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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 6 6 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE i PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE TALES OF THE FAR NORTH BY GILBERT PARKER TORONTO THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED 1821 '^^^/^ H ir is ie\ O I Entered •rooidlngr to Act of the Parliament of Canada, In the year one thousand ei^fht hundred a;id ninely-seven, by GiLBRRT Farkkr, Londou, EnKland, in tiie Ottice of tb« Minuter of AKriuulture. I- J MY BROTH P:RS, FREDERICK, LIONEL, HAKRV, AND ARTHUR, AND BLISS CARMAN, MV COMRADE. 4' i) CONTENTS. ij THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS Hrr [.S GOD'S GARRISON - A HAZARD OF THE NORTH A PRAIRIE VAGABOND SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHKVRON THRFE OUTLAWS - SHON MCGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDI- PftRE CHAMPAGNE - THE SCARLET HUNTER THE STONE THE TALL MASTER THE CRIMSON FLAG THE FLOOD IN PIPI VALLEY ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE THE CIPHER A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES - A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS PAcn I 24 33 65 73 126 135 for 169 192 201 222 231 -'42 265 273 292 I NOTE. •I It is possi])lc that a Note on the country pourtraycd in these: stories may be in keeping. Until 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company — first granted its charter by King Charles II. — practically ruled that vast region stretching from the fiftieth parallel of latitude to the Arctic Ocean; — a handful of adventurous men entrenched in Forts and Posts, yet trading with, and mostly peacefully con- quering, many savage tribes. Once the sole master of the North, the H. B. C. (as it is familiarly called) is reverenced by the Indians and half-breeds as much as, if not more than, the Government established at Ottawa. It has had its Forts within the Arctic Circle ; it has successfully exploited a country larger ix a NOTE. than the United States. The Red River Valley, the Sackatchewan Valley, and British Columbia, are now belted by a great railway, and ^nven to the plough ; but in the far north, life is much the same as it was a hundred years ago. There the trapper, clerk, trader, and factor, are cast in the mould of another century, though possessing the acuter energies of this. The voyageitr and courier de bois still exist, though, generally, under less picturesque names. The bare story of the hardy and wonderful career of the adventurers trading in Hudson's Bay, — of whom Prince Rupert was once chiefest, — and the life of the prairies, may be found in histories and books of travel; but their romances, the near narratives of in- dividual lives, have waited the telling. In this book I have tried to feel my way to- wards the heart of that life ; — worthy of being loved by all British men, for it has given honest graves to gallant fellows of S * NOTE. XI our breeding. Imperfectly, of course, I have done it ; but there is much more to be told. When I started Pretty Pierre on his travels, I did not know — nor did he — how far or wide his adventures and experiences would run. They have, however, extended from Quebec in the east to British Columbia in the west, and from the Cypress Hills in the south to the Coppermine River in the north. With a less adventurous man we had had fewer happen- ings. His faults were not of his race, — that is, French and Indian, — nor were his virtues; they belong to all peoples. But the expression of these is affected by the country itself. Pierre passes through this series of stories, connecting them, as he himself connects two races, and here and there links the past of the Hudson's Bay Company with more modern life and Canadian energy pushing northward. Here is something of romance ''pure and simple," but also traditions and character, which '^^ NOTE. are the single pn.pcrty ol this austere but not cheerless heritage oi our race. All of the talcs have appeared in Magazines and Journals-naniely, The A alio na I Observer^ Macmillcms, The Nalional Review, and The ^n^hsh Illustrated; and The Im/rfieudent of N(iw York. By the courtesy of the proprietc^rs ol these I am permitted to republish, G F Harpkndkn, Hekifordshike, July 1892. I PIERRE A\D IIIS PEOPLE ^bc patrol of tbc (T^preeo Ibillo. •' ITk's too ha'sh," said old Alexander Windsor, as he shut the crcakiii<^ door of the store after a vanishing