 the first things you made me learn.'* And so saying, 
 she sat down and touched the notes. 
 
-"m^lfmmi^ 
 
 IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 t 
 
 
 But though Pussy Verulam was only fifteen, a 
 mere child still, she could not forget that her old 
 playfellow was going to leave them that night ; and 
 the consciousness of this took all the music out of 
 her fingers. Whatever was gay jarred on the stillness 
 of the summer night, whatever was sad accorded too 
 well with her own feelings, and when at last she 
 found herself unconsciously drifting into "Where 
 is now that merry party I remember long r^go ? " 
 she closed the piano with an angry snap, and came 
 away from it. 
 
 " Never mind the music, Pussy," said the old man, 
 rousing himseK to cover his daughter's retreat ; " let 
 us talk. Tell us exactly what you mean to do, when 
 you reach the West, Noel." 
 
 " Give me just one more cigarette, little sweetheart, 
 and I will," said Noel, and as he reached over the 
 heads of the others to take one from the box she 
 offered him, the light from the red flaming lamp fell 
 upon her great grey eyes, and he could see that they 
 were dim, whilst the hand which held the cigarette- 
 box was as cold as if it were November instead of 
 July. He knew this because he had been clumsy 
 enough to touch that hand in taking his cigarette. 
 
10 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " Poor little playfellow! "he thought, " so there will 
 be one sore heart when I am gone, but it won't do to 
 make her sadder by letting her see how I feel the 
 parting." And so thinking, when he had lighted his 
 cigarette, he held it out at arm's length meditatively 
 for a moment, and then replied in the chaffing 
 manner which was second nature to him — 
 
 "Tell you just exactly what I mean to do out 
 West ! That is rather a large order, you know. Of 
 course I mean to * make my pile ; ' every good 
 Britisher does ; but hoiv I mean to make it is a 
 matter of detail which I've not yet considered." 
 
 " Then, Noel, I'm afraid I & ^all have to lay odds 
 against your making that pile," said a handsome 
 curly-headed fellow, lying back in the shadow. In 
 features he was very like Noel Johns, but though 
 a tall man, he was slighter, and not so deep-chested 
 as that young Saxon. 
 
 " Do you think so, Cousin Trevor ? Well, I can't 
 bet on myself, for I've nothing to lose, and I can't 
 expect you to back me because I know your opinion 
 about my lack of * business capacity,' but I'll take 
 your good wishes, old chap, instead of your bet ; and, 
 after all," he added more earnestly, turning to old 
 
IN THE "OLD COUNTllY." 
 
 11 
 
 Verulam, " I am beginning in the right way. In a 
 country of such infinite possibilities, a fellow ought 
 to go slow for a year or so ; tie himself to nothing, 
 but just keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. 
 That is what Balmaine says, and Balmaine ought to 
 know." 
 
 " Oh, of course Balmaine ought to know, and that 
 is what the books say too," assented Trevor, care- 
 lessly ; " but I must say that I should like to have 
 my course a little more clearly mapped out, if I was 
 in your place. Have you ever heard of a man, Noel, 
 who really made money in the colonies except by a 
 profession — learnt at home ? " 
 
 "Of course I have, and so have you, Trevor, 
 dozens of times. Six months ago you were as keen 
 to go West, and as confident as I am. You would 
 have gone too if you had not come in to Cowley," 
 replied Noel, hotly. " Talk of men who have made 
 money ! Don't you remember Gurdon, or Balmaine 
 himself, for instance ? " 
 
 " Gurdon ! " replied the other. " Yes, I remember 
 old Gurdon, of course, but he made his money by 
 pure bull-headed luck, and that wns at the Cape too, 
 in diamonds." 
 
12 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 "I don't know so much about that bull-headed 
 luck," retorted Noel. " Men who knew Gurdon at 
 the Cape, say that when others drank up their first 
 profits, he turned his diamonds into wages for more 
 men, and lived himself on bread and water and hard 
 labour. But, luck or no luck, it seems to me that 
 a lump sum which produces an income of close on 
 eight thousand a year is a good deal for any man 
 to make before he is thirty. A quarter of that would 
 content me." 
 
 " That is all right," Trevor admitted. " The few 
 succeed, the many fail, though, Noel ; and there are 
 no diamonds in America, except on the ladies' 
 fingers." 
 
 " And in the prominent citizens' ' dickies,' " 
 laughed Noel. " But I am talking about Canada ; 
 I know nothing of America, and don't want to, 
 Canada and America are not the same thing, you 
 know, Trevor." 
 
 "Not yet, but they are going to be, are they 
 not, Noel ? We can't protect Canada from her 
 big neighbour, even if we want to, and she certainly 
 could not protect herself." 
 
 "I am not so sure about that. The big fellow 
 
 
 i} 
 
tfiBmmm 
 
 IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 la 
 
 does not always win in a fight, and Canadian 
 pioneers are not the men to chuck up the sponge 
 in a hurry," replied Noel, who had a very warm 
 enthusiasm for his Canadian cousins. 
 
 "Much the same breed as the men they would 
 have to fight, are they not, Noel ? " asked the 
 old man, dryly. " I don't see myself why the 
 descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers should be 
 inferior to those of Hudson Bay pioneers, and such 
 like, or why the son of a man who has emigrated 
 to the States should differ much from the son of 
 one who emigrated to the North-West. Canada's 
 danger is a moral, not a physical, one. If you 
 allow your newspapers to draw their news, as 
 they copy their style, from the Yankees, annexa- 
 tion will soon follow. Why, that blackguardly 
 thing you showed me this morning could not even 
 speak respectfully of Her Majesty, and assumed as 
 a matter of course that its own premier was a thief." 
 
 "A thing like that doesn't represent the feeling 
 of the people," cried Noel. "They are loyal 
 enough, but 'ware politics and newspapern. I'm 
 not going in for them, though Balmaine says 
 politicians are the boys to fill their pockets." 
 
 IJ 
 
14 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 1 
 
 /, 
 
 "What did Balmaine do himself?" asked 
 Trevor. 
 
 " Do you know his old * governor ' ? " retorted ISToel. 
 
 " Not well. I know that he had plenty of money, 
 and used to let Percy see very little of it." 
 
 " Yes, and so Percy went West ; and now it would 
 make you cry with laughing to hear Percy talk of 
 giving old Sir John a fiver * to go on the tear with,' 
 or * to turn himself loose on,* as he sometimes puts 
 it," added Noel, with a broad grin. 
 
 "Irreverent young cub," said the old man. 
 "Did your friend learn his manners where he 
 made his money ? " 
 
 " Some of them, sir, I expect," replied Noel ; " but 
 his heart is all right. You ask Sir John if there 
 is a better son in England than old Percy. That 
 fellow would give up his clubs and break stones on 
 the road to-morrow to get anything old Sir John 
 wanted, if it could not be got in any other way." 
 
 "And are we to have 'fivers to turn ourselve? 
 loose on,' when our young Croesus comes back ? " 
 asked the Squire. 
 
 "Perhaps; or perhaps I shall play the game the 
 other way, and put your fivers into some rattling 
 
IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 15 
 
 )1. 
 
 good thing out there, something out of which I 
 shall get a fat percentage, and in which your money 
 will stay. That's done too, you know, every day," 
 he added. 
 
 " Yes," replied Trevor ; " and that seems about as 
 profitable a business as any I ever heard of out West, 
 for a smart man; but you are not smart enough 
 for that." 
 
 " Thank God ! " ejaculated the old man. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it's something to bo thankful for ; 
 but, look here, if we talk dollars any more, Miss 
 Grey-eyes will be asleep. What am I to bring you 
 home. Pussy ? A belt of wampum (don't ask what 
 it is, dear), or a collar of grizzly claws ? " 
 
 " Are there grizzlies where you are going, Noel ? " 
 
 " Why, of course, my dear," Trevor answered for 
 him. " Doesn't your supreme innocence understand 
 that wherever business is brisk, and a steady young 
 man likely to do well, there grizzlies abound ? " 
 
 "Don't chaff," replied Pussy, with spirit. "I 
 know as well as you do that grizzlies don't live in 
 cities ; but Noel won't have to work all the time, and 
 if he thinks bears more interesting than dollars, I'm 
 sure I agree with him." 
 
 i 
 
16 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 it 
 
 'i 
 
 h: 
 
 " You would not be a Verulam if you didn't. I 
 wonder if any of our family ever guessed that fences 
 were not put up only to be jumped ? I doubt it. 
 We certainly," added the Squire, "are not a prac- 
 tical money-making people, we English country 
 gentlemen." 
 
 "Don't blaspheme against sport, sir," Noel pro- 
 tested. " It is not the only thing worth living for, 
 I grant you, but it is better than money-grubbing. 
 If there was no sport to ^e had in America, there 
 would have been mighty few Englishmen develop- 
 ing it to-day. It is the love of sport, or something 
 uncommonly like it, which makes Englishmen 
 colonize at all." 
 
 " Perhaps ; but our fellows get almost as badly 
 done over the sport as they do over the dollars," 
 said Trevor. " I don't believe the sport is half as 
 good out there as it is at home. I never met a 
 fellow yet, who had been any time out West, who 
 was fit to fill a butt on a decent moor ; and, upon my 
 honour, I doubt whether the stalking is as good out 
 there as it is at home." 
 
 " Don't know, I'm sure, I've never tried either, 
 and you have only tried . one ; but whatever you do 
 
 
 
m 
 
 IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 17 
 
 I 
 
 ces 
 
 it. 
 
 rac- 
 
 >> 
 
 out West, you've got to do for yourself, Trevor, and 
 that is worth a good deal." 
 
 " Well, you may be right, and America may be 
 all you think it is," replied his cousin ; " but I'd stop 
 here even now, if I were you, old fellow. England's 
 good enough for me." 
 
 " Good enough for you ! " cried Noel, hotly. 
 " Good enough for you ! Yes, she is good enough 
 for me, too, or for any sane man, God bless her! 
 It's my balance at my banker's which isn't good 
 enough for her. But what is the good of talking ? 
 All that was settled long ago." 
 
 " But why couldn't you farm here, just as well as 
 there, Noel ? " asked the old man. 
 
 " Because a younger son's place is not on the 
 family acres," replied Noel. 
 
 " And why not ? " asked the Squire. 
 
 "Why not? Why," replied Noel, "because 
 you say so ; yes, you and thousands like you. I 
 might stay and work at the bar, if I had patience 
 enough. I might go into the army if I had money 
 enough. I might stay and live upon my people if 
 I was mean enough, and I might go into business, 
 or farm for profit, if I was not a Johns of Kingdon. 
 
 c 
 
 1} 
 
18 
 
 ONE OF THE BKOKEN BIUCIADE. 
 
 
 Pi 
 
 vt' 
 
 tf 
 
 U 
 
 You would think it rather plucky of me to * run a 
 store ' in the North-West, but how would you like it 
 if I sold groceries in the village ? " 
 
 " No," he added, after a pause, " our places in the 
 world are different, Trevor, and I don't grumble. 
 You two have the best country in the world to live 
 in, but it is ready-made. I shall have the fun of 
 helping to make a country for myself. Our forlorn 
 hope has its charms. Now, Pussy, give us just one 
 more song before you go to bed. You don't mind 
 her singing ' Auld Lang Syne,' sir, do you ? " 
 
 "Of course not, of course not, boy," cried the 
 Squire ; " good heavens, is it so late already ? " And 
 rising, the four joined hands, and sang together that 
 old song which is a sacrament to some of us, pledg- 
 ing themselves for all years to come to the friend 
 who stood on the brink, waiting to step out from the 
 light and warmth of home into the battle of life in 
 the Far West. 
 
 For a moment all stood, hands joined, listening as 
 the last notes floated down the dark river; then the old 
 man wrung the young one's hands in both his, and, 
 turnJTig, said somewhat hoarsely to his daughter — 
 
 " Now, Pussy, bed ! It's time for chicks to be at 
 roost. Will you get her candle for her, Noel ? " 
 
 i^ 
 
IN TIIK "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 10 
 
 a 
 it 
 
 So Noel Johns went out for the last time into the 
 old familiar hall with its black panelling, and cases 
 of rare birds, not a few of which he had himself shot, 
 and its bough of mistletoe, still left hanging by com- 
 mon consent, as a souvenir of the merry romps of the 
 last Christmas, and there, at the foot of the stairs, 
 bade good-bye to Pussy Verulam. They had been 
 playfellows and neighbours all ty iir lives. She had 
 been a dear little chum to him, and he a loyal 
 squire and helpmate to her in every sport and every 
 mischief she had fallen into since nursery days, but 
 that was all. On this summer night the two were 
 merely boy and girl, but as she stood in the lamp- 
 light, bidding him good-bye, the boy realized what 
 an exquisitely lovely woman this child-friend of his 
 must grow into. 
 
 Perhaps old Verulam' s thoughts instinctively 
 followed the boy's, for he said suddenly, "Kiss 
 her, Noel. Perhaps it's the last chance you'll ever 
 get. Pussy may not be our Pussy any longer when 
 you come heme again." 
 
 Nothing Ic h, the boy did as he was bid; kissed 
 the sweet young lips held up to him, and felt a 
 thrill flash through hi:T^ and his eyes open, so that 
 
 :•&*■*■ 
 
20 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 h * 
 
 
 he went away with a new knowledge and a new 
 sorrow. America might hold a fortune for him, but 
 England would still hold Pussy Verulam. 
 
 He was too wise to dream that sweet Pussy could 
 ever be a younger son's portion, but for the first 
 time he realized the bitterness of being " only a 
 younger son," with his way to make in the world, 
 and with no time even to dream of great grey eyes 
 and sweet girlish lips for many a year to come. 
 
 Just at the last he felt that he envied his 
 cousin Trevor, not because he was the Squire of 
 Cowley, but because, being the Squire of Cowley, he 
 had a right to come to Kingdon whenever he chose, 
 a chance which poor Noel now thought the best 
 chance in the world. 
 
 After Pussy had gone to roost, the men went back 
 for a whisky and soda, and one last pipe. Pipes 
 always appeared at Kingdon as soon as the ladies 
 went, for, to tell the truth, the Kingdon men were 
 such Goths that they only tolerated cigarettes when 
 they could get nothing more substantial to smoke. 
 That last whisky and soda seemed as difficult to 
 finish as the widow's cruse of oil, and the full moon 
 was high in the heavens when Noel's dogcart came 
 
IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 21 
 
 IS 
 
 round to the hall-door; and even then no one was 
 ready to say "good-bye." 
 
 However, the words of farewell had to be said at 
 last, tho horse's hoofs rattled along the drive, the 
 lights from the open door vanished, and the shadows 
 of the big limes swallowed the wanderer up. 
 
 Along the road home, Noel passed a score of old 
 familiar landmarks. The white posts round the 
 village cricket-field reminded him of many a game 
 in which he had been Klingdon's hero. Trevor was 
 a good man all round, and a popular one too, but 
 the younger cousin had always been a turn the best 
 of the two at all English games, and the village 
 knew it and loved him for it. A yokel whose voice 
 he knew, but whose face he could not see, gave him 
 good night, and Noel's heart went out to him though 
 he knew that at that time of night his well-wisher 
 was most probably a poacher who had been out 
 after the Cowley rabbits. 
 
 Ah, well! just then Noel Johns would have 
 preferred a Kingdon poacher to a New York 
 millionaire. Anything that belonged to home was 
 dear to him, now that he was saying good-bye. But 
 nothing stops in this world, and Noel's horse was 
 
 ^^.' 
 

 22 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 among the least likely things to stop, at any rate, at 
 that time of night, anywhere between Kingdon and 
 his own stables, so the old lamiliar scenes flitted 
 rapidly past him, just as our lives will in the last 
 hour, and after he had once reached home he remem- 
 bered nothing clearly. There was a turmoil of pack- 
 ing, a rush of trains, and then Liverpool and the great 
 Atlantic liner, with its mob of strange people on 
 board, homing Yankees and inquisitive globe-trotters, 
 and, above all, that spirit of g .mbling which seems 
 inseparable from anything that has once been in 
 contact with the other side of the herring-pond. 
 
 On board Noel was an immense favourite (such 
 as he always are), and soon, that jade Fortune set 
 hsr cap at him, for, being foolish enough to dabble 
 in speculation on the run of the ship, he won 
 enough to pay his passage, and to strengthen 
 the already growing conviction that the dear 
 old fogies at home were (as his Yankee friends 
 told him) " too conservative in their ideas about 
 money," which, after all, was easy enough to make, 
 if only you had pluck enough to try for it. Of 
 course he wrote home from Moville and from 
 Jlontreal, but, after that, Kingdon heard very little 
 of its fledgeling. At one time he was staying with 
 
IN THE "OLD COUNTRY." 
 
 23 
 
 friends whom he had picked up on the boat, people 
 who had taken a fancy to hira, and who, it was 
 hinted, were about " to put him into a very good 
 thing." From subsequent letters, it appeared that 
 this very good thing was somewhere very far west, 
 for the postmark? came ever from further and 
 further away, until at last they had reached the 
 edge even of the great American continent, where it 
 seemed that Noel had temporarily settled down on 
 a ranche, and was engaged in growing — well, no one 
 seemed quite to know what he was growing. He 
 never was a good correspondent. Young men are not 
 as a rule; and no one blamed him for his silence. 
 His half-yearly remittance was always sent to the 
 same address — "Post-office, Victoria, B.C." — and 
 the remittance was always acknowledged, and no 
 extra money ever asked for, so that those who 
 believed in him looked for his speedy return as a 
 second young Balmaine. But the old man doubted, 
 and at the end of nearly three years, he a3tounded 
 his whole family circle by proposing that, for once, 
 they should give up the September partridges, start 
 some time early in June, and go for themselves to 
 see " what that place Canada really was like." 
 
24 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 CHArTER II. 
 
 IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 It was June in Vancouver Island, and Trevor 
 Johns, who had come over with Mr. Verulam and 
 his daughter Pussy, to whom Trevor had now been 
 engaged for nearly a year, loafed down one of 
 Victoria's main streets, and entered the den of a real 
 estate-agent, a place with almost as much plate-glass 
 about it as a London gin-shop, and very nearly as 
 dangerous to its habitues. 
 
 " Come in, Johns, come into my room, and have 
 a cigarette," said the owner of this gorgeous office. 
 " I think I've fixed that Shawnigan business." 
 
 The speaker was a man of the fair German- Jew 
 type, not bad looking, but for an unpleasantly artificial 
 smile of which he made constant use, and with 
 manners of that peculiar polish which suggest the 
 London music-hall. But Mr. Jacob Snape passed 
 
 \- 
 
IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 25 
 
 , 
 
 *r: 
 
 muster weU enough where he was, and his English 
 clothes, and a certain affectation of unbusinesslike 
 frankness, made some poor fools all the more ready 
 to trust him. - . ,' * • ^ ,'-•',-.■ 
 
 " Come in," he continued, " and sit down," closing 
 the door behind his guest as he spoke, and carelessly 
 turning a lot of papers face downwards on his desk. 
 " I've made a couple of thousand dollars on a deal 
 this morning. It's not much to a millionaire like 
 you, but it's pretty good for a poor beggar like me, 
 and I think it deserves a cigar," and so saying he 
 chose and lighted one, leaving half d dozen clients 
 (poor devils who wanted to borrow money rather 
 than lend it, or who had come for the interest on their 
 investments) to kick their heels at their leisure 
 outside his counter. 
 
 " Mr. Snape," his clerk said to them, " was busy." 
 And so he was, and his business this morning was 
 a very remunerative one, though a tenderfoot would 
 not have understood that at first sight. 
 
 " Two thousand dollars ! " ejaculated Trevor, who 
 was more fond of money than such a good sportsman 
 ought to have been. "Why, that is four hundred 
 pounds ! Four hundred pounds made in a morning's 
 

 26 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 work ! I wish 1 knew how to make money as easily 
 as you fellows do." 
 
 " Oh, you don't want money. You came out here 
 for your health. I didn't ; and, besides, we don't do 
 that every day, though, of course, in a place like 
 Victoria, any fool can do it pretty often, and a man 
 must do, to live as men live here. But hang the 
 business ; let us talk about our fishing-trip. The 
 missus is going, and that pretty Miss Gilchrist, and 
 a couple of naval fellows, and I've arranged with a 
 rancher on the lake to let us have his house to sleep 
 in, and his boats to row about in." 
 
 " That seems excellent," remarked Trevor. " How 
 about provisions ? " 
 
 " Oh, I've sent up the liquor, and I'll see to the 
 grub, and as there is nothing very pressing to do in 
 town just now, we'll start to-morrow, if Mr. Verulam 
 and his daughter can be ready in time." 
 
 *'The Verulams can be ready, and I know they 
 would like the trip; but I'm afraid, Mr. Snape," 
 replied Trevor, hesitatingly, " that you are taking 
 a very great deal of trouble for comparative 
 strangers.*' 
 
 "We don't treat Englishmen as strangers here,' 
 
 
 re 
 th 
 
 w 
 n 
 
 V 
 
 t 
 
 ( 
 i 
 
 **k^ 
 
IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 w 
 
 retorted Snape, " unless they wish us to ; but say 
 the word. WiU you come ? " . . 
 
 " Certainly, if the Verulams will, I will ; but 
 who's to do the cooking? Shall I hire a China- 
 man ?" asked Trevor. 
 
 "No, that is not necessary; Jones the rancher 
 will cook, and wash dishes, and do all that sort of 
 thing." .>.-.-: 
 
 " But," asked Trevor, " isn't that rather imposing 
 on the unfortunate Jones ? No doubt he would do 
 it for you, but he hasn't even seen us yet, and we 
 shall be a big party." 
 
 "So much the better for Jones," replied Snape, 
 easily ; " I'm hiring the fellow, and of course he'll 
 make me pay for what he does. It will be a big 
 bonanza for him. Eanchers are not all quite what 
 you fancy out here. This fellow is a type of one 
 class. He was a sort of mud-student, who fooled 
 his money away here for awhile, bought a place to 
 clear and exist upon, and is now what we call a 
 remittance man." 
 
 " A remittance man ? " asked Trevor. 
 
 "Yes, isn'f that good English?" replied Snape, 
 laughing. "It means a fellow vho doesn't know 
 
28 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN TRIGADE. 
 
 any trade, and won't learn one ; who lives on beans 
 and bacon when he can't kill a deer ; goes out to 
 carry a surveyor's chain in the summer, and in 
 winter hibernates amongst his logs, or, if in town, 
 hangs around the post-office all day, looking for 
 letters from home. They are a confounded nuisance 
 to us, always wanting loans, and never able to pay 
 interest " 
 
 " Poor devils ! " muttered Trevor, sympathetically. 
 
 Snape looked surprised for a moment. The 
 comment struck him as odd. " Well, yes," he added 
 after a pause, " I don't suppose that they do have a 
 very good time, and yet some of them put on a hell 
 of a lot of side, wear knickerbockers in Government 
 Street as if this was a village, and fancy themselves 
 a good deal better than the men they borrow money 
 from." 
 
 "But how do they come to grief in the first 
 instance ? " asked Trevor. 
 
 "Oh, Lord knows," replied Snape, impatiently. 
 " Hang the remittance men. Let us go up to the 
 Jarvises' tennis-party. We shall meet every one 
 worth meeting up there, and then we can arrange 
 about to-morrow." 
 
 , 
 
 *■ •' 
 
In the city of sunshine. 
 
 .. 
 
 Trevor, having nothing to do, assented, and calling 
 one of the only two hansoms in Victoria, Snape put 
 his friend in, and the two drove off, leaving the 
 unimportant clients still kicking their heels at his 
 counter. Of course the hansom would cost our 
 real-estate man a dollar, and the tram-car would 
 have taken him nearly to his destination for ten 
 cents, but when you are playing some games it pays 
 to play all through en prince ; and, besides, what does 
 a beggarly dollar more or less matter in Victoria in 
 boom times, when every train from the East brings 
 over fresh consignments of nice plump British 
 pigeons ready for plucking ? 
 
 " The Jarvises' tennis-party was a weekly function, 
 and one at which a stranger certainly would see B.C.'s 
 capital at its best. Victoria, of course, is a young 
 town, and houses in it which have been houses for 
 as much as five and twenty years are rare, but in 
 five and twenty years assisted nature can do a great 
 deal on the Pacific slope, and there was no trace of 
 unpleasant newness, no raw stumps still standing 
 about the Jarvises* grounds. On the contrary, the 
 house itself was veiled in luxuriant creepers, the 
 fruit trees were well grown and lavish of their 
 
 II 
 
ao 
 
 ONE OF THE BltOKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 fruit, and the lawns were as perfect stretches of 
 firm green velvet as you will meet with anywhere. 
 Standing at the top of the rise by the house, you 
 could see the sea sweeping all round you, not a grey 
 monotonous expanse of water, but a gulf of blue, 
 flashing and alive with sunlight, dotted here and 
 there with wooded islands, and backed on two sides 
 by the white peaks of the mainland. In the nearer 
 distance were gardens full of blossom, and just 
 beyond them, again, a framework of dark sweet- 
 scented pine woods. The whole landscape suggested 
 rest and repose, and amongst the people on the 
 Jarvises' lawn there was an air of wealth and 
 ease in pleasant harmony with their natural 
 surroundings. Nature meant Victoria for the 
 Brighton of the Pacific, but some among its foolish 
 inhabitants will not have it so, and, unfortunately, 
 that speculative fever which is the curse of America, 
 has taken root and spread even in this garden of 
 Eden. This, of course, is inevitable. Speculation is 
 in the very air of the West, and wherever Americans 
 come it is rife. And there were Americans from 
 Seattle, from Tacoma, even from their beloved " N' 
 York," upon the Jarvises' tennis-lawn when Trevor 
 
 '' 
 
 '* 
 
^ 
 
 IN TIIK CITY OF SUNSIUNK. 
 
 ai 
 
 **• 
 
 reached it, and it was to one of these, a tall blonde, 
 handsome enough to make men stare even in Dublin, 
 where pretty women are the rule, that his friend first 
 introduced Johns. 
 
 " Miss Gilchrist," he said, " let me introduce my 
 friend, Mr. Trevor Johns." 
 
 " What is the gentleman's name ? " demanded the 
 beauty. " Oh, Mr. Trevor Johns ! Pleased to meet 
 you, sir," and she held out a cordial hand to him ; 
 and then to Miss Verulam who had also come up and 
 been introduced by Snape, " Miss Verulam ! Pleased 
 to meet you, ma'am. And what do you think of this 
 little city ? A daisy, ain't she?'* 
 
 " I beg your pardon," replied Pussy, not following 
 the drift of what her new friend said. 
 
 " Miss Gilchrist wants to know if you don't think 
 our little city a daisy," interposed Snape, with a 
 smile. "A daisy is our phrase for anything we 
 admire very much. Miss Gilchrist, for instance, is 
 our daisy just now." 
 
 " Now, Mr. Snape, none of your sauce ! " retorted 
 the lady. "Oh, here's parper and marmer! 
 Marmer, let me introduce Miss Verulam and Mr, 
 Johns. Mr. Johns is t, capitalist come out to 
 
82 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 invest in our western world, I reckon. Isn't that 
 so, Mr. Snape ? " 
 
 "No, I assure you, you misjudge me," replied 
 Trevor. " I know nothing of business, and am only 
 here for pleasure." • ■ * • 
 
 "You can't play that off on me, Mr. Johns," 
 replied the girl slyly ; " but, there, I won't give you 
 away. Catch our business men asleep if you can ! " 
 
 It seemed hopeless to protest, so Trevor changed 
 the subject by asking her if she played tennis. 
 " Why, certainly," she replied ; " I just dote on it. 
 Shall we play ? I see Miss Jarvis wants two more 
 over there," and, as Trevor pron.Mtly assented, she 
 turned to her mother, who stood near, a dutiful 
 parent laden with many encumbrances, and relieved 
 her of a racquet, replacing it with a light wrap, and 
 one or two other things not essential for active 
 exercise. After borrowing a hairpin or two, and 
 generally fixing herself up, she announced her 
 readiness for the fray. ... 
 
 At the end of that sett, Trevor was of opinion 
 that the old lady might just as well have kept 
 the racquet. He was not very much of a player him- 
 self, but knew enough of the game to understand that 
 
IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 33 
 
 dresses from Worth's, with long tails to tumble over, 
 were too much of a handicap for any woman's skill. 
 However, when the game was over, his partner's 
 appetite for fruit and ices appeared to have benefited 
 by the exercise, and at least she had one advantage 
 over a party of genuine English girls, who had been 
 playing a really spirited game in the next court; 
 for whereas they, poor things, looked decidedly 
 hot and tumbled, Miss Gilchrist's complexion was 
 still unflushed, her dress in no disorder, and her 
 general appearance as unimpeachable as that of a 
 model from Bond Street. 
 
 In the breathing spaces between strawberries and 
 cream. Miss Gilchrist began to talk again. 
 
 "I guess you are quite new to this coast, Mr. 
 Johns ? " she remarked. 
 
 " Yes, quite," he replied. " I have hardly been 
 here a week yet, but it seems longer. I know so 
 many people already." 
 
 " Ah, I dare say that's so," assented the girl. 
 "Every one here is very pleasant and 'social.' 
 Parper saw your arrival in the * personals ' in the 
 Colonist. Are you any relation to Mr. Trevor at 
 Portland?" 
 
34 
 
 ONK OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 f \ 
 
 " No, I think not," he admitted. " I'm afraid I 
 am so shamefully ignorant that I hardly know 
 where Portland is." 
 
 "Nor to our Mr. Jones of Seattle?" she per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "No; but then, you know, there are so many 
 Joneses in the world." He did not like to remind 
 her that his name was not Jones, but Johns. 
 
 "That's correct," she answered; "but our R. P. 
 Jones of Seattle it, a \ ery prominent citizen. Made 
 quite a pile, too. He's in the hardware business." 
 
 Trevor Johns gasped. What would Kingdon 
 have thought, he wondered, of a Trevor Johns in the 
 hardware business at the place with the awful 
 name ? But he was wise enough to conceal his 
 thoughts. 
 
 " You say * our Mr. Jones,' Miss Gilchrist. Do 
 you mean by that that your home is at Seattle ? " 
 
 " Yes, you bet it is. Parper is in business there. 
 Now, Mr. Johns, there's a city! You sliould see 
 Seattle ! " she replied with enthusiasm. 
 
 " Why," he asked, " is it so very beautiful — better 
 than this ? " 
 
 (( 
 
 Well, I fdiouhl say so," she replied, putting down 
 
BB JB-Lll' ■ " ■ ' . M. "I Kl"" 
 
 IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 8$ 
 
 her plate, and drawing on her gloves ; " this little 
 town ain't a circumstance to it. Why, there are 
 more four-story blocks in one street in Seattle 
 than in the whole of Victoria — and hrich blocks 
 too!" • 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it must be a very fine city," 
 murmured Trevor, feebly. His ideas were getting 
 somewhat muddled. This young woman was cer- 
 tainly too many for him, and it really did require 
 an effort to realize that the number of brick blocks 
 in a city had anything to do with enhancing its 
 beauty. 
 
 "A fine city! why, it's the queen city of the 
 Sound. That's what Seattle is right to-day, with 
 electric lights and tramways, and telephones to all 
 the residences, and everything just humming. But 
 say, Mr. Johns, I wouldn't like Mr. Jarvis to hear 
 us, but doesn't Victoria seem just a little sleepy to 
 you? Kind of mossy, don't you know." . 
 
 And so this peri of the West babbled on, until 
 Trevor felt, when he left her to talk to some of his 
 other acquaintances on the lawn, that if Seattle 
 had many more such enthusiastic daughters, the 
 queen city of the Sound would stand in no need of 
 
' 
 
 36 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 advertising pamphlets. This is one of the strongest 
 points in your genuine "Western American. To him 
 or her there is only one city in the world worth men- 
 tioning, and that is the one he belongs to ; and his 
 loyalty to it, and his efforts to make it known as 
 "the hub of the universe," in season and out o^ 
 season, are beyond all praise. 
 
 And meanwhile Pussy Verulam had had a very 
 good time indeed. At first she had fallen into the 
 hands of some real " mossbacks," British Colum- 
 bians of the old Crown Colony days, charming 
 people who had kept their insular prejudices, 
 perhaps, and had let the world go by them without 
 making the most of it from a business point of view, 
 but who had kept other things better worth having 
 than their prejudices, and had iinjoyed to the utmost 
 the beautiful world around them, its sport and its 
 country pleasures; people who had perhaps been 
 something of a drag on the runaway coacli of 
 colonial ambition, but a very useful drag J or all 
 that, which had possibly saved the coach more than 
 once, when it might have come to grief downhill. 
 
 To one of these, a Mr. Esmond, she had said 
 after a while, "Why, Mr. Esmond, you kuov;- y.^ars 
 
 (V f 
 
 M 
 
 
-.aMBu 
 
 ■Pf*!**iW 
 
 wmm 
 
 «vr»— 
 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 37 
 
 is almost a Kingdon name ! We have Esmonds 
 living not ten miles away from us at home." 
 - "At Lycot," lie answered. "Yes, those are my 
 brother's people. He died some years ago, but his 
 second son Charley, oddly enough, is here to-day. — 
 Ah, Charlie ! " he cried, and a bronzed, hard- 
 looking young fellow, who was passing, stopped in 
 the middle of his chaff with a brother naval officer, 
 and came across to the group exclaiming, before his 
 uncle could introduce him, " Miss Verulam ! What 
 luck! Don't say you've forgotten me and last 
 year's Henley, and all the fun we had there ? " 
 
 " No, I've not forgotten you," she answered, laugh- 
 ing. " I'm afraid, Mr. Esmond, that none of the 
 people on that house-boat will ever forget you. He 
 was the most inveterate practical joker," she added, 
 turning to the elder man, " and the greatest tease in 
 the party." 
 
 " Oh, come, that's cr"pi ! " he replied. " When a 
 young man makes good resolutions, and starts fresh 
 in a new world, his past should be held sacred. But 
 come and let me show you the lions, in token of 
 forgiveness. I know them all, and they'll all be 
 quite civil to such a beautiful Una." And so saying, 
 
i 
 
 38 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 the unblushing mariner made fast his prize, and 
 sailed away with her in tow, as if she belonged to 
 the ship. Nor was Mr. Esmond's the only familiar 
 face which Miss Verulam saw on the Jarvises' lawn 
 that day. Ai^ '; the middies, shrinking somewhat 
 from the overpc .rering presence of their senior 
 officers, she discovered the son of a parson whose 
 church was almost within sight of her own home, 
 while two of the civilians on the lawn came up and 
 claimed her as an old acquaintance in the ball-room 
 and in the hunting-field. - 
 
 These men of course had come out to shoot some- 
 thing later on, and the worn trout-flies in their caps 
 proclaimed that they had already been busy with 
 their work of destruction. 
 
 " Is it not a tiny world, after all ? " she asked of her 
 companion. " Here are we, six thousand miles from 
 England, and I declare that there are almost as 
 maiiv people I know on this lawn as I should meet 
 in an a. iernoon drive round Kingdon." 
 
 " Yes, there seems to have been quite an exodus 
 for your special benefit," replied young Esmond, 
 demurely. "What are you looking surprised at? 
 * Exodus ' ? Oh, ' exodus ' is all right. Mrs. Bailey 
 
 \ 
 
 ^"^^J^lBfSi. 
 
tmmg m 
 
 OgMM. 
 
 • 
 
 -> 
 
 l( 
 
 ]N THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 3!» 
 
 caUs it so, and she's quite the most * prominent lady ' 
 I know." 
 
 " I won't have you chaff Victorians," said Pussy, 
 shaking her racquet at him. " I'm in love with them 
 already." - • 
 
 "I dare say; so are we all," he replied; "but 
 may we not laugh at them a little sometimes ? They 
 do at us very freely. For instance, as I came down 
 Government Street to-day, a rude little boy wanted 
 to know *if they was for wading up stream in.' 
 'They,' Miss Verulam, were as smart a pair of 
 knickerbocker breeches as ever walked into 
 Faringdon." 
 
 Pussy laughed, and then after a pause asked him, 
 "Are you not one of the party which goes to 
 Shawnigan to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Entirely at your service," he replied, with much 
 submission. 
 
 "Thank you, but I think I can take care of 
 myself," she replied. 
 
 "And therein you disagree with the supreme 
 organizer," he retorted; "for, in his wisdom, he 
 has provided two men and a fraction for each 
 lady." , 
 
 
 ' ll 
 
 A'-'MC^-'. 
 
 ^ -^i^^^-vomt*- ♦«*-"r''T'?ET' 
 
40 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 "To which class " she began mischievously, 
 
 and then added, " but perhaps I had better not ask." 
 
 " No, decidedly you had better not ask. A flag- 
 lieutenant is not a person to be unceremoniously 
 sat on. There's a subject for you to reflect on," 
 and with a merry laugh he raised his hat and left 
 her. "■■■ "■■.^'' ■ .'-/-^ ■"■;■ 
 
 - The whole of that afternoon was as beautiful as 
 a dream and as sparkling as champagne to Pussy. 
 As hosts Victorians leave nothing to be desired. 
 Every one seemed bent on pleasing, and everything 
 lent itself to pleasure, while what struck the visitors 
 most was that every one in the province seemed able 
 to take a holiday. ' - 
 
 The Jervises' tennis-party certainly was not the 
 only one in that month or even in that week. There 
 would be at least two like it, every day throughout 
 the season ; and yet at it were judges, and advocates, 
 and business men of all sorts. 
 
 Every one seemed to have made a fortune and to 
 be bent on enjoying it, and Pussy, though only a girl, 
 could not help wondering where the working bees 
 were, and what were the factories, trades, and callings 
 from which all this wealth flowed. 
 
