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3f f CT,,^,-71<^C\^p

SMII

^ip^"

■fnp

ONE OF

THE BROKEN BRIGADE

CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY

AUrnOR OF "SNAP," "GOLIi GOLD IN CABIBOO," ETC.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE.

1897,

^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';

... 42

... 70

... 101

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

r,-J I !

I, U

|:f

\'\ M

PART I.

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

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."

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."

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

tfiBmmm

IN THE "OLD COUNTRY."

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."

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

"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."

)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."

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

" 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

IN THE "OLD COUNTRY."

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.

ONE OF THE BKOKEN BIUCIADE.

vt'

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 ? "

IN TIIK "OLD COUNTRY."

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

:•&*■*■

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."

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

^^.'

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."

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."

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.

*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

(
i

**k^

IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE.

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

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

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.

**•

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.

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?"

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.

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

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

-.aMBu

■Pf*!**iW

wmm

«vr»—

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,

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.

•

]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.

1 i

w'.^tiSl'''** miumm^-"'

JMHaMBiMMa

■'• — >*n,.^.^

IN THE CITY OF SUNSHINE.

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.

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,"

,^ .■^ ^ -w rt B Ml ^i^^j':

THE HIKED MAN.

►>#

■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.

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

•*^

The hired man.

«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

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,

ol
ai
tl
11

•^

THE HIKED iMAN.

•^

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 ? " ' -

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.

THE HIRED MAN.

I*' 4'

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

-""•^i^imimmmm

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

THE HIRED MAN.

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

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

" 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.

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.

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

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

ONE OF THE BKOKEN BRIGADE.

■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."

THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN.

" 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

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.

THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN.

" 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

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.

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

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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.

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

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

^ * v t m m f» *m'm m m > '»» n. mft .m^ m»9t

THE CAMP AT SHAWNIGAN.

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.

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.

' 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

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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

J-

THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY.

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. ■

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.

^•^ :

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

if.f

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.

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

'.i \

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.

-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.

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

1 1

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 ''it <

THE FOOL-HEN'S PLAY.

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.

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

lii

i!l

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.

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,—

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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

"VENGEANCE IS MINE."

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

?!■?»■

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."

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.

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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

■ 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

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.

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

')!

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.

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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.

"VENGEANCE IS MINE."

" 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

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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.

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

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.'

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.

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

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-■■mMU Mi.ma i m -i ^ '''''*^'-

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-

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

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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>

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
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IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN.

Ill

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

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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.

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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

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IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN.

115

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.

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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^'

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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 ? " > .. .: ,

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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

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.

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

is
ri

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

124

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

,'■

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

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

120

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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.

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

130

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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 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'l

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.

( 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

Hljlll<r Wi^ia

1(1

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

■^'

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

K.-

*-\i0i^

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.

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.

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

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

WBam!!mmmmmsm^''fmmmmmmmm

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

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 ;

/.f

mimmmmrsmmf:

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.

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

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

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,

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

mmmm

I i:

158

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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

160

ONE OlT THE BKOKEN BlUGADE.

\ 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

-*es».

(

162

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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

a
fet

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

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

'ftfini'tii

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.

( >

" 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

" 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."

(

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

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

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."

174

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

l:i

);

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.

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.

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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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."

'!'*

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

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 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

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'

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

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

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

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

)•»

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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

MAN-HUNTING.

107

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.

! il

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• <. f

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ill

K '

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.

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|

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(

! 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

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,

204

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

'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

" 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 ']

208

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

.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
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id, since
partner
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of envy
sonable,
rty, into
iworked

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iild have

too in

insular

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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' {

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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."

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^

I hi

ifj'

I m

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.

"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.

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

1^^

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

tN THE HEART OF THE STORM.

219

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.

; '■ fl I

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 ? "

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IN THE HEART OF THE STORM.

not

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" 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.

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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

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224

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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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."

■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.

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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

228

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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!"

( 229 )

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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

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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

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232

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

Ill,

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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

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

^SB

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.

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;

■^

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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 ^

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

238

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

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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

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.

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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

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 ? "

:^^

mmm

240

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE,

m
/

iii

J:
I

ill

' ■ :

N-

"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

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

it'

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i 1" ;1

! .

n .11

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

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

1 F-

■fVH )

•i ' ': ■

I, ■'

>i I

I'll

i ( t>

■ ;l''

Ifi;

11 ' 1

1 ' 1

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

. i

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.

!lP a ,

SI,

1 :

■

( 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

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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 ? "

B X ■ ■J'^.'-'il.' '^ ••r- I '■'■ '"■^■«

258

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

K '

" 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

"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.

" 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

^4ni«SM«»ua(--'.

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

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 —

■■' .'

\il

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 !

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,

j
I

-»^,--

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

(. !.

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,

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23 WEST MAIN STREET

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(716) 872-4503

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■ LMu-jj.-na

27G

ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE.

|,u

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 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

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