 I 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 i 
 
 w'.^tiSl'''** miumm^-"' 
 
 JMHaMBiMMa 
 
 ■'• — >*n,.^.^ 
 
 1 
 
IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 41 
 
 Were there no people, she wondered, who had 
 still work to do and money to make in this wonderful 
 " City of Sunshine " ? She supposed not, but if 
 money- making was so easy here, why was Noel not 
 here to meet them ? Surely he had not gone by this 
 wonderful place. And yet, though they had made a 
 good many inquiries about Noel Johns, they had 
 obtained no news of him as yet. Trevor opined that 
 he would " bob up serenely " before very long as a 
 fabulously wealthy person in the hardware business 
 or as boss of a dry-goods store ; and, at any rate, it was 
 no good to worry about him, and so they all drifted 
 as every one drifts in the deliciously lazy West, 
 boating on the Gorge by moonlight, supping at the 
 Poodle Dog, being made much of by the " sailor men " 
 at Esquimau, and more or less forgetting their 
 quest. 
 
 After all, it did not matter much for a month 
 or two. In a place like British Columbia, no one 
 could possibly come to grief, much less such a fellow 
 as Noel Johns. 
 
42 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HIRED MAN. 
 
 Eight o'clock in the morning is an early hour for 
 some ladies, to some even an unbecomingly early 
 one, but ten minutes before that time Pussy 
 Verulam, her cheeks aglow with the soft sea-breeze, 
 and her great grey eyes full of swiftly changing 
 lights and shades, paced gaily up the platform of 
 the E. and N. Eailway Station. Trevor and her 
 father were with her, of course, but the rest of the 
 party were late, and in spite of a chorus of wild 
 feminine shrieks, barely induced the officials to wait 
 long enough for them to bundle themselves and 
 their belongings into the hindmost carriage of the 
 train. The early rising and final rush had had a 
 bad effect upon Miss Gilchrist's nerves. For once 
 she was distinctly snappish, and her fair hair had 
 none of that coquettish crispness in its little curls to 
 which her admirers were accustomed. "Picnics," 
 
 1/ 
 
 ,^ .■^ ^ -w rt B Ml ^i^^j': 
 
THE HIKED MAN. 
 
 18 
 
 ! 
 
 ►># 
 
 ■f 
 
 she opined, " didn't ought to begin until along about 
 the middle of the day, same as they did at Saratoga 
 and lake George, and such places." However, 
 luckily for her, the main part of the male contingent 
 was not to join the train until the next station, and 
 before that had been reached she had exerted her 
 fascinations upon the guard to such good purpose 
 that she obtained sole use of the baggage-car for 
 half an hour, and disappeared into it with a mysteri- 
 ous dressing-bag. When she reappeared, the syren 
 was herself again ; her colour had returned, her curls 
 were as crisp as ever, and her temper as sunshiny 
 as the morning. Like his daughter, the colonel — of 
 course Gilchrist was a colonel as well as a financier 
 — seemed to have left some of his toilet operations 
 unfinished, but with him the completion of them 
 took less time, and required no secrecy. From a 
 little grip-sack he produced a pair of linen cuffs 
 which he affixed publicly to his flannel shirt, and 
 drawing a comb from his breast coat-pocket, he 
 arranged his side locks and beard. Then he lit 
 a cigar, opened the daily paper, and no doubt felt 
 satisfied with himself and the world in general. The 
 colonel, however, was the only quiet one of the party. 
 
i: 
 
 I 
 
 44 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Chrissy Gilchrist had come out to have a good time, 
 and she meant to have it, and lavished her sunny- 
 smiles and little pleasantries on all and sundry. 
 The guard of course came in for his share, and 
 not even the innocent newsboy escaped, but the 
 majority of them were reserved for Trevor Johns, 
 who though a little appalled at first at her frank 
 advances, soon fell into the spirit of the thing, and 
 resigned himself contentedly to his fate. Eeally you 
 know, in a somewhat enervating climate like the 
 spring climate of British Columbia, it is much nicer 
 to be made love to than to make love ; it is pleasant, 
 in a way, to know that you can't do wrong, that 
 you may smoke as much as you like, be as rude as 
 ever you please, sail as near the wind in your words 
 as you know how to — the nearer the better — and yet 
 never offend. All this was a change to Trevor, and, 
 though I regret to record it, the change rather pleased 
 him ; and, besides, Chrissy was undoubtedly, as he put 
 it to himself, "an out-of-the-way pretty girl," and 
 therefore, in spite of the looks of wonder and disgust 
 which he saw more than once on Pussy's face, he 
 yielded himself to the syren, and sitting with her 
 on the step outside the carriage, watched the rolling 
 
 
 •*^ 
 
I 
 
 The hired man. 
 
 46 
 
 «i^ 
 
 wooded hiUs go by, and the blue lakes they 
 embosomed ; let the wind blow Chrissy's fair hair 
 across his eyes as the train swung round a curve, and 
 altogether flirted abominably, enjoyed himself amaz- 
 ingly, and gave poor Pussy the very worst heartache 
 she had had since their trip began. Of course the 
 old man saw it, and was sorry for Pussy ; but what 
 could he do ? After all, he was the most confirmed old 
 flirt himself, and was rattling away in a semi-paternal 
 and altogether affectionate manner with a blue-eyed 
 young woman almost young enough to be his grand- 
 daughter. For the first time in her life. Pussy, in 
 spite of her beauty, seemed to have dropped out 
 of the running, so that when she arrived at Shawnigan 
 she found herself standing alone on the little plat- 
 form gazing out upon the beautiful quiet lake, with 
 eyes which had in them the lustre tlut dew gives 
 to the meadows. She was used to Trevor's careless 
 flirtations with every pretty woman he met, but until 
 that day she had never known him so entirely 
 carried away as to leave her out in the cold. In 
 addition to all this, there was an unpleasant feeling 
 which was new to her. For once she felt out of 
 tune with her surroundings. 
 
 i 1 
 
 
 ^ 
 
4G 
 
 ONE OF THE BUOKEN BUIGADE. 
 
 ** I think, madame, that you are one of Mr. Snape's 
 party. May I put your things into the boat ? " said 
 a voice at her side, and as she turned with a start 
 to the speaker, Pussy Verulam looked into a face 
 that she had not seen for three years. , . 
 
 "Noel!" '■ 
 
 " Good God, Pussy ! " exclaimed the man who had 
 spoken, and then the hot blood rushed into his face, 
 and raising his hat instead of taking the eagerly 
 outstretched hand, he added, "I beg your pardon. 
 Miss Verulam, but I am only Ned Jones here, and I 
 implore you to forget that I was ever any one else. 
 Since we must meet in the next few days, I may 
 have a chance of explaining ; and, if not, forget!' And 
 taking up an armful of gear, he walked with it down 
 to the boat. ^ r 
 
 " Forget " is an easy word to say. If there was no 
 difficulty in forgetting, this world would be an easier 
 one to live in ; but if we cannot forget, if we cannot 
 bid it cease, we can at any rate hide our pain, and 
 Pussy being a woman, and a well-bred one, hid hers 
 bravely, so that when the rest of the party gathered 
 round her, no one noticed her trouble. She was quiet 
 and distraite, tired with the journey, and piqued, 
 
 T: 
 
 ol 
 ai 
 tl 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 ' 
 
 •^ 
 
THE HIKED iMAN. 
 
 IT 
 
 % 
 
 •^ 
 
 Trevor thought, at his neglect, and so he was careful 
 of her, and tried to make amends, but neither he nor 
 any one else could have guessed that all the time her 
 thoughts were wandering to that tall bronzed fellow 
 in a flannel shirt and sadly patched blue overalls, 
 who was doing Mr. Snape's bidding like a common 
 porter on the wharf. 
 
 " Who is going to row the boat across, Jones ? " 
 asked Snape. 
 
 " I thought some of the men in your party would," 
 answered the man in overalls. '* The boat is light, 
 and it's pleasant rowing." 
 
 " Pleasant rowing ? " snarled Snape ; " what, with 
 so many people, and all that luggage ! You couldn't 
 hire me to do it. Why the devil didn't you get that 
 fellow Winston to come over and help you ? " 
 
 " Mr. Winston is away down the lake, fishing," 
 replied Jones. "I didn't know that you wanted 
 more help, and I don't know whether he would have 
 come if I had known." 
 
 " Didn't know whether he would have come ! 
 He'd have come fast enough for a dollar," sneered 
 the estate-agent. "It's some time to remittance 
 day, isn't it ? " ' - 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 48 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 "I don't know much of Winston's business/* 
 replied Jones, coolly ; " except that his place is not 
 mortgaged, so that perhaps remittance day does not 
 matter so much to him." And Jones looked Snape 
 quietly, but squarely, in the face. 
 
 A remittance man he might be, and terribly down 
 in his luck, but he was not a man to be bullied by 
 every purse-proud cur, for all that. Snape sa\\ this, 
 and, to avoid a scene, asked more civilly — 
 
 " Well, what do you mean us to do ? " 
 
 " There is only one thing you can do," replied 
 Jones, beginning to pile all the mass of luggage 
 into the biggest boat of the two. " If some of these 
 gentlemen will scull the ladies over to my shack, I 
 will try to get the luggage across. I dare say I can 
 do it in time." 
 
 " Well, do that," replied Snape. " Do you fellows 
 mind pulling the ladies across ? I'm not much 
 good myself in anything except a properly built 
 boat." 
 
 " Mind ! " replied young Esmond. " Why, of 
 course not. What do you take us for? and what 
 is the matter with the boat ? But I'll tell you what 
 we'll do. Here is another we can hire for the trip. 
 
 i 
 
THE HIRED MAN. 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 I*' 4' 
 
 I 
 
 v^■ 
 
 I dare say ; and if Sumner wiU help me, and Miss 
 Veriilam wiU steer, Til back our boat against yours 
 for — a pipe of baccy. That's not a big-enough stake 
 to shock you, is it ? " he added laughingly to Pussy. 
 
 To this Snape was obliged to agree, but even after 
 thr party had been divided, the load in each boat was 
 a heavy one, and it was soon apparent that the boat 
 in which Snape was performing in an extraordinarily 
 agricultural fashion had no chance, so that the race 
 was abandoned by mutual consent, and the whole 
 party rowed slowly along side by side, trailing a line 
 from the stern of either boat, and now and then 
 adding a silvery trout of half a pound or so to the 
 possibilities of dinner. 
 
 A brighter picture could hardly have been found 
 than Shawnigan lake presented that afternoon ; the 
 two boat-loads of merrymakers, and the brilliant 
 sunshades of the girls, a/:ording just the touch of 
 colour pnd life which the great expanse of blue water, 
 set in its frame of piuewood, required ; but Pussy 
 could not close her eyes to the blot on the picture, to 
 that great, heavy, fl?.t-bottomed tub pi^ed high with 
 baggage, which crawled along so painfully in their 
 wake, propelled by one strong man earning his bitter 
 
 E 
 
-""•^i^imimmmm 
 
 
 I 
 
 60 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 bread in the sweat of his brow. Pussy could well 
 remember the time when her old playfellow would 
 have done harder work for the mere fun of doing it, 
 and knew well that no man in the party was likely to 
 be his match on lake or river ; but she understood, too, 
 that things were different now, and her cheek which 
 had flushed at Snape's insolent words to him, paled 
 as she watched the heavy boat drop further and 
 further astern. 
 
 " By Jove ! I say, what a shame ! Why, Snape, 
 that fellow will break his heart trying to scull that 
 mountain of luggage across," cried Captain Sumner, 
 one of those charming fellows who carry with them to 
 all our colonies the true flavour of the dear old country 
 air, and who couldn't be other than gentlemen if they 
 tried to be. "If you'll let me, I'm going to lend 
 him a hand for the rest of the way." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense," replied Snape, " he's all right. 
 Stop and have some lunch at the island, and just 
 one cocktail, if the ladies will allow it, and then we 
 can put out a spinner, and try for some of the bigger 
 fish between here and the camp. Besides, you have 
 done your share of work already." 
 
 " That was only a preliminary canter, and I'm just 
 
 I 
 
 
THE HIRED MAN. 
 
 51 
 
 
 If - 4 
 
 bogiiming to feel like work," insisted Sumner. 
 " Intercede for me with our liost, Miss Verulam. You 
 have no notion how necessary severe exercise is to 
 middle-aged mariners with a tendency to grow fat." 
 
 The girls loAigned. Sumner could afford to jest at 
 the dangers of corpulence for some time yet; but 
 Pussy's eyes rested on him gratefully, as she 
 replied — 
 
 " Yes, let him go, Mr. Snape. I believe we may 
 get our dressing-bags before dinner if he helps ; and I 
 don't know what would happiui if the boatman broke 
 down halfway." 
 
 ''He won't break down," said Snape; "these 
 fellows are like pack-ponies, not much to look at, 
 but they'll last all day. They are used to work, you 
 see." . 
 
 " Do you know that I don't agree wuh you, Mr. 
 Snape," replied Pussy, quietly, though she whs very 
 white ; '' and I am rather a judge of rowing vYe live 
 on the Thames, you know, at home, and it seems 
 to me that your man there" (and the words, in 
 spite of her quiet tone, had a bitter ring in them) " is 
 something to look at as an oar. Don't you think so, 
 Trevor?" ' ' 
 
 1 •■ r^" :1 1 
 
 I 
 
52 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 \W 
 
 " Yes ; I'll bet he never learned to row in America," 
 replied her cousin unthinkingly ; and then, seeing his 
 mistake, he added apologetically, " I mean, colonel, 
 that there is a difference of style between our rowing 
 and yours, though of course I'm not judge enough to 
 know which is the better." 
 
 "Guess you needn't ask me, Mr. Johns. Never 
 had any time to waste on such things myself. All 
 the exercise I ever took when I was a young man 
 was between my rooms and my office, and I took 
 that in the elevated railway most days," replied the 
 downright man of business. 
 
 "Well, Miss Verulam, I'm going to help him 
 even at the risk of having my style compared 
 unfavourably to his," assented Sumner. " Don't be 
 unkindly critical. Put me on board, and bring 
 the boat back, Esmond," he added, and together 
 the two shoved off and boarded the freight-boat, 
 which was now crawling slowly past the island 
 where the rancher's " guests " sat at lunch. 
 
 But though, with Sumner's sturdy help, the 
 freight -boat made somewhat better time than 
 before, it was a good half-hour longer in reaching 
 the camping-ground than the other two boats. 
 
THE HIRED MAN. 
 
 53 
 
 I 
 
 
 That half-hour was an unlucky one for Noel. At 
 the head of the lake, in the cool shadow of some 
 great cedars, tents had been pitched for the whole 
 party; hammocks had been swung between the 
 trees, and a camp-fire lighted, not because one 
 was needed in June, but for the sake of effect when 
 the light waned and pipes were lighted. But it 
 had been agreed that even in Vancouver Island in 
 June it would hardly do to trust absolutely to the 
 weather with ladies' in camp, so that it had been 
 arranged that the meals should be served and the 
 ladies' beds put up in Ned Jones's shack, which was 
 reasonably rainproof in places. To this shack the 
 ladies therefore went on landing, to superintend the 
 laying of the table. A few touches of their deft 
 fingers, a few wreaths of maiden-hair fern and Oregon 
 grape gathered in the woods, soon made, with the glass 
 and silver and white napery which they had brought, 
 quite a pretty show in the bare hut ; and then, her 
 duties performed, Pussy turned with feminine 
 curiosity to inspect her old playfellow's home, 
 never thinking that there might be anything which 
 he would t re to conceal from her. In all con- 
 science, the shack was uncompromising enough in 
 
r)4 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 its ugly rakedness. Eough pine poles laid on top 
 of one anoiLer, the crevices chinked with mud and 
 moss, made its walls ; cedar slats roofed it, un- 
 planed planks floored it, and its only ornaments 
 were a few stags' heads, shot in the woods near by, 
 and a couple of ill- tanned panther-skins. An 
 inner room, into which the girls were shown to 
 dress for dinner (!), was more interesting and better 
 kept. It was Ned Jones's own den, and it showed 
 traces of another life than that its owner now led. 
 Tacked to the rough walls, without frames, were his 
 household gods, a score or so of photographs, 
 photographs of people who surely never expected 
 to look down upon a kinsman amid such beggarly 
 surroundings. Almost every man in that little 
 gallery wore a uniform ; every woman bore about 
 her the stamp of a civilization older than that of 
 the West. To Pussy, the faces were most of them 
 faces of old friends, and one of the photographs put 
 up at the head of his rough cot, she turned 
 hurriedly with its face to the wall. She was only 
 sixteen when that photograph was taken, but it 
 was still too like her for her to run the risk — for 
 his sake — of having it recognized by any of her 
 
 
THE HIKED MAN. 
 
 55 
 
 companions. Beyond the photographs, an ohl school 
 " blazer " thrown on his bed, and a tin tub hanging 
 on a nail, there was nothing else in the room 
 suggestive of home. Unfortunately, Noel had not 
 expected any one but Viritorians in Snape's party, 
 and they of course would know what "baching it 
 in the woods" means, so he Lad taken no trouble 
 to conceal anything. On a swinging shelf of rough 
 lumber, hung on strips of deer-skin, was a motley 
 collection of pipes (the meerschaum he never 
 smoked for fear of breaking it, and the briar whicli 
 he had almost burnt away with constant use), a 
 chunk, of T. and B. tobacco, and an empty bottle 
 labelled, '* Walker's Imperial Club Rye." There 
 were two otliers like it oa the floor of the room, and 
 all three were empty. 
 
 So, then, this was the end of it ! This the real 
 explanation, whatever else he might tell her, " if the 
 opportunity offered ! " This was what Noel Johns 
 called ranching, and this was why Noel Johns had 
 become the hired man to Mr. Jacob Snape! Sick 
 and Sony, Pussy turned away. Girl-like, she could 
 not understand. To such as Pussy Verulam, the 
 coarser vices, such as drink, are unintelligible. 
 
56 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 But she had seen the wreck, and she thought that 
 now she saw the rocks which had caused it, and 
 the memory of that last night at Kingdon came 
 back to her, and the contrast between then and 
 now was almost too hideously vivid for her to 
 endure. If she had only known the truth, she 
 would have known that those three miserable 
 empty bottles represented the total consumption of 
 alcohol in the shack for the last two years, and that 
 their contents had been drained by Noel and his 
 brother ranchers when Shawnigan woods were deep 
 in Christmas snows to the old folks at home. 
 But she did not know ; she didn't even notice the 
 old wax drippings on them which showed why they 
 had been kept in a house where there were no other 
 candlesticks. All she felt was that the Noel she 
 knew was dead ; Ned Jones lived in his place. All 
 she hoped for was that " the old man " would not 
 discover his fall. 
 
 1 : 
 
 • jr-'-mBRr,^ -^Bfii^^gjig^^ 
 
■■■iBiBM 
 
 ( 57 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN. 
 
 " Say, Pussy, did you notice how like that hired man 
 is to your young man ? " 
 
 It was Chrissy Gilchrist who spoke from the 
 hammock in which she was lazily swinging herself 
 after dinner. She had known Miss Verulam just two 
 days, but she called her "Pussy" already, and spoke 
 of her " young man " as if Miss Verulam were a cook, 
 and he a police-constable. 
 
 " My young man ! Miss Gilchrist, who do you 
 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Why, who should I mean now, Miss Innocence ? 
 Mr. Trevor Johns, of c;ourse. Ain't he your young 
 man ? because if not, 3ay so. He's just too sweet to 
 be left loose any longer, if you don't claim him." 
 
 Pussy Verulam made no answer, but the firelight 
 which fell in a broad wavering bar across her face as 
 
 ^. fmrt ^Spv^gg i_2SSi-LlSLiJ a 
 
 mm 
 
68 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BUIGAUE. 
 
 she leaned up against a great cedar pole, made her 
 look as if her whole face was aflame. The bar of red 
 light passed her and flickered away across beds of 
 waving maiden-hair ferns (which were knee-deep in 
 places) and over fallen logs, until it touched the group 
 of men, where they sat smoking their first after- 
 dinner pipe. Pussy was almost afraid that they 
 must have overheard what had been said, but they 
 were out of earshot, even of Miss Gilchrist's high- 
 pitched voice. 
 
 "Well, didn't you. hear me, or are you dreaming 
 of the other one ? " persisted Pussy's persecutor. " I 
 believe I'll have to tell Mr. Johns that you are a bit 
 gone on the hired man." 
 
 " I wish that you wouldn't talk nonsense," answered 
 Pussy, coldly. " I don't like it." 
 
 " Oh, come now, you ain't mad with me, are you ? 
 In America, girls like talking of their fiances. Don't 
 they do the same in the old country ? " 
 
 " I really don't know," pleaded Pussy. " This is 
 only my first, you know," she added, laughing a 
 little. 
 
 "Your first? You don't say? Why, now, I was 
 engaged to my first when I wasn't more'n fifteen. 
 
 <^ 
 
THE CAMP AT SllAWNlGAN. 
 
 ni) 
 
 That was Abel J. Walsh, in the soap business. But 
 parpar just waltzed in, and Abel J. had to waltz 
 out." 
 
 " Poor Mr. Gilchrist ! " remarked Pussy, sympa- 
 thetically. 'I hope you haven't tried him much." 
 
 " I guess it don't try him any, now ; he's got used 
 to it. You see it's always been like that. The boys 
 come around and take you out for buggy rides and to 
 the theatre, and give you flowers and things, and then 
 when they drive you home they talk nonsense, and 
 ask you things, and sometimes you get kinder tired 
 of saying 'no.' But when it comes to business, 
 Ihcir way of fixin' things don't suit parper, so he 
 jest romps in and fires them out." 
 
 " And what do you do ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't do anything. Of course I'm sorry for 
 the ' boys ' ; but I do hope parper will give me fair 
 notice when he isn't going to take a hand in the 
 game any longer. It would make a whole heap of 
 difference." 
 
 Pussy laughed, but the gravity of the questions 
 which might arise if " parper " should suddenly 
 vacate his office, cast a temporary gloom over the 
 Seattle belle. Pussy hoped for a moment that her 
 
60 
 
 ONE OF THE BKOKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Vl 
 
 ■J 
 
 own affairs had escaped the fair Chrissy's memory, 
 but she was doomed to disappointment. 
 
 "Well," she heard her friend say at last, "you 
 ain't answered my question. Don't you think Mr. 
 Johns is very like the hired man ? " 
 
 " Is he ? Well, perhaps he is ; but how quick of 
 you to notice it ! I shouldn't have thought you 
 would have had time to." 
 
 " Because I was so busy with your Mr. Johns ? 
 Now, don't be mean. Pussy ; you'll have enough of 
 him by-and-by; and he was the only man in the 
 party who had eyes for any one but you. But I 
 made time to have almost as good a look at tho hired 
 man as you had, and that's saying a good deal. They 
 might almost have been brothers, those two, if Mr. 
 Jones hadn't been so brown, and hard, and dressed 
 like any ordinary dead beat." 
 
 " Dead beat ! What is a dead beat ? Forgive my 
 ignorance, but you know you told me I was only a 
 (what was it ? ) tenderfoot, myself." 
 
 "A dead beat is a Here, Captain Sumner," 
 
 cried I^Iiss Gilchrist, as the men came strolling into 
 the firelight, " help me learn Miss Verulam American. 
 She don't know what a dead beat is." 
 
 4 
 
THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN. 
 
 Gl 
 
 4 
 
 " Shocking-, Miss Verulam ! " laughed Sumner. " I 
 thought that nowadays all young ladies learned the 
 modern languages at their finishing schools. A 
 dead beat is an interesting species of the genus 
 tramp, variety whisky soak. He is found in most 
 large cities, and is one of the few varieties of his 
 species who try to get into the lockup and can't. 
 The police won't collect him; he is too common, 
 and utterly unremunerative. But who are you 
 calling a dead beat, Miss Gilchrist? None of us, 
 
 I hope." 
 
 " No, you ain't as bad as that, though you did stay 
 half an hour too long over your pipes, and nearly 
 gave us girls time to quarrel. We were saying that 
 Mr. Jones, your hired man, Mr. Snape, would have 
 been very like Mr. Johns there, if he hadn't been 
 dressed so like a dead beat." 
 
 " By Jove ! you are right. I noticed it myself at 
 once. You must see your double, Johns ; and I can 
 tell you he isn't one to be ashamed of. The man's 
 a gentleman, if he does dress like a dead beat," 
 exclaimed Sumner. 
 
 "Yes, now you mention it," chimed in Snape, 
 " there is a likeness, and it's odd, too, as the names 
 
62 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 "il 
 
 are so alike. A distant cousin who has forgotten 
 how to spell his own name, eh, Johns ? " 
 
 "Perhaps. All Americans are our cousins, you 
 know," replied Trevor, carelessly ; " but you have all 
 got the advantage of me. I've never had a glimpse 
 of his face yet. Where is he now ? I don't see him 
 about anywhere." 
 
 " Oh, I expect he's gone down to smoke his pipe 
 by the Chinaman's lire," replied Snape. 
 
 " By Gad ! it seems hard luck to turn the fellow 
 out of his own shack, and not to offer him a place by 
 the fire," remarked Trevor. "Let us ask him to 
 come up, and tell us all about the fishing." 
 
 " He wouldn't come if we did. Bettor leave him 
 alone," suggested Snape "Re's more at home 
 amongst the Chinamen than he would be here." 
 
 Captain Sumner half opened his mouth to reply, 
 ]jut shut it again, leavin^^ the words unsaid. He did 
 not know Snape well, though he was his guest, but 
 he liked him best when he was talking of anything 
 but his hired man. 
 
 To change the conversation, some one asked what 
 the plans were for the next day. 
 
 " I, liaven't made any definite plans," rei)lied Snape. 
 
 i 
 
 \ 
 
THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN. 
 
 63 
 
 I 
 
 " 1 always hate plans when I am out for a holiday ; 
 but those who want to loaf can loaf here ; those who 
 want to catch big fish can go on up to Satlam. 
 You'll go to Satlam, I suppose, Mr. Verulam ? " 
 
 " Yes, Satlam for me, though if it was not for all 
 these young men who cut me out, I would of course 
 rather stay with the ladies." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say, old man ! " cried Trevor, who in 
 secret envied Mr. Veralam his freedom ; " but you 
 won't get the ladies to forgive your desertion, will 
 they. Miss Gilchrist ? " 
 
 " No, I won't, anyhow. I just relied on him and 
 parper to take care of me, and now the only two 
 men in the party worth anything are going. I shan't 
 even say good night to you. Come along, Mrs. 
 Snape." And Chrissy tumbled out of her hammock, 
 collected what she called her ictas {i.e. fan, 
 handkerchief, and other trifles), and made lier way 
 to the side of a stout, useful-looking lady who had 
 been vainly endeavouring to keep herself awake for 
 the last half-hour. Poor Mrs. Snape ! hers was indeed 
 a hard lot in camp. Nature had created her to mend 
 clothes, abolish spiders' webs, remove grease-spots, 
 and generally keep her home spick and span. In 
 
 V 
 
i 
 
 I: 
 
 I 
 
 64 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 her own line, she was unrivalled and indefatigable, 
 ready to begin work at seven every morning, and to 
 keep at it, with three intervals for the consumption 
 of square meals, until nine in the evening. But at 
 or a little before nine Mrs. Snape's nature rebelled ; 
 her jaw began to di*op, her eyes to close, and, if 
 seated in her own armchair, her whole body 
 collapsed comfortably amongst the cushions, and 
 she slept peacefully until it was bedtime. But 
 in camp nothing could possibly be kept neat. 
 There were spiders* webs everywhere; caterpillars 
 in most places; and in the evening she dared not 
 recline in a hammock, because that would mean 
 instant slumber sound and noisy ; whereas, if she sat 
 on a log, she was in constant danger of tumbling 
 off. She had fallen off once already, but luckily that 
 had been before the men had joined the party. For 
 the last five minutes Chrissy had been watching her 
 anxiously. 
 
 She had seen her turban tip coquettishly over her 
 ear, she had seen her toupe slide two inches further 
 down her nose, she had seen a bland smile spread all 
 over her dear fat old face as her ball of wool roll 'id 
 merrily from her lap into the red ashes, and by the 
 
 \ i 
 
THEJ CAMt> AT SHAWNiaAK. 
 
 65 
 
 \ 
 
 time Clirissy reached her, her feet had already given 
 two convulsive little kicks. Another second and 
 Mrs. Snape would have passed over into the shadow 
 which lay beyond the great log on which she had 
 perched, but Chrissy saved her, and, all unconscious of 
 the imminent danger from which she had escaped, 
 the good old lady gathered her chicks under her 
 wing, and plodded away towards the shack. The 
 road thither was a long one, and in the dark a very 
 rough one, as the poor lady found to her sorrow, 
 breaking her shins over logs, and slipping into bog- 
 holes over her sturdy ankles, while her undutiful 
 spouse left her severely alone, attaching himself to 
 Chrissy, and thus giving Pussy the opportunity she 
 wanted for five minutes' conversation with Trevor. 
 
 " Give me your arm, Trevor," she said ; " I don't 
 want to tumble over these logs and break my nose ; 
 and," she added in a lower tone, " drop behind the 
 others a little. I have something I want to tell 
 you." ' 
 
 " What is it, sweetheart ? I hope I am not in 
 disgrace," replied Trevor, doubtfully. 
 
 "Does your conscience prick you, sir? No, I'm 
 not going to scold. I have something more 
 
 F 
 
m 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 1/ 
 
 
 ii 
 
 
 important to talk about. Do you remember three 
 years ago singing * Auld Lang Syne ' at Kingdon ? " 
 
 " What, when Noel went away ? Of course I do." 
 
 " Do you know where Noel is now ? " 
 
 " No ; that is just what we want to find out, isn't 
 it ? Why, have you had the luck to hear of him 
 from any of these people to-night. Pussy ? " 
 
 " Yes, I heard of Noel to-night." 
 
 "You did! Who told you? Where is he?" 
 asked Trevor, eagerly. 
 
 " Mr. Snape expected that he had gone off to the 
 Chinamen's camp, because he would feel more at 
 home there than he would with us," quoted Pussy, 
 quietly. 
 
 " What do you mean, dear ? Snape doesn't know 
 Noel ? '* 
 
 " Oh, Trevor, can't you understand ? Mr. Snape 
 doesn't know Noel Johns, but he hires Ned Jones, 
 and Ned Jones is Noel Johns. No wonder the 
 hired man is something like you, Trevor, is it ? " 
 
 " Pussy, are you chaffing ? Noel is somewhere 
 west, ranching." 
 
 "Well, can you get further west than this? 
 This is ranching, or whisky-soaking, or being a 
 
 ■ 'm^''^mMf-'*mi''s 
 
 ^■.«;--?lP,-' ■ '^.'VXK'S'Sf" • 
 
THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN. 
 
 G7 
 
 dead beat, or any other vile thing these people like 
 to call it," cried the girl passionately. " That man 
 in the flannel shirt, who pulled the freight boat 
 across, was our Noel." 
 
 Trevor Johns had his faults, but jealousy was not 
 one of them. He knew the true little woman on his 
 arm too well to doubt her, though he could see now 
 that the sweet lips were quivering, and the great 
 grey eyes had overflowed at last. In the shadow 
 of the cedars, he passed his arm round her waist, 
 and pressed her closer to hira, and then, true to 
 his nature, turned to her for advice. Trevor was 
 always ready to row, but he had learned already 
 to expect Pussy to steer. 
 
 " What are we to do ? We can't let him stay like 
 that." 
 
 " We cannot alter anything at present. All I 
 want you to do is to be careful not to betray him. 
 He doesn't want to be recognized before these 
 people, so we must not recognize him." 
 
 "All right; but I can't see why he need mind. 
 A fellow can't help being poor, and 1 don't suppose 
 he need be ashamed of us." 
 
 " He probably has his reasons, Trevor; but, at any 
 
.■■■^15 
 
 68 
 
 ONE OF THE BUOKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 rate, he doesn't want to be known as Noel Johns. 
 That should be enough for us." 
 
 " All right, I'll keep your secret, and I'll tell the 
 old man ; but I hope that fellow Snape will keep a 
 civil tongue in his head. I don't much fancy seeing 
 my cousin ordered about by him." 
 
 "If Noel can stand it, we can. Good night, 
 Trevor." 
 
 " Good night, dear," he said, and the next moment 
 he saw her willowy figure pass through the light of 
 the open doorway. The door was closed, and the 
 light went out, and he found himself in a dark- 
 ness which was intense. There was no moon, and 
 the trees stood so close together that you could not 
 see the stars, while the light of the camp-fire was 
 for the moment hidden. As Trevor and Pussy had 
 made their way to the shack, they had had the 
 glimmer from the open doorway to guide them. It 
 was not much, but when he turned his back upon 
 it, and passed over the path again, without light and 
 alone, Trevor Johns realized how great an influence 
 any guiding light, and any companionship, has in 
 shortening and making smooth our paths. 
 
 Suddenly his reverie was broken by a wild 
 
 I. 
 
 ^ * v t m m f» *m'm m m > '»» n. mft .m^ m»9t 
 
 i 
 
THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN. 
 
 09 
 
 i : :=jfe 
 
 unearthly laugh, which came from somewhere in 
 the middle of the lake. It was only a loon calling, 
 and Trevor was woodsman enough to recognize the 
 cry, though he wondered at it, at such an hour, but 
 it made him shudder nevertheless, and mutter as he 
 hurried towards the camp-fire, " Great Heaven ! if he 
 has been alone here for three years, I wonder that 
 he has not gone mad." 
 
 He had some reason for his thought. The depths 
 of the cedar forests and the still lakes they hide 
 and overshadow, are almost as full of horror when 
 the sun is hidden, and no voice of man breaks their 
 silence, as they are full of delight when the sun- 
 light dances on their waters and girls' laughter 
 echoes down their aisles. A lonely life in the hear': 
 of them, with only regret for a comrade, is such a 
 foretaste of hell as might break the spirit even of a 
 remittance man of twenty- three. 
 
m 
 
 70 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FOOL-HEN S PLAY. 
 
 The next day the old man went up to Satlam to 
 fish, accompanied by Colonel Gilchrist and one or 
 two of the others. The old man meant business. 
 He had heard that British Columbian salmon would 
 not take a fly, but he didn't believe it. At any rate, 
 he meant to try th'- u with such an assortment of 
 flies, jock scotts, silver doctors, and so forth, with 
 such skill and patience as he thought had never 
 been given to them before. Surely, he thought, 
 American salmon, as he called them, must yield to 
 British skill. The colonel, too, meant business, but 
 not with that gigantic " fishing-pole " which he was 
 "toting along." No, no! He would have a try 
 with " bugs " and " hoppers," just to pass away the 
 time, and maybe he would catch as many salmon 
 as Mr. Verulam; but he carried his fly-book in his 
 
 /' 
 
THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY. 
 
 71 
 
 ' I 
 
 pocket too, and the fish he was after was bigger than 
 any salmon that ever went up the Frazer. Colonel 
 Gilchrist's fly-book was the prospectus of a mining 
 company in which he had an interest in Assineboia, 
 and before he went home he hoped to have enticed 
 with it a good many pounds of British capital into 
 his possession. But he said very Uttle at first. In 
 his way Colonel Gilchrist was an exceedingly skilful 
 and experienced fisherman, and he knew the danger 
 of showing himself to his fish before he had hooked 
 him. As a matter of fact, neither of the anglers had 
 much success on that first expedition. They showed 
 the fish their lures ; they could see the great fellows 
 swimming about all around them, but they never got 
 a rise. 
 
 Meanwhile, those who had stayed behind in camp, 
 passed the time pleasantly enough, boating and 
 bathing, fishing in a lazy kind of way, and flirting 
 just as much as was good for them. But day after 
 day went by, and, in spite of Pussy's efforts, she never 
 got a chance of speaking to Noel alone. Whatever 
 had to be done about the camp, he did it ; but his 
 work seemed to be done, the wood chopped, the 
 stores brought from the station, before any of the 
 
72 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 1 
 
 f' 
 
 1 ff) 
 
 '11 
 
 party were astir ; and after breakfast he was always 
 away with the men fishing or guiding them to some 
 likely place for bear, or bigger fish than those to be 
 found near the camp. As a rule, he went out with 
 Sumner or young Esmond, for of late Trevor and 
 Snape had been inseparn^ le, though they rarely 
 seemed to catch anything; and, indeed, their chief 
 interest appeared to be in the receipt of the morning 
 paper, and in certain letters which Snape received 
 almost daily. As Trevor did not tell her what these 
 letters were about, the girl did not inquire, but she 
 could not help seeing that they appeared to contain 
 exceedingly pleasant news for Snape, in which Trevor 
 seemed to share. For some reason, which she could 
 not define even to herself. Pussy liked her host less 
 and less day by day, and would have been glad had 
 he and Trevor been less inseparable. 
 
 It was the last day of their stay at Shawnigan 
 when Pussy met Noel again. The girl had been 
 away by herself in the woods gathering a great 
 bunch of ferns and the sweet-scented deersfoot, as a 
 souvenir of her visit to the lake. The cedar swamp 
 in which she was resting was heavy with the sweet 
 scents of June, and the afternoon sunlight came in 
 
 r 
 
 J- 
 
THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY. 
 
 78 
 
 broken bars through the warm darkness which the 
 great trees made. Pussy had had a long ramble and 
 was tired, and not quite certain of her way to camp, 
 so for awhile she leaned against the trunk of a huge 
 cedar which lay prone across the logging trail. 
 
 "You will have to go a long way round, Miss 
 Verulam, unless you think that you could climb over 
 with my help," said a voice above her ; and, looking 
 up, the girl saw Noel, whose moccasined feet had 
 come along the great trunk as noiselessly as a bear's. 
 
 " It's higher than my head, Noel ; but you have 
 helped me to climb higher than that before now." 
 
 " Why harp on the past, Miss Verulam ? " replied 
 the man ; " when one has lost heaven, it is better to 
 let him forget it." 
 
 y " I say ' no ' to that ; and as to referring to the past, 
 you promised to tell me your story since that last 
 night at Kingdon. I have obeyed you in keeping 
 your secret, now keep your promise to me." 
 
 " There is no story to tell — no story, at least, that 
 you could understand." 
 
 " Noel, did I not understand in the old days ? 
 Why not now ? Why should our old friendship 
 have changed ? " 
 
 -jiX. ■ 
 
74 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " Because you are no longer Pussy to mo, nor I 
 Noel. And as to promises " 
 
 " It's not necessary to break all, because you have 
 broken one," said the girl, bitterly. 
 
 " Broken one ? " he asked almost angrily ; and then 
 softening his tone at once, he added, " but I dare say. 
 What was it ? I promised to write, and didn't write ; 
 or to make a fortune and come home, and I never 
 came ? " 
 
 " We didn't blame you for not writing ; the old 
 man thought you were too busy. Is this the sort of 
 thing you have been doing all the time ? " 
 
 " Yes, almost all the time. It's hard work, isn't 
 it ? and if I keep on steadily until the day of judg- 
 ment, it may be remunerative. Did you notice my 
 potato patch ? I felled fifty trees, some of them ten 
 feet through, to make that." 
 
 " But why do it ? Surely there is something 
 better than this to do out here ! " 
 
 " Oh yes, there is. I shoot game for the market, 
 for instance, in the winter. That pays." 
 
 " Pays ! Yes, pays, perhaps, for bread and 
 meat." 
 
 "Well, not always, Miss Verulam. Bacon and 
 
 ■•«• 
 
THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY. 
 
 75 
 
 ^•^ : 
 
 beans are about ray form, as a rule, but cold potatoes 
 will do at a pinch. You needn't cook them more 
 than once every three days, if you boil a good potful 
 at a time." 
 
 "And yet you waste your money on that vile 
 whisky ! " 
 
 The words were hardly out of Pussy's mouth 
 before she repented them. After all, this was a man 
 to whom she was speaking, and not her old play- 
 fellow Noel. But the angry light faded from Noel's 
 eyes sooner than the colour from her cheeks, and he 
 answered quietly. " Did the man who told you that 
 I drank tell you that I gambled too ? If not, ask 
 Sna^ ; he can tell you how I lost every penny, and 
 why the beggar they call Ned Jones starves on his 
 mortgaged farm." 
 
 So then it was true, after all ; she had not mis- 
 read the signs ; the thumbed cards and the empty 
 bottles. Though her heart sank and her throat felt 
 as if it would burst with the sobs which she must 
 restrain, she could say nothing. She had hoped 
 that she had been mistaken, that all could be 
 explained. Now she knew why Noel, who went away 
 three years ago to conquer the world, was but a 
 
t 
 
 I 
 
 
 if.f 
 
 76 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 lanu-shark'a drudge, and in tho bitterness of her 
 heart she walked wearily away from him without 
 attempting to reply. 
 
 "Pussy!" 
 
 The old name, and a tone in the speaker's voice 
 which made his cry sound like a prayer, made her 
 turn. 
 
 ' Well, No^l." 
 
 " Why will you insist on knowing all about a poor 
 devil who has wrecked his own life ? " 
 
 "Forgive me, forgive me, Noel. I ought not to 
 have asked, but it is so 'lard to forget the dear old 
 days, and now " 
 
 " Well, and even now, Pussy, think the best of me. 
 I'\e been a fool, but never worse, never worse, I 
 swear." And he caught her hands in his, and drew her 
 to him llscit he might see whether he had driven the 
 doubting trouble from her eyes. 
 
 " I believe you," she said simph; ; " but oli, Noel, 
 why can you not be as strong as Trevor ? " 
 
 At Trevor's name he dropped her hands. " You 
 cannot judge a man's strength until it has been 
 tried," he said coldly. 
 
 " That was not spoken like a Johns. You know 
 
 ^ 
 
.;i 
 
 THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY. 
 
 77 
 
 )r 
 
 Lt 
 
 as well as I do that nothing would ever tempt 
 Trevor to gamble, or — or " 
 
 " Drink ; out v: ' th it, dear. Well, perhaps, if Trevor 
 never drank more than I have done in the last few 
 years, it would do him no harm. But there, forgive 
 me. Pussy ; I'm not as good a fellow as my cousin, 
 and never was. Fortune is right to give him all the 
 prizes ; but give me back your friendship, and try to 
 forget my fall." 
 
 The two had been walking slowly down the trail 
 as they talked, and had been so deeply engrossed in 
 each other that they had taken no notice of a 
 constant cheeping in the ferns by their side, nor of 
 certain little fluffy brown things which had been 
 trying to tumble out of their way as well as their 
 ungrown wings and feeble legs would let them. 
 Now, however, Noel and Pussy had come too close to 
 the brood, and what was this that they saw ? A bird 
 about as large as a partridge was rushing along the 
 trail towards them, its breast on the ground, its 
 feathers erect with fury, its eyes ablaze, and its beak 
 wide open. Half-frightened, the girl drew back, and 
 as she did so, the creature dashed right up to them, 
 hissing strangely as it came, and absolutely struck 
 
 % 
 
rii 
 
 if 
 
 '.i \ 
 
 1 
 
 78 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 right and left at Noel's overalls : a thing of less than 
 two pounds' weight, which, with insignificant beak 
 and feeble claws, was actually contesting the road 
 with an armed giant a hundred times its weight. 
 
 " Steady, old lady, steady ! " said Noel, looking 
 laughingly at his little foe, " I'm not going to hurt 
 your little ones. Be off with you, will you ? " and he 
 tried to drive the bird gently away ; but in spite o 
 all his efforts, the gallant little mother hung round 
 him, menacing him all the time, until the last of her 
 clumsy chicks had reached a place of safety. Then 
 she thought of herself; there was a quick rush of 
 brown wings, and she was gone. The forest play was 
 over. 
 
 " What a plucky little darling ! What is it, 
 Noel ? " the girl asked, when the bird had Howu. 
 
 " A grouse with chickens. Yes, they are as plucky 
 and self-sacrificing as anything in the world, I believe. 
 That is why they call them ' fool-hens,' I suppose." 
 
 " Fool-hens ! I wish men had some of their 
 
 folly." 
 
 "So do I, Pussy. I suppose the best of them 
 have some of their courage ; but self-sacrifice is the 
 virtue of your sex, isn't it ? " 
 
THE FOOL-IIKN'S PLAY. 
 
 79 
 
 -v- 
 
 " Are you laughing at me, or do you mean it ? " 
 
 " Of course I mean it." 
 
 " And do you think that yours is the nobler virtue ? 
 Do you think it harder to dare than to deny your- 
 self ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! but then, Pussy, I never had a very 
 high opinion of mere courage. If a fellow has it, 
 he can't help it, and it's no particular credit to him ; 
 if he is an Englishman, and hasn't got it, he ought 
 to be drowned as a hisits naturoe." 
 
 Pussy laughed. 
 
 " Well, I won't go as far as that, but I do think 
 that most of us might take that fool-hen for a 
 model, without losing our self-respect." 
 
 "You don't know the fool-hen as I do, Pussy. 
 When she has no chicks, she thoroughly deserves 
 her name. Why, that bird has so much confidence 
 in man's natural integrity that she will sit for an 
 hour on the limb of a pine for boys to throw stones 
 at her, and will never wake up to her mistake until 
 she Hes a mass of crumpled feathers and broken 
 bones at the foot of the tree. I think, if you knew 
 my history, you might fancy me too like that fool- 
 hen." ■■■/■■^:' r ■ . ' ■ -■■■■/■---' ■-.^.\ ■^.., ^n. 
 
80 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 i 
 
 1 1 
 
 :i 
 
 i n 
 
 " I would forgive any folly for such self-sacrifice 
 as hers." 
 
 "Would you? Unfortunately every one has a 
 chance of making a fool of himself; the chances of 
 performing acts of heroism are rare in this ugly 
 work-a-day world ; and as for self-sacrifice, some of 
 us are so beggared of all that makes life worth 
 1" ing that we have nothing left to sacrifice. Can 
 you fancy what it is to live year after ye&i: a name- 
 less man in these woods, with nothing to do but to 
 fell trees and make a hideous mess of nature? to 
 stand at night, when the day's work is over, 
 amongst the trees you have felled, and see the dark 
 come down amongst the stiff rows of pines ? Pines, 
 pines everywhere, and beyond, through the tops, a 
 glimpse of more pines; and somewhere through 
 them, a liitle inland sea, as still as the forest and as 
 dreary.' 
 
 " But, Noel, you used to bo so fond of che woods 
 in old times." 
 
 "And so I am still of tlie lire wo«:ds, but these 
 are dead and dumb. Kvery thing in tbem is tho 
 same for ever and ever, and everything is dumb. 
 Why, even the creatures get cowed. Who ever heard 
 
 i 
 
 «»':' 
 
 I ''it < 
 
THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY. 
 
 81 
 
 t 
 
 a bird sing here ? Tlie very deer come Hke ghosts ; 
 the great bears pass like shadows. But come, Pussy, 
 you must got back into the firelight. It is getting 
 too cheerless for you in this cursed timber." And 
 so saying, he led her along the great fallen cedar, 
 which made a broad, raised roadway for them for 
 nearly a hundred yards above the underbrush, and so 
 down on to a trail and to the camp. Just before 
 reaching camp, Noel asked her, "Is Trevor a good 
 business man ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she answered ; " I suppose he is. 
 I know he thinks he is; but Marshall, of course, does 
 most of his work for him at home. Why do you 
 aHk?" 
 
 " Because they tell me that you are going to 
 marry him, little friend," he answered gently, loDk- 
 ing away from her ; " and because it is necessary 
 for a man who would keep his own foi those \7ho 
 have a right to it, to be better business men here 
 than at home. Here you can trust no one. 
 Tell Trevor that, and tell him that I include 
 even his friend Snap(3 in those I would have him 
 distrust." ' " ' 
 
 " But Snape is his host. Whatever he may do to 
 
•^"VL. 
 
 mm 
 
 82 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 If 
 
 lii 
 
 i!l 
 
 ^ 
 
 Nl 
 
 others, surely he would not mislead a guest and a 
 friend." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right, but caution Trevor. 
 Stay ! Tell him, from me, that Snape was my best 
 friend once, and my host very often, but his hos- 
 pitality cost me more than a yacht would have done, 
 and now I am his 'hired man.' Good night. Miss 
 Verulam,' he added, raising his cap as he spoke; 
 " you can find your way home, I think." And so 
 saying, he turned and vanished down a side trail 
 which led away from the camp, leaving Pussy to 
 walk the rest of the distance with a couple of her 
 friends who had come out from the camp to meet 
 her. 
 
 That night, when he lay somewhere outside the 
 light of the camp-fires smoking his pipe in the 
 silence, which had grown on him as the moss had 
 grown on the cedars, she had to bear her part in the 
 pleasant raillery of the picnic-party ; but when the 
 lights were out, and the camp was hushed, she lay 
 awake wondering long into the night, and was no 
 nearer the truth at the end of it than she was when 
 she first met him. 
 
 That he was ruined she saw ; that he was heart- 
 
THE FOOL.HEN'S PLAY. 
 
 8a 
 
 broken she felt ; and yet ho was the same old Noel, 
 and neither face nor bearing accorded with what she 
 took to be his admission, that his ruin was of his 
 own making. He had said he was a gambler, and 
 yet he looked neither gambler nor sot. 
 
-,-»^-*U,— 
 
 ^1 
 
 1 
 
 84 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 i> 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ■■ 'i 
 
 « 
 
 VENGEANCE IS MINE." 
 
 The day after Pussy's talk with Noel, the party 
 broke up ; the naval men had their duties to resume, 
 Snape had business to attend to, and Chrissy Gilchrist 
 ■was wearying for her hotel and town life. No forest 
 thing is more impatient of the restraint of captivity 
 than is your true American of the " pleasures " of 
 the country. There are, of course, grand exceptions 
 to this rule as to every other ; there are not only 
 men, but gallant women, who have crossed the 
 plains, in the old dangerous days, in prairie schoonej' «, 
 and have lived half their lives on the very edge of the 
 desert, but Americans as a race are exceptionally 
 gregarious, and ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 of them would crowd into cities, however mean and 
 beggarly, if they had the chance. A proof of this 
 spirit is afforded, if one be needed, by the fabulous 
 
^m 
 
 "VENGEANCE IS MINE." 
 
 85 
 
 prices paid for suburban lands, whilst infinitely 
 better lands for farming, -which might be bought for 
 next to nothing, are left unoccupied. But I am 
 wandering from my story. 
 
 Owing to some miscalculation, the whole of our 
 picnic-party arrived at Shawnigan platform more 
 than an hour before the train was due. Snape of 
 course blamed that fool Jones. 
 
 "One would have thought that as the coming 
 of the train is the only event here in the day, you 
 might have known when it left," he grumbled. 
 
 " It used to leave about this time of day, but 
 I suppose the train times have been altered lately," 
 replied Jones, indifferently. " I don't trouble the 
 train much myself. When I want to go to Victoria, 
 I generally walk." 
 
 "The deuce you do! Isn't it an awfully long 
 tramp ?" asked Trevor. 
 
 " Twenty-five or thirty miles, I suppose ; but I 
 would rather walk that distance through the woods 
 than earn the fare, a dollar fifty, in any other way 
 that I know of." 
 
 " By Gad ! I beUeve you are right. I wonder if 
 you would mind my coming with you, if you are 
 
?!■?»■ 
 
 86 
 
 OiVE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 going in to-day ? " asked Trevor, glancing at the small 
 pack which Noel had strapped on his shoulders, 
 and thinking that the walk would give him the 
 opportunity he wanted of talking quietly to his 
 cousin, without any chance of interruption. 
 
 " I should like it," replied Noel, warmly ; " only 
 it is a long way to town from here." 
 
 " But there are plenty of stations, are there not, 
 between here and there ? " 
 
 " Yes, five or six ; but you will have to go right 
 through with it if you start. There is only one 
 train a day from Shawnigan to Victoria." 
 
 " You are all right, Johns, the station-master says 
 the train isn't due for another hour and a half, and 
 she'll be an hour and a half late by the time she 
 gets to the * Summit * to-day. So, if you start now, 
 you can catch the train there. You will have had 
 enough of it in seven or eight miles, I expect," said 
 Sumner. " Come and have a drink before you start. 
 Won't you have one too ? " he added pleasantly to 
 Jones. "You'll be dry enough before you get to 
 Victoria." 
 
 " No, thank you. Captain Sumner ; there's lots of 
 water on the way, and I never touch anything 
 
'•^■^ 
 
 "VENGEANCE IS MINE." 
 
 67 
 
 stronger nowadays except to drink a toast in once 
 a year." 
 
 " By George ! that's going a long while between 
 drinks," replied Sumner ; and Pussy, who overheard 
 the answer, felt a twinge of conscience when she 
 remembered what a hurry she had been in to judge 
 her old playfellow. 
 
 " I say, why shouldn't we all walk as far as the 
 first station ? " suggested Sumner. " What do you say, 
 ladies ? It's either that or a three hours' wait here ; 
 and the station-master says the line is a regular 
 garden of wild flowers." 
 
 " Oh, let us go, then ! " cried Pussy, thoughtlessly. 
 " What do you say. Miss Gilchrist ? " 
 
 "Well, I'll do my possible to get the guard to 
 pick up your bodies as we pass, but you don't catch 
 Christina Gilchrist walking seven miles when she 
 can ride in a car." 
 
 After a little more discussion, it was arranged that 
 Trevor and Pussy should, at any rate, walk with Noel 
 as fax as the first station, and there rejoin the rest 
 of the party, and it looked for a moment as if the 
 three old friends would at last get a chance of being 
 alone together for a couple of hours ; Sumner and 
 
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 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ]\i 
 
 Esmond having gallantly decided to stay with the 
 beautiful American. But if either of the three 
 rejoiced, the joy was premature. For the last day 
 or two Snape had hung perpetually upon Trevor's 
 heels, as if he feared to leave him alone, and that 
 more especially when Jones was about. That he 
 had guessed the relationship which existed between 
 them was of course impossible, but he had marked 
 the likeness, and had been shrewd enough to see 
 that there was a natural sympathy existing between 
 his hired man and his guests, in which he himself 
 had Eo share. ' i ' 
 
 He knew, too, what Jones might say of him and 
 his dealings, if he chose to ; and, even at the cost 
 of a walk which he hated, he meant to prevent any 
 conversation which might interfere with his little 
 plans for Mr. Trevor Johns' future benefit ; so, to 
 every one's surprise, and Noel's intense disgust, 
 he expressed his intention of joining the walking 
 party. 
 
 " What, you going to walk ? " remarked Sumner. 
 " I thought you told us that the only way for a 
 rational man to travel was outside of a horse ? " 
 
 " So it is, but I haven't got a horse here ; and as 
 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
 ■ S 
 

 'H. 
 
 "VENGEANCE IS MINE." 89 
 
 '^ ,i,his is the last day of our hoUday, I must make the 
 most of it. I shall have to sit all day in my office 
 for the next month or two. Come on, Johns. Lead 
 the way for us, Jones." 
 
 This was by no means what either Noel or his 
 cousin had bargained for, but there was no escape 
 for them, and the grin on Snape's face showed that 
 he knew it. With a muttered malediction, Noel 
 shouldered his pack, and plodded steadily along the 
 line, getting his reward now and then in being 
 allowed to help Pussy over the trestle-bridges, or 
 in showing her some fresh fern or flower on the 
 side of the track. 
 
 It was whilst the others were on the line, and 
 whilst Noel and Pussy were busy digging up some 
 roots of the brilHant columbine, that she had a 
 chance of asking him, "Are you really walking 
 to save the fare? Are things as bad as that, 
 
 Noel?" 
 
 " As bad. Pussy, and worse. I am utterly stone- 
 broke," he replied, bending over the roots. 
 
 "But you've got your pay to draw from Snape 
 for your week's work." 
 
 "Not much 1 I mean that is not quite so. My 
 
90 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 claim for work done is set off against the interest 
 I owe him on his confounded mortgage." 
 
 "But you've got the house and land," she 
 persisted. 
 
 " Yes, to-day I have ; but he has been taking fore- 
 closure proceedings against me, and that won't be 
 mine long." 
 
 "But, Noel, can't you " 
 
 "No, I can't, Pussy. I can't do anything but 
 go ; and, what is more, that is just what I want to 
 do. Better be stone-broke, and begin afresh as a 
 day-labourer, than go on eating my heart out in 
 that place ; besides, I couldn't go back now that you 
 and the others have been there." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Mere sentiment, but I couldn't. I was trying 
 to forget, and you have made me remember. But 
 don't grieve, little sister. You have only done me 
 good, as you always did." 
 
 " But what will you do, Noel ? You must let my 
 father help you. Oh, how I wish he was here ! " 
 
 " No, Pussy, that is just the one thing for which I 
 would never forgive you. I know, of course I know, 
 that it would be the natural thing for a remittance 
 
 1 ij 
 
 \ 
 
m 
 
 1 ■ — I 
 
 "VENGEANCE IS MINE." ' M 
 
 man like myself to sponge on his friends, and I 
 know the old man would like to help me, but it 
 can't be. Without a little self-respect I couldn't live. 
 Leave me that, dear." 
 
 Pussy was silent, except for an odd choking 
 sound which the man's quick ear caught in a 
 moment. 
 
 "Good God! child, you are not crying for me? 
 What a brute I am to have made you ! " 
 
 " Don't mind me, Noel," he heard her falter ; " go 
 on gathering up those roots, or the others will notice. 
 I shall be all right in a minule." 
 
 And so she was, poor brave little heart, or as 
 nearly right as she could contrive to appear, with 
 cold white cheeks, and eyes which tried to smile 
 to hide the tears in them. 
 
 A minute later the others joined them, and Trevor 
 good-naturedly took charge of the bundle of roots, 
 saying— 
 
 " You can't take two packs, Jones. You have 
 a big-enough one already." 
 
 " Yes, you've got a big pack for a night's stay in 
 
 Victoria," added Snape. " What have you got in it ? " 
 
 "My blankets, a dozen rounds of ammunition. 
 
 \ 
 
92 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ')! 
 
 If 
 
 an old pair of boots, a clean shirt, and some photo- 
 graphs ; all mine under any circumstances, I believe, 
 Mr. Snape," retorted Noel, with an emphasis not lost 
 on two of his hearers. 
 
 " Oh yes, that's all right, quite right. I suppose 
 yC'U don't mean to go back to the shack for a bit ? " 
 
 " No, not for some time." And then, as if an idea 
 had occurred to him, Noel raised his voice a trifle, 
 to be sure that Pussy would hear him. " I've heard 
 of a place down the line on the mainland. The pay 
 won't amount to much, but the work will be 
 regular." ' - • • » > 
 
 It was a lie this, of course, but a very kindly 
 meant lie ; and the flush on the girl's face, and the 
 glad look in her eyes, would have repaid Noel for 
 a worse one. Besides, it was always possible that 
 he might get such work. At any rate, he was going 
 to the mainland with his last few dollars, to look 
 for it. 
 
 "And what are you going to do about your 
 remittance, Mr. Jones ? Have you made arrange- 
 ments about that, or can I see to having it and your 
 mail forwarded to you ? You'd better come in, and 
 see me about that to-morrow," said Snape. 
 
"VENGEANCE IS MINE." 
 
 It was the first time that Snape had used the 
 "Mr." as a prefix to his hired man's name, but 
 it had just dawned upon him that perhaps he had 
 not got the last drop of blood out of his man yet, 
 and whilst there was a drop left, it might still be 
 worth while to be civil. Besides, if the farm did not 
 sell for the mortgage (and though it was worth more, 
 Snape meant to take care to buy it in for a good deal 
 less), there would always be Jones's personal covenant 
 and his remittance to fall back upon. ' ' 
 
 " I am sorry to say the remittance has been stopped, 
 Snape," replied Noel, his eyes beginning to twinkle 
 a little, though he lowered his voice so that Pussy 
 might not hear of his utter destitution. " These are 
 all my goods on my back, and I think that they are 
 hardly worth attaching, even if you could attach 
 them, which you can't." 
 
 Those who had been used to seeing Mr. Snape's 
 everyday smile of frank benevolence would have 
 been shocked at the ugly look and uglier curse of 
 which he was guilty at that moment, but the re- 
 mittance man seemed to enjoy them, though his 
 enjoyment was cut short, for just at that moment 
 his quick ear caught the sound of the coming train. 
 
94 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 For a second he seemed uncertain, and bent down 
 over the rails until his ear almost touched them. 
 Straightening himself, and turning quickly to Trevor 
 and his companion, who had lagged behind some- 
 what, he called out, " Hurry up, there. Miss Verulam. 
 Help her, Mr. Johns. The station is in sight, but the 
 train will be round the corner in a few minutes, and 
 this is a steep down-grade." And then tossing his 
 pack and his rifle on the embankment, he ran back 
 and took one of Pussy's hands whilst Trevor took 
 the other, and between them the two hurried the 
 girl along over the ties in quicker time than Snape 
 could make. When the train whistled as it came 
 round the corner. Pussy Verulam, thanks to her 
 friend's help and to her own nimble feet, was safe at 
 the siding, very much out of breath, but laughing at 
 the run she had had. This was like the old days, 
 she thought, as the memory of many a merry scramble 
 with those two recurred to her ; and Noel, carried 
 away by the excitement of the moment, dropped all 
 his stiffness, and for the moment was himself again. 
 They had both forgotten Mr. Snape's existence. 
 
 Suddenly Trevor, who was looking back up the 
 line, caught Noel's arm. 
 
 fN 
 

 "VENGEANCE IS MINE." 
 
 95 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 " Look, Noel, look ! What the devil's the matter 
 withSnape?" 
 
 The line runs abruptly from the summit, and the 
 grade which the train enters upon directly it passes 
 through the cutting at the top of the divide is an 
 unusually sharp one. 
 
 Between this cutting and the station there was a 
 switch, and as Noel's eyes rested on the switch, his 
 face hardened cruelly and the corners of his mouth 
 curled in a bitter grin. 
 
 The cutting was choked with smoke, some of 
 which was already trailing away over the soft green 
 of the cedars below, and from the centre of the dark 
 cloud the engine was rushing down to the platform 
 at such a pace that nothing biit the strongest of air- 
 brakes jould have pulled it up even there. Between 
 the cutting and the platform, nothing short of a 
 miracle could stop it. And between the cutting and 
 the platform, right in the train's path, stood Snape, 
 the man who had wrought Noel's ruin, struggling 
 with frantic energy for freedom, and struggling in 
 vain, swaying his body now to the right, now to the 
 left, and anon making wild clutches at his foot which 
 seemed held as in a vice by the rails. It ivas held in 
 
t 
 
 1 
 
 96 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 a vice and by the rails themselves, along which 
 already hummed the low thunder of the coming 
 train. Snape could feel the vibration in his body. 
 and in his brain, and he shrieked and would, rat- 
 like, have torn off his own limb to escape had 
 he had strength enough left in his feeble body to do 
 so. What had happened to him was what has 
 happened to many a braver man : he had caught his 
 heel in the jaws of the switch, and the more he 
 struggled the tighter grew the grip. In another 
 minute he must take his choice. If he had the cool 
 courage of the railway employ^ he would throw 
 himself down at right angles to the track, the ankle 
 would snap, and the great engine would sweep by 
 and amputate the damaged limb as neatly as a 
 surgeon's knife; if not — ^well, if not, the engine 
 would still sweep on , and crush the little Jew as a 
 man's foot crushes a beetle. 
 
 "Trapped, by God!" came from between Noel's 
 clenched teeth, and for a moment his hard face only 
 hardened, while all that was vindictive and devilish 
 in his nature gained the mastery, and showed itself 
 in his face. 
 
 " Oh, Noel, save him ! " 
 
<' VENGEANCE IS MINE. 
 
 97 
 
 It was no voice of an angel, only n, trembling girl's 
 prayer, but the voice was a voice which the old Noel 
 had never disobeyed, a voice which had never 
 appealed to him in vain. Had she been able to 
 measure the danger she asked him to face, possibly 
 she would never have spoken; but she could not 
 measure it. As for him, he never stayed to. She 
 had loosed the string, and like an arrow from the bow 
 he flew to do her bidding. 
 
 There was a rattle of rails, a roar of wheels, a 
 volume of steam and smoke, and the girl closed her 
 eyes, sick and swooning. She dared not see them 
 die. 
 
 Had she dared to keep her eye open she would 
 have seen a knife flash twice round the trapped man's 
 foot, she would have seen him wrenched by a mighty 
 effort from the wreck of his bro\^n-leather boot, and 
 tumbled headlong from under the very wheels of 
 the engine down the steep incline on the left-hand 
 side of the track, at the bottom of which he lay limp 
 and motionless. 
 
 The poor wretch had swooned, and so been saved 
 from part of the bitterness of death. 
 
 But she dared not open her eyes, so she neither 
 
 H 
 
08 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 saw what I have described nor that the great roaring' 
 creature of iron and steam and iire, though baulked 
 of one victim, had revenged itself upon another. 
 
 As Noel flung his man clear of the track, Death 
 came very near to him. Its shadow was over him, 
 its hot breath in his face, and its iron hand reached 
 and all bvit caaght him. 
 
 Quickly as he sprang back, he was not quick 
 enough. Some projecting point of the engine struck 
 him, and for a breathing-space it seemed as if he 
 must go down in the monster's path. 
 
 The next moment he, too, was whirling down the 
 slope. Death had failed to make good his grip, and 
 though Noel rolled over and over, and then lay very 
 still for awhile, he was not dead. Indeed, he was 
 on his feet before Snape, wiping the blood out of 
 his eyes with one -hand and trying in vain to raise 
 the other. He was very unsteady on his legs, and 
 very white, and one arm hung limp and broken 
 by his side ; but he was making light of his injuries 
 to the train hands who had picked him up when 
 Pussy and Trevor reached him. 
 
 " I'm all right, boys ; just look after thpt chap," 
 he was saying; and one of them who stood with 
 
"VENGEANCE IS MINE.' 
 
 90 
 
 his hands in his pockets " sizing? him np," spat out 
 a stream of tohacco-jnice, and said — 
 
 " Say, boy, you're pretty gritty— damn me if you 
 ain't. That there chap owes hi,, i^pck to you." 
 
 " Yes, and I owe him a thousand dollars. That's 
 a cood deal worse," muttev d Noel, bitterly. He 
 had saved the man's life, but he hnted him still. 
 
 If Pussy or the recording angel heard his words, 
 it is to be hoped that they judged him, not ])y his 
 words, but by his deeds. At any rate, she and 
 Trevor supported him into the train, and made him 
 as comfortable there as they could. There was no 
 talk of walking now, and even if there had been 
 no one to pay his fare, the train would have carried 
 one passenger that day for nothing. 
 
 As for him, he never asked after Snape, who, but 
 for his fright and some unavoidably rough surgery 
 at Noel's hands, was none the worse for his 
 adventure. All through the journey down, Noel 
 lay half asleep or swooning with pain of his broken 
 arm and ribs, his eyes sbu*^^ '^r dreamily fixed on 
 Pussy as she nursed him. Only once, when she bent 
 over him to rearrange a bandage which had slipped, 
 he smiled a little bitterly and Avhispered feebly, 
 
mmmmmm 
 
 wmm 
 
 100 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " Miss Verulam, do you know that I think I am more 
 like the fool-hen than ever. After being hit once, 
 I've given that little beast another chance." And 
 she, half ashamed to preach the old sweet faith in 
 which her own pure life had been led, laid her hand 
 timidly on his arm, and murmured too low for others 
 to hear, " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the 
 Lord." 
 
 -?5 
 
— -"^W^i 
 
 -^ 
 
 ^■i 
 
 ( 101 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 
 
 There is one institution in Victoria of which those 
 of her citizens who helped to build it, may well be 
 proud. In the heyday of youth, when the soft air 
 of spring, blown off the sunlit sea, suggests nothing 
 but years of health and vigour and happiness, men 
 may pass the great white building on their way to 
 Oak Bay, Victoria's fairest suburb, without noticing, 
 certainly without admiring it. It is not beautiful — 
 even its kindest well-wishers must admit that ; and 
 no one who could pass on down the avenue to gaze 
 on the glories of a sunset on Mount Baker would 
 even stay to look at the Jubilee Hospital. 
 
 And yet, perhaps, when the greatest of all 
 reporters, God's recording angel, passes over the 
 capital of British Columbia, he may linger longer over 
 that plain white building, and evet report on it more 
 
102 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 favourably to his Employer, than on the imposing 
 six-hundred-thousand-dollar building of politicians, 
 with "which they boast that they anchored the capital 
 of the province to their city for ever. When the fever 
 of the gold-digger has passed, when the courage of 
 the pioneer is ebbing with the ebbing years, when the 
 thews of the lumberer are loosened, when the miner's 
 strength has been shattered by a blast, when 
 aneurism of th( heart alone reminds the packer of 
 the vast burdens he has borne, it is there that he 
 maybe certain of finding rest and of realiziDg that in 
 all the selfish battle for bread, men have still, in one 
 instance, at least, remembered that they were men, 
 and in the chivalry of human nature provided a haven 
 of rest in which those worsted in the battle may 
 recruit for a space before they come up to the scratch 
 for another round, or go hence to their reward. 
 
 It was to this house of pain that they carried .n 
 Noe"' Johns, through hay-fields humming with 
 summer life, past thickets of dog-roses pink with 
 blossom; and here, thanks to skill and careful 
 nursing, his young bones soon began to mend. Pussy 
 Verulam and Trevor were, of course, daily visitors to 
 the sick man, and even Snape sent his card " to 
 
 *M 
 
 t J 
 
 ii iK imgm 
 
 -■■mMU Mi.ma i m -i ^ '''''*^'- 
 
 V:^ 
 
v^ 
 
 :f-M' 
 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 103 
 
 inquire " with a basket of fruit, which Noel would not 
 allow to remain in his room. Snape himself did not 
 come, but he explained to Trevor that Jones had such 
 an unfortunate and unreasonable prejudice against 
 him that he thought it better to keep away. That 
 was the worst of business. However kindly you 
 might mean, and however much you might wish to 
 benefit a client, there were always some fellows who 
 would visit their own follies upon their agents, and 
 blame them for the results of their own indiscretions. 
 With such men it was useless to argue, but it made 
 life very sad, very sad indeed ! 
 
 So plausible was the man, and so gentle — when 
 on guard — that Trevor could not help feeling that 
 Noel had misjudged him. In a mere matter of 
 business Noel had through his own recklessness 
 got himself into an unpleasant position with Snape. 
 But was that Snape's fault ? Trevor Johns thought 
 it might not be ; and Snape's house being a pleasant 
 one, rendered attractive by the glitter of alluring 
 speculations and the presence of Chrissy Gilchrist, 
 Trevor Johns haunted it more than ever, though he 
 did so as much as possible " on the quiet," for neither 
 the old man nor Pussy were quite as reasonable 
 
 > i 
 
 
104 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 in their estimate of Snape as he was inclined 
 to be. 
 
 Meanwhile, Pussy's influence upon her old play- 
 mate became daily stronger. It was as if the 
 sun had at last penetrated a mountain valley, 
 where the frost had lain black and hard for years, 
 and little by little the thaw came, and all the 
 gracious things in the man's nature revived. In a 
 week he could talk of home and the old days by 
 the river ; could chaff merrily enough with the " old 
 man," and even told him one d' y that he would still 
 come back to Kingdon, and bring him " fivers " with 
 which to "go on the tear like Balmaine's old 
 governor." He even reminded Pussy that none of 
 America's multi-millionaires had even made their 
 fabulous fortunes until they had — at least once in 
 their careers — touched the bottom of Poverty's pit. 
 It was necessary, he said, to get down to bed-rock 
 before you could hope to lay the foundations of a 
 really solid pile. 
 
 Noel Johns was young and naturally sanguine, 
 and rest and good food, such as he had been a 
 stranger to for years, were beginning to revive those 
 energies which had fallen asleep during his sojourns 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 
 
 105 
 
 in the moss-grown swamp near Shawnigan. But 
 the secret of his real name, and of his own intimacy 
 with the Verulams, did not leak out. He did not 
 care to become a text for Victoria's gossips, or an 
 object of their pity, so that he remained what Snape 
 knew him as, a young fellow who had turned up on 
 the island with a good deal of cash, gone the pace in 
 Snape's set for one year, speculated by Snape's advice, 
 and, indeed, on his urgent request at his own dinner- 
 table ; and then, of course, " gone broke, ' borrowed 
 from his mentor, and remained his slave ever since. 
 Thanks to the fact that just then the Verulams 
 were the vogue in Victoria, a good many people came 
 to caU on the sick man ; some kindly hearted folk 
 who had always liked the boy for himself, and some 
 portly flunkies of the local Croesus who dropped 
 their friends when Croesus dropped them, and 
 fawned on them again whenever Croesus gave the 
 hint. Altogether, what with the general regret that 
 any one had saved " that swindler Snape," and the 
 particular rejoicing at " the merciful providence which 
 had spared our esteemed fellow-citizen," there was 
 a good deal of interest excited in that boy Jones ; and 
 if he had only recovered before the Verulams had 
 
 
I / 
 
 106 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 invested all their money, or made it plain that they 
 did not mean to invest any, it is not impossible that 
 a place in the Lands and Works Department might 
 have been found for him. But this sympathy, of 
 course, did not affect business even in the case of 
 Snape, who pushed on his foreclosure proceedings 
 with exemplary promptitude, so that before Noel 
 was up again "Little Kingdon," as he called his 
 forest farm, had been sold at auction, and bought in 
 by the highest bidder (Mrs. Snape), for a little more 
 than half the debt upon it. For the present this 
 satisfied Mr. Snape, especially as Verulam and Trevor 
 Johns still had money to invest, and Noel Johns 
 really had nothing, except the farm, worth seizing ; 
 but Snape by no means forgot that his unsatisfied 
 claim against the man who had saved his life 
 was good against all he had, or might hereafter 
 become possessed of, in the province. To those 
 who have followed this story so far, it may be 
 interesting to know that "the block of land, part 
 cleared and part beautifully timbered, with romantic 
 English country dwelling-house, the property of a 
 lady who finds it necessary to reside in the city," was 
 sold a few months later to another young English- 
 
 w 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 
 
 107 
 
 man for two thousand doHars (half cash and the 
 remainder at eight per cent.), " the amount of labour 
 and taste lavished upon the place by the late tenant 
 making it alone," as Mr. Snape naively remarked, 
 "well worth the money." 
 
 And all this time whilst Noel lay sick, the old man 
 was quietly going about the place, playing billiards 
 in the cl b, loafing round tennis-lawns, and keeping 
 his shrewd eyes very wide open indeed. In a week 
 he saw that Snape and Co. were omnipotent in the 
 town, that they had all the money at the back of 
 them, all the brains in their pay, and that it would 
 be hopeless for Noel to stay there if he meant to 
 fight him ; and that the boy would fight, if he had a 
 chance, the old man knew very well. > . . 
 
 " I had thought of buying your farm in, Noel," 
 Verulam said to him, the day after the public sale ; 
 " but I thought better of it." 
 
 " Who bought it eventually ? " asked Noel, with 
 interest. 
 
 " Mrs. Snape, for six hundred doUars." 
 
 "For six hundred dollars! It's assessed at one 
 thousand two hundred dollars, and her husband lent 
 me one thousand dollars upon it. I suppose he 
 
 r 1 
 
 ) 
 
 W 
 
 11 
 
t \ 
 
 t! 
 
 108 ONE OP THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 will sell it to some unfortunate new chum for about 
 what I gave for it, and come down on me for the 
 balance of my debt to him, whenever I own any- 
 thing in this province worth attaching. I hope you 
 won't think me an awful rogue, old man, but it 
 strikes me that I am very unlikely to own anything 
 in this province which Mr. Snape could attach." 
 
 " Small blame to you," replied Verulam. " Snape 
 has had his full pound of flesh already. We must 
 see if we cannot start you elsewhere, out of reach of 
 this ring, as soon as you recover " - 
 
 " Eh ! " ejaculated Noel. " What's that, old man ? 
 Do you want me to turn borrower again ? and with 
 no security at all this time ? " 
 
 "Nonsense, boy," replied the old man hotly. 
 " Pride is all very well, but not with your own 
 people. If we have not a right to lend you a hand, 
 who the deuce has ? Your word is good enough for 
 us." 
 
 " Yes, I know, you dear old chap, that you think 
 so ; but I don't. Noel Johns is going to make his 
 own capital this time, and when he does he'll stick 
 to it. But no more borrowing, not even from 
 you." 
 
 .^'MM»ra m mr* M im> 
 
I 
 
 w 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 
 
 109 
 
 And this was all that Verulam could get from 
 the boy, but he was not disheartened by it. He had 
 been accustomed for many a long year to rule as an 
 autocrat at Kingdon, and had no idea of yielding 
 on this point, even to his stubborn young friend; 
 and Noel, knowing this, became restless and thought- 
 ful again, except when Pussy and Trevor were 
 present. Of course, they were with him every day, 
 and on the evening after the old man's visit they 
 were sitting by his bedside chatting as usual. 
 
 " Don't you think you could manage to walk now 
 if you tried?" asked Trevor. "The doctor says 
 that you are a lazy dog, and could walk well enough 
 if you chose, though he wouldn't if he were in your 
 place." 
 
 " What does Dr. Jack mean ? Has any one 
 told him that I have been trying to walk ? " 
 
 " I don't know. But he says that Pussy is not to 
 come here any more. If you want to see her you 
 , must come to us. * If I could lie in bed, and have 
 no worries, and be nursed by that girl, do you think 
 I'd get well? — not much!' Those were his exact 
 words. He did not mince matters to spare your 
 feelings, Pussy." 
 
 1 1 
 

 110 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ■j ; 
 
 i!( 
 
 
 Noel and I*ussy both laughed a little nervously. 
 
 " Dr. Jack's speeches are like his surgery, there 
 is no humbug about them. Even if they are a bit 
 rough, they are wholesome," said Noel; "and I 
 expect it is almost time for me to put my shoulder 
 to the wheel again. Do you think. Pussy, that the 
 old man is very angry because I would not let him 
 * finance ' me, as they call it ? He could not expect 
 me to take his money, when I won't take my 
 mother's." 
 
 " Do you mean that you have refused to take your 
 allowance from home ? " 
 
 "Yes. Didn't you know? Don't think me a 
 quixotic fool ; but I want work now, hard work, 
 with no leisure. Work to make me forget." 
 
 "What is it that you are so anxious to forget, 
 Noel?" 
 
 It was a foolish question, and one which need 
 never have been asked, if those grey eyes had not 
 been so full of another man's image; but he 
 answered bravely — 
 
 "My follies, Puss, and my failures. I have to 
 prove to my own satisfaction, that I am not the 
 incompetent ass I appear to be; and the old man's 
 
 n 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 1 
 
 f 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 f 
 
 money would not help me to do that ; but make my 
 peace with him — bless him ! " 
 
 Pussy laughed. " You may make your peace 
 with him yourself, if you can get your way with 
 him ; no one else ever did," she replied. 
 
 She remembered now a cablegram which the old 
 man had sent to Mrs. Johns, and she understood 
 what it meant. Noel's will might be strong, but 
 she felt satisfied that it would not be strong enough 
 to escape from the protecting care of those who 
 loved him. 
 
 She forgot that through long stud^'' "Hoel could 
 read every thought in her mind through her eyes. 
 
 " Well, little sister, it is time for you to be going. 
 You are dining out to-night. Don't get too intimate 
 with the financiers, Trevor." 
 
 "Who told you I was dining with Snape to- 
 night?" 
 
 " Oh, a little bird. Every one knows everything 
 here. For instance, Pussy is not dining there, 
 though you and the old man are." 
 
 " No, I'm dining with Mrs. Bulley," said the girl, 
 flushing hotly. She wondered whether Noei, who 
 seemed omniscient, knew that she had asked Mrs. 
 
 I ! I 
 
:f 
 
 
 ,. \ 
 
 I' ^ 
 
 112 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Bulley if she might dine with her, half an hour after 
 she had received the Snapes' invitation. 
 
 The others might think it diplomatic to dine with 
 that man. For her part, she would rather dine with 
 the dogs. They, at any rate, were honest, and all of 
 them, to 0. puppy, Noel's friends. 
 
 Noel smiled as he watched that sweet tell-tale 
 face — 
 
 "Loyalty before all," he muttered; and then 
 added aloud, "You are more of a Verulam than a 
 Christian, I'm afraid, Pussy, after all. You don't 
 forget your friends, and you can't forcjive their 
 enemies. Good night, dear, and good-bye, per- 
 haps." 
 
 "Why good-bye?" asked the girl, holding his 
 hand. 
 
 . " Oh, I don't know. There is no limit to the 
 autocratic powers of Dr. Jack. He might 'fire 
 me out' before to-morrow morning, and send me 
 goodness knows where." 
 
 The words were said in jest, but either there was 
 a subtle tone of sadness underlying his laughter, 
 which the girl's quick ear caught and understood, 
 or else it wa^ the prompting of that sixth sense. 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF PAiN. 
 
 113 
 
 which does exist, although wo know so little of it ; 
 in any case, a sudden silence fell upon the three. 
 
 They had been together now for weeks, and a 
 warm grip of the hand hau 'een always sufficient 
 to convey their feelings to each other. 
 
 To-day, for some reason which she could not have 
 explained, the girl stood doubting, one hand in 
 Noel's, the other in her lover's. • 
 
 " May I, Trevor, for auld lang syne ? " she asked 
 simply, and reading his answer in his eyes, she 
 bent over the hospital-cot, and pressed her pure 
 young lips on the sick man's forehead. 
 
 The next moment she and Trevor had gone ; and 
 Noel Johns, white to the lips, sat up in his bed, 
 staring blankly at the closed door. 
 
 "That settles it," he muttered. "I owe it to 
 them, and I owe it to myself. My God, how she 
 loves him ! " 
 
 For a moment he lay still; then this sick man 
 scrambled from his bed, and began hurriedly to 
 throw everything which belonged to him into a tiny 
 grip-sack, aL 1 afterwards to dress himself in the 
 old blue oveiy,lls and grey flannel shirt of his ranch- 
 ing days. 
 
 ' ( 
 
 ■i *? 
 
114 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Fivft minutes later he rang his bell, laid a note 
 addressed to the doctor on his table, tossed his grip- 
 sack into the grass under his window, and, when the 
 nurse came, told her that, by the doctor's advice, he 
 was going to try a little walk for half an hour on the 
 path outside his window. Would she give him her 
 arm down the steps, as he was a little weak still ? 
 
 Kothing doubting, the nurse did as she was asked, 
 and left him walking slowly up and down in the 
 sunshine; but next morning, when Pussy came 
 tripping down the corridor, her hands full of flowers 
 fresh gathered for her friend, and a note from the 
 old man offering to drive Noel home to their rooms 
 for the rest of his convalescence, this same nui'so 
 met her with a strange story, which took all the 
 buoyancy out of Pussy's step, all the light out of her 
 beautiful eyes. 
 
 Noel had vanished. That was the substance of 
 her story. He had gone out to walk, or try to walk 
 for half an hour, and he had not come back again. 
 He must have planned it all beforehand, the nurse 
 added, because he had taken most of his things with 
 him, and left a note for the doctor. 
 
 " But there, miss," she added, "it's no good 
 
mmim 
 
 s I 
 ii 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN. 
 
 115 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 grieving. There's never any dependence to be 
 placed on those remittance men." 
 
 Pussy did not stay to rebuke the woman. Why 
 should she? She could not know that the remit- 
 tance man — so Pussy thought — vanished because 
 he was too proud to be dependent even upon his 
 own people. Of course, Pussy herself never guessed 
 Noel's real reason ; and though, when Trevor told her 
 at night that he and the old man had searched every 
 hotel and lodging-house in the city, and searched 
 them in vain, she laid her head on Trevor's shoulder 
 and sobbed as if her heart would break, it was 
 only for " the brother " who had so obstinately gone 
 out again into the world without a word to them, 
 witliout a coin, without a friend. 
 
 It was such a hideously great world, she felt, this 
 new world in which he had lost his way. It was so 
 easy in it to lose touch of those you loved, and her 
 heart yearned for the old country, where men 
 measure distances by hours, and not by days ; where 
 there are no trans-Continental railways, thrae thou- 
 sand miles long, and where friends can never be 
 really far apart. 
 
 The old mxn read his daughters heart in her face. 
 
 I!i 
 
 
116 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 He, too, had had enough of Korth America, and 
 shared her longing to be at home. " He was too old 
 to go hunting big horns with Trevor," he said ; and 
 so he and Pussy would make their way slowly home. 
 Trevor could follow them with his trophies. 
 
 And to this Trevor consented ; but if Pussy and 
 the old man had guessed that the month to be spent 
 hunting mountain-sheep would have been spent in 
 speculation in mines, under the auspices of Colonel 
 Gilchrist, it is doubtful whether either she or the 
 old man would have shown so much " sweet reason- 
 ableness." 
 
•Jl'iil^' 
 
 -*^ 
 
 PAKT II 
 
wmnffr va 
 
 ( 119 ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT BATTLE CREEK. 
 
 « How, Billy ! Can we come in ? Gosh, how this 
 wind cuts ! Darned if I don't think one side of my 
 
 face has froze." 
 
 The speaker had thrown the low door open, and 
 bending his head to enter, had come into a square 
 room of very considerable size, a good deal less than 
 half furnished, in which a man sat on the edge of a 
 trestle-bed, cleaning the lock of a carbine. 
 
 As the new-comer entered and stood stamping 
 his feet to restore ckculation in them, a rough wolf- 
 hound jumped off the bed and growled, but the next 
 moment put down his hackles, and laid his long 
 muzzle confidingly in the speaker s hand. 
 
 « Come here, Bran," cried the man on the bed ; 
 and then, looking up, added, "Why, is that you^ 
 Louis? Come in and warm yourself. Are you just 
 in from Maple ? " > .. .: , 
 
 ;t 
 
 ll 
 
 ! I 
 
120 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 *' That's what, and not sorry to get in. I think 
 I'd have lost my ears if I hadn't had the old cap 
 on ; these toques are no good in a wind." And so 
 saying, he drew a red woollen toque from his pocket, 
 and tossed it contemptuously on the table, after 
 which he divested himself of a great fur cap which 
 he had pulled down to his ears, and a pair of long- 
 haired badger-skin gloves which came up to his 
 elbows. 
 
 " No, they are not much account ; but who is that 
 you have got with you ? " asked the other, as a second 
 man came up to the door, and began to knock the 
 snow off his boots on the threshold. 
 
 " A countryman of yours, I reckon, having a look 
 round, and ' sizing ' you up, before he puts in for 
 five years of it. Johns, let me make you acquainted 
 with Serjeant Stobart," replied Louis. 
 
 And as Noel came in, Stobart rose, a tall gaunt 
 man, not unlike his wolf-hound in general outlines, 
 and held out his hand saying, in a voice from which 
 all accent seemed to have vanished as by magic — 
 
 " So you want to join the force, Mr. Johns, do you ? 
 You might do worse ; it's lonesome at the posts 
 sometimes, but there is a good deal to do, what with 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
AT BATTLE CREEK. 
 
 121 
 
 cattle-thieves and prairie fires ; and it's all clean 
 out-of-doors work, which no man need be ashamed 
 to do. But I expect you're starving, are you not ? 
 Go and warm yourself whilst I see after the grub. 
 Hi, Ben," he added, raising his voice, "it's Louis 
 and a friend. Shall you have some supper ready 
 soon?" 
 
 "Eight away," came the answer from another 
 room, and the speaker, a tough-looking soldier in 
 flannel shirt and long boots, followed his voice into 
 the room, and after shaking hands with Louis, began 
 to throw down knives and forks and plates upon the 
 board, for, true to the traditions of the North-West 
 police, he (being cook for the week) began to get 
 some food ready as soon as he heard the wheels 
 of Louis's waggon upon the road. 
 
 The North- West police have many and varied 
 duties to perform, and the men amongst whom they 
 live will tell you that they perform them all like 
 white men, tracking and holding up horse-thieves, 
 keeping the marches, or stopping a prairie fire, 
 all as a matter of everyday business, and grumbling 
 only when it falls to their lot to look after the sale 
 of whisky in the saloons along the railway line. 
 
I 
 
 122 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Until very lately their powers were extremely 
 full, entitling them even to hold up and confiscate 
 a train upon the rails, if it should refuse to slow 
 down and submit to inspection. But the duty 
 which they perform most often, and with the 
 greatest good will, is that of hospitality. In 
 thousands of miles of rolling prairie, the North- 
 West police are the only possible hosts. Luckily 
 for them, their rations are so ample that they could 
 never get through them unaided. As it is, in spite 
 of the " dead beats," who drift about the boundary 
 line ; the would-be settlers prospecting for land ; 
 and casuals of all kinds, there is still something 
 left for the coyotes and kitfoxes which hang round 
 every station. 
 
 " What have you done with the waggon, Louis ? 
 I don't see it," said the cook, as he came in with 
 a steaming dish of roast meat. 
 
 " Well, that's good !" laughed Louis. " I guess you 
 boys had ought to know by this time. What does 
 every fellow do who come? along your confounded 
 trail ? " 
 
 " Got stuck in the crossing, eh ? " 
 
 " Got stuck ! you bet I have, and taken my team 
 
 01 
 
 is 
 ri 
 
nw 
 
 AT BATTLE CREEK. 
 
 123 
 
 out, and left the blooming old waggon where she 
 is, for you fellows to get out afterwards. Serve you 
 right, for having such a trail." 
 
 Stobart laughed. Louis and he were old friends. 
 
 "I've half a mind to leave the waggon there 
 all night, Louis. I would, only the kitfoxes would 
 get away with the harness. But let us have the 
 grub, Ben, and we'll go and hitch a team on and pull 
 your cart out afterwards." 
 
 " Have you no Indians or thieves of any kind 
 round here ? " asked Noel, who knew that the waggon 
 had been left in a water-hole nearly half a mile from 
 the station. 
 
 " Ho ; or, at least, if there are any, they wouldn't 
 steal from us," answered the sergeant. " They would 
 have too far to carry their plunder, and there's not 
 covert enough to hide a coyote," and he pointed 
 through the little square panes of the window over a 
 long sea of grey, cheerless prairie, so bare that any 
 object upon it was magnified by contrast with the 
 dead unbroken expanse around, until a buffalo skull 
 half a mile away looked as big as a house, and a 
 badger as big as a bear. 
 
 " Now, boys, there's the hash ; you'd better go and 
 
t/ 
 
 124 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 
 ,'■ 
 
 w 
 
 sit round," remarked the cook. And then going to 
 the door, he shouted — 
 
 " Guess if you fellows want a feed, you'd better 
 come and get it now." 
 
 In spite of the cold and their hunger, Louis and 
 Noel found time for a preliminary wash in the tin 
 basin on the wood pile outside; but the two who 
 answered Ben's last call had no use for soap and 
 water, no time to waste in useless ceremonial. 
 Without a word they slouched in, almost before the 
 words were out of Ben's mouth, and took their 
 places, helped themselves to what they could get, 
 piling all kinds of victuals, meat, canned fruit, 
 molasses and tomato-sauce on the same plate, and 
 ate ravenously with downcast looks, and in silence 
 unbroken by any attempt at conversation, or useless 
 expression of gratitude. What they could get, they 
 reached across the table for and got ; what any one 
 gave them, they took, and when they had eaten all 
 they could, they rose and went out again. 
 
 As Louis came in, rubbing his red-brown cheeks 
 with a rough towel, his keen, narrow eyes fixed on 
 these men in a minute with a look of suspicion and 
 inquiry, but he said nothing, and took his seat as if 
 
 
mm 
 
 m 
 
 AT BATTLE CREEK. 
 
 125 
 
 they had not been there. Stobart and the cook 
 meanwhile sat on the edges of their respective beds, 
 whittling away at their plugs of T and B, keeping 
 an eye on their guests' cups. 
 
 " Well, Johns, how does antelope hash go ? " asked 
 Louis, sticking his fork into another great slice, and 
 conveying it to his plate, " Mighty good, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I don't know what wouldn't be good now," 
 replied Noel. He had every desire to be civil, but 
 he could not for the life of him say more just then, 
 for his jaws were aching with the attempt to 
 masticate fresh-killed antelope meat. 
 
 " Been killing much game lately ? " asked Louis. 
 
 "Ko, not much. The antelope are not down in 
 the cypress hills yet, and the wolves have driven 
 the deer out. I never saw so many wolves as there 
 are about the country this fall." 
 
 " Big fellows ? " 
 
 " Yes, big grey wolves. Bran and the bitch had 
 more than they could manag'^ with an old vagabond 
 last week. He would have stood them off if I had 
 not helped them with my revolver." 
 
 "Looks as if it was going to be a hard winter. 
 Well," Louis added, pushing his plate away and 
 
i 
 
 120 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 [n 
 
 rising. " A fellow can't go on eating for ever unless 
 he's an Englishman, eh, Johns ? so I'll have a smoke ; 
 and then, Billy, you might come and help me with 
 that waggon." 
 
 *' All right, as soon as you please. Have you any 
 mail for us ? " 
 
 " No, there are no letters, but I think there's a 
 package of newspapers. Come and see. It's not 
 dark yet." And, opening the door, he went out, 
 followed by Stobart. 
 
 As soon as they were outside, the scout's quick 
 eyes turned towards the room they liad left, and 
 jerking his head in the direction of the table, he 
 asked, " Who's them two ? " 
 
 "Dead beats; came in yesterday," replied Stobart, 
 dropping naturally into the scout's laconic style. 
 "Say they've walked from the line; that's thirty 
 miles. They've done seventy miles, according to 
 their account, in two days, and had damned little 
 to eat whilst they were doing it." 
 
 " One of them has a pretty face on him," remarked 
 Louis. "He'd make a prairie wolf howl to look 
 at him." 
 
 "Yes, he got that when he was chucked out of 
 
AT BATTLK CREEK. 
 
 127 
 
 a bar at Ophir; that's why they came across the 
 
 1' t> • 
 
 ine. 
 
 " Shooting scrape ? " 
 
 " No ; they didn't say so." 
 
 "Did they hove any guns with them ? " 
 
 "No. That is all the outfit they had. It isn't 
 much." And the policeman pointed to two tiny 
 bundles about a foot square and six inches through, 
 thrown down against the wall of the house. 
 
 "Well, they don't look dangerous; and it don't 
 matter to us what they did at Ophir, until we get 
 orders about them ; but we may as well keep an eye 
 on them, in case they should be wanted. I suppose 
 all is quiet about here? no horse-thieves been heard 
 of lately ? " 
 
 " No ; there's nothing for you to do, Louis, and 
 won't be for some time now, I expect. The next snow 
 we get will lie, and then things will close up for the 
 winter. I expect that that is about the last of those 
 fellows we shall see this fall ; " and Stobart pointed 
 to a skein of geese high overhead, going south. 
 
 " Yes, it's coming, sure pop," said the half-breed, 
 his eyes fixed on the sky-line. " I shouldn't wonder 
 if it was to come to-night. Let's go and get that 
 
 f L , 
 
 
128 
 
 ONE Ot' THE BROKEN BKIGADE. 
 
 VI 
 
 M 
 
 
 m 
 
 waggon in anyway." And the two went off into the 
 stable to harness four horses for the job. 
 
 On the way down to the mudhole in which the 
 waggon had stuck, Louis asked the sergeant if he had 
 heard any more of the sickness which had been 
 talked of among the Indians. 
 
 '* No," Stobart replied, " not a word. I had almost 
 forgotten all about it. But you know how quiet 
 they keep those things. Some one said it looked 
 like small-pox again. Do you think there is any- 
 thing in it ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? The wolves will want feeding 
 anyway, and there are no buffaloes for them, and not 
 many redskins," answered the scout, moodily. "It 
 seems as if white men and Crees can't both live on 
 these plains, though you'd think there was room 
 enough too." 
 
 " Why, Louis, you don't go much on the Indians, 
 do you?" asked Stobart, whose experience had 
 taught him that the half-breed always prefers to be 
 thought white. 
 
 " Not a great deal, but it's lonesome on the 
 plains, too, nowadays. The buffalo has gone, and 
 the elk and the antelope are going. D — d if I 
 
AT BATTLE CREEK. 129 
 
 think there'll be anything left but buffalo skulls 
 and an odd coyote here and there soon." 
 " Aren't cattle better than buffaloes ? " 
 "Maybe they are; but there aren't as many of 
 them, and they want a sight more looking after. 
 There'll be less cattle and more room for settlers, 
 too, before this winter is over. If they didn't want 
 it themselves, seems a pity that the whites drove 
 the Crees and the game out of the country. There's 
 
 too much room now " 
 
 "Why, man, what's the matter with you to- 
 night ? You talk as if you had caught the sickness 
 yourself," said Stobart. 
 
 The other did not answer for a while. He wils 
 a man whom the police knew well, and entirely 
 trusted ; a man to whom the vast seas of grass were 
 as familiar as the ways of his village to a villager ; a 
 man of whom they all spoke in Assineboia as " white 
 core through ; " but for the moment the wild blood 
 in him had asserted itself, and the sorrow of the 
 widowed prairie land found utterance through his lips. 
 " I guess you're right; Billy," he said at last, with 
 a short laugh ; " a drink of whisky would do me 
 good just now, though if it had not been for your 
 
j 
 
 ^i 
 
 130 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ^i 
 
 
 i 
 
 cursed whisky, and the diseases that came along 
 with it, there would be no need to feel lonesome on 
 the prairie." 
 
 *' You should take a turn up at the Pinto Mine, if 
 that's what you want. You can blow in a year's 
 pay in a week there if you've a mind to. There's 
 sure to be a saloon somewhere handy now they ha . o 
 begun work again." 
 
 " That is just what I'd like to do, Billy, but it's 
 not my luck. The super can't spare me, he says ; 
 and he has sent me down here now to get one of you 
 fellows to drive a stage down from that mine to the 
 railway line." 
 
 " Why didn't he send Paul, if he can't spare you ? 
 I doubt if any of our fellows know the trail well, 
 though of course they can find it." 
 
 Louis's eyes had a laugh in them, though his face 
 remained as grave as ever. He had a very high 
 opinion of the North-West Mounted Police, but, as 
 path-finders, preferred his own p3ople. 
 
 " Paul don't fancy the job. There are some pretty 
 bad coulees between here and Pinto, and "^ a\\\ 
 never did care about handling a team. Who will 
 you send? " ,. , . 
 
AT BATTLE CREEK. 
 
 131 
 
 I 
 
 " I suppose I had better send Ben ; it will just suit 
 him as far as the driving goes. Is there much to 
 come out from the mine ? " Stobart added. 
 
 " They say so. This new outfit is making things 
 hum. They took ^n all they wanted to, and now it 
 seems they are going to begin to ship something 
 
 out." 
 
 " What happened to the other fellows — the men 
 in the first company that owned the Pinto ? Did 
 you hear ? " 
 
 " Got froze out," replied Louis, I'.conically. 
 " Did you hear who they were ? " 
 " The man who owned most of the stock, so they 
 say down at Maple, was a Britisher. Of course he 
 f^ot left. The men who froze him out were land- 
 sharks from the coast ; some said from the Sound, 
 some said from Victoria. T guess it will all be in 
 the papers. We can look when we get this blooming 
 waggon out. Git up, ^>iore 1 git, will you ? " And 
 Louis laid his whip heavily across the quarters of the 
 wheelers, whilst Stobart urged on the leaders, until, 
 after a great deal of floundering and splashing, the 
 waggon was dragged by sheer force to dry land. 
 For a moment the horses stood panting after their 
 
i 
 
 i. I 
 
 
 i'l 
 
 il 
 
 132 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 exertions, their hot breath going out in great wtHe 
 columns into the darkening night ; then Louis and 
 Stobart scrambled into their places, a whip cracked, 
 and the team started for the station, as the scout 
 expressed! i.cketty brindle." 
 
 Heaven onij^ knows of what quaint, rustic phrase 
 this was a corruption, or how it came from hawthorn- 
 scented lanes to the mouth of a half-bred Cree, on 
 the wind-swept plains of Assineboia. 
 
 
f 
 
 ( 133 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW SOME ENGLISHMEN MAKE THEIR PILES. 
 
 Of course the North- West Mounted Police have 
 their head-quarters at Regiua. Their drill-hall, 
 officers' quarters, barracks, stores, and so forth, make 
 quite an imposing show in the capital of Assineboia, 
 but the force is- only a thousand strong, all told ; 
 it has an enormous frontier-line to watch, and a few 
 little odds and ends of work to do, such as to look 
 after the Indians, and preserve order generally in 
 the North- West. 
 
 Now, if anybody will take a map of the world 
 and look at this North- West Territory, of which 
 men speak flippantly, as if it were an unimportant 
 district measured by acres, and will compare it with 
 India, or even Australia, he will understand that a 
 thousand men are hardly "enough to go round," 
 and will not be surprised to hear that the various 
 
 a 
 
 ^' 
 
 
 Hljlll<r Wi^ia 
 
1(1 
 
 f 
 
 134 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 posts along the line are so small that one conttiining 
 half a dozen men is the exception. 
 
 Battle Creek was a more important post than most 
 of its neighbours, and a better built one, but as 
 Stobart and Louis rattled up to its doors, it would 
 have seemed a lonely, miserable place to any eyes 
 less used to it than theirs. 
 
 The low, square log-huts, with their mean, small- 
 paned windows, looked utterly insignificant in the 
 boundless waste in which they were set, without any 
 trees to shelter them, or any neighbours to share 
 the responsibility of their intrusion upon the 
 wilderness, and the vagabond wolves and homeless 
 wind which howled round the place, added nothing 
 to its homeliness. 
 
 But inside, when the stove was all aglow, anc^. 
 pipes were lit, things improved a good deal. The 
 comforts of these frontiersmen are not altogether 
 neglected by those in authority. There is, for 
 instance, a fair stock of books kept in circulation 
 from post to post; Harper and the Sketch are not 
 unknown ; and the men themselves have a breed of 
 hounds which give them all the sport they want. 
 Noel Johns, who was sitting smoking, with old 
 
 ' 
 
 
HOW SOME ENGLISHMEN MAKE THEIR PILES. 135 
 
 Bran's head upon his knee, and an unopened Field 
 by his side, was beginning to think that, in spite of 
 the hideous ugliness of the world outside, Battle 
 Creek might not be a bad place to live in, when one 
 of the readers by the stove turned the current of his 
 thoughts back to his old life and his old home. 
 
 " Weren't you fellows talking of the mine up 
 near Pinto Horse Butte ? " this man asked. 
 
 " Yes ; Louis says that the super wants one of us 
 to go up there and drive a stage down to the 
 railway. I guess you'll have to go, Ben. Why, 
 is there anything about the mine in the paper ? " 
 asked Stobart. 
 
 "Yes, in one of the Seattle papers. The Pinto 
 Mine. That's it, I guess, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it, right enough." 
 
 "Well, here's what the paper says " — and the 
 speaker laid his pipe down, so as to give his reading 
 fair play — " ' We are pleased to inform our readers 
 that the splendid property known as the Pinto Mine, 
 in Assineboia, has at last fallen into the right hands. 
 Canadians, of course, know nothing of mining, and 
 British capital is about as slow as the coming of 
 judgment-day. Luckily for the Pinto Mine, it 
 
 \ 
 
136 
 
 .ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 has been secured by our enterprising fellow-citizen, 
 Colonel Gilchrist, whose lovely and fascinating 
 daughter is so well known in our best social circles. 
 The Colonel is a rustler from away back, and a 
 business man who takes no chances. Whatever he 
 touches pays from the word " go," and his principal 
 partner in this new venture, although not a Seattle 
 man, is favourably known as one of the very few 
 Britishers across 'he Sound who have had sense 
 enough to catch on to American business principles. 
 This gentleman, Mr. Snape, was in the original 
 company, but seeing how things were likely to go, 
 with a lot of incompetent dudes from the East and 
 from England, to handle the business, he let go and 
 unloaded just in time. 
 
 " * "We understand that some folk lost heavily ; biit 
 we may congratulate ourselves that no one from 
 this side got left. 
 
 " * The concern was unlimited, and as most of the 
 other people in it, after Mr. Snape let go, were not 
 overburdened with cash, the principal loss fell upon 
 one of those blue-blooded aristocrats from the old 
 country (a Mr. Trevor Johns, of Cowley, England), 
 who are trying to obtain the same pernicious 
 
 ■^' 
 
 'I 
 
HOW SOME ENGLISHMEN MAKE THEIR PILES. 137 
 
 influence for their capital here which they have 
 established for it in the British Isles. We say the 
 loss could not have fallen upon more proper 
 shoulders.'" 
 
 The reader here dropped the paper and took up 
 his pipe again. 
 
 " Whew I that's pretty rough on the British 
 capitalist," remarked Stobart. " Poor devil ! it seems 
 to me that they are always crying out pretty loud 
 for him to come along, and when he is fool enough 
 to come, they rob him first, and curse him for 
 coming afterwards." 
 
 "That's so," put in Ben Sellick. "Yes, that's 
 exactly so ; and it's pretty much the same all over 
 the West. We * honk,' * honk ' for geese, and shoot 
 the beggars when they come to us." 
 
 "What sort of liabilities do you suppose that 
 company had ? " asked Noel, after a pause. 
 
 "The Lord alone knows, and the liquidator," 
 
 replied Stobart ; " pretty big ones, probably, if a 
 
 Britisher had to foot the bill. Why, by Jove ! Johns, 
 
 he wasn't a relative of yours, I hope, this Mr. 
 
 Trevor Johns ?" 
 
 "Yes ; he is my cousin, and that scoundrel Snape 
 
138 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ruined me as he has ruined him," replied Noel, 
 quietly. 
 
 " To hell with all real-estate agents ! " said a voice 
 from beside the stove ; and the others, as they looked 
 up into Bob Pickaxe's savage brown face, re- 
 membered his story, and joined in a hearty 
 "Amen." 
 
 " I say, I am sorry for you, Johns, and for your 
 cousin," said the sergeant, after a while. " I guess 
 he will have to come into the police too, now. It 
 is a rare home for broken men, if they are of the 
 right sort. But perhaps your cousin will get level 
 with his man yet." ' 
 
 " That's not likely. He does not understand how 
 to play their games." 
 
 " Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk, only 
 don't curse Canadians for it. I'll bet this Snape 
 isn't a blue nose. Most of the scoundrels in that 
 business are newly imported scum from the old 
 country." 
 
 " That's how they get us," added Pickaxe. " Set 
 a thief to catch a thief, and an Englishman to 
 swindle an Englishman." 
 
 " True, more's the pity," Stobart assented. " These 
 
 v# 
 
 K.- 
 
 *-\i0i^ 
 
M^ 
 
 now SOME ENGLISHMEN MAKE THEIR PILES. 139 
 
 sharks are born with their wisdom-teeth full grown, 
 and have to file them down once a week, they keep 
 growing so. Have you enough blankets, Johns? 
 It gets pretty cold on the floor towards daybreak." 
 
 "Yes; I shaH do aH right, thank you," Noel 
 answered. 
 
 " Then douse the glim ; old Louis there has been 
 snoring for an hour past. He takes no interest 
 in real-estate agents. Every dollar he gets he puts 
 into cattle, which he looks after himself. When he 
 wants them he can catch them; when he doesn't 
 he leaves the North- West Mounted Police to see to 
 their safe keeping." - 
 
 "And what do you put your dollars into, 
 Stobart?" 
 
 " My pocket, until I get leave, and tlien they go 
 on the faro table. As well there as an)/ where else," 
 replied the sergeant. " Good night ; " and so saying 
 he turned his face to the wall and slept. 
 
 There were six men in the room at Battle Creek 
 that night, not counting the guests ; and, out of the 
 six, only one had been born in that state of life unto 
 which it pleases God to call nine men out of ten ; 
 that is to say, only one had been born to work for 
 
 ''•■•mf;. ■ ^WHh-MBIlalJ»(. ^I*-**"^ l-^« 1 
 
140 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 r. 
 
 his own living, and yet a more careless, contented 
 lot than the men of that outpost it would have been 
 hard to find. If they had no money, at least they 
 had no worries, and no neighbours whose wealth 
 could contrast painfully with their own poverty. 
 
 Only Noel Johns lay awake on the hard deal 
 floor, thinking of Trevor's loss, wondering at the folly 
 of a man who would go to his ruin in spite of warn- 
 ing given, but grieving not so much for his cousin 
 as for Pussy. , . 
 
 What would this mean to her? and how would 
 Trevor take the buffet of fortune ? 
 
 These were questions that kept him awake long 
 into the night, and he could find no answers to 
 them. 
 
 Of course Noel might go home; there would 
 always be something left, and the " old man " would 
 be able to find enough for two, if Trevor were to 
 marry Pussy ; and as for Pussy, Trevor's misfortune 
 would make him doubly dear in her eyes, of that 
 he had no doubt. 
 
 But Trevor was not the nature to take a blow 
 without returning it. He had been spoiled by a too 
 kind fortune, but Noel knew the savage Welsh blood 
 
HOW SOME ENGLISHMEN MAKE THEIR PILES. 141 
 
 had not lost all its fighting properties, although 
 it had flowed so long in the quiet of a Berkshire 
 village. 
 
 He hardly thought Trevor would care for the 
 fool-hen's ?'d/c. 
 
 i 1 
 
142 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ■ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DETERMINED GIBBER. 
 
 if 
 
 il 
 
 li 
 
 ! 
 
 
 There is no doubt about the cold in the early 
 morning at Battle Creek. Police blankets are, as 
 the men say, "good and thick," and Noel had 
 received a \ery generous share of them, but he 
 had neglected to fasten down their edges, so that 
 the little wind which comes before dawn, had crept 
 in and chilled him to the marrow. 
 
 The station was made, like many of its fellows, 
 by one of the scouts, an excellent rough carpenter, 
 but distinctly somewhat rough; the doors did not 
 fit the doorways with too nice accuracy, and no 
 one, of course, in Assineboia would dream of trying 
 to keep out the wind with list along the lintels, 
 or sand-bags at the door's foot. 
 
 At first Noel dropped off into a sound sleep. The 
 glow of the stove warm,ed him, and the other men's 
 
A DETERMINED GIBBER. 
 
 snores made a lullaby for him, but as soon as the 
 glow had faded from the stove he woke with a shiver. 
 The stove was no longer bright with heat ; there 
 was a knot in the floor pushing its way into his 
 hip-bone, and the prairie wind was fairly screaming 
 under the doorway, and flowing in icy waves across 
 the floor. ,• 
 
 For hourSj it seemed to him, he lay tossing on 
 his bruised side, cursing the West, that country 
 of great opportunities in which he and Trevor had 
 come so hopelessly to grief, and longing for the cook 
 to wake and "fire up." 
 
 At last he turned over on the broad of his back, 
 and as there are no corners in one's back to be 
 rubbed off against the boards, he soon passed again 
 
 m 
 
 into dreamland. 
 
 But the cold and the eeriv: wind had given a hint 
 to his brain, and sleep wa? worse than waking. At 
 first his dreams were vague and formless, a mere 
 howling of wolves or wind and a swift procession 
 of figures, which he could not identify. But by 
 degrees one form amongst these shiiting shapes 
 grew defiiite, and always in front, with a wild, 
 hunted look distorting its handsome features, went 
 
n 
 
 i 
 
 1/ 
 
 WBam!!mmmmmsm^''fmmmmmmmm 
 
 pp 
 
 w 
 
 144 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 r I 
 
 
 li! 
 
 / 
 
 Trevor's well-known face. The shapes which fol- 
 lowed changed so rapidly that he could not tell 
 when they were one thing, when they were another, 
 but whatever they were, fiends or wolves, or merely 
 columns of drifting snow, they were always '.n 
 pursuit, Trevor always but one step ahead. 
 
 Through it all Noel had that strange consciousness 
 that he was dreaming, and at last by a violent effort 
 roused himself and sat up. It was easy to convince 
 himself of the unreality of his dreams as soon as 
 his eyes were open ; easy to identify the low-roofed 
 room and the vague outline of the four other men 
 sleeping around him ; but the moment he lay back 
 a;^ain and began to doze, a face came to him out of 
 the gloom which had surely nothing to do with 
 Assineboia. He could feiil, as he lay there, a cool 
 white hand upon his brow ; he coulf" see great coils 
 of sunny hair, a small, graceful head, and tiny, shell- 
 like ears, and, plainer than all, those glorious eyes 
 out of whose grey depths a soul seemed pleading — 
 pleading with a dumb earnestness which made his 
 heart ache. He had no consciousness that he was 
 dreaming now. This was real; all else was false. 
 But what was it that she wanted of him ? What were 
 
A DETEBMINED GlBBEH. 
 
 145 
 
 those dear eyes asking for ? Why did not those sweet 
 lips speak ? The questions maddened him almost 
 as much as his own inability to speak or move. 
 That is the worst of dreams. 
 
 You must lie like one dead, yet with the brain 
 alive, striving to speak or move ; but there can be 
 no speech or motion until the dream passes and the 
 sleeper wakes. 
 
 What if death should be like a dream, in which 
 the brain understands enough to realize the horrors 
 which surround it, in which the heart can still suffer, 
 still desire to speak, thou. the tongue be dumb and 
 the limbs frozen in an eternal frost ? 
 
 Of course, just as he seemed ou the point of 
 solving the question, a voice broke in upon ids 
 slumbers, and he woke. 
 
 " Better get out of them blankets, boys, and give 
 a fellow room to move around in," siria the 
 voice. 
 
 Ben Sellick was trying to make up the fire, and 
 Noel's long legs were very much in the way of any 
 one who wanted to come near the stove. 
 
 In a moment Noel was on his feet. He was only 
 too glad of an excuse for shaking off the cold and 
 
 L 
 
14« 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 the misery of the dark hours, but it took him more 
 than one day to banish the pleading look on that 
 dream-face from his memory. 
 
 " I guess you found it pretty cold last night," 
 remarked Ben ; " the wind was blowin' right on to 
 this side of the shack, and a fellow catches all there 
 is of it there on the floor." 
 
 " Yes, it was pretty cold, and I'm not sorry to get 
 up," Noel owned. " Shall I go and chop some wood 
 for you?" 
 
 " No ; that job's taken. I guess Louis thought he 
 might fc^s well set his blood a movin' that way ; but 
 you can go and see if he'll give you a turn at the 
 axe. I'll have a fire and grub ready in a brace of 
 shakes." ' ^.,, , , 
 
 But Johns did not care to wait even a brace of 
 shakes. What with his dreams, and that wind at 
 dawn, his teeth were absolutely chattering ; so he 
 rose and passed out through the outer room to the 
 yard beyond. As he did so he sa \' the two dead 
 beats sitting like two crows on a bench against the 
 wall, as usual neither speakin^*^ nor doing any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Good morning," he said cheerily as he passed ; 
 
 ft 
 
 n 
 
 It 
 
 /.f 
 
mimmmmrsmmf: 
 
 \ 
 
 if 
 
 A DETEPv^lINED GIBBER. 
 
 147 
 
 l)ut he might as well have spoken to deaf-mutes, for 
 they neither answered nor moved. 
 
 Outside he found his friend the scout, in his 
 shirt-sleeves, making the chips fly. If any one could 
 thrive in such a cheerless world, that stalwart red- 
 brown fellow looked as if he could. 
 
 " Good morning, Louis." 
 
 " Good morning ; so you know enough to work to 
 get warm ! Want the axe ? " 
 
 Noel took it and soon restored circulation, and 
 began to think better of the world, even the nor'- 
 west quarter of it. 
 
 " I say, Louis, don't those fellows ever open their 
 mouths except to put food in ? " he asked after a 
 while, jerking his head towards the room in which 
 the dead beats sat. 
 
 "Don't seem like it," retorted the scout. "Sit 
 there like a couple of starved coyotes on their tails 
 waiting for some one to chuck 'em a bone. I don't 
 cotton to those fellows much." 
 
 *' You'd have thought the beggars would say 
 'thank you,' lur their bed and board; but they 
 didn't say a word that I heard last night." 
 
 "No, nor won't. But that don't signify here. 
 
 1^ 
 
148 
 
 ONE OF THE BllOlvEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Lots don't. You see, it's kinder natural just to drop 
 in and get fed. Every one does the same here. But 
 I shall ask Stobart to drop 'em a hint to hit the trail 
 again to day." 
 
 And so after breakfast he did, and the tramps 
 took the hint, and after a while tied on their tiny 
 wallets and slouched off without a word of thanks, 
 without a smile, without a sign of any kind — with no 
 money, no plans, no goal as far as any one knew ; 
 and Noel stood watching them for a couple of miles 
 going slowly across the level plains, not walking side 
 by side, never apparently speaking to one another, 
 not even having the appearance of being companions 
 in misery, but just two meaningless, aimless human 
 atoms, drifting God knows where or why. 
 
 Turning to the sergeant, Noel asked him if he had 
 found out anything about his two guests. 
 
 *' Not much," he answered. " I had to post them 
 up in my diary, so I got Ben to ask them their 
 names. The short one was * Oly Olsen,' as near as 
 Ben could get at it, a * Swede or a Eussian, or some 
 bloomin' foreigner,' Ben said; and they both came 
 from Ophir, and mean to make Maple Creek to-night." 
 
 " Maple Creek to-night ? Why, it's forty miles to 
 
 I 
 t 
 t 
 
 -s 
 
SSSSSSB^ 
 
 A DETERMINED GIBBER. 
 
 140 
 
 
 Maple Creek ! " cried Noel. "And that's not the way 
 to Maple Creek, is it ? " and he pointed the way 
 the two men were going. 
 
 The sergeant looked up (he was busy mending 
 harness at the time), and as he did so his face wore 
 a puzzled expression. 
 
 " No, by Gad ! it isn't. I'll have to tell Louis 
 about that; though, after all, I don't suppose it 
 matters a great deal. Poor devils ! " 
 
 And that, for the moment, was the last of Oly 
 Olsen and his mate : just two tiny figures on the sky- 
 line, tramping into space. The longer one lives out 
 West, th 3 more one is struck by the extraordinary 
 passion for wandering whicii seems to possess men 
 who have once crossed the plains. It is the same in 
 all prairie countries ; certainly it is the same on the 
 steppes of Kussia. The great " beyond '* which lies 
 behind the skyline has an irresistible fascination. 
 As Eambaud, the historian of Russia, finely says, 
 " The mountain keeps her own, the mountain calls 
 her wanderers to return ; while the steppe, stretching 
 away to the dimmest horizon, invites you to advance, 
 to ride at adventure, to go where the eyes glance." 
 In some parts of the north-west of the States, whole 
 
150 
 
 ONE OF TlIK liUOKEX liRIGADE. 
 
 families may still be seeu indefinitely migrating — 
 'going up to spawn,' as the settlers say. One 
 typical instance occurs to me as I write, in which 
 an old man of seventy was encountered trekking for 
 the land beyond the skyline from a comfortable 
 homestead in Illinois, sufficient to keep him and all 
 his brood in plenty for the rest of his life, and all 
 because he had "heerd tell that there was nation 
 fine land to be taken up somewheers away back in 
 Washington territory." 
 
 But Noel had been speculating long enough on 
 tramps and their ways, and the old sun had already 
 made such a good start upon his daily round that 
 Stobart was beginning to get impatient with Ben. 
 
 "Now then, Ben, if you are going to pull out 
 to-day," he was saying, "it's about time you 
 quit." 
 
 Ben looked surprised. He was not an irritatingly 
 active man. His favourite scheme of life was to 
 sleep until breakfast-time, smoke until lunch, take 
 a turn, perhaps, at something useful to get an 
 appetite for dinner, and then return to tobacco and 
 his blankets. 
 
 "All right, if you say so, sergeant; but did 
 
A DETERiMINED GIBBER. 
 
 151 
 
 
 Louis say as it mattered when I went up for that 
 stage ? " 
 
 " Yes, you bet he did. Said it mattered a whole 
 heap. You ought to be at Farwell to-night, and 
 at the mine to-morrow. I doubt you can't 
 do it." 
 
 " Guess I'd better hitch up, then," remarked Ben, 
 knocking the ashes out of his pipe. " Which horses 
 shall I take ? " 
 
 "Best take Frank, and that grey horse, Sam," 
 replied Stobart. " They will do you all right from 
 here to Farwell, and you can swap teams there." 
 
 "Don't Sam gib a bit at a hill ? " asked Ben. 
 
 " He used to," Stobart admitted ; " but I think he 
 has forgotten that trick by now. He hasn't been 
 driven for quite a while." 
 
 " All right, then, I'll try the son of a gun," said 
 Ben ; and he slouched off to the stables to " f x up " 
 his team. 
 
 In half the time which an English groom would 
 have taken to harness one horse, Ben had hitched up 
 his team, and was round again at the station door 
 with a big lumbering waggon and two goodish- 
 looking horses. 
 
 / i 
 
152 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 "Say, Johns," he called, "you ain't doing any- 
 thing particular ; you'd better come along. You'll 
 get to know the boys at Farwell, and if you're 
 coming into the force, you may as well do that now 
 as later." 
 
 As Ben said, Noel was doing nothing particular, 
 so that he really felt that he might as well earn his 
 next day's food by lending Ben a hand. 
 
 " All right, I'll come. I'll be in at Maple in a 
 week, Louis ; and you might just mention me to the 
 superintendent, and tell him I'd like to be taken on 
 when I come in, if you fellows will have me." 
 
 "I'H tell him, and you bet your life he'll take 
 you on. You're about the sort we want," added the 
 scout, approvingly. "You're sure you know the 
 way, Ben ? " 
 
 " Trust me for that ; I've travelled it before." 
 
 " With another chap to show it to you," muttered 
 Louis, who didn't believe much in white men's 
 knowledge of the plains. " Well, you won't be there 
 to-night, anyway," he added, looking critically at 
 the sun's position in the heavens. 
 
 "Shan't I? then I'll crowd it so almighty close 
 there'll be nothing much between me and it," 
 
HPMimm 
 
 I 
 
 A DETERMINED GIBBER. 
 
 .153 
 
 
 retorted Ben. "Git, you critters," he added, crack- 
 ing his whip. " Bye, boys ; " and the old waggon 
 rattled and bumped over the rutty track to such an 
 extent that Noel couldn't keep his pipe between 
 his teeth. As it fell with a crash on the boards 
 of the waggon, Ben took out a cake of chewing - 
 tobacco. . 
 
 " Take a chew of that," he remarked, offering it to 
 his companion. " Pipes are no account on duty. 
 You can't keep 'em in your mouth in a waggon, they 
 burn out in no time in a wind, and freeze to your 
 lips in a frost. Chewing is the only thing for a 
 scout." 
 
 But Noel was not to be persuaded. A mere 
 matter of prejudice, of course ; but chewing still 
 seemed to him as filthy a habit as smoking did to 
 our ancestors. 
 
 Mile after mile the waggon bumped along, the 
 horses going now at a slow trot, where the track 
 was fairly smooth, now walking as the road got 
 rougher and more hilly, now taxing Ben's skill 
 and strength to the utmost, when the waggon 
 pressed hard on the horses down the side of a steep 
 gully. 
 
UA ONE OV THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " 'blinds mo of old Paul, this does," remarked Ben, 
 as he pulled uj) at the bottom of a steeper pitch 
 than usual, to negotiate which in safety he had been 
 obliged to drive straight through a thick patch of 
 scrub, the boughs of which made a natural brake for 
 his waggon. 
 
 " Why of Paul ? " asked Noel. 
 
 "Why, Paul, you know, don't care about diivin' 
 four horses, an' always gets out and walks, drivin' 
 *em afoot downhill even now; but when he first 
 came to this country he knowed nothin' about 'em 
 at all. He was out drivin' with Louis one time, 
 and they came to a pretty bad pitch, and Louis, he 
 wanted to rig up a break of some kind. * What do 
 you want a break for ? ' asks Paul. * To make us go 
 slow downhill, of course, you chump,' says Louis. 
 ' That's easy,' says Paul ; * you don't want no brake 
 for that. Here's the hobbles here ; let's hobble *em. 
 Ho, ho ! Let's hobble 'em ! ' " 
 
 Though Noel saw the joke, he could quite 
 appreciate Paul's scruples about the driving of a 
 four-in-hand down gullies; but he had still a good 
 deal to learn. 
 
 The afternoon had already begun to turn to 
 
m 
 
 A DETKUMINED (.JIBBKU. li'5 
 
 evening, and t>>ere was still no sign of any of the 
 landmarks which Ben had spoken of. 
 
 " You're sure we're on the right road, Ben ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Of course we are. What do you take nie for T' 
 asked his Jehu. " We shall come to old man Hall's 
 cabin in half a mile or so." 
 
 But they didn't, nor did they come to it in an 
 hour or an hour and a half; and then the dusk 
 began to fall. 
 
 " It's further than you thought, Ben," suggested 
 
 Noel. 
 
 " Yes, it's a bit further," admitted Ben. " I guess 
 I've miscalculated the distance a bit. It's two 
 years since I was along this trail." 
 
 This didn't sound reassuring, especially as the 
 dark had now really caught them, and the wind had 
 begun to shriek, as it only can on uplands of the 
 north-west prairies. 
 
 Above them was a skyline, a hilltop, from which 
 Ben was certain they would see the station ; but it 
 was a long pull up to it, and long before they 
 reached it, Sam gibbed. At first Ben treated this 
 lightly, but he could not overcome it. Sam gibbed, 
 
I! 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 156 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BliTGADE. 
 
 and steadily refused to go another yard, an<l the 
 waggon was too heavily loaded for one horse to 
 pull it. 
 
 " Guess we must rest him a spell," remarked Ben, 
 Olid, dismounting, philosophically proceeded to light 
 his pipe. But the rest was of no avail, and when 
 tlie two men got out and walked, to Hghten the 
 load, it made no ditYerence. For over an hour they 
 fought with that horse, trying in every way to 
 induce him to pull, if only to the top of the hill, 
 and, though good-tempered enough at first, it was at 
 last all Noel could do to prevent the policeman from 
 shooting the " contrary son of a gun " in the traces. 
 Coaxing having failed, they tried the whip, but that 
 only made matters Avrorse, and then a wind like the 
 beginning of a blizzard came screaming over the 
 top of the bluff and froze them to the marrow. 
 
 "Say here, take my rifle;" said Ben, at length, 
 " and let it off right close behind tho beggar's ears. 
 See if that'll stir him. Let me ketch hold. Now 
 let her rip." 
 
 Noel did as he was bid, and at the first discharge 
 the horse made a plunge forward, and for a hundred 
 yards or so Noel saw horses and waggon going in 
 
 'iSBEu n !.? : -jiiimnrr 
 
A DETERMINED GIBBER. 
 
 157 
 
 breakneck fashion " all over the place." But the 
 spurt was only a short one, and each succeeding 
 shot elicited less and less response from Sam ; and 
 even when Ben took the rifle himself in one hand, 
 whilst he held the reins with the other, and fired 
 shot after shot from the box until his magazine was 
 empty, right over the gibber's ears, he gained very 
 little by his expenditure of ammunition. 
 
 It seemed as if they would have to make a night 
 of it on that high bluff, with half a blizzard blowing, 
 and snow falling, and to avoid this Noel was ready 
 to risk anything ; for to be caught in a real blizzard 
 night mean the loss of a good deal more than a meal 
 and a night's rest. 
 
 " Take the brute out, and I'll ride him on to the 
 station," he suggested. * 
 
 " You couldn't ride this brute. No man could, or 
 the other. They're mates for that. They'd either 
 of 'em buck a man so high he'd never come down," 
 replied Ben ; " but you might walk on, and see if 
 you can see anything from the top of the bluff." 
 
 "All right, I'll go," said Johns, and tramped out 
 into the dark, losing waggon and horses and all in 
 thirty paces. But he could see nothing of the 
 
 m 
 
mmmm 
 
 I i: 
 
 158 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 n 
 
 ill 
 
 station, and after a while he feared he'd lost the 
 waggon, until nearly half an hour later, looking 
 back in the mist, now lit by starlight after the 
 snowstorm, he saw a gigantic figure coine over the 
 top of a rise against the sky, and aftor a moment of 
 doubt recognized Ben and his ceam. At last the 
 driver had persuaded the driven to move, but at 
 what cost of strong language Noel never knew. 
 What he did know was that the stock of Ben's 
 carbine was smashed to atoms, and certain con- 
 tusions next day showed that Sam's hide had been 
 in contact with something harder even than a prairie- 
 bred cujuse. A five-mile tramp from the top of 
 the bluff took the two to old man Hall's cabin, 
 which had been half a mile off, according to Ben, 
 half an hour before Sam began to gib ; but though 
 they readied Farwell in time for breakfast next 
 morning, Noel felt that Louis's contempt for white 
 prairie pilots was not without reason. 
 
( 159 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT FAR WELL OUTPOST. 
 
 One station in the nor'-west is much like another. 
 The same lone lorn square cottages stand in every 
 case upon much the same waste of dry yellow grass, 
 or appear stranded in a white sea of snow which 
 makes the eyes ache with its blinding brilliancy. 
 But Farwell in the sun of early morning had a 
 cheerier look than most of them, and was palatial by 
 contrast with " old man Hall's." On the roof, within 
 arm's reach, lay half a dozen skulls of deer and 
 antelope; and over one of the doors some one had 
 nailed a huge bleached buffalo skull, killed before 
 the last of these beasts swam the Saskatchewan 
 and disappeared in 1885. In spite of these trophies, 
 as far as the eye could see (and it can see very far 
 indeed in the Cypress Hills), there was no trace of 
 
!J 
 
 160 
 
 ONE OlT THE BKOKEN BlUGADE. 
 
 \ I 
 
 \} 
 
 I 
 
 life round Farwell. In the old days, looking from 
 the post across the plains, you might have seen a 
 band of wapiti feeding in the distance, or far away 
 beyond the stream you would have noticed that the 
 yellow plains were starred with puffs of dust. These 
 puffs of dust marked the spots where the old bulls 
 lay wallowing. Now there were neither bull buffaloes 
 nor wapiti ; even the bones of the one and the horns 
 of the other are getting scarce, except where they are 
 piled along the railway track for export to manure- 
 manufacturers. 
 
 Inside the post, when Ben arrived, it was almost as 
 still as on the plains. The fire was burning, so that 
 it was evident that some one was still about the 
 place ; but the rooms were all empty, and it was not 
 until Ben had shouted himself hoarse that any one 
 appeared to answer his summons. Then a stout- 
 built, middle-aged man, hall-marked " Tommy 
 Atkins," i3ut in an appearance. 
 
 " What in thunder are you raisin' Cain about ? '* 
 he asked. " Don't you know enough to walk inside 
 and help yourself, if you want anything, Ben, or do 
 you want a couple of chaps to wait on you ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, Tommy, I guess I know my way in ; 
 
 wpai^^liisv 
 
AT fakWell outpost. 
 
 IGl 
 
 but what's up ? Where's the boys ? " asked Beu, iu 
 a conciliatory tone. 
 
 " Gone scoutinV' replied Atkins. " Some Yanks 
 has gone and killed a fellow over at Ophir, and as 
 thek own police couldn't catch them, but let them 
 slip over the line, we have got to turn out and do 
 their dirty work for them," growled Tommy. 
 
 " Then are you left alone ? " asked Ben. 
 
 "Just me and Bob. Bob's inside mindin' the 
 horses ; but get in and warm yourselves, and I'll see 
 to your team." 
 
 After a few minutes' absence. Tommy returned in 
 somewhat better temper, for this ex-trumpeter in the 
 Eoyal Horse Artillery was glad enough to see a new 
 face, though it would have been contrary to his 
 nature to show his pleasure. 
 
 " What was that you said about a shooting-scrapo 
 at Ophir ? " asked Ben. 
 
 " Why, that chap Sword has got wiped out at last, 
 and served him d — d well right, by all accounts." 
 
 " W.b It, Sword the road-agent ? " 
 
 " That's him. Seems he was running a tony 
 saloon at Ophir, and no one took any notice of him 
 until a pal of one of the fellows he killed away back 
 
'f 
 
 -*es». 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ( 
 
 ( 
 
 162 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 
 i 
 
 I! 
 
 n^ 
 
 i/i 
 
 
 in the seventies, came along and blew his waistcoat 
 in with a charge of slugs." 
 
 " But they won't hang the fellow for that. That's 
 common justice," ejaculated Ben. 
 
 " That may be, but it ain't regular." 
 
 " It doesn't seem very regular to leave a notorious 
 murderer and train-thief unmolested for years under 
 the very nose of a judge," remarked Noel. 
 
 Old Tommy looked up ai 'lis, and seemed to 
 recognize Noel's presence for the first time. 
 
 " That's like the blamed conceit of a tenderfoot, 
 ain't it, Ben?" he remarked, turning to Sellick. 
 " Perhaps you'd tell us what you think as they'd do 
 if they were to catch the chap who shot Sword," 
 he added, in a tone of withering contempt, to Noel. 
 
 Although half inclined to resent the old man's 
 manner, Noel only laughed at it. " Why, I suppose 
 that as there is some justification for the act, they 
 wouldn't hang him." 
 
 " They might, and agen, they mightn't. I guess 
 his would be a ticklish position. The first killin' 
 is always a bit risky. You might hang for that, 
 though of course, if you have any money, you ain't 
 anyways likely to. The second killin's safer. You 
 
AT FARWELL OUTPOST. 163 
 
 may be made city marshal for that; but if you're 
 lucky, and kill three men, you are city marshal as 
 sure as hell." 
 
 " You've got it figured out pretty correct, Tommy," 
 Ben assented. " You didn't calculate, I suppose, how 
 many killings it would take to make a judge, did 
 you ? Say, Johns, I wonder if those beauties who 
 stopped at Battle Creek had any share in this 
 business. They came from Ophir." 
 
 " And didn't go right on to Maple, as they said 
 they intended to," added Johns. 
 
 " Did they tell you as they came from Ophir ? " 
 asked Tommy. 
 
 " Yes, that's what they said." 
 " Then I guess they lied. If they had come from 
 Ophir, specially if they had had anything to do 
 with Sword, they wouldn't have told you they came 
 from there. Done something else, I guess, just as bad. 
 Got born when they weren't wanted, or chucked a 
 good thing when they had it, or wouldn't stand still 
 to be shot at, or some fool's trick or other." 
 
 "You ain't cheery this morning, boy. What's 
 the trouble ? " asked Ben. 
 
 But the ex- trumpeter made no intelligible reply. 
 
f<n 
 
 164 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 He had not had his morning ride yet, and this 
 horse-breaker to the force had still a large stock 
 of ill temper on hand, which it would take a 
 really "mean" buck-jumper half an hour to get 
 rid of. 
 
 Ben and Noel could hear him knocking the sauce- 
 pans and frying-pans about in the kitchen for ten 
 minutes after he left them, as if they were live 
 things which had annoyed him. 
 
 " What is the matter with the fellow ? " asked 
 Johns, as soon as it was safe to speak; "is he 
 always like that ? " 
 
 " Pretty nigh always. Tommy's a first-rate good 
 chap, but there's no denying that he's a bit of a 
 crank. He's always specially cranky when there's 
 been a killin'." 
 
 " What, is he bloodthirsty ? He doesn't look it." 
 
 " No, and he ain't. That's not his ticket at all. 
 Tommy is just the other way. If the Yanks only 
 got the fellows as Tommy held up for them, they'd 
 get almighty few. But there he goes to the horses, 
 so I can tell you what is the matter with Tommy. 
 Wait till I light up, though;" and digging out an 
 ember, Ben lit his corn-cob pipe, and composed 
 
 
 IMi 
 
AT FARWELL OUTPOST. 
 
 105 
 
 IS 
 
 a 
 fet 
 
 i 
 
 himself for a yarn, whilst the water in the billy was 
 a-boiling. 
 
 " Tommy came to us from the States, you know. 
 He was one of those chaps who declare their 
 intention of becoming American citizens, when 
 they never have no intentions of the kind. His fad 
 is that we have all been learned the wrong rules for 
 this country, and that's why the Yanks get away 
 with us. 
 
 " But it would be against nature if Tommy didn't 
 think so, 'cos he was fool enough to try to buy land 
 in Uncle Sam's country, instead of getting it given 
 to him under his own flag. And that wasn't the 
 worst of it. Darned if he didn't go and marry an 
 American woman, and a widow woman at that. 
 Well, of course it didn't take long for what 
 Tommy swears the lawyers call " uncomfortability 
 of temper" to set in atween those two, and when 
 she wouldn't let him have no beer, and wanted him 
 to deed rll his property over to her, Tommy said 
 he'd see her further first. Then the scrap began. 
 
 " She got the drop on him, of course — that's in the 
 blood — and pottpd him in the back, from a d<>orway, 
 before he knowed the action had commenced: the 
 
SMI 
 
 (^: 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 !;? 'I 
 
 U 
 
 
 Li 
 
 16G 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 next shot she raised his hair, and the third would 
 most likely have finished him, and got her photo 
 into the New York Police News, only, as bad luck 
 would have it. Tommy had got his gun by that time, 
 and rattled her badly by shooting over her head. 
 Then he got a chance, and grabbed her weapon, lit 
 out before the neighbours catn- around to lend her 
 a hand, and got clear off. But she's been suin* him 
 for alimony, or somethin* of that sort, ever since, 
 and as she can't get anything out of Tommy, she 
 just freezes on to his land. They say as poor old 
 Thomas up and told the judge that he thought 
 there had ought to be a close time for husbands, 
 but I guess the judge was a bachelor, for he 
 give it agen Thomas, and Thomas has had a down 
 on judges and American law ever since. You bet 
 the boys left him here because they knowed he 
 would let any dead beat go who had happened to 
 break the law across the line." 
 
 " I'm not so sure that I blame him," was Noel's 
 comment, when Ben had finished his story ; " but 
 I think he is coming across the yard now, and I 
 know the billy is boiling, so we had better set to, if 
 you really mean to get to the mine to night." 
 
 iij 
 
 
 m 
 
 'ftfini'tii 
 
 Mm 
 
AT FARWELL OUTPOST. ^67 
 
 "You bet I mean to. It's only twenty-five miles 
 from here to East-end Post, and fifteen on from 
 there. But I know a short cut that misses East- 
 end Post. That way it won't be more than thirty- 
 
 six miles." 
 
 « Quite enough too," muttered Johns. 
 
 <' We've got to do it or bust, boy. What do you 
 say. Tommy ? Can we make the mine to night, with 
 
 that team of yours ? " 
 
 « Make it ? Yes, make it easy before dark," he 
 replied ; and the event proved that he was right. 
 
J I V 
 
 ir.s 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ♦ I 
 
 CHAriER V. 
 
 THE STAGE HELD UP. 
 
 ( > 
 
 \i 
 
 't 
 
 " Great Scott ! it's a weight, boy ! " 
 
 Ben Sellick was the speaker. He and Noel Johns 
 between them were straining at a moderate-sized 
 iron-bound chest, which, to judge by their efforts, 
 was abnormally heavy for its piz9. 
 
 '' You may say that without lying, Ben," remarked 
 an onlooker ; " but I guess Snape's heart would be 
 a deuced deal heavier if you lost it." 
 
 " I suppose," replied Ben. " But we don't cal- 
 culate to lose it, sonny." 
 
 "Well, look out for road-agents. Sword may 
 not be the last of the gang. You've got some 
 shooting-irons along, haven't you?" 
 
 " I've got my carbine ; brought it on the off 
 chance of seeing an antelope ; but I expect Stobart 
 and those dogs of his have hunted them all out 
 of the country." 
 
 t \t 
 
THE STAGE HELD UP. 
 
 IGO 
 
 3S 
 
 id 
 
 " Yes, they're about as ooarce as road-agents. Are 
 you all right now ? " 
 
 " All except the mail-bag. Chuck that in." 
 
 The mail-bag was thrown in, the coach door 
 closed, pipes were lighted, and then Ben and Noel 
 climbed up to the box-seat. The coach which had 
 been built to run on the old Cariboo road, was a 
 covered concern, not unlike the famous Deadwood 
 coach, made to contain eight or ten passengers. 
 But the passengers* seats were empty. The treasure- 
 chest and the mail-bag had the inside of the coach 
 to themselves, and there was no one who wanted 
 a share of the blankets in which Noel and Ben were 
 enveloping themselves. 
 
 " That carbine is going to be awfully in our way," 
 remarked Noel. 
 
 " Can't you fix it between us ? " asked Ben. 
 
 "Not well. It will keep shifting as soon as we 
 begin to movfj." 
 
 " Then shove it under the seat. If we do see an 
 antelope, we can get it out in time." 
 
 " Is all set ? " the driver asked, gathering up his 
 reins. 
 
 " All set," Noel replied. " Good-bye, boys." 
 
( 
 
 Nf 
 
 170 
 
 ONE OF TIIK nilOKKN imiGADE. 
 
 The long lash flew out and cracked viciously ia 
 the frosty air ; the four lean-looking screws gave 
 a preliminary exhit)itiou of their desire to go in 
 different directions, and then realizing the futility 
 of iheir efforts, settled down to buniness, and pulled 
 im old stage out on to the prairie. Surely there 
 never was a stage which creaked ana groaued as 
 that on( did. It had lieen laid aside for so long 
 that it probably resented this return to active life. 
 Its voice, at any rate, was not an enlivening element 
 in that morning's drive. 
 
 A week spent cruising aboi»t in the Cypress Hills 
 had to some extent acclimatized Noel to their 
 dreariness, but when the coach left Pinto Mine, there 
 w^as an ugly look about the sky which he had never 
 seen in it before. A dense grey cloud was creeping 
 over everytL; (ig, so that sky and prairie, as far as 
 you could see, was all becoming of one tone a.nd one 
 colour, except where, away to the east a narrow rira 
 of yellowish light, not unlike the " ice glint " of the 
 arctic circle, showed low down on the horizon. 
 
 Sucli wind as there was came in short and 
 uncertain puffs, but what there was of it was of 
 such a penetrating keenness that, in spite of his 
 
■ 'VA 
 
 m 
 
 THE STAGE HELD UP. 
 
 171 
 
 wraps, it chilled Noel to the marrow before Pinto 
 was out of sight. But it takes some time to lose 
 sight of Pinto on the prairie, and the travelling for 
 the first mile or two waa very slow, on account of 
 the deep drifts into which the first light snow of 
 the season had been blown. 
 
 " There is not much of it yet except in these 
 dog-goned drifts," muttered Ben, as they weltered 
 through one of them, " but there is more of it to 
 come, and that, too, uncommon soon," he added, 
 drawing on his huge badger-skin gloves, and looking 
 nervously at the horizon. 
 
 Noel, for the first time in his life, was beginning 
 to wish himself back again in the shelter of a 
 British Columbian forest. Sal lal bush, six feet 
 high, is very provoking, but even a canyon full of 
 sal lal is not as bad as the treeless uplands of 
 Assineboia, when the wind is rising, and the 
 thermometer has fallen about as low as it con- 
 veniently can. Unfortunately for him, Noel was 
 not equipped for the Nor' -West. He had needed 
 no winter gear upon Vancouver Island, and had had 
 no money to buy any with since he left British 
 Columbia. So he buttoned a blanket coat which 
 
172 
 
 ONE OF TFIE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 :|i 
 
 I; 
 
 he had borrowed, up to the chin, sat on his hands 
 to keep them warm, and shivered until his teeth 
 chattered, for at every bump of the stage the rugs 
 flew apart, and let in the bitter prairie wind which 
 numbed whatever it touched. 
 
 There were other signs, besides those in the sky,, 
 of the coming of the real winter of the Nor' -West. 
 Two or three times during the morning the coach 
 passed bands of cattle bearing the Crane Lake 
 brand, but they were all either sheltering in the 
 coulees or strung out across the plain, heading 
 steadily for home without stopping even to graze 
 by the way. 
 
 " It's coming, sure as death," muttered Ben, " and 
 it's just like my cursed luck to get caught in it. ^ 
 But, say, Johns, if the cold nips you so, why don't 
 you ride inside? Yon don't help me any, sitting 
 here." 
 
 " But how about the wraps, Ben ? " 
 
 " Oh, you just take your blanket and leave me 
 mine. I'd a deuced deal rather have one to myself 
 than my share of two," said Ben, pulling up his 
 team, and beginning to rearrange matters to his 
 satisfaction. 
 
THE STAGE HELD UP. 173 
 
 " Shall I take the carbine inside ? " asked Noel. 
 
 " No ; leave her where she is. Once I'm fixed to 
 rights, I wouldn't get down for the biggest bunch of 
 antelope I ever saw." 
 
 Noel looked at him and believed him. 
 
 His carbine was tucked away for safety under his 
 feet. The collar of his great fur coat was tied 
 securely with a piece of rope's end round his throat ; 
 another piece of rope's end confined it at his waist, 
 while over all he had rolled his blanket, until he 
 looked more like an Egyptian mummy than a 
 mounted policeman. The nose — though naturally 
 a ruddy one — which just showed between his fur 
 caj* and his coat collar, was already sufficiently 
 corpse-like in colour to increase his resemblance. 
 
 When Noel had settled himself in his corner of 
 the coach, old Ben turned stiffly round again in his 
 seat ; put a quid of tobacco between his teeth, and 
 then shut his mouth permanently for the rest of the 
 drive. He felt that he was in for it, and was 
 prepared to rough it. Like the proverbial Texan 
 steer, he had never died in a winter on the range 
 yet, and guessed he'd pull through this time, too, 
 " though hf; might be a bit poor at the finish." 
 
mi 
 
 174 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 f) 
 
 l:i 
 
 ); 
 
 11 
 
 Men who have these long, slow drives to make 
 seem to acquire a power of suffering without think- 
 ing ; of sending their minds away into space, and 
 leaving their bodies to take care of themselves, until 
 the bad times have passed. Ben Sellick had driven 
 over many a thousand miles of prairie in his time, 
 and had really seen very few of the miles he had 
 driven over. He had driven for the most part as 
 he was driving now, with his physical eyes open 
 enough to warn him of danger, and to enable him to 
 guide his team, but with his mind a comfortable 
 blank, past which mile after mile of grey prairie and 
 greyer sky passed unnoticed and unremembereii. 
 
 On his way back from the Pinto Mine, Ben 
 thought it better to take the trail past the Kast- 
 end Post, and there change horses ; but though he 
 changed his team, and lit his pipe at Ka«t-end, he 
 would neither stop to eat, nwr get down to warm 
 himself by the stove. 
 
 " N"o, no, lH>ys, we are best as we are," h^ said ; 
 " and there's no time to waste in fixing ourselves up 
 again. It's all we cern do to make Farwell, and if 
 we don't make Farwell to-night, 1 don't know as 
 you'll ever see your team again." 
 
THE STAGE HELD UP. 
 
 ■IT 
 
 I tit 
 
 The man to whom ho spoke looked for a second 
 or two at the horizon, and then, thinking apparently 
 that Ben was right sang out some orders to one 
 of his fellows, and had tie old team out of the 
 shafts, and the new team in, almost before Ben's 
 numbed fingers had cut up a pipeful of "plug." 
 
 Following Ben's advice, Noel remained curled up 
 in his corner, so that he saw nothing of the men 
 of the East-end Post, except the sergeant, who 
 gave him a light as he lay huddled up in his 
 blanket. 
 
 And then they were off again, bumping and 
 jolting from side to side, hour after hour, through a 
 world wlii('l) was absolutely monotonous ; the only 
 moving thing between the grey of the sky and the 
 grey of the prairie being themselves and a few 
 drifting snow-flukes, forerunners of wliat was to 
 come. 
 
 A conviction began to grow upon Noel that the 
 whole drive was a nightmare, and that if he could 
 only give himself the necessary shock, he would 
 wake and be rid of it. The shock came at last, but 
 was administered from outside. For the last half- 
 hour there had been a long black line ahead of the 
 
176 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 horses, cutting the grey of the prnirie with strange 
 distinctness. As they drew near, the black line 
 showed itself to be a fringe of cypress trees, running 
 along the edge of a big coulee almost large enough 
 to deserve to be called a valley. The banks of this 
 coulee were steep on both sides, but on the further 
 side the ascent was so much steeper than the descent 
 had been, that, though Ben sent his horses down at 
 a hand gallop, the impetus of their descent hardly 
 carried them halfway out of the coulee. Just as 
 they stopped of their own motion, a harsh voice 
 rang out with strange distinctness from the bank 
 above — 
 
 " Hold up there ! " 
 
 They are three little words, but under certain 
 circumstances they have a terrible significance. 
 Brave men have trembled at them in every State 
 in the Union. 
 
 By a natural instinct Ben's hand strove to get to 
 his hip-pocket, but even had there been no rifle 
 bearing upon him, he could not have reached it 
 under thirty seconds, so wrapped and swathed in 
 blankets waa ho. 
 
 The cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he 
 
THE STAGE HELD UP. 
 
 177 
 
 remembered where his carbine was, and that Noel 
 was as helpless as himself. 
 
 " Drop those reins and hold your hands up. 
 One! two! " 
 
 It was more grace than ninety-nine stage robbers 
 in a hundred would have given to a victim, and had 
 Ben Sellick been less securely caught in the folds 
 of his own blanket, the delay, though momentary, 
 would have cost the highwayman dear. But Ben 
 had laughed at the idea of being held up, and had 
 thrown caution to the winds, so that plucky as he 
 was, he had to drop the reins, and hold up his hands 
 before the fatal " three ! " was pronounced. 
 
 As he did so, he saw on the brow of the bank 
 above him, l screen of cypress boughs, and pro- 
 truding through them what looked like the barrels of 
 three rifles, all bearing on the box-seat of the coach. 
 The policeman was a bra\e man, but as he looked 
 down the barrels of those three rifles, his heart sank 
 into his boots. Death is not good at any time, and 
 death in the gloom of those cypress trees, with night 
 falling, and that shrieking wind for his mourner, 
 seemed peculiarly uninviting. Ben shuddered, but 
 he made another effort to save his employer's gold. 
 
 N 
 
17S 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Had he had his horses on the flat, he would have 
 whipped t'lem up and taken his chances. Three 
 bullets might miss him if the team got off at once ; 
 but here, with horses blown, a steep bank to climb, 
 and snow drifted two feet deep in front of him, it 
 would have been suicide to try to bolt. 
 
 He knew this, but he didn't like giving in for 
 all that. " Quit foolin'," he said steadily ; " do you 
 think 1 can't see as it's only an umbrella, or some 
 damned thing that you've got there ? And if there 
 is one gun on me, there's another on you in the 
 coach." 
 
 It was a sudden inspiration, and the road-agent's 
 quick turn of the head might have given Ben a 
 chance to change places with him if he had had a 
 * gun handy ; but he hadn't, so the chance was lost, 
 and the voice from behind the screen sounded more 
 imperatively than ever. 
 
 " Get down, and put that chest out," it growled ; 
 and Noel, who was wide awake and listening now, 
 thought that the voice seemed a feigned voice. 
 "There are three rifles on you; if you don't get 
 down pretty lively you shall hear their music. 
 Jim," the voice added, " drop that leader if he tries 
 
■U«. JPI , 
 
 THE STAGE HELD UP. HO 
 
 to bolt ; Mike, keep your eye on the passenger ; I'U 
 take care of the driver." 
 
 Noel wasn't sure whether he heard an answer or 
 not. The wind was shrieking so loudly now, that 
 you could only catch the general drift of the first 
 man's commands, but he was evidently giving his 
 orders to his mates behind the drift, on his right and 
 left ; and Ben, remembering that the whole history 
 of American stage-coach robberies shows no single 
 instance of wavering on the part of the road-agents, 
 got sullenly down into the road, and waited for 
 orders. 
 
 The whole success of a road-agent depends upon 
 one weU-understood rule — he never makes a threat 
 which he is not prepared to carry out. Once he has 
 the drop on you, his orders are "hands up," and 
 they must go up without hesitation, or the least 
 little contraction of the muscles of his forefinger will 
 send you to kingdom come. His life or yours are 
 the stakes on the table, and he knows it ; and there 
 is no man alive to-day, so quick that his hand 
 could reach his hip-pocket, before a man "having 
 the drop " could press the trigger. It's easy enough 
 when you are not held up, to talk of what you 
 
180 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 would do if you were ; when you are held up, you 
 must submit to the ignominy of holding up your 
 hands like other people, or you must die, and it 
 hardly seems worth while, when the time comes, 
 to die for a roll of greasy bank-notes. 
 
 All this Ben knew ; but as he stood in the road, 
 his mind was busy trying to think of some ruse to 
 save Snape's gold. 
 
 But it was no good. 
 
 " Tell that passenger to get out," said the voice ; 
 and Noel had to crawl out and stand humbly before 
 the cypress screen. 
 
 " Is he from the mine ? " the voice asked. 
 
 " No," answered Ben ; " he's in the force." 
 
 ** Stand out and show your face," said the voice ; 
 and Noel had to obey. 
 
 " Isn't Snape along ? " asked the voice, after a 
 moment's pause. 
 
 " No ; he went out last week by Swift Current." 
 
 "Damn him!" 
 
 Noel started. There was no doubt about the 
 change in the voice ; there was a clear ring in that 
 heartfelt curse, with no feigned hoarseness in it, and, 
 strangely enough, the voice seemed familiar to Noel. 
 
THE STAGE HELD UP. 
 
 m 
 
 However, when the man spoke again it was in his 
 feigned voice: at least, the voice was as deep and 
 hoarse as ever. 
 
 " Put out the chest on the road," it said ; and Ben, 
 feigning to misunderstand him, put out the mail- 
 bag. 
 
 arse you. Put out the chest, if 
 
 ' and at last, sorely against his will, 
 
 igged his charge into the middle of 
 
 "No no 
 
 you care to 
 Ben SeUic 
 the road. 
 
 "Now turn your horses round, and don't try 
 to get out sight. That will do," the voice continued, 
 as Ben obeyed. "Now then, you there, get in," 
 it said to Johns, "and a word to both of you. 
 Drive those horses as if hell was behind you, back 
 to the mine. Tell Snape, when you see him, that 
 the gold has gone to where it came from. Stop, or 
 look round, and it will be your own funeral. Quit ! '* 
 and as he ceased speaking a flame shot out from 
 the tiarkiioss of the screen, a report rang through 
 the mo rov^ valley, and a bullet hissed spitefully just 
 over 'l\e quarters of the wheelers. 
 
 "A hint to hurry up, curse him," muttered Ben. 
 " It will be our turn by-and-by," and lashing the 
 
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 (716) 872-4503 
 
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 182 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 frightened horses into a break-neck gallop, he dashed 
 out of the ravine, and put their heads straight for 
 East-end, whilst two more shots rattled over the 
 coach in quick succession. 
 
 In his humiliation one thought consoled Ben 
 Sellick. He had left the gold and the mails, with 
 which he had been entrusted, in the middle of that 
 dark ravine, and with them his own reputation. 
 But the East-end Post was barely nineteen miles 
 away (Farwell was only six, but that, alas! was 
 in the wrong direction); and there he would find 
 arms and friends who would hunt the road-agent 
 until they had him and the stolen gold, if he stayed 
 above ground. 
 
 There is no cover to hide such men in Assineboia, 
 and Ben Sellick, though he had kept his eyes open, 
 had seen no sign of a horse near the coulee. In 
 his mind the agents were "as good as gaoled 
 already." 
 
( 183 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 " Ben, don't look round and don't stop them, but 
 move your feet so that I can get that rifle." 
 
 Ben Sellick had almost forgotten Noel's existence 
 for the time, but he did as he was bid, and asked 
 without turning his head — 
 
 " What is the good of the gun now ? " 
 
 "Just this," Noel answered, putting his arm 
 through the opening at the end of the coach, and 
 withdrawing the weapon. "I am going to drop 
 out as soon as we pass behind that last clump of 
 cypress, and I want it. Did you notice anything 
 about those three shots ? " 
 
 " No, except that the bullets came too close to 
 be pleasant." 
 
 "But the shots didn't come too close to have 
 been fired by one Winchester." 
 
 n 
 
 ^ 
 
 '!'* 
 
184 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "Either that only one man iired, or that there 
 was only one man to fire." 
 
 " You don't say ! but no, one man dared not 
 doit." 
 
 "I believe one man did; if not there will be 
 somebody watching, and I shall have a pretty tough 
 time of it. So long, Ben. I'd take short odds that 
 I have the man and the" gold waiting for you by the 
 time you get back from East-end ; " and with a quiet 
 laugh Noel dropped out from behind, as they swung 
 round the cypresses, as coolly and as nimbly as if he 
 had been getting out of a bus in Piccadilly, and lay 
 there until the sound of the horses' feet, still canter- 
 ing, was almost lost in the rising wind. 
 
 All through the scene described in the last 
 chapter, Noel Johns had kept his head, and in spite 
 of the growing darkness and the noisy wind, he had 
 noticed a good many things which had escaped Ben 
 Sellick's observation. 
 
 He had in the first place noticed the feigned voice, 
 and the sudden change of tone, when disappointed 
 rage revealed the real man for a moment ; he had 
 heard the orders given to the men behind the rifles 
 
n 
 
 MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 185 
 
 ,)> 
 
 on the right and on the left, and he thought that 
 there had been no answers given ; he had seen, too, 
 another thing which happened as the road-agent 
 turned quickly to look ifor the gun Ben said was 
 covering him from the coach; he had seen one of 
 the rifle-barrels, disturbed probably by his sudden 
 movement, tip forward, and then slowly slide out of 
 its place, and' rest point downwards on the ground 
 in front of the screen ; and he had noted, too, that all 
 the three shots fired were consecutive, not simul- 
 taneous. Noel Johns felt as sure that there was 
 only one man behind the cypress screen as he ever 
 was of anything, and he chuckled to himself as he 
 thought of the excellent opening this adventure 
 would make for him in his new career. The capture 
 of a successful stage robber single-handed is not 
 an everyday occurrence, but this was just what he 
 thought he saw his way to achieving. 
 
 But for some time he lay still. 
 
 If he was wrong in his surmise ; if, after all, the 
 man who held them up had confederates with him, it 
 was probable that one of them had crept through the 
 bush to watch the coach out of sight. In that case, 
 as soon as he crawled out from his hiding-place, he 
 
 I) 
 
 1' 
 
 f 
 
 * \ 
 
 
 h 
 
 i i 
 
 •i 
 
186 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 might be greeted with a bviilet through the body. 
 Like a sportsman preparing to crawl in to dangerous 
 game, he tried his carbine. The pump of the little 
 Winchester worked easily, and the magazine was full. 
 To make sure, even at the risk of being heard, he 
 ejected the cartridges. There were seven of them. 
 Carefully he picked them up and replaced them, put 
 one into the chamber, and then lying flat on his 
 stomach crawled out from his cover and across the 
 open to the edge of the coulee. It was nervous 
 work and slow, but he reached the bushes at last 
 and lay panting, but reassured. The worst of the 
 stalk was over, and he was now almost absolutely sure 
 that he was right. The dusk was coming on rapidly. 
 Under the cypresses it was already dark. There 
 was no sound of any kind. The beat of the horses' 
 feet and the rattle of the stage had died away in the 
 distance ; except for the creaking and groaning of 
 some dead tree in an occasional puflP of wind, and 
 that little shiver which sometimes runs through 
 the boughs, all was absolutely still. Behind him 
 lay the prairie, dim and vague, no sign of life upon 
 it anywhere, and in front the coulee, full of dark 
 trees and darker shadows. As long as the darkness 
 
">■<-"«,. 
 
 
 MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 187 
 
 was unbroken, it would be well with him. What 
 he feared was that a little red flame would spit out 
 from the darkness. If it did, he wondered whether 
 he would live to see it. He remembered how, a long 
 time ago, he had watched a friend stalking a buck. 
 He remembered the long time he waited whilst his 
 friend crawled in, and how he had seen the buck fall 
 first, before it seemed to him, he saw the flash, and 
 long before, he heard the report. Well, it was a 
 merciful death anyway, and a man crawling on his 
 stomach through the shadows would be a good deal 
 harder to hit than a buck standing up in the open. 
 
 Gently parting the bushes in front of him, he 
 crawled forward. In spite of his upmost care a dry 
 leaf rustled here and there. Once a dry stick 
 cracked. The whole wood seemed to listen, and the 
 shadows to flit from bush to bush. The perspiration 
 stood in great beads on his brow, though his breath 
 froze hard on his moustache. But he went on, and, 
 at last only a hundred yards separated him from 
 that point on the road where the treasure-chest lay. 
 The road of course would be lighter than the bush, 
 but it would not be light enough to make it safe 
 to shoot at a hundred yards, so he wormed his way 
 
 I ^3 
 
 if 
 
188 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ! r 
 
 back again into cover, and crawled round until he 
 
 felt certain that if the man was by the chest, he 
 
 must be within fifty yards of him. For Noel was 
 
 hunting his man as men hunt grizzlies, and expected 
 
 to kill him over his prey. For a moment he lay 
 
 and listened. Yes, there was some one there. In 
 
 the stillness he could hear him breathing, and Noel 
 
 thought that the beating of his own heart against Ids 
 
 ribs would betray him. Then there came to him 
 
 the sound of tearing paper, and the noise of it in 
 
 the stillness made him start and tighten his grip 
 
 on his rifle's barrel. But he could wait no longer. 
 
 Inch by inch he raised his head, and his rifle came 
 
 up with him inch by inch, until at last he looked 
 
 down the barrel — at what ? A single, lonely figure 
 
 standing right out in the open by the mail-bag, 
 
 absolutely unconscious, or careless of danger, with 
 
 an open letter in his hand, which he seemed trying 
 
 in vain to read. The treasure-chest lay where Ben 
 
 had put it. No one seemed to have troubled to go 
 
 near it. 
 
 It was a strange position. Noel had expected 
 
 to find the man busy pocketing the treasure for 
 which he had broken the law and risked his life ; 
 
 
1 \ .. 
 
 - MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 and instead he found the chest untouched, and the 
 man trying in the dim light to read some one else's 
 letters. As he looked at him, there came again 
 that uneasy consciousness of something in the man's 
 fi'^fure which was familiar to him, but before he 
 had time to think, just the edge of the rising moon 
 crept above the trees, and in its white light the man 
 turned and confronted him. There was nothing in 
 that heavily bearded face, however, to strengthen 
 the suspicion which the man's real voice and the 
 outline of his figure had suggested. 
 
 Bising quickly Noel covered his man, and again 
 that strange command broke the stillness of the 
 cypresses — 
 
 " Hands up ! If you stir you are a dead man ! " 
 But the man made no attempt to stir. He didn't 
 even raise his hands, but let them hang closely by 
 his side, one of them still holding the letter. On the 
 side of the road, ten paces from him, lay his rifle ; 
 the moonlight fell upon the screen, and showed 
 plainly now the two fir-poles which in the half-light 
 of an hour ago had imposed upon Ben Sellick. One 
 of them had slipped from its place, and lay exposed 
 in front of the ambuscade. 
 
 *r' 
 
 I; 
 
 t ■ 
 
190 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Noel walked out into the open. 
 
 *' You are my prisoner. If you attempt to bolt, I 
 can't miss you," he said. 
 
 '* My gun is there. I've no chance, so you must 
 do as you please. Better shoot, and have done with 
 it," was the answer. 
 
 This of course was clearly impossible. Had the 
 man resisted, Noel would have shot him like a dog. 
 It would have made matters much easier for Noel, 
 and not very much worse for his captive. But you 
 can't shoot a man in cold blood, with the quiet moon 
 looking on, even if he tells you to. 
 
 Noel was at a loss. He had got his man, but he 
 did not know what to do with him. However, he 
 remembered that Farwell could not be more than 
 six miles off at the most, and, in any case, they could 
 not both of them stand there all night. 
 
 ** Turn round and take the trail to Farwell," Noel 
 commanded ; " I shall follow, and if you turn round* 
 or leave the trail, I fire ! " 
 
 Without a word the man deliberately folded up the 
 letter he had been reading, put it in his pocket, 
 and turning round moved off along the trail, his 
 hands in his pockets, his head down, perfectly 
 
 ■ i 
 
MAN-HUNTING. 191 
 
 indifferent, it seemed to his captor, as to where he 
 went, or who followed him. 
 
 In this fashion the two left the coulee, and silently 
 plodded on towards Farwell, whilst the wind, which 
 had risen again with the rising moon, came in short, 
 sharp puffs and little scurries, as if it was preparing 
 itself for more serious work. The silence of this 
 strange procession was intolerable to Noel, and 
 before long he became conscious that his coat was 
 covered with a fine, thick powder of snow, which 
 grew and grew until he could feel it underfoot, and 
 which soon so filled the air as to almost quench the 
 moonlight, obliging him to come closer to his captive 
 to keep him in sight. As he drew nearer, the man 
 stopped and turned round. As quick as thought 
 Noel raised his carbine, but the fellow, instead of 
 flinching, looked quietly down the threatening barrel, 
 and laughed in his face. 
 
 " No, no," he said ; " I'm not on the fight. I told 
 you I would go quietly, and I will ; but it seems to 
 me that you might oblige me with a pipe of tobacco. 
 I've neither smoked nor eaten for a good many hours 
 now. Stand where you are and throw it to me if 
 you won't trust me any closer, though I don't see 
 
 
 ' 
 
 (;; 
 
 ■4 
 
wm 
 
 102 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 M • 
 
 '\ I 
 
 why you should mind a struggle with a smaller man 
 than yourself." 
 
 After all, he was right, and Noel as he measured 
 him felt shamed by his prisoner's coolness, and 
 acted foolishly in consequence. 
 
 " Come as close as you please," he answered ; " I'll 
 take my chance ; " and drawing his pouch from his 
 pocket, he offered it to him, looking curiously into 
 his bearded sun-tanned face as he did so. The face 
 he saw certainly was not one which he remembered, 
 and yet there was a trick about it somewhere (it 
 might have been about the fearless grey eyes) which 
 reminded him in a curious indefinite fashion of 
 some one. he had seen before : some one whose features 
 he had stored up in one of the pigeon-holes of his 
 brain, but in a pigeon-hole to which for the moment 
 he could not find his way. 
 
 Undoubtedly there was something about this road- 
 agent out of keeping with his surroundings. In 
 spite of his feigned voice and his occasional slang, 
 there was no trace of the Canadian twang in his 
 speech; and in spite of the rents in them, and 
 the service they had seen, it was evident that 
 the clothes he wore had not originally been of the 
 
MMMMSbUMMM 
 
 MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 198 
 
 ordinary prairie cut and fashion. Even thu pipo, 
 which he was quietly filling from Noel's pouch, was, 
 if the light could l«j relied upon, an English briar, as 
 like one of Loewe's pipes which he had in his own 
 pocket as two peas in a pod. The "old min" had 
 .given Noel his pipe the day of the railway accident 
 on the E. and N. Railway. It was the last of a 
 dozen, which the foolish old man had imported 
 before he knew the virtues of a " corn cob." 
 
 As the road-agent handed him back his pouch, 
 Noel took out his own pipe, and proceeded to fill it ; 
 the man's eyes rested on it as he did so. 
 
 " Our pipes are a good deal alike. They might 
 ba brothers, or cousins, mightn't they ? " he asked 
 chaffingly. "They are both of them a good deal 
 the worse for wear, though." - 
 
 " Yes, they are both English. I suppose we are 
 like them in that." 
 
 The man made no answer, but turned to follow 
 the trail again, stopping, however, after the first half- 
 dozen paces to say — 
 
 " I suppose you know the trail to Farwell ? " 
 
 " Yes, this is it," Noel answered. " Why do you 
 ask ? " 
 
 K-^' It 
 
t 
 
 194 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 1 ;' 
 
 " Oh, if this is it, that is all right, only this would 
 
 be a bad night to be left out in. It is beginning to 
 
 snow in earnest." And so saying he turned up the 
 
 collar of his coat with a shiver and trudged on once 
 
 more. 
 
 Perhaps it was only the monotony of the walk and 
 
 the constant strain upon his vigilance which affected 
 
 his judgment, or perhaps it was the ugly look of 
 
 the night which made him unusually anxious to get 
 
 under cover ; but whatever the cause, Noel began to 
 
 think that the last six miles between Cypress 
 
 Coulee and Farwell were the longest ever measured, 
 
 and when a second low black line in front, seen 
 
 faintly in the snow and night, warned him that they 
 
 had reached a second timbered coulee, he called to the 
 
 man in front of him — 
 
 " Do you know this coulee ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know it, but it's not on the way to 
 
 Farwell." 
 
 " Not on the way to Farwell ! Where is it, then ? " 
 
 " Between Farwell and Battle Creek." 
 
 For the moment Noel thought that the man had 
 
 wilfully misled him, but he banished the idea at 
 
 once. If it had been his object to mislead him, why 
 
 V 
 
MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 105 
 
 should he expose his plot now? But he certainly 
 did not remember another coulee between Cypress 
 Coulee and Farwell. For a while he peered into 
 the night, for some familiar landmark, but there 
 are no landmarks, or very few, upon the prairie, even 
 in the daytime. He listened, hoping to hear the 
 sound of the policemen's horses' feet upon the snow, 
 but a moment's reflection convinced him that it was 
 too soon to expect them yet. He was fairly lost, 
 and he knew it. 
 
 His prisoner's voice broke in upon his meditations. 
 
 " Well, are you satisfied that we are lost ? " he 
 asked, " or that you are, at any rate ? " 
 
 " I certainly don't know this coulee : but it makes 
 no difference, we can find some shelter here and 
 wait for daylight," he replied stubbornly ; " unless 
 you like to try to find the way to Farwell for us, 
 and I don't suppose you will do that." 
 
 " I'll try, if you tell me to. I'd rather spend the 
 night there than here ; but I'm not sure that I could 
 find the way, and Farwell must be a long way from 
 here, but I know of a police-shack close by, where 
 we could get shelter if you chose to." 
 
 Again Noel hesitated. It looked very much as if 
 
 If 
 Ml 
 
 )•» 
 
 I 
 
 ' 111 
 
196 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 his prisoner was leading him into a trap ; but it was 
 in any case a choice of evils, and ho began to realize 
 that he would find it almost impossible to keep this 
 man with him through the daik hours of the night 
 unless he stayed voluntarily, so that when he asked 
 him again to make up his mind whether he would 
 go or stay, Noel bade him curtly " go ahead," and 
 followed him down into the timber. Ten minutes* 
 floundering in the bush proved that the road-agent's 
 local knowledge was reliable, as it brought them to 
 one of those small one-roomed log cabins, which the 
 police have put up here and there as rest houses 
 for benighted members of the force, or other storm- 
 stayed travellers. 
 
 "They've forgotten to leave a key, of course," 
 grumbled the man, " but I suppose this will do as 
 well," and raising his foot, he drove in the frail door 
 with his heel, and entering, struck a match, by the 
 light of which Noel could see a wide open fireplace, 
 down the chimney of which the snow had already 
 drifted freely, a rough table, and a few empty meat- 
 tins, and other relics of the last tenants. 
 
 " There is a candle-stump here, if the rats haven't 
 taken it out of the tin where I put it : they eat 
 
1 
 
 MAN-HUNTING. 
 
 107 
 
 i 
 
 everything," muttered the man, feeling about in the 
 chinks of the cabin wall, and finally producing 
 the end of a candle, which he lit, and placed on 
 the table. 
 
 " They've laid the cloth for us," he added, point- 
 ing to the snow, with which the table was covered. 
 " It only wants a little fire and some food to make 
 things quite comfortable," and so saying, he went 
 out again, and returned in a few minutes carrying a 
 huge armful of shingles and planks torn from an 
 outhouse. 
 
 " I didn't ask leave," he remarked as he came in, 
 " but you must consider me a prisoner on parole 
 for to-night." 
 
 Noel had hardly noticed how both of them had 
 unconsciously dropped their relative positions as 
 captor and captive, but he started more at the man's 
 voice than at his words. For the second time he 
 had forgotten his disguise, and, but for the utterly 
 inconsistent surroundings, Noel could hardly have 
 helped recognizing his voice. But the man saw his 
 mistake as soon as he had made it, and relapsed at 
 once into silence, or spoke, when obliged to, in the 
 hoarse tone he had at first adopted. 
 
 k 
 
 I 
 
! il 
 
 t I 
 
 H 
 
 • <. f 
 
 nl! 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
 ill 
 
 I 
 
 K ' 
 
 f: 
 
 !! 
 
 .! 
 
 198 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " You are a queer beggar for a road-agent," Noel 
 answered ; " but I accept the position : only remem- 
 ber, I too shall keep my word. My life is nearly . 
 as much at your mercy as your life is at mine. 
 Still, if you were to kill me, the boys would catch 
 you sooner or later, and then " 
 
 " Then I should swing for it. Yes, I know, and 
 I would almost as soon swing as not. However, 
 you can go to sleep in peace if you want to. I shall 
 be here when you wake,' and so saying, he raked 
 together a few odds and ends of hay, which were on 
 the floor, and made room upon them for Noel and 
 himaelf. 
 
 If 
 
t. i^W— W . »' * *">WW*> M i 
 
 I HI M—im-tr. < 
 
 ( 19i^ ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 For an hour perhaps those two lay smoking in the 
 firelight without speaking even a word, and only- 
 shifting now and then to escape the bitter wind 
 which howled under the door, or the acrid wood 
 smoke which was driven down the chimney, making 
 their eyes shut and water with pain. The hay upon 
 which they lay was damp, and grew every minute 
 damper as the heat of their bodies, or of the little 
 fire, thawed the snow which had drifted amongst it, 
 so that from time to time they had to rise and dry 
 themselves before the burning logs. ? 
 
 " Pretty miserable for Christmas Eve," at last 
 remarked the road-agent. 
 
 " Christmas Eve 1 " ejaculated Noel. " This isn't 
 Christmas Eve, is it ? " ' 
 
 « So the almanac says. At least, it is the 24th 
 
 -i i| 
 
 tmuppHf ■' ijw"" *' - ' J nm^». - 
 
( 
 
 ! I; 
 
 'III 
 I 
 
 200 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 of December. I don't know whether there are any 
 Christmas Eves in this cursed country." 
 
 " Then you are an old countryman, like myself? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm an old countryman, but not like your- 
 self. You are for the law. I'm against it." 
 
 " But why ? Surely you might do better than 
 this ? " 
 
 "Perhaps; it wouldn't seem difficult; but have 
 you done any better by abiding by the law, than I 
 by breaking it? A man must either rob or be 
 robbed, I've tried both, and neither game seems to 
 pay." . . - 
 
 Noel was silent ; he found it difficult to answer this 
 man's question. He knew of one man at least who 
 had robbed, and of another who had been robbed ; and 
 now, whilst one lay half-freezing in that police-shack, 
 the other was probably dispensing lavish hospitality 
 in his own house in Victoria — to men who knew him, 
 and knew what a real estate-agent is, and forgave 
 him for his success and his good wine ; and to others 
 who did not know, and who would in consequence 
 pay for their stupid ignorance. 
 
 These latter, no doubt birds of passage, would in 
 their hearts vote Snape "a bit of a cad," but a 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 201 
 
 
 liberal good fellow for a colonist, never guessing that 
 he and such as he are the men who mar, not make, 
 colonies ; and that though things are dear in British 
 Columbia, Mr. Snape would, when he " totted up " his 
 account for that Christmas Eve entertainment before 
 going to bed, find the balance very much upon his 
 side. How? you ask. Merely because under the 
 influence of his genial smile, and liberal libations 
 of his undoubted *47 port, Brown had taken several 
 shares in his company for ihe reclamation of the 
 Whitwater Morass, and Smith had agreed to buy 
 that excellent corner on George Street at fifty per 
 cent, more than it was worth, and at least thirty-five 
 per cent, more than Snape meant to pay to its owner. 
 "Well, it was no use thinking of these things. He 
 had been taught one set of rules, Snape another ; and, 
 after all, there were worse places than the police - 
 shack. He could hear a coyote outside, and he 
 pitied the wretched little vagrant. That anything 
 having in it the breath of life could survive on such 
 a night seemed impossible, for the drifting snow 
 seemed to be burying everything, and, in spite of 
 their efforts, was drifting so thickly down the wide 
 
 open chimney as to extinguish the fire. When the 
 
 'f 
 
202 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 H ' 
 
 1 1 -" 
 
 fire went out, hope seemed to go with it. They could 
 not even sit smoking any longer, drawing fancy 
 pictures in the glowing embers. The quiet of the 
 grave settled on the hut, and bit by bit the dampness 
 which the heat had created disappeared, and every- 
 thing grew hard and crisp again to the touch. Even 
 the legs of the men's trousers, which had been soaked 
 through with melted snow, stiffened and hardened 
 until they cracked when they moved, and their breath 
 froze upon ;heir moustaches. The door which Noel 
 tried to open was snow-blocked, and where he could 
 feel that there should have been a space to see 
 through, he could see nothing. Outside there 
 was a really solid darkness, which blinded the stars, 
 and kept falling, falling with a soft silent insistence. 
 Shutting the door again, he groped his way back to 
 his corner, reached for his rifle and laid it by his 
 side. For a moment it occurred to him that his 
 captive might have drawn his cartridges in the dark, 
 and opening the breech as noiselessly as he could, 
 he felt for the cartridge which should be in the 
 magazine, and found it there. Comparatively noise- 
 less as his action had been, the other heard it, and 
 laughed a low, harsh laugh. 
 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 203 
 
 " It is not worth it, mate," the voice said. " Why 
 should I try to escape, or you either? Maybe, it 
 would be better for you if I were to kill you, if I 
 could. Better for you, I mean. If you're so keen to 
 live, better come and lie close here and keep your 
 blood warm a bit longer. I shan't touch the rifle." 
 
 " It's not as bad as that," answered Noel ; " but 
 company is better for both of us, I grant you," and 
 so saying he laid down the rifle, and the two made 
 the most of the wisp of hay on the floor, and crept 
 close to one another and lay there, listening to the 
 scurrying feet of live things on the table and round 
 the hut looking for crumbs, and looking in vain. 
 For hours it seemed to Noel that he lay there slowly 
 stiffening with cold, then sleep came, and he passed at 
 once from winter prairies of Assineboia to the 
 summer meadows of the Thames. He was in the 
 old hall again at Kingdon, giving Pussy Verulam 
 that farewell kiss, and hearing the old man's good 
 wishes for his voyage ; or he was with his child love 
 in the woods at home by the keeper's cottage, or 
 sculling her on the long sunny reaches of the 
 Thames, or listening to her sweet voice in the 
 hospital in Victoria. Suddenly the dreams vanished, 
 
 II 
 
204 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 'I . ' 
 
 I 
 
 and he woke. A light, bright by comparison with the 
 gloom around it, had fallen across his eyelids and 
 awoke him. Without stirring he looked and saw his 
 companion sitting up beside him, the end of the 
 candle which he had saved lighted again, reading a 
 letter. From end to end he seemed to read it, and 
 then let it fall with a groan which sounded like the 
 bursting of a strong heart. " My God, Pussy, if I 
 had only known ! " the man muttered, and his hand 
 clenched and his whole figure seemed to writhe with 
 pain, while the voice was no longer the f^'gned voice 
 which Noel had heard until then, so that when he 
 turned his face towards his captor, the red beard gone 
 and all disguise laid aside, the two looked into each 
 other's faces and understood why in the jaws of 
 death both were thinking of the same sweet English 
 girl. 
 
 " Trevor, my God ! is it you ? " gasped Noel. 
 
 "Yes, I'm Trevor Johns, Noel, or was Trevor 
 Johns until yesterday. To-morrow, I suppose, I shall- 
 be the road-agent who held up the Pinto coach, and 
 was found frozen stiff alongside his captor, Noel 
 Johns, the policeman," and Trevor laughed bitterly. 
 
 " I wish there was no more real danger than that," 
 

 CHRISTMAS EVK. 206 
 
 replied Noel. " But why in Heaven's name did you 
 hold up the coach ? You wouldn't have robbed it ? " 
 
 "Wouldn't have robbed it! wouldn't I? Whose 
 money was it that was in that chest, mine or theirs ? 
 Honesty is the best policy some folks say, and I 
 dare say it may be, but I'd like to get an accurate 
 definition of honesty. I only know one law, that 
 I have seen justified in ray experience," 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 " The devil takes care of his own. But, there, 
 cousin, the game is played now, and can't be helped. 
 Perhaps we shall get a second innings somewhere, 
 and know the rules better. Let us blow out the 
 candle, and I'll tell you a story as we used to when 
 Kuth thought we had gone to sleep. Shall we move 
 this rifle now ? It is a bit in the way, and I don't 
 suppose you want it now, do you ? " 
 
 For answer Noel took the carbine, and tossed 
 it roughly across the floor, where it fell softly enough 
 amongst the drifted snow. 
 
 " You know I stayed behind when Pussy and the 
 old man went home ? " Trevor asked. 
 
 "Yes, with those Gilchrists," replied Noel, 
 bitterly. 
 
206 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BlUGADE. 
 
 i> , u 
 
 fli 
 
 IH 
 
 " And was very properly punished for my folly. 
 That girl played with me like a cat with a mouse. 
 I felt ashamed of myself all the time, because I 
 thought she was fond of me, and she left for Tacoma 
 with a dry-goods* man, in an avalanche of flowers, 
 the day after her father got me into his cursed 
 company." 
 
 Trevor waited for some comment from his cousin, 
 but getting none, went on — 
 
 "Served me deuced well right, I suppose you 
 think, and I suppose it did ; but I paid pretty dearly 
 for a flirtation in which the girl made all the 
 running. You heard what it cost me ? " 
 
 " Yes. Everything." 
 
 " Everything ; and you still wonder that I meant 
 to get enough back to take me out of this cursed 
 country ? " 
 
 " But you did not touch the gold, Trevor ? " 
 , " No ; but I would have done, if I could have 
 opened the chest. I found these first," and he held 
 up two letters. 
 
 " What interest could they have for you ? " asked 
 Noel. 
 
 " You shall read them and see. They were sent 
 
CIIUISTMAS EVE. 
 
 207 
 
 to me when Trevor Johns was principal owner of 
 the Pinto Mine, and were on their way back marked, 
 * Not known there.' " , 
 
 Noel took the proffered letters, and strikioi;^ a 
 match, looked round for the candle-end which he had 
 laid aside a few minutes earlier. But starvation 
 sharpens the witsj and gives courage to th'3 feeble, 
 and there were o^her starving things in the police- 
 shack besides the two men that night. The tireless 
 feet, which they had heard pattering round in the 
 earlier hours of darkness, had passed by them whilst 
 they talked, and some hungry, bright-eyed beast had 
 seized and carried off the neglected candle-end. 
 
 " Gone, by Jove ! " muttered Trevor. *' It's a great 
 couiitry. I wonder if they will steal our bones 
 when we are dead ; they will if they can make any- 
 thing of them." 
 
 " Find some dry wood if you can," suggested Noel, 
 " and if you have any matches, let me have them. 
 We must 'fire up' again." 
 
 Trevor did as he was bid, and by dint of much 
 coaxing the two n. de a flame big enough to spell 
 out the two letters oy. 
 
 The first of these was from Trevor's man of 
 
 n '] 
 
^n 
 
 208 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 .1* 
 
 1^ 
 
 It'' 
 
 business, and was dated, " Kingdon, Gloucestershire, 
 November 3rd." It had crossed some three thousand 
 miles of sea, and nearly as many miles of land, since 
 it left the private room of Mr. Gaines, senior partner 
 in the firm of Gaines and Co. Possibly when that 
 snug and highly respectable person wrote it in his 
 comfortable armchair, some slight twinge of envy 
 touched him; envy, not altogether unreasonable, 
 of the lucky correspondent, still under thirty, into 
 whose pockets wealth flowed unsought, unworked 
 for. 
 
 Well, at any rate, there would be very considerable 
 pickings for Gaines and Co. in the administration 
 of Mr. Trevor Johns' estate, but the senior partner 
 deeply regretted that " that silly young idiot " 
 (a synonym for " our respected client ") should have 
 acquired a taste for mining, and mining too in 
 America ! Mr. Gaines was a gentleman of insular 
 prejudices, and hated America and Americans almost 
 as much as American «? hate the English. However, 
 marriage he supposed would cure this folly; and 
 there, again, had ever man such luck ? This boy was 
 engaged to the beautiful Miss Verulam, the pride 
 of the whole country. Lucky dog ! He could marry 
 
1 1 
 r 
 
 tershire, 
 iiousand 
 id, since 
 partner 
 len that 
 b in his 
 of envy 
 sonable, 
 rty, into 
 iworked 
 
 liderable 
 
 istration 
 
 partner 
 
 idiot" 
 
 iild have 
 
 too in 
 
 insular 
 
 ls almost 
 
 lowever, 
 
 ly; and 
 
 boy was 
 
 he pride 
 
 Id marry 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 20!) 
 
 a beautiful woman: some hard-working men ho 
 knew of had to marry rich women— and the thought 
 made him strike his bell angrily, and rate a meek 
 clerk who answered it for an imaginary fault which 
 the poor devil was too polite to deny. 
 
 But Fortune has a queer way of distributing her 
 f^ifts. If Mr. Gaines could by any possibility have 
 seen the reading of his letter, he might have come 
 to the conclusion that we all get about a fair deal 
 after all. 
 
 "My dear Sir" (he wrote), 
 
 "It is my painful duty to announce the 
 death of our late respected client, your uncle, Mr. 
 Hughes, of the Marsh, who died somewhat unex- 
 pectedly last week. As you know, Mr. Hughes, 
 in addition to being well-stricken in years, had 
 been ailing slightly for some months, but his 
 sudden death from aneurism of the heart was 
 none the less a severe shock to all who had had 
 the pleasure of knowing him. Although the per- 
 nicious system of free trade has done much to injure 
 /' the landed interest of late, Mr. Hughes died a very 
 rich ma,n, and though he has seen fit to devise the 
 
 ^ H 
 
 * I' { 
 
' 'd 
 
 T 
 
 210 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Marsh estate to your cousin, Mr. Noel Johns, he has 
 left the residue of his property, real and personal, 
 to you. I have, therefore, my dear sir, much 
 pleasure in congratulating you on your succession 
 to the Trefnant property, and on the addition of 
 something like £150,000 to your personal property. 
 
 " Should you elect to leave the management of the 
 property in our hands, we shall respect the trust, 
 and treat the property committed to our care with 
 that careful consideration which, we venture to 
 believe, helped nof. a little to put it upor its present 
 substantial basis. Awaiting your commands, I am, 
 my dear sir, 
 
 " Yours obediently, 
 
 "L. Gaines." 
 
 i 
 
 For a moment Noel looked incredulously at the 
 paper in his hand, and then dashing it down he 
 cried — 
 
 " Great Scott, what luck ! Why, Trevor, our 
 troubles are over." 
 
 " Yours are, if you can get out of this storm and 
 find your way to the line," his cousin answered sadly; 
 " but there is no chance for me, that I can see." 
 
\ 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 211 
 
 "Why not, man? You've lost one estate, but 
 you have got another ; and as for this storm, there 
 never was a blizzard in the nor'-west that I 
 wouldn't worry through, somehow, if Trefnant was 
 waiting for me on the other side; and this is no 
 
 blizzard yet." 
 
 "How about that little incident of the stage- 
 coach ? " 
 
 Noel's face changed in a moment. With his mind 
 fixed on home, and the good luck which had come 
 to his cousin and himself, he had, for the moment, 
 forgotten the real position of affairs. 
 
 " You see," Trevor went on, " you are bound in 
 honour to give me up, and if you do, I shall never 
 see England again until it is too late. Poor little 
 Pussy ! " and the strong man groaned as if his heart 
 would break. 
 
 "I'm not in the police, though I don't know 
 whether that makes much difference," m.uttered 
 Noel, speaking to himself rather than to his cousin. • 
 "None. Your duty is plain. If we escape the 
 storm, I must stay here, but you can go home, old 
 chap. It's no fault of yours." 
 
 " Go home ? and I suppose in time everything 
 
^m^ 
 
 ^r 
 
 m 
 
 I hi 
 
 ifj' 
 
 I m 
 
 
 1} 
 
 I 4, 
 
 ■if i 
 
 212 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 would come to me, and Noel Johns would do ex- 
 tremely well, at his cousin's expense ; an honourable 
 role you propose for me to play, cousin." 
 
 " Forgive me, Noel. I know you would help me 
 if you could/' said Trevor. " But what can you do ? 
 Fate has been too strong for us, and I can see no 
 way out." 
 
 Noel made no answer. He had made up his 
 mind that Trevor owed the law nothing, or but 
 very little, and for himself he was not bound to it 
 by any pledge or pay. At any rate, he was for the 
 time like crusty Tommy Atkins, the alimony man, 
 " agin the law." • - * » 
 
 "Am I to read Pussy's letter?" he asked, after 
 a pause. 
 
 " Yes, read it, and remember, Noel, that if you 
 get home without me, you must lie to her for her own 
 sake. She must never know of this miserable affair, 
 if we can help it. You'll see she thought of you, 
 though she does not seem to have heard of your 
 good fortune." 
 
 Noel took the delicate paper in his hands, and 
 bending over the embers, felt half ashamed as he 
 looked into the tender heart laid bare before him. 
 
■ n" 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 m 
 
 "My dear Old Boy" (he read), 
 
 " Are you not utterly ashamed of yourself 
 for staying away so long ? Are big-horn sheep and 
 gold mines reaUy the only things which are de- 
 taining you? Mind, Trevor, the best of us are 
 jealous, sometimes, and even if I were heart-sick 
 with waiting for you, I should get over it, or hide 
 it, if you kept away much longer. 
 
 "Seriously, the 'old man' says you ought to 
 lose no time in coming home now, as since your 
 uncle's death (of course, you heard of that), there are 
 so many things for you to attend to here. 
 
 "It is perfectly wicked, I think, to go on grubbing 
 for more money now, in those horrid American 
 mines. You will have more than you can spend in 
 your own country, so come back at once, and if you 
 can, dear, bring back that poor boy of ours with you. 
 The old man is always thinking of him, and it seems 
 to me too hard that he should be left out in the 
 cold, whilst all the rest of us here at Kingdon are to 
 be so happy. We might make Noel our agent, when 
 we are married. He is too -proud to take any 
 money which he did not earn, even from us. I 
 wonder why old Mr. Hughes left him nothing. He 
 
 i i 
 
F^Ti^- jftSJfcW-'JT.^ jKt. V** •■ 
 
 nnHF 
 
 214 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 was his uncle as much as he was yours, but poor 
 Noel never had any luck. We must try to make 
 it up to him, you and I. But, there, come back, and 
 come soon, and we will make the old home home 
 again. I want to see the old man laugh as he used 
 to do ; I want to hear the house noisy again ; I don't 
 mind even if you leave your guns about, or if those 
 muddy spaniels do come into the drawing-room ; I'll 
 forgive anything except delay. I want your arm 
 round my waist, Trevor, to give me courage, for I 
 think it's all gone with my heart, dear, and I want 
 you to come at once, and forget that I ever wrote 
 such a foolish letter, or I shall repent when I 
 really am, 
 
 " Your little wife, 
 ■ "Pussy." 
 
 When Noel handed the letter back to his cousin, 
 there were tears in his eyes which the wood smoke 
 had not caused, and a choking sensation in his 
 throat which for a time prevented speech. 
 
 When he found his voice at last, he laid his hand 
 on Trevor's arm, and said, with a queer, false laugh, 
 which was very like a sob — , 
 
 '■^^fti 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 215 
 
 " Thank you, old man. I don't think I ought to 
 
 have read it, hut it will he quite easy now to 
 
 hand you over to the chain-gang-quite easy ; and 
 
 then I think I'll go home and see your little wife 
 
 Pussy." 
 
 
 )} 
 
^ 
 
 ■ 
 
 216 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 ^> .! 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 
 
 The storm which Ben Sellick and the bands of 
 homing cattle had predicted had come at last. 
 It had hung about, as such storms will, for a couple 
 of days, but now it had put out the stars, and out- 
 side the police-shack the darkness moved and fell, 
 growing thicker and thicker every moment, until 
 even the prairie wind seemed paralyzed by the weight 
 of the noiseless flakes. Noel Johns, who had been 
 peering through the door into the dark, groped his 
 way back again to the wisp of damp hay, and lay 
 down beside his cousin. 
 
 " Trevor," he said, " there is one chance for us. 
 It is a poor one, but if this snow^^vU stops, we must 
 try it." 
 
 " Better do your duty, and let me take my 
 chance," replied the other. 
 
 i 
 
IN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 317 
 
 " We won't argue that question. I have made up 
 my mind about my duty. I am not a servant of the 
 law, and I don't think either justice or honour 
 compels me to give you up. In any case, I don't 
 mean to," he added firmly. 
 
 « You always were a fool, cousin," said Trevor, 
 "but a brave and honest one. Well, if you will 
 have it so, what is this chance ? " 
 
 " This snowstorm. It will stop the pursuit for 
 one thing, and Ben Sellick will probably conclude 
 that we have been lost in it." 
 
 " In which conclusion he will probably be right." 
 " Possibly ; but if you will only rouse yourself, 
 and make a fight for it, he may be wrong. Whilst 
 they think we are stiffening under the snow, we 
 might be plodding through it to the line." 
 
 *' The boundary line ? You are mad ; that must be 
 a hundred miles from here." 
 
 '' No ; the Canadian Pacific. If we reach that we 
 may be able to board a train going East, and show 
 these fellows a clean pair of heels after all. It is 
 simply a question of endurance. Do you think you 
 could walk another thirty miles through the snow 
 without food? " 
 
 ( ■fi 
 
 iJ 
 
 1^^ 
 
 
m 
 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " No, I'm pretty sure I couldn't ; but you might, 
 and I would rather die in the open than either here 
 or in prison." 
 
 Noel almost groaned. He knew the terrible 
 difficulty of the task before them, and realized that 
 the man whose life he wanted to save had lost 
 heart already, and was broken down with hunger, 
 fatigue, and misery. How could he hope to drag 
 such a man through thirty miles of snow-drifts ? 
 
 " Well, we cannot start yet, so we may as well 
 lie down and try to sleep. We shall want all our 
 strength for to-morrow," he said, and after piling on 
 the last of the wood, he lay down by his cousin, and 
 made believe to sleep, whilst Trevor, utterly 
 exhausted, dropped off into a doze. Meanwhile, 
 in the growing cold, Noel Johns fought the great 
 battle of his life — the battle between a pure love 
 and self-interest. His mind had never been 
 clearer than it was that night. He saw all the 
 possible loss or gain; he realized all the risk; 
 recognized that for him there could be no reward, 
 and made up his mind to do his duty. But it was 
 very hard. He was younger than Trevor, and had 
 hitherto had no share, or only a small one, in the 
 
 
f 
 
 tN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 
 
 219 
 
 li 
 
 lere 
 
 jger, 
 
 
 good things of life, and now for the first time a 
 prospect of an almost perfect life opened before him. 
 As the Squire of the Marsh he would have almost 
 everything he coveted. He knew every acre of the 
 estate, every room in that dear old Manor House, 
 almost every fence which a horse would have to clear 
 in his way across the farms. He could absolutely see, 
 as he lay there with his eyes shut, the gorse which 
 was such a sure find for a fox, or the pool below the 
 larch wood, where the wild ducks bred, and to 
 which the teal came in the winter evenings ; or the 
 long bank above the house, where you were always 
 sure on an autumn evening of half a dozen shots at 
 crossing rabbits. Yes, he knew it all, and knew 
 that after his sojourn in the West he would appre- 
 ciate it as he could never have appreciated it before. 
 If he chose to hold his prisoner in the shack for 
 another day, the police would, he felt sure, find 
 them, and after a little more hardship he, Noel 
 Johns, would be free to go home and be happy. 
 And as for Trevor ? Well, Trevor had made a fool 
 of himself, and must pay for his own folly. He had 
 won the only thing Noel cared for. Pussy Verulam's 
 love, and trifled with it for the sake of a vulgar. 
 
 t\ 
 
; '■ fl I 
 
 ii 
 
 K 
 
 'f 
 
 220 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 yellow-headed hussy, whose manners would not 
 have qualified her for a place as housemaid at King- 
 don. Yes, that was all very true, but in spite of 
 all that, Pussy loved Trevor, and unless he would 
 break her heart he must save her lover for her. 
 
 Here a voice whispered in his ear, " Need Pussy 
 ever know? Wouldn't time console her? And 
 then " 
 
 He would listen no further. His cheeks burned 
 even in the dark and cold of that ndserable hut, as 
 he thought of Noel Johns, a rich man grown richer 
 by his cousin's disappearance or death, shirking the 
 question in those grey eyes he loved so well — 
 " Where is Abel, thy brother ? " 
 
 " Great Scott ! " he muttered to himself, " what am 
 I thinking of? Am I going to set my happiness 
 before hers ? " and as he siu<i so, he sprang to his 
 feet, brushed away the last shred of doubt, of feeble 
 self-pity and of human selfishness, and braced him- 
 self for the last struggle against Fate. 
 
 " Eouse up, Trevor. The snow has stopped, and 
 it's light enough to see," he cried, and Trevor sat 
 stiffly up and shivered until his teeth chattered. 
 "Do you know the way, Noel ? " 
 
 »i 
 
IN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 
 
 m 
 
 not 
 
 »c 
 
 " No, there is no way to know ; but the line is a 
 long one, and if we go due north from here we must 
 cut it. Are you ready ? " 
 
 " I suppose so ; there is no breakfast to wait for," 
 replied Trevor, and the two pushed through the 
 weight of snow which lay against the door, climbed 
 out of the coulee and set their faces resolutely 
 towards the north. 
 
 As they reached the edge of the coulee dawn came* 
 and they saw the pale light creep over the long, white, 
 treeless waste. At first the day was very still. The 
 heavy snowfall had stopped, and towards ten o'clock 
 the sun even showed himself. He looked cheerful, 
 but there was no warmth to be got from him ; still 
 that mattered little, for after a time the exercise of 
 plodding through snow a foot deep on the flat, waist 
 deep sometimes in the coulees, will warm a man in 
 any climate. For hours the two cousins kept on. 
 The work was terrible, but the prize was freedom, and 
 both men had been trained from childhood in all 
 manner of athletics to make every muscle do its 
 utmost. 
 
 It was nearly midday when the two stood resting 
 for a moment. 
 
 • f 
 
" 
 
 ?r^ 
 
 "1'^ 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 " "What has become of the sun again, Noel ? " asked 
 Trevor. 
 
 " I suppose that blot represents him up there. I 
 wish we had a compass." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I am afraid those are more snow-clouds," 
 ho answered, pointing to the heavy, yellowish banks 
 of cloud in which the sun seemed lost, "and if it 
 begins to snow again, we shall only have the wind to 
 steer by. If that shifts, God only knows what will 
 become of us/' 
 
 "Never mind, shove on, old fellow," replied 
 Trevor, " the snow hasn't begun yet ; but, I say, are 
 those antelope or wolves ? " and he pointed towards 
 the skyline behind them. 
 
 "Neither, Trevor," replied Noel, after a pause. 
 "They are the Mounted Police." 
 
 " Then the game is up, thank God for it ! I am 
 utterly sick of this anyway," and he was just walk- 
 ing out of the coulee in which they had been resting 
 when Noel caught him by the arm and held him back. 
 
 " Don't be a cur. Isn't Pussy worth fighting for ? " 
 he hissed savagely into his ear. "Lie down here. 
 I don't believe they have seen us yet." . 
 
 / 
 
 1, 
 \ 
 
" 
 
 IN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 22^ 
 
 " But they must find our tracks, and then what 
 
 chance have we ? " 
 
 "That," replied Noel, and pointed to where the 
 sun had been and where now there was nothing but 
 a dull, yellowish blot amidst a mass of seething grey 
 clouds, which drifted hither and thither, or were torn 
 into rags and sent spinning in wreaths and streamers 
 across the sky. Meanwhile the wind was rising with 
 
 a rapidity which Trevor had never seen equalled. 
 " The blizzard wiU save us from them, at any rate," 
 
 muttered Noel. " Take hold of my hand, Trevor. 
 
 If we ever part in this, we shall never meet again. 
 
 Look at it coming." 
 
 In the dull light which still remained to them 
 they could see the snow, which an hour before had 
 been a quiet carpet under their feet, rising and 
 flowing towards them. For nearly three feet from 
 the ground these snow-waves rose, and swept after 
 them, growing higher and higher as the wind worked 
 itself up into wilder fury. Between them and their 
 pursuers a curtain had been spread, and taking 
 advantage of it, and guided by the wind, Noel set his 
 teeth, and gripping his cousin's hand, floundered 
 stubbornly onward. Now and again there would 
 
 8 i 
 
'?' 
 
 224 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 h i 
 
 B Mill 
 
 .i' 
 
 VI 
 
 come a rift in the clouds, and an interval of dim 
 light. In one of these Trevor tried to wrap an over- 
 coat he wore n^ore tightly round his head and 
 shoulders, the wind seeming to go through his cap 
 and bore into his brain with a gimlet of ice. But 
 the wind got under the coat and wrenched it from 
 him. For a moment it was above his head, a dark 
 spot in the gloom ; the next it vanished. In another 
 place, as they plunged up to their thighs in a snow- 
 bank, the whole bank seemed to explode beneath 
 them; there was a whirring of strong wings, and 
 then the wind knocked the great birds down again, 
 and the cousins saw them skulking along in front, 
 their necks craned out, their heads on one side, and 
 their tails blown almost over their heads. 
 
 " They had holed up in that bank," said Noel, 
 looking at the prairie-chicken as he spoke. " I expect 
 it is our only chance now." 
 
 " No ; better keep going, Noel. If I stopped now 
 I could never go on again," replied Trevor, and the 
 two plodded on again towards the north. 
 
 " Shouldn't we pass the line without seeing it ? " 
 asked Trevor. " Surely it must be buried severe) U'.et 
 deep in snow by now." 
 
 11 
 
 
 LM 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 ■haihiu 
 

 IN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 225 
 
 " The rails may be buried, but the telegraph poles 
 will show us where we are." 
 
 " Well, if there is a line in the country, we must 
 strike it soon. We have been going ten hours." 
 
 Noel made no answer. Even if his cousin's 
 calculation of time was accurate, it did not follow 
 that they had travelled anything like thirty miles. 
 Men don't make three miles an hour in the snow, 
 even if they keep in the right direction all the time, 
 and he was not sure that they had done that. But 
 he saw that Trevor could not go much further. 
 Those who have tried it, know how hard it is for 
 tired men to keep up the mechanical action of their 
 legs when every step is an effort, when all the spring 
 has gone from the stride, when the muscles are 
 weary, and there is no goal in sight. Miles<:.onea nr 
 any landmarks on a journey help a tiivd m^n. To 
 reach the milestone coi^ts an iffori:, but the efifort 
 brings its reward. When the stone comes in sight 
 it is a palpable witness that something has been 
 achieved, a sure promise that there is only so much 
 more to be done. But without the milestones it is 
 weary work, and in the dim sea of snow which was 
 beneath, above, and around the cousins, tiiey seemed. 
 
 i jji 
 
 
f : 
 
 Ni 
 
 A,' 
 
 lf=M» 
 
 'M \ 
 
 (p. 
 
 x^v^ 
 
 
 '■/ ;; 
 
 .; 
 
 lii 
 
 I III 
 
 hDt 
 
 li 
 
 r 
 
 
 m 
 
 Li 
 
 1 "' 
 
 11 
 
 i: '1 
 
 W ■ i 
 
 
 1 1 
 4 1 
 
 1 , 
 
 
 •I. 
 
 1 
 
 22(i 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 in spite of their efforts, to make no way, to gain 
 nothing. And the more Trevor staggered in his 
 stride, the more the storm grew, the more the dark- 
 ness deepened and the wilder the wind shrieked. It 
 was by sheer fo: lone now that Noel managed to 
 drag his companion out of the deeper drifts. If 
 Noel would have let him, he would have sunk long 
 ago, and been content to lie and wait for death. A 
 longing to sleej) had crept over him, the darkness 
 tempted him, the wind was a lullaby to him, the 
 very monotony of his own ceaseless stride induced 
 sleep. 
 
 " Let me be, Noel ; let me sleep,' he muttered, as 
 Noel dragged him along, his eyes closing involun- 
 tarily as he walked, and at last even the younger 
 man's strength gave out, and he stood there alone, 
 looking out with white face and moving lips into 
 the hurrying darkness around him. Trevor was at 
 his feet unconscious ; there was no light, no hope, 
 no landn ark, and his prayer went up, so it seemed 
 to him, unheard, whilst without a sound the flow 
 of the drifting flakes swept over them, resting on 
 their heads and shoulders, piling up in drifts about 
 their knees, settling down on them, creeping over 
 
'mm' J<imau.*^ L_3ffK 
 
 IN THE HEART OF THE STORM. 
 
 227 
 
 them. It was silent work, but swift. In a little 
 while Noel, too, must succumb, and when the storm 
 ceased, and the sun shone again, the only trace of 
 them and their troubles would be two long swellings 
 on the blinding, white winter carpet of the prairie. 
 
 He felt that he had fought his last round with 
 Fate, and lost ; and now he stood waiting as the dumb 
 beasts wait for death, careless of his surroundings, 
 his mind far away in the dear old home. Like a 
 man in a dream he saw the home-faces beyond the 
 grey gloom of the prairie, heard the home-voices 
 above the wail of the winter wind, and he was 
 conscious that it was Christmas, but Christmas in 
 Kingdon-by-the-Thames,not Christmas on the prairies 
 of Assineboia. The church-bells were throbbing 
 in the frosty air, and there was light and music and 
 an atmosphere of home. What was this that they 
 were singing, too ? He could not catch the words, 
 but the air seemed familiar to him, and surely the 
 refrain was " Noel ! Noel ! " 
 
 He did not understand it, but the repetition of 
 the words struck him, amused him, and then 
 fascinated him. Then the voice changed ; it was 
 a singing voice no longer, though the refrain was the 
 
 M 
 
228 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 in 
 
 i 'C 
 
 same, even that " Noel ! Noel ! " but the voice shrilled 
 in the distance, begged, entreated, pleaded with him, 
 until the whole universe seemed to throb with its 
 wild prayer. He tried to close his ears to it. Sleep 
 was too deep, too sweet to be broken, for any piteous 
 cry from a half-forgotten world. But the cry was 
 still with him — it would not cease. It pursued him, 
 it maddened him, it made his heart beat again, and 
 then at last he knew the voice, and understood what 
 it wanted of him, and, rousing himself in the very 
 shadow of death, sprang to his feet and answered 
 it— "Tussy!" 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
( 229 ) 
 
 rilled 
 
 him, 
 
 bh its 
 
 Sleep 
 
 iteous 
 
 y was 
 
 I him, 
 
 3, and 
 
 what 
 
 very 
 
 wered 
 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN THE CREES' DEAD-TENT. 
 
 TiiEY say that men who succumb to cold and fall 
 asleep in the snow never wake again by natural 
 means. That may be. It follows, then, that the 
 means by which Noel Johns was aroused from the 
 snowdrift were unnatural. That, too, is possible. 
 We know so little about all the great things of life, 
 that it is impossible for us to decide ; and as most 
 men take very little interest in anything except the 
 money-market, and their own balance at the bank, 
 these questions if natural or supernatural are not 
 worth considering. All that matters to us is, that 
 at that cry of " Noel ! Noel ! " he woke as men wake 
 who have a great and imminent danger to face — 
 woke with every sense on the alert, every muscle 
 strung. As he gazed out into the black heart of 
 the storm, the curtain of falling flakes parted for 
 
J-f^'" y 
 
 
 ^^■mV/i* 
 
 fri^ 
 
 Hill 
 
 1 ' ' ' 
 
 
 ft ii 
 
 H^l ^'^W ' 
 
 
 i,' i 
 
 ^1 
 
 '/ 
 
 M 
 
 'ii^ 
 
 '^ 
 
 230 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 a moment, and through the rift he saw, vague and 
 monstrous, a tall conical tent. 
 
 Had Noel Johns not been standing on that narrow 
 border between life and death, he might have 
 shrunk back in fear, he might have doubted the 
 voice, he might have preferred death in the snow 
 to such a haven from the storm, for the Cree's teepee, 
 seen through the whirling drifts, now black and 
 close at hand, now fading away and melting into 
 the distance, looked sufficiently weird and fantastic. 
 
 But Noel Johns stopped neither to wonder nor to 
 doubt. He knew the voice which had called him 
 back, and bending over his cousin, he swept the 
 snow from him, gathered him up in his arms (full 
 now of a new strength), and staggered with him to 
 the teepee. 
 
 "He sleeps soundly," he muttered, as Trevor's 
 head swung heavily over his shoulder ; " but he can't 
 be dead, or she would not have called me. These 
 fellows seem to sleep as soundly," he added, shaking 
 the skin covering of the teepee until the whole fabric 
 rocked imder his hands. But in spite of his violence 
 no one either woke or stirred within. The teepee 
 seemed to be deserted. No smoke curled from its 
 
 
' 
 
 IN THE CllEES' DEAD-TENT. 
 
 231 
 
 peak; there was no sound of life within, and yet as 
 Noel groped about in the snow for the entrance his 
 hands rested on a pair of snow-shoes, and a dog- 
 sledge. 
 
 "Queer, that they should have left these," he 
 muttered. "Hallo there!" But only the tent 
 ffroaning in the wind answered him ; and even when, 
 having found the entrance, he stepped inside, into a 
 darkness deeper than the darkness of the storm, and 
 cried the Indian salutation, « Clahowya ! " only the 
 storm shrieked back, " Clahowya ! " as it drove the 
 snow-waves before it. Noel shuddered as he stood 
 alone in the intense darkness. It seemed that the 
 winds made mock of his loneliness. 
 
 But here, at any rate, there was shelter from the 
 storm ; and in ministering to Trevor he soon forgot 
 himself and his surroundings. Trevor was very fast 
 asleep, and, in spite of his cousin's efforts, he would 
 not wake. Noel chafed his hands and his feet; he 
 shook him, until his poor head seemed about to roll 
 off his shoulders ; he beat him, until his heart bled for 
 him. Buthewould not wake. " My God, I shall lose 
 him after all ! " he groaned. " If only I had a fire ! " 
 And then, strange as it may seem, he first thought of 
 
 ** •rR*^'*'**»r-«;'''' 
 
RSS 
 
 «".... mPH 
 
 232 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Ill, 
 
 'f- Will 
 
 1 1 i/ ■ ' 
 
 striking a match and inspecting the interior in 
 which he found himself. Until that moment he had 
 had no thought for anything except the waking of 
 Trevor. 
 
 His pockets were full of drifted snow, but his 
 body. was not warm enough to make it melt ; and even 
 if it had melted, it would have done no harm, for 
 his matches were safe in that best-of-all match- 
 boxes, an empty brass cartridge case, with a cork in 
 the end of it. 
 
 Drawing this out, and taking a bunch of wooden 
 matches from it, he struck one of them, and in a 
 moment a pale blue flame was struggling for life 
 between the palms of his hands. Gradually the 
 wood caught, and the light leaped out through his 
 fingers and went prying into the dark corners of the 
 tent. It found there wood chopped and piled ready 
 for burning, cooking utensils standing ready for use, 
 all the requisites of a redskin cuisine round the 
 hearth, and then the light stole on towards a shadow 
 blacker than the rest, but as it reached this the little 
 flame went out. The mystery of that end of the 
 tent was still unsolved, nor did Noel trouble to 
 solve it. It was enough for him that there was wood 
 
 
 i^ 
 
^ 
 
 IN THE CREES' DEAD-TENT. 
 
 233 
 
 piled by the hearth, and that heat meant life to 
 Trevor. In the dark he dragged his cousin alongside 
 the hearth, then, in the dark still — for matches are 
 too precious to men situated as they were to be 
 wasted — he helped himself to wood from the Indian's 
 store, cut long kindlings with his hunting-knife, laid 
 the fire, and then lit it. The long slivers of cotton- 
 wood caught, the flames ran up them, quivered for a 
 moment as if afraid of the overwhelming darkness, 
 and then went out, all except one red spark, which 
 glowed and glowed as Noel fanned it with his 
 breath, until slowly it made good its hold, and the 
 loud crackling of wood sounded like words of 
 comfort in that dreary place. The cotton-wood is 
 an excellent friend to the men who dwell on the 
 prairies. Its green fluttering leaves make a pleasant 
 asylum for the birds by the rare streams in the 
 spring-time, its graceful shape is an ornamei . f o the 
 cruelly monotonous expanse of the prairie, the gold 
 of its autumn foliage lends a beauty to the dying 
 year, and in winter its dry logs seem to be the only 
 things which keep in them any of the warmth and 
 merriment of more favoured climes. 
 Noel Johns blessed the cotton-wood, as the sparks 
 
 n 
 
^SB 
 
 I! 
 
 A 
 
 234 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 flew upwards and the flames danced merrily on the 
 hearth, but he had no time even to warm himself. 
 His whole time was taken up with the attempt to 
 restore his cousin to life, and the pain of it. And 
 at last his efforts were rewarded ; but Trevor was 
 wiser than his cousin, and instead of thanking him 
 for bringing him back to life and life's misery, only 
 cursed him for the pain he had brought him back to. 
 But pain passes, and Noel took little heed of his 
 curses. He was alive, and might still be saved, and 
 that to Noel was the only important thing, so he 
 wrapped him in his own coat and sat down himself 
 by the fire, to roast one side of him whilst the other 
 froze. For some minutes he sat there on his heels, 
 wondering who owned the tent, and why the owners 
 had left it. If they had not meant to come back, 
 surely they would not have left the store of wood 
 and all the camp outfit which lay around. Were 
 they lost in the blizzard ? he wondered ; but no, that 
 could never be. White men lose their way, and 
 because they are ignorant of the signs in the sky 
 are caught in blizzards and perish ; but not Indians. 
 And this was undoubtedly a red man's home. 
 He looked up and peered into the dark corners. 
 
 V 
 
 1 
 
I 
 
 IN TIIH CllEKS' DKAD-TKNT. 
 
 235 
 
 
 \ 
 
 but he could distinguish nothing clearly by the 
 dim light of the smouldering logs, so he stirred 
 them and added fresh fuel, and as the fire blazed 
 up he looked again, and, brave man though he was, 
 his blood curdled, his flesh froze, and his hair rose on 
 his scalp at the horror of the thing he saw. 
 
 Ko wonder the little light of the match had seemed 
 to shrink from that patch of gloo a ; no wonder the 
 wind howled and wailed so eerily ; no wonder if the 
 chill of the grave rested upon that tent, /or it was a 
 fjrcm, and there in the shadow sat the dead whose 
 uninvited guests they were. 
 
 Behind them all the time, silent and motionless, 
 had been the figure of one whose head was bowed 
 down, whose hands were clasped about his knees. 
 Over his head a blanket was wrapped, cowl fashion, 
 so that his face and most of his figure were hidden 
 from view. Only just enough of outline could be 
 seen through the folds of the blanket to show that 
 the figure was that of a human being— a human 
 being who neither spoke nor stirred. 
 
 For a moment Noel thought that the blanket was 
 lifted from beneath ; but it was only the wind which 
 moved it. The hands seemed about to unclench; 
 
■^ 
 
 \i' n- 
 
 , „ 
 
 ft^ff 
 
 K 
 
 236 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 but it was only the play of the firelight upon their 
 long, thin fingers. The man slept, and would never 
 wake again. He could see now, as the light played 
 more boldly about it, how the body had been 
 propped up in a grim semblance of life, when it 
 should have been at rest as other men are, when the 
 days of waiting and working are over. The tent in 
 which they were was a Cree dead-tent. That was 
 why no smoke curled from its peak ; that was why 
 the wind sobbed round it in such ceaseless meanings. 
 The sledges outside had been left for the dead to 
 journey on ; the firewood by the cold hearth was for 
 the dead's use ; the weapons for it to hunt with, and 
 fight with in another world ; the tent, too, so the 
 Crees believed, would, when the prairie winds had 
 rent it, and the winter snows rotted it, vanish into 
 earth, and be pitched again on some happier hunting- 
 grounds, those hunting-grounds to which the spring 
 fiowers go, and whither the great bands of buffalo 
 have betaken themselves for safety from the white 
 man's Winchester. 
 
 As Noel sat fascinated by the silent form opposite 
 to him, he began to wonder what bis history might 
 be. Who killed him ? Who left him there ? There 
 
 
 ■ft 
 
 ' Uii ^ 
 
V 
 
 1 
 
 IN THE CREES' DEAD-TENT. 237 
 
 were no Crees that he knew of much nearer than 
 Battle Creek. Was it possible that this was one of 
 them ; and that, after all, he and Trevor had passed 
 by Farwell, and wtjre now not far from Stobart's 
 station ? It seemed likely enough ; and then, as if 
 some one had repeated them in his ear, he heard 
 Stobart's words, "Yes; they've got small-pox 
 a<Tain : the old chief, Tintinamous, died of it last 
 
 week." 
 
 He started, and turned to see who had spoken; 
 but there was no one else in the tent. Trevor was 
 sleeping quietly, and that other never moved. So, 
 then, this was the end of it. They had fled from the 
 law to the blizzard, and escaped from the blizzard 
 to take refuge in this pest-house. The toils of 
 death were all round them, and there seemed no. 
 way of escape. It was too late even to try. They 
 had breathed the tainted air, they had touched the 
 dead man's things, and the night and storm held 
 them prisoners, whether they would or not. Had 
 he been alone, Noel would have taken his chance in 
 the open ; as it was, he sa'« sullenly there, faring the 
 dead and waiting for morning, whilst the cold grew 
 and grew until the very tent-poles cracked with the 
 
I 
 
 238 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 If 
 
 I 
 
 ■ % 
 
 j 
 
 
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 mk 
 
 fc 
 
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 m 
 
 intensity of it. The ordinary Englishman does not 
 know what cold is. "Forty degrees below zero" 
 means nothing to him. It is represented by certain 
 figures, and that is all. But forty degrees below 
 zero on paper, and forty degrees below zero upon 
 the plains, are two widely different things. 
 
 Even a roaring camp-fire, the logs of which are 
 the boles of forest trees, does not seem to materially 
 help against such cold as that; and Noel began 
 to find that, if the dead man's stock of wood was 
 to last until morning, he would have to reduce 
 his fire to such a size as might perhaps suffice to 
 boil a billy over. To warm Trevor, Noel had 
 stripped himself of his coat, and crept almost 
 into the fire to keep himself alive ; but now, as the 
 night waned, and the fire grew less and less, he 
 began to freeze. And yet in the tent there were 
 blankets enough for half a dozen men. The Crees, 
 when they left their chief, had not done things by 
 halves. The rifle they had left him was worth as 
 much as a month's hunting would produce ; the axe 
 and the sledges were of the best; the billy and 
 frying-pan had never been used ; and by his side was 
 a pile of Hudson Bay blankets, worth perhaps thirty 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
1 
 
 IN THE CREES' DEAD-TENT. 
 
 239 
 
 
 or forty dollars. Noel had had his eye on them for 
 half an hour or more, but the dead sat guarding 
 them, and that hideous disease which all men dread 
 probably lurked in their folds. Only Chinamen 
 seem to treat small-pox with indifference. Indians 
 dread it, and die by tribes from its ravages, but take 
 no precautions against it. They arc fatalists, and 
 when it comes, huddle together like sheep, drop in 
 their tracks, die on the warpath, and let their dead 
 lie where they drop. They would never hesitate to 
 share a blanket in which a man had died. Why 
 should he hesitate to use liese blankets left 
 with their dead ? Noel felt he must risk it. 
 There was no other way. The last litiie loor of wood 
 was on the fire ; and though he had almost ceased to 
 feel the cold, he knew that that was but a pro( >t' of 
 the power it had gained over him. He was almost 
 too stiff to move, and his heart beat slower anr! 
 slower. That fatal torpor was creeping over lum 
 again ; and if he yielded to that, good-bye to Trevor's 
 chance of escape. For a few more minutes he sat 
 glaring at the silent watcher opposite him : it 
 seemed as if they two were playing some fearful 
 game of chance; and then he rose, and walking 
 
240 
 
 ONE OF TflE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 steadily across the floor in the last flicker of his 
 dying fire, took the blankets from the heap. He 
 had done much for love's sake; for love's sake he 
 would risk even this. As the last spark died out on 
 the hearth, he heard Trevor wake and groan in the 
 darkness ; but he took no notice of him. EoUed in 
 the dead man's blankets, he lay still, and at last he 
 slept. Without light Trevor would not be likely to 
 find that fatal pile, and even if he did, Noel could 
 not help it. Nature had given way at last V/hat 
 with anxiety, weariness, and hunger, the strong man 
 could resist r^o longer. As soon as the least degree 
 of warmth returned to his body, Noel slept. He 
 had earned his sleep. 
 
 I'C 
 
 !■ 
 
 M 
 
 ■M 
 
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 ( 241 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 
 
 " Deop them, you fool ! drop them ! 
 
 As he spoke Noel Johns sprang to his feet, and, 
 catching his cousin by the arm, wrenched from him 
 the blankets he had taken from the dead Cree's 
 pile. 
 
 Feeble as he was, and taken by surprise, Trevor 
 let them go, and stag'^'^red beneath his cousin's 
 heavy hand, so that the mf,tch which he had lighted 
 went out, and left the twD standing in a darkness 
 through which already feeble threads of grey 
 morning light were beginning to steal. 
 
 "Hands off! Are you mad?" Trevor asked 
 savagely. " Why should I not take them as well 
 as you ? Do you want them all ? " 
 
 " No ; I want none of them, neither do you." And, 
 as he spoke, Noel shook the blankets he had worn 
 
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 242 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
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 from his shouldbr with a shudder as if they burned 
 his flesh. 
 
 " Thank God, I am free from them ! " he muttered ; 
 but, though the blankets slid down upon the floor 
 and slowly settled into a tumbled heap, little shreds 
 of their wool clung to him. 
 
 He was not quite free from them yet. 
 
 "But you have used them, and kept warm in 
 them. Why should not I use them too ? " asked 
 Trevor. 
 
 " Because I have sworn to save your life, and will, 
 Trevor, ay, in spite of you. It is your duty to live ; 
 for me it does not matter." 
 
 " I don't see the difference ; but if you take so 
 much interest in my life, you had better let me keep 
 the blankets. I am freezing. Why do you object?" 
 
 " Do you see whose blankets they are ? " 
 
 "They were that dead thing's, I suppose. But 
 what then? He doesn't want them any more, and 
 I do." 
 
 " Do you know how that ' dead thing ' died ? " 
 asked Noel. 
 
 " No ; nor care." 
 
 "You might if you knew. A fortnight ago he 
 
 ¥'i': 
 
THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 243 
 
 died of small-pox, and those, pointing to the wraps 
 which Trevor had dropped, are his blankets. Do 
 you understand ? " 
 
 Trevor started, and for a moment was silent with 
 horror ; but he recovered himself immediately. 
 
 " How can you know that ? You havo never dared 
 to raise that," and his voice vibrated with loathing 
 as he pointed to the dead man's cowl. 
 
 "No; I had no need to," Noel answered. "I 
 know what it hides without looking. That thing 
 was Tintinamous Quist, the Cree chief, a fortnight 
 ago, and he died of small-pox. The police knew all 
 about it at Maple Creek when I was there." 
 
 " And yet you slept in his blanl ats ! " 
 
 "Yes, I slept in them. My life is my own. 
 Yours belongs to — others." 
 
 His lips even then were loath to divulge his secret, 
 but at last a light broke upon Trevor. 
 
 " My God ! " he cried, " and you did this for her I 
 I have been wrapped in your clothes and you in Ids 
 for her sake ! Oh. Pussy, Pussy, what a mistake you 
 have made ! " and Trevor covered his face with his 
 hands. 
 
 "Nonsense, man; don't be a fool I" said Noel, 
 
244 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 \h''.. ''I 
 
 roughly. " Pussy has made no mistake, and there 
 is no harm done. I took a bit of risk, and slept well 
 in consequence. You had to freeze all night ; and, 
 after all, most likely Tintinamous never wore them. 
 At any rate, it's done now, so come outside ; we have 
 seen enough of that thing," and as he spoke he pushed 
 open the door of the teepee, and in doing so must 
 have rasped against the frozen hide with his shoulder. 
 
 That, at any rate, would account for the strange 
 noise they heard, and yet such tricks does sound 
 play with heated imaginations, that to both men 
 it sounded like a grim chuckle, and both turned 
 simultaneously to look at the cowled figure by the 
 hearth. 
 
 " My God, he's laughing at us I " cried Trevor, 
 with a shudder. 
 
 "We'll stop his laughing," Noel muttered, with 
 an oath, and, gathering up the dead embers and all 
 the odds and ends of unburnt chips, he piled them 
 and the blankets against the wall of the hut, and 
 set fire to the pile. But it was no easy matter to 
 burn the teepee. The hide of which its walls were 
 made was thick. 
 
 The red man's home of tanned hide will outlast 
 
THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 245 
 
 
 someof our jerry-builders' viUas, and this teepee had 
 stood for at least fifty scorching Indian summers, 
 until all crease and animal matter had been dried 
 
 o 
 
 out of it. Besides, the snow lay upon it in places 
 in spite of the sharp slope of the walls, and kept the 
 flames at bay. But at last they made good their 
 hold, and began to eat into the pictured histories 
 of Cree life, painted with no little skill upon the 
 oittside of his house— fights and buffalo hunts and 
 canoe-trips. If you can judge of a race by its art, 
 love plays a small part in the redskin's life. It is 
 unrepresented in his picture-galleries. 
 
 " Come," said Noel, when he saw his work was 
 done, turning once more in the grey dawn towards 
 the north, where the great line lay, "one more 
 effort. The fight is never lost until the end of the 
 last round, and there are two chances in our favour 
 to-day." 
 
 " How two ? " asked Trevor, following him. 
 
 " We may reach the Canadian Pacific Kailway or we 
 may be rescued by the men from Maple Creek. If 
 Maple Creek is anywhere near here, they should see 
 the fire." 
 
 " And what then ? " 
 
:^^ 
 
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 240 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE, 
 
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 "Leave that to me, Trevor. I don't think they 
 can have heard of the stage robbery at Maple 
 Creek ; and if they have, I think I can fix it. They 
 would hardly care to hold men who have the small- 
 
 pox 
 
 i> 
 
 During the night the wind had dropped, the sky 
 had never a cloud in it, and the first rays of the sun 
 sparkled from a blinding sheet of new-fallen snow. 
 No doubt the thermometer still registered something 
 very terrible in cold, but there was no wind to 
 bring it home to them, to drive it into their hearts 
 and down their throats. And it was well for them 
 that there was no wind ; for, in spite of the change in 
 their favour, they had both become so feeble, that 
 they could scarcely make as good progress now, over 
 the crisp, hard frozen crust in bright sunlight, with 
 no wind to buffet them, no drifting snow to blind 
 them, as they had made the day before in the dark- 
 ness of the storm. 
 
 At the first pause for breath — and they paused 
 soon, be sure — they turned and, looking back, watched 
 the flames leaping above the peak of the teepee : 
 they saw its walls split, and saw even in its lurid 
 interior the Cree chief still sitting, though the red 
 
 vL*-, 
 
THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 
 
 247 
 
 sparks poured round him as thick as summer rain. 
 When they looked again the waHs had faUen in, and 
 the flames had died down. The teepee had gone, but 
 either their eyes mocked them, or else there still sat 
 that cowled figure, its head bowed, its hands clenched 
 round its knees, still watching, still waiting by its 
 ruined hearth. 
 
 The strength of starving men soon ebbs, and 
 before they had been walking half an hour, Noel 
 realized that his cousin was " played out." By nine, 
 Trevor could not walk a couple of hundred yards 
 without stopping; by half-past, he was leaning 
 heavily on his cousin's arm, and Noel himself felt, 
 every time he raised his foot, as if a fifty-pound 
 weight was attached to it. And still the prairie 
 stretched on into apparently infinite distance, un- 
 broken, interminable. It seemed useless to go on 
 struggUng. The horizon came no nearer, and there 
 was no other goal to make for ; so that, when at last 
 Trevor fell and refused to rise again, Noel too felt 
 that he might as well lie down beside him, and 
 finish his troubles there. 
 
 " It's all up, Noel," Trevor moaned from the snow ; 
 " I can't go another yard. My legs won't obey my 
 
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 248 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 will any more ; I can't sliovc one foot in front of the 
 other." 
 
 But Noel made no answer. 
 
 " You have done all that a man could do, old 
 fellow," Trevor continued, " and I've been a cur 
 to let you stay by me so long. Now go and save 
 yourself. You can't save me." 
 
 But still Noel made no answer, nor any sign of 
 leaving him, but stood shading his eyes from the 
 glare of the sun, and staring intently at the skyline 
 before him. But he could not see clearly, for the 
 sun on the snow dazzled him; and, besides, his 
 knees were now so weak that he swayed as he 
 stood. He, too, was almost too weak to stand. 
 
 " Get on to your knees, Trevor," he said hastily, 
 " and look, if you can, over there to the north-west. 
 Those are not coyotes, are they ? They look too large, 
 but there is something wrong with my eyes this 
 morning. I can't see clearly." 
 
 With Noel's help, Trevor raised himself, and 
 strained his eyes to make out the two objects which 
 had arrested his cousin's attention. 
 
 " Coyotes or wolves," he muttered, sinking back 
 again : " it doesn't much matter, does it ? I suppose 
 
 
i 
 
 THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 240 
 
 tlie brutes will have the decency to wait until we 
 are dead ; and if they don't, we can't help it." 
 
 " They are neither coyotes nor wolves," insisted 
 Noel, still gazing at them eagerly. " They are too 
 big for coyotes, and they don't slink like wolves. 
 Great Heaven, if I could only see clearly for one 
 moment ! Look again, Trevor. What is that behind 
 them coming over the ridge ? Surely it is a man on 
 horseback ! " 
 
 But Trevor was past caring, and would not raise 
 himself again. " It may be," he said ; " but if it 
 were, he would not see us. He is too far off, and 
 luck is against us. Why worry any more ? " 
 
 But hope had given the younger man fresh 
 strength, and his eyes never left the three objects 
 which came slowly towards them, until a deep note 
 came to him booming over the snow. Again and 
 again it came, that rich music which Englishmen 
 love so well. There is nothing like it in the world, 
 the note of the hunting hound. 
 
 Dead-beat, walked to a standstill, starving as he 
 was, that music sent Noel's life-blood leaping through 
 his veins again, and a faint flush of colour came to 
 his haggard cheek. " Do you hear it, Trevor, our own 
 
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 250 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Berkshire music ? It is Stobart ! and those great 
 hounds of his ! We arc saved my boy, saved ! " 
 
 It was as Noel oaid. 
 
 In front, coming straight towards them over the 
 snow, was a swift grey thing running for dear life ; 
 behind it, fully extended, were two giant hounds 
 running savagely for blood ; and toiling far behind 
 the hounds was the horseman to whom they 
 belonged. 
 
 Once the coyote passed behind a hummock of 
 snow, and for a moment the hounds checked. They 
 were running by sight, and not by scent. But the 
 coyote showed himself again, and in a second his 
 pursuers saw him, and dashed after hin. with a cry 
 which must have raised every bristle on the poor little 
 vagrant's back. On the flat, with no snow on the 
 ground, a fast horse will run up to an ordinary coyote 
 in a half-mile spin, if the hoi '\ starts on anything 
 like fair terms with him ; but in the deep snow the 
 sergeant's horse had no chance at all, and even the 
 hounds laboured at a disadvantage. The coyote's 
 Ught frame seemed to skim the snow and pass over 
 it like the shadow of a flying cloud ; but the liounds 
 broke the crust, and it was a good mile before their 
 
THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 
 
 251 
 
 great 
 
 strength told, their powerful jaws closed across his 
 spine, and hounds and coyote rolled over and over, a 
 confused mass in a flurry of scattered snow. 
 
 Noel had stood spellbound, watching the chase; 
 but now. when the hounds killed within half a mile 
 of him, he put his finger in his ear ii old- country 
 fashion, and let out such a yell as startled the 
 silent prairie. 
 
 In Berkshire, where men are lusty, and starvation 
 unknov/n, that yell might not have reflected much 
 credit on the man who emitted it; but in the 
 Cypress Hills, coming from the throat of so 
 weary a man, it was a wonderful effort. And it 
 answered its purpose, for the sergeant looked up, and 
 saw for the first time the two figures ahead of him. 
 When his hounds were running, Stobart would have 
 ridden past the colonel of his own regiment without 
 seeing him. The sergeant saw them, but the 
 sergeant was a deliberate man. If the figures he 
 saw wanted him, they could wait. They had 
 probably waited some time already. Well! they 
 could go on waiting. His hounds would not, and, 
 being a reasonable sportsman, he did not expect 
 them to ; so he quietly dismounted, and performed 
 
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 tW 
 
252 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 IvA 
 
 If My 
 flit-' ' 
 
 m ' ■ 
 
 ^ 
 
 that grey vagabond's obsequies properly and in order, 
 and not until he had transferred the coyote's brush 
 from the place for which nature had designed it to 
 his own saddle-bow, not until he had broken up the 
 quarry and caressed and rewarded l^.is favourites, 
 did he come riding towards the couGiins. 
 
 As he came up he recognized Noel. 
 
 " Great Scott, Johns ! is that you ? What in 
 thunder have you been doing to yourself ? and who 
 is that at your feet ? " 
 
 " Give me some whisky, and I'll tell you," Noel 
 managed to say. His strength was leaving him 
 again, now that the excitement had passed. " No ! 
 throw me the flask," he added, as Stobart came 
 alongside. "You mustn't come too close to us- 
 Keep back." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the sergeant. " Are 
 you off your head ? " But he threw him the flask. 
 
 Before answering him, Noel put the flask to 
 Trevor's lips, thanking Providence that whisky was 
 no longer prohibited in the North- West Territory, 
 In old days a moderate man like Stobart dared 
 not have taken the generous fluid about with him in 
 such open fashion, although more of it probably was 
 
«^ PK^ 
 
 THE NOTE OF A HUNTING HOUND. 
 
 253 
 
 drunk then than now, men laying in a stock, camel 
 fashion, whenever they got a chance. When he had 
 put new life into his cousin and himself, he turned 
 to his friend. "No, sergeant, I'm not crazed, but 
 starving ; and, what is worse, we slept last night in 
 old Tintinamous' dead tent." 
 
 " What ? He died of small-pox ! ' ' 
 " I know. That is why I don't want you to come 
 any nearer : and that is one reason why I am not 
 going to return your flask," he added, with a ghost of 
 a smile. 
 
 " Keep it, boy ; keep it ! " the generous fellow cried. 
 "But say ! that is bad about the tent. Didn't you 
 know about it ? " 
 
 " Not until we were inside, and, even if we had, 
 we could not well have helped going in. It was 
 death in the blizzard or a chance of small-pox in tlie 
 teepee." 
 
 " A chance ! Well, it can't be helped. I've got 
 a shack of my own, and all the boys are away hunt- 
 ing those fellows from Ophir. You can go into my 
 shack, and, if anything happens, I can look after 
 you. I've had it." 
 
 And so it was arranged, the sergeant turning 
 
 III 
 

 254 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 himself into a sick-nurse, and his hut into a small- 
 pox ward, without a miiinnur, for comparative 
 strangers, as if it was the most natural thing in the 
 world. 
 
 Verily, the warm human hearts are not all in the 
 great cities. 
 
 
 
 
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( 255 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE PLOT. 
 
 Dead stillness hung round Battle Creek : tlie still- 
 ness of the depth of winter in the North West. 
 .Nearly a week had passed since the cousins had 
 been brought into the station riding on Stobart's 
 sorrel, whilst he plodded through the snow in front 
 of them, and none of the other men, stationed at 
 the post, had as yet returned from their hunt after 
 the men from Ophir. True to his promise, Stobart 
 had housed Noel and Trevor in his own shack, and 
 watched over them until Noel began to sicken. 
 Then he insisted upon Trevor's removal to other 
 quarters, and tried to persuade him to leave the 
 nursing in his hands. But to this Trevor would not 
 consent, 
 man who had risked 
 
 It was little enough he could do for the 
 
i|v' 
 
 
 
 K, 
 
 i: 
 
 256 
 
 ONE OF THE BHOKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 would do. As for Noel, the shadow of the Cree tent 
 was upon him ; the shreds of the Cree's blanket still 
 clung to him ; a presentiment possessed him which 
 no reasoning could shake. There is an instinct 
 which warns men of death, as it warns dumb 
 animals, and this instinct was warning Noel Johns. 
 For a day or two he tried to persuade himself that 
 languor and the vague "malaise" wl "ch possessed 
 him were nothing more than mere weariness, but the 
 weariness grew instead of lessening, and pain, which 
 he tried to conceal in his waking hours, took 
 possession of him. In the night his sleep was broken 
 by dreams, and always in his dreams he went back 
 to the Cree tent. Trevor, who slept by his bedside, 
 heard him talking in his sleep night after night, and 
 by degrees learnt the drift of his dreams. He was 
 gambling in the dead-tent with that cowled figure in 
 the shadow for some undefined stake, and the play 
 always ended in the same way, the poor lad's hand 
 moving as if he were throwing down a pack of cards, 
 and his lips muttered, " In six days' time, at sun- 
 down." Trevor had been telling Stobart of these 
 dreams, as the two sat outside the hut on the wood 
 pile, when the sergeant put down his pipe with the 
 
THE PLOT. 
 
 257 
 
 ree tent 
 set still 
 1 which 
 LDstinct 
 dumb 
 Johns, 
 elf that 
 assessed 
 but the 
 I, which 
 's, took 
 I broken 
 Qt back 
 bedside, 
 jht, and 
 He was 
 
 igure in 
 he play 
 i's hand 
 3f cards, 
 at sun- 
 of these 
 he wood 
 with the 
 
 air of a man who had made up his mind that it was 
 time to act, and said shortly — 
 
 " It is no good to shut our eyes any longer, Trevor. 
 He has got that cursed thing, and there is only one 
 chance, if we mean to save him." 
 
 " What chance ? " replied the other. " What can 
 we do here ? " and he looked bitterly out over the 
 endless waste of snow. " It seems to me that in 
 this cursed country a man must die like a dog for 
 want of help." 
 
 "That's so most times. Pioneers and such-like 
 live alone, and die alone when their time comes. The 
 men of the ' broken brigade ' have got to be at the 
 front, and you can't have surgeons and ambulance- 
 waggons there all the time. But there is a doctor 
 not such a great way off, as it happens." 
 
 " A doctor ! Where ? Why the devil did you 
 never say anything about him before ? " 
 
 " Time enough now," replied the sergeant. " I'm 
 not so sure that the journey won't do him more 
 harm than the doctor can do him good. But we 
 may as well try : he'll die here, anyway." 
 
 "Where is this doctor?" asked Trevor. "And 
 who is he ? " 
 
 S 
 
B X ■ ■J'^.'-'il.' '^ ••r- I '■'■ '"■^■« 
 
 258 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 K ' 
 
 \ 
 
 '7 
 
 " Clennel, the C. P. E. man, and I guess he is stay- 
 ing at Brown's, just beyond Forres. At least, that is 
 where he stays most of the time when he is around 
 this section of the country." 
 
 " How far is it to Brown's ? " 
 
 " Well, it's thirty, or nearly thirty, miles to the 
 line, and Brown's is nearly a mile beyond the 
 line." 
 
 " Thirty-one miles, and in this cold ! Could ho 
 live through it ? " asked Trevor. 
 
 " God knows ! I guess not ; but it's his only 
 chance," replied Stobart, "He has got the notion 
 set in his head that he has to meet that dead Cree at 
 sundown to-morrow; and if we let him stay here 
 thinking about it, he'll meet ^.im as sure as the sun 
 sets. I've known men take notions of that kind 
 before." 
 
 " Then we must risk it. But will he come ? " 
 
 "He would but for one thing," replied Stobart, 
 " if it was only for the chance of d3dng in the open, 
 instead of in that room." 
 
 " And what is that one thing ? " asked Trevor. 
 
 "You- 
 
 >» 
 
 " Me ! What do you mean ? I want him to go." 
 
 
 \ [ 
 
THE PLOT. 
 
 259 
 
 " I know, and it's not your fault. But don't you 
 know why Noel watches that trail to Farwell all day 
 long ? Don't you know why he counts the hours 
 between this and sundown to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I didn't know he did." 
 
 " Like enough. He wouldn't let you see if ho 
 could help it ; he's prettj sly, is Noel. This is the 
 way he has put it up. At sundown to-morrow he has 
 to send in his chips, and square up with the Cree (Lord 
 knows why, but he*s crazed, so that don't matter); 
 and if none of the police come along before he dies, 
 he means to stay here as Trevor Johns, while you get 
 out of the country as Noel. You are like enough 
 to one another, to make his scheme work ; but you 
 might be seized at Brown's." 
 
 " And I am to buy my freedom with my cousin's 
 life! You must have a good opinion of Trevor 
 Johns." 
 
 " Better than I had," answered the sergeant, not 
 unkindly ; " and if Noel dies it would be robbing 
 him not to take the freedom he has bought for 
 you. But I'm going to take a hand in this game, and 
 make it a bit fairer all round. It's my duty to give 
 you up, isn't it ? " 
 
it! .' 
 
 
 apsTTTrrr^ 
 
 260 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 '?■■ » 
 
 >> ! k I 
 
 " The sooner the better," replied Trevor, sadly. 
 " That's so ; and if you'd rolled the stage, I would 
 have had you at Maple Creek before this. As it is, 
 I don't know that it much matters ; and if Noel will 
 make an effort to save himself, I'll give you a chance. 
 The men at Brown's don't know either of you, and 
 if you like to swap names before starting from here 
 that is no concern of mine, unless Nool recovers. If 
 he dies, you are Noel Johns, and can go where the 
 hell you please; if he lives, you are Trevor Johns, 
 who held the stage, and must stay right here. How 
 does that strike you ? " 
 
 " I'll do my part, if Noel wHl do his," replied 
 Trevor, after a pause. " Come and persuade him." 
 
 They found Noel, as the sergeant had said, with 
 his eyes fixed on the miserable little window, look- 
 ing out on the Farwell trail. 
 
 As they entered, he turned to them and asked — 
 
 " Well, boys, what time is it ? " 
 
 "About four," Stobart replied, with a quick 
 glance at Trevor. "The sun will be down in 
 another half-hour. It sets early now." 
 
 " As early as that, does it ?" he asked, and as he 
 turned over on his side, they heard him mutter, " At 
 
 "^' 
 
THE PLOT. 
 
 261 
 
 four-thirty to-morrow ; I wonder what time that is 
 at home ? " 
 
 " We want to take you to Forres to-morrow, Noel," 
 Stobart blurted out. " It seems to us you are pretty 
 sick, and we want you to see a doctor." 
 
 Noel half turned to them again. " A doctor ? " 
 he asked. " Is there a doctor at Forres ? " 
 
 " There should be, and we want you to see him. 
 Will you come ? " 
 
 " What is the good, old chap ? No doctor could 
 cure me." 
 
 " That is what we don't know," replied Stobart ; 
 " and anyhow, we thought you would be quieter 
 there than here. I'm expecting some of the boys 
 along to-morrow." 
 
 " Some of the boys ! " Noel exclaimed, sitting up 
 excitedly, and glancing at the window again. 
 
 " Who ? Some of those from Farwell or East End, 
 I expect. It's time some of them were around." 
 
 Noel thought for a moment, and then turning to 
 Trevor, asked him if he would mind leaving him and 
 the sergeant alone together for a few moments. 
 " It's just a matter of business, old fellow, so you 
 won't mind," he added, as Trevor went out. 
 
--••'> ^ ■ ■ ■. *~ a rafc-4?grH-wiiiniii I giMKiii 
 
 262 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 I' r 
 
 
 IK 
 
 "When they were alone he lay for some moments 
 apparently lost in thought. 
 
 "You have been a bit of a woodsman in your 
 time," he said at length to Stobart, who stood near. 
 '•Did you ever see a fool-hen with her chicks in 
 early summer ? " 
 
 Stobart thought he was wandering again, but 
 humoured him. " Yes, lad, I have, many times." 
 
 " The Siwashes on the coast used to kill the poor 
 beggars whilst they were fussing after their chicks. 
 That is hard enough, but it's worse when they kill 
 the chicks too." 
 
 " The brutes would kill anything. A Siwash has 
 no pity." 
 
 " But a white should have. Stobart, are you 
 going to give up Trevor when I'm dead? Won't 
 one of us satisfy the law ? " 
 
 Then Stobart understood him and spoke out. 
 
 " Look here, Johns, this is all tom-rot about your 
 dying, and I've got my duty to perform ; but I am a 
 white man, and I'll make a deal with you. If you 
 will try to get to Forres to-morrow, I'll give Trevor 
 a chance. You and he can change names, and 
 if you should die, the one who calls himself 
 
THE PLOT. 
 
 2G3 
 
 lents 
 
 I your 
 I near. 
 13 in 
 
 Noel Johns can quit the country. I'll shut my 
 mouth. But if you get well, Trevor has sworn to 
 give himself up, and I'll see that he does so." 
 
 "He won't want much forcing, poor old chapl" 
 replied Noel ; " but I'll accept your terms. If I live 
 after sundown to-morrow, you can do what you 
 like with Trevor. When will you start ? " 
 
 " As soon as it is light enough," Stobart answered ; 
 " we have a long way to go." 
 
 " Shall we make Forres by sundown ? " 
 
 " Not by a jug-ful," was the enigmatical reply. 
 And so the matter was settled, and Noel turned 
 again on his pillow, to wonder what Pussy and the 
 old man would be doing at four-thirty to-morrow. 
 
 If they were sure not to reach Forres before 
 sundown, there need be very little risk of Trevor's 
 detection. 
 
g^Mfllli 
 
 264 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BIUPrAD!!: 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOM^N. 
 
 I' 
 
 " Die you put his watch on last night ? " 
 " yes ; just an hour, as we agreed." 
 " And are you sure he didn't know about it ? " 
 " Sure. He was fast asleep when I altered it." 
 " That's good. Then I think we'll make him miss 
 
 hi3 appointment with old Tintinamous. "We had 
 
 h<jt.ier go and wake him now." 
 
 The speakers were Stobart and Trevor, and the 
 
 time early morning on the sixth day. 
 When they entered Noel's room, they found him 
 
 already wide awake, watching the grey ^ight steal 
 
 over the snow. 
 
 "You're eai-ly, Stcbart/' he said; "the sun is not 
 
 up yet." 
 
 " I guess he is," the other answered ; " but he can't 
 
 I 
 
 ^4ni«SM«»ua(--'. 
 
i 
 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 
 
 265 
 
 make himself seen through the clouds. It's a grey- 
 day. What time do you make it by your watch ? 
 Mine has stopped." 
 
 Noel put his hand under hv-« pillow, and brought 
 out his watch. "By Jove! yoa are right. Why, 
 man, it's eight o'clock." 
 
 "Yes, it's late, I know; but we'll make Forres 
 fairly early to-night. Lean on me, and we'll pack 
 you into the sleigh." 
 
 Noel obeyed, and in another ten minutes the 
 party was ready to start, the sergeant and Trevor 
 occupying the front seat, while the sick man, 
 swathed in rugs, was securely lashed in behind. 
 The best horses on the station were harnessed to 
 the sleigh; the thickest robes which the force 
 possessed were piled upon Noel to protect him from 
 the bitter wind, though every robe he touched would 
 have to be destroyed ; the broad shoulders of his t\vo 
 friends gave him some shelter, and yet he shuddered 
 in the midst of his robes. The full l>itterness of the 
 winter had settled down on the plains of Assine- 
 boia, and the country looked as cheerless and 
 forbidding as a new gravestone. 
 
 There was not a vestige of life anywhere ; not an 
 
 ,4 
 4 
 J, 
 
 ' i i 
 
"^W^ 
 
 ,■11 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 antelope, or the track of one, to break the snow's 
 monotony ; not a wing to vary the dead grey of the 
 sky ; nothing, except on a far skyline the slouching 
 figure of a huge wolf, his quarters carried low, his 
 tail brushing the snow, his whole outline as gaunt 
 and ghoul-like as even the imagination of a Dore 
 could have made it. 
 
 "I expect those grey devils are starving about 
 now," muttered Stobart, his eyes resting on the wolf. 
 " I never knew deer and antelope so scarce before, 
 and it's a bad rabbit year too." 
 
 " I wonder where he got his last meal ? " said 
 Trevor, without thinking, and immediately there 
 rose before his mind's eye the picture of a lonely 
 figure crouching over the ruins of its home. It 
 was almost as if some one had answered his 
 thought, and Trevor started nervously, and hoped 
 that the same idea might not occur to his cousin. 
 But Noel made no sign. 
 
 " The Indians up north tell you that those big 
 grey wolves are the spirits of their dead," said 
 Stobart, after a pause. " If they are, I don't thinli 
 much of their happy hunting-grounds. I'd rather 
 be a dead Cree than a live wolf, to-day," he added. 
 
 , 
 
 
'\ 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 
 
 207 
 
 lows 
 [f the 
 
 Iching 
 r, his 
 jaunt 
 Dore 
 
 and drew his robes closer round him with his 
 disengaged hand. 
 
 Trevor kicked the speaker as well as he was 
 able to, but his legs were hampered in his robes, and 
 Stobart was slow to take a hint, so the words were 
 spoken ; and though Noel said nothing at the time, 
 his eyes never left the gaunt figure on the skyline, 
 until it slunk over a rise and was lost to sight. 
 
 After such an unfortunate commencement, it was 
 hardly to be wondered at that the conversation 
 flagged. Men talk very little on these long winter 
 drives, and Noel seemed to be faint and drowsy, 
 whilst the lips of the two in front were sealed by 
 the bitter wind which met them. 
 
 The sleigh swept on silently over the white waste, 
 the grey sky grew darker and more sullen, and only 
 once, towards noon, was there a faint gleam in the 
 clouds overhead which might have betokened the 
 presence of the suii. 
 
 When the other two noticed this, Noel was, as far 
 as they could jut'ge, fast asleep, his head hanging 
 heavily, and rolling with every lurch of the sleigh. 
 
 Everything waH going well with the conspirators. 
 
 At three the clouds were so heavy that another 
 
'( il 
 
 268 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 k : ( 
 
 snowfall seemed imminent, but it held off' hour 
 after hour, whilst the wind kept piling up the grey 
 banks in the heavens, ever thicker and thicker, until 
 there was a shadow like the shadow of coming night 
 upon the snow. 
 
 " Look at your watch, and see what the time is," 
 Stobart whispered at last to Trevor, and he, obeying 
 him, drew out an old silver "hunter" from his 
 pocket, and glancing at it whispered — 
 
 " Five by me, four in reality." 
 
 " If the sun doesn't show up in another half-hour 
 he won't show up at all," muttered Stobart, " and 
 even if Noel does wake up now, it don't much 
 matter : no man could tell that his watch was lying 
 to-day." 
 
 " Have we much further to go ? " asked Trevor. 
 " He lies there as if he was dead already." 
 
 " Not more tlum a couple of miles or so, after wo 
 reach that next bluff*. You can see the telegraph- 
 poles along the li»ie, from the other side of it." 
 
 This wa.^ encouraging ; but in spite of the horses' 
 speed the time dragged heavily. Noel's torpor 
 astonished his companions. Hitherto he had been 
 full of nervous fears for Trevor's safety, excitable, at 
 
7 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 
 
 269 
 
 times almost delirious; now he lay there like one 
 dead, and even when they convinced themselves 
 that he still lived, they could not shake off the 
 gloom which oppressed tLem. 
 
 " A day like this would give £,ny one the blues," 
 growled Stobart, savagely. But dreary as the day 
 was, he knew that it was not the dreariness of the 
 day which oppressed his spirits. 
 
 There was something more than that ; an indefin- 
 able dread which hung over them, a terror following 
 them from which they could not escape. 
 
 They had deceived Noel ; themselves they could 
 not deceive; and the ghastly presentiment at 
 which they had laughed now invaded their own 
 minds. Thougli the sun was invisible, and though 
 they dared not have admitted the fact to each other, 
 they were both of them watching for sundown, 
 watching for it long after their timepieces told them 
 that the hour of it was past. 
 " Where is the sun now ? " 
 
 It was as if a voice had put the thought of their 
 hearts into words, and both men started nervously ; 
 but Trevor pulled himself together and answered 
 Noel bravely — 
 
 « 
 
■■' .' 
 
 I 
 
 \il 
 
 m 
 
 I; 
 
 iffffv 
 
 270 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 "What ! are you awake at last, Noel ? " 
 
 "Yes, awake, wide awake and waithig. Where 
 is the sun ? " 
 
 " Sot this half-hour." 
 
 " Set ? set ? Isn't this the s>xth day ? " 
 
 " The sixth or the seventh. What matters ? " 
 
 " But I had to meet " Noel began in a dazed 
 
 way, passing his hand hopelessly across his forehead. 
 
 " You had to meet Dr. Clennel, at Brown's, in half 
 an hour's time," broke in Stobart, cheerily ; " and so 
 you shall, boy, and he'll have you on the train for 
 the old country in a fortnight, and Trevor too." But 
 though ho spoke so confidently, the sergeant kept 
 looking anxiously at the grey clouds to the west. 
 
 " There are the poles, Noel," he cried a moment 
 later ; " and there is the line which takes Englishmen 
 home. One more effort, and you are both saved." 
 
 As he spoke a long, low moaning wail came from 
 the gloom behind the sleigh, which gathered strength 
 and grew into a hideous longdrawn howl, and then 
 died away again in the distance. 
 
 Again it came from some remote part of the 
 prairie, making the lonely lands shudder with the 
 misery ami savagery of its music ! 
 
Tl 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 
 
 271 
 
 " The dead Crees ere liuntingl* whispered Noel, 
 hoarsely, and there was a horror in his voice, which 
 chilled the others more than the prairie wind. 
 
 "The wolves are running a deer, or howling 
 for want of one," retorted Stobart, angrily lashing 
 his horses. " They are generally on the move about 
 nightfall." 
 
 Eight ahead of them now tlie men could see the 
 light of Brown's shack, standing out like a beacon 
 in the snowy waste, and the horses seemed to 
 recognize it as a haven of safety, and strain every 
 muscle to reach it. They knew what the howl of 
 the wolves meant to them and their kind, for they 
 had heard it many a night, when picketed too far 
 from the dying embers of a camp-fire, or when left 
 in small bands in the hills where they were bred. 
 But though the horses laid back tbeir ears and 
 galloped for their lives, the howling came nearer 
 and nearer. If the wolves were ruuning a deer, the 
 deer was following directly in the wake of fetobart's 
 sleigh. 
 
 " Here they come ! Two, three, five of them ! 
 Tintinamom* leading," cried Noel, hoarsely, rising 
 in his seat and struggling to throw off his wraps, 
 
 I 
 
 j 
 I 
 
-»^,-- 
 
 1^ 
 
 h f! 
 
 272 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 as five long shadows swept over the rise behind 
 them. 
 
 " For God's sake hold him down, Trevor ! hold him 
 down ! " yelled Stobart, standing up, and lashing his 
 horses madly. "He is clean mad, and we are all 
 but there. Those brutes can never be hunting us." 
 
 But they were, and the horses knew it, and the 
 sick man knew it, and struggled to throw himself 
 out to meet them, while the band of swift shadows 
 grew and grew, and crept closer and closer at every 
 stride. 
 
 In five minutes the foremost of them was racing 
 alongside the sleigh ; and though Trevor emptied his 
 six-shooter amongst them, the wolves took no notice 
 of the little red spurts of flame, or the hissing bullets, 
 which kicked up the snow under their bellies. 
 Trevor dared not loosen his grip upon his cousin, and 
 the pace at which they were travelling made the 
 sleigh rock beneath him, so that it was small wonder 
 if he made bad shooting. But when the wolves 
 neither stopped nor swerved, a hideous doubt entered 
 even into his sane mind. " Were these grey devils 
 nothing but prairie wolves? Had not the prairie, 
 indeed, spewed up its dead ? " 
 
behind 
 
 )ld him 
 ing his 
 are all 
 
 Lg US." 
 
 and the 
 
 himself 
 
 shadows 
 
 it every 
 
 ,8 racing 
 ptied his 
 
 10 notice 
 g bullets, 
 r bellies. 
 )usin, and 
 made the 
 
 11 wonder 
 le wolves 
 bt entered 
 rey devils 
 ae prairie, 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 273 
 
 Some one, he remembered, had told him long ago 
 that the American grey wolf, big as he is, never 
 molests men ; that he never hunts in packs, as tho 
 Eussian wolves do ; and yet the&3 gaunt brutes (there 
 seemed to be twenty or thirty ^^f them now) were 
 leaping at the horses' throats, and snatching at the 
 very rugs in which the men were wrapped. 
 
 Their gleaming eyes Hashed greedily in the dusk 
 on every side, the strong musky stench of their 
 bodies fouled the air ; and though they were running 
 mute now for blood, the sobbing of the frantic horses, 
 and the clashing of the wolves' white fangs, sent 
 a terrible message to the men's brains. 
 
 And yet there was the light of Brown's shack only 
 just ahead of them. Surely they could reach it in 
 time. He had just lighted his lamps, and in another 
 five minutes they would all be safe in the glow of 
 them. Even now they were passing under the wires 
 which, in a few seconds, could carry a cry for help 
 to those dear old friends at Kingdon ! 
 
 At that moment there was a sudden shock, and 
 the sleigh stopped dead. One of the horses had 
 stumbled and fallen over the hidden rails, and in 
 less time than it takes to write it the wolves swooped 
 
! 
 
 274 
 
 ONE OF THE I3U0KEN BRIGADE. 
 
 i r 
 
 (. !. 
 
 rM 
 
 1 1 
 
 down on their prey, and each man was fighting for 
 his life. 
 
 Even then, with his fingers buried :in the coarse 
 grey bristles of the brute at his throat, Trevor saw 
 a tall figure dash to the side of the fallen horse, saw 
 the wolves give back for a moment, and saw the 
 gleam of steel in the gloom. The next moment 
 a sudden jerk threw him back upon the seat, the 
 horses made a wild plunge forward, and the sleigh 
 whirled over the snow at a madder pace than 
 ever. 
 
 There were only three horses now. The near 
 leader was gone. Some one had cut the harness 
 which held him, and he lay where he fell, his life- 
 blood dabbling the grey muzzles of those prairie 
 fiends. 
 
 " Where is Noel ? " 
 
 There was no one to speak, and yet Trevor heard 
 the words as distinctly as if they had been shouted 
 into his ear, and turning he saw that the back seat 
 was empty. 
 
 "Noel!" he cried. "Stobart, stop! My God, 
 where is Noel ? " 
 
 But Stobart could not stop. The horses were 
 
 

 wmr^^^mmm^^imu 
 
 ng for 
 
 coarse 
 or saw 
 se, saw 
 saw the 
 noment 
 eat, the 
 e sleigh 
 ;e than 
 
 'he near 
 I harness 
 , his life- 
 e prairie 
 
 rot heard 
 I shouted 
 t>ack seat 
 
 My God, 
 
 rses were 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 
 
 275 
 
 beyond any human power to stop them. To control 
 such panic as theirs the sergeant's strong arms were 
 as useless as an infant's. 
 
 Without pausing to calculate the danger, Trevor 
 sprang from the sleigh, and rolled headlong in the 
 snow. 
 
 The snow broke his fall, and half blinded and 
 dizzy though he was, he yet regained his feet and 
 ran wildly back toward the line. 
 
 But he was too late. Before he could gain his 
 side, he saw his cousin make his last stand against 
 fate. 
 
 The hounds of hell were round him on every side, 
 but his tall figure towered above them still. 
 Perhaps the madman's frenzy helped him, perhaps 
 he was sane again, but for the old Berserk madness 
 which lurks still in every Englishman's blood. 
 
 But he was fighting with empty hands against 
 fangs and claws, and such a fight could not last 
 long. 
 
 Once Tr vui saw him swing a huge brute clear 
 above his head, and dash him down with a dull 
 thud amongst his fellows. 
 
 And then a weird scream sounded in the west, 
 
o 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
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 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
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■ LMu-jj.-na 
 
 27G 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 |,u 
 
 %4 
 
 l^t :l 
 
 a long vibrating shriek, such as that with which 
 Irish peasants tell that the banshee heralds death. 
 
 The fight for life was taking place right between 
 the rails of Canada's iron road, and coming down it, 
 hurrying eastward, was a huge eye of fire. 
 
 The wolves saw it and fled, vanished like spectres 
 at cock-crow — all but one gigantic brute, who flew at 
 Noel's throat, and stood there wrestling with him, 
 face to face, and chest to chest. ^-^ 
 
 Trevor was almost up to them now, but they took 
 no heed of his coming. He tried to cry out, but his 
 voice stuck in his throat. It was like a nightmare ; 
 the two were unconscious of aught except of each 
 other, swaying backwards and forwards in the 
 grey light, the man's hands gripping at the wolf's 
 throat, and the brute's hoary muzzle pressing closer 
 and closer to the man, whilst its claws tore the shirt 
 from his chest in ribbons. 
 
 And, meanwhile, a red light was creeping along 
 the rails, and the thunder of wheels drew nearer; 
 there was the clank and clang of steel against steel, 
 a blaze of fire, a bevy of dancing sparks, a long 
 plume of smoke floating away across the snow, a 
 fleeting picture of bright faces at the windows safe 
 
,li which 
 
 death, 
 between 
 down it, 
 
 ) spectres 
 tio flew at 
 vith him, 
 
 they took 
 Lt, but his 
 ightmare ; 
 )t of each 
 .3 in the 
 the wolfs 
 sing closer 
 3 the shirt 
 
 ping along 
 }W nearer; 
 jinst steel, 
 ks, a long 
 16 snow, a 
 ndows safe 
 
 THE TRYST AT SUNDOWN. 277 
 
 from the snow and the storm. And the eastward- 
 bound express went by. 
 
 As the roar of it died away in the distance, there 
 was a dull red glow low down in the west. "What 
 they had been looking for had come at last, in spite 
 of the lying timepieces. The sun of the sixth day 
 had set, and Stobart and Trevor Johns were bending 
 over all that remained of the man who left Kingdon 
 to make his pile in America. 
 
 But the carcase of that great grey wolf they never 
 found. Probably the cow-catcher of the train, which 
 passed over Noel, caught his enemy and flung its 
 body into some snowdrift hundreds of yards away ; 
 or perhaps — but no. This is the nineteenth century, 
 and we have done with superstitions and all childish 
 things. 
 
 " Well, lad, he died fighting like a man in the open, 
 and I guess that's just how he would have wanted to 
 die," said the sergeant, as he laid the body tenderly 
 upon the sleigh, which the men from Brown's had 
 now brought up. 
 
 " And for the sake of the woman he loved," added 
 Trevor, " nay God rest his gallant soul ! " 
 
278 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 m 
 
 H 
 
 M i i 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 There is little to add. Men inured to hardships, 
 and living face to face with nature, know how to 
 appreciate courage and self-devotion. Sergeant 
 Stobart lied to his comrades, a little for form's sake ; 
 but he had no need to. It leaked out, perhaps, some- 
 how that the dead man was Noel Johns, but they 
 wrote Trevor Johns on the simple little cross which 
 marks his last resting-place, and curious passengers, 
 who see that lonely cross from the windows of their 
 Pullman car, are told that it is the grave of the road- 
 agent who held up the Pinto coach in 188 — . But 
 when he had outlived all danger of carrying on the 
 red man's curse to other countries, the men at 
 Brown's put a passenger on the east-bound train 
 whom they called Noel Johns. 
 
 It is true that in England, down at Kingdon-on- 
 the-Thames, there is still a Mr. Trevor Johns, of 
 
 • '! i'i 
 
 . ■ I 
 
: 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 270 
 
 hardships, 
 V how to 
 Sergeant 
 rm's sake ; 
 laps, some- 
 , but they 
 ross which 
 passengers, 
 ws of their 
 of the road- 
 88—. But 
 ing on the 
 he men at 
 bound train 
 
 Cowley. But what matter? Perhaps he took his 
 cousin's name, to keep his memory green in the 
 old place ; but it is odd that even now, if you could 
 look into the dim sweet graveyard by the river, you 
 would see an old greyhaired man, and a fair type of 
 English womanhood, bending over a marble tablet, 
 beneath a wreath of rose bushes, on which there is a 
 somewhat unusual carving — the figure of a bird, 
 running towards you, its wings spread, its feathers 
 ruffled, its beak open. 
 
 There must be some mistake, for the bird is not 
 any English bird we know, and yet so well carved 
 that we can hardly think that the sculptor's incom- 
 petence is to blame for its strangeness in our eyes. 
 
 Underneath is written a simple legend : " He died 
 for others." 
 
 As the girl and the old man turn away to the dark 
 river, where the trout are rising madly at the white 
 moth, the old man mutters something which sounds 
 like a line from Kipling— 
 
 «• Follow after, follow after, for the harvest is sown. 
 By the stones about the wayside ye shall como to your own." 
 
 
 Singdon-on- 
 ir Johns, of 
 
 THE END. 
 

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 EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 This edition of Mr. Browning's poems and plays makes no pretence to be critical. 
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 Lady Butler (Miss Eliza- 
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 GnORGE Cruikshank. 
 
 INS ALTOGETHER 1.773 I 
 
 John Leech. i 
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 LOVEL THE WIDOWER; THE 
 
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 ffllSCELLANEOUS ESSAYS, 
 
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 6. THE STORY OF ELIZABETH; TWO HOURS | 
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 6. BLUEBEARD'S KEYS ; ond other Storie;. 
 
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