figure, and turned to the big iron stove with out- stretched hands ; hands that were cold both summer and winter. He was of lean and frigid make. " Sergeant Foncs is too hi'sh," he rc[)eatcd, as he pulled out the dam[)cr and cleared away the ashes with the iron poker. Pretty Pierre blew a quick, straight column of cigarette smoke into the air, tilted his chair back, and said : " I do not know what you mean by ' ha'sh/ but he is the devil. Eh, well, there was more than one devil made sometime in the North West." He laughed softly. "That gives you a chance in history. Pretty Pierre," said a voice from behind a pile of woollen goods and buffalo skins in the centre of the floor. The owner of the voice then walked to the window. He scratched some frost from the pane and looked out to where the trooper in dog-skin coat, and gauntlets, and cap, was mounting his broncho. The old man came and stood near the young man, — the owner of the voice, — and said again : " He's too ha'sh." A 9 IMI -KIO'", ANr) MIS VV.OVIM. *' Ifiirsh ynii iiK .III, f'alliri," .iddfl llif" ollirr. " Y('«, /Mr»// yitii iiuMii, ( )l(l lin»wri Wiiidsui, f|iiitc liarsli," .said ridic. AI«\.nidri Wind .01. '.luickrrpci and {M'licial dfairr, w.is soinctinH's railed "( )ld hmwii Windsor" and soincliincs " < )ld A I(m1<," In dr. I nr/iiili liini (loni his .'.'>n, wliM W.I . known .r. " \'Mini{; Alrrl<." As lh«' old in;m w.dkcd l>.i< l< ajsun lo tlu .(\\r (,i flw l.iw ;iii'l 111'- ii'»ii i'.l'»v, Old Al''l;.'' To thr V'-iiiii', iii;iii : " Ari'l y'»ii ',iii 'ImiiI< iI ';o fi'-r, rli, Y'HiiiM Al'-k''" III'- hall I. f "I l','.l,'f| oiil of tl»n (oiii'-r. i>\ III. '••/'••. at til'- y'Hiii!; iriaii, liiil lir rlid not rar.r llic |.fal, ')l In. Iin '.i)> in donij; so, ,in(l hi.'; yliiwci'. a'.l':aii' '• wi'' ii'*t .'•' n Y'»iin;; Ah'l< h;i'l Ix' ii .vtitiri;^ ';')nirlhin{^ witfi his fin^^'T nail '»n flif liof "f fhf pan'-, <>vct and over a'/ain. WIi'Mi I'l'iif .|)'rnf'r it rr:in;iinf:(l : "Mab " i'icrr'- addrd : "That i.s what th'y '^,'iy at Ifiifri- j>hify' . I ail' li." " Wh(^ '.ay. that at llnniphrry'', r' Ti'Trc, yoi. ikj I ' K.aricf: •|''y n'. o I this last slatcni' tit had h'M ri 'iftcn attc.tcd f>ri thn |)iaiiirs by IIm: pi'M iir; firij)ha'.i'. ol a, six rharnhf!rf:fl I'volvfT. It was 'vi'i'iit that Y' ;;iid if. Wf:ii, /, |)'ih;:|)s I lie; p'rli;i|>s. Soni'tirnrrs wf; rircarn th ■>. '» mil's, and these dream . ar'' true Y on rail it a lie — hii'n I Sei;;eant I'one., he dreams j>erhaps Oh! Aleck sells whi .ky ;if;;iin t th': law to men you eall whisky rnmier ., s'Mnelime , to Iti'lians and half breeds - h.ilf-breefis like I'letty I'i' ires 'J h.il was a Irearn of Ser}.Mant I'oncs ; but yon see \\v. be-lievcs it true. It is j^ood sport, iA\t Will y^i not take — what is it? PIKkkK ANI> HIS IM.Ol'i.E. — a silent partner ? Yes ; n silent partner, T^M Air* 1<. Pielty lMi*rrc lias spare time, a liltie, lo in il.c money for his friends and for liiinscif, eli ? " When did not Pierre have time tf) spare? He was a j^.'iinbler. Unlike the majori.y of halt-hreeds, he had a pronounced French niamicr, nonchalant and debonair. The Indian in him <;ave him coohiess and nerve. His cheeks had a tinj^e of dehc ate red under tlieir whiteness, like tliose of a woman. That was why he was called Pretty Pierre. The country had, however, lelt a kind of weird menace in the name. It was used to snakes whose rattle <.;ave notice of approach or sij^nal of danj^er. ]>ut Pretty Pierre was like the death-adder, small and beautiful, silent and deadly. At one time he had made a secret of his trade, or thou<;ht he was doinj^ so. In those days he was often to be seen at David Humphrey's home, and often in talk with Mab Humphrey ; but it was there one night that the man who was ha'sh gave him his true character, with much candour and no com- ment. Afterwards Pierre was not seen at Humphrey's ranch. Men prophesied that he would have revenge some day on Sergeant Fones ; but he did not show anything on which this opinion could be based. He took no umbrage at being called Pretty Pierre the gambler. But for all that he was pos- sessed of a devil. Young Aleck had inherited some money through his dead mother from his grandfather, a Hudson's Bay factor. He had been in the East for some years, and when he came back he brought his "little pile" and aa impressionable heart with him. The former f ■ TMK PATROL OF TIIK CYl'KKSS HILLS. Pretty Pierre and his fri' nds set about to win ; the latter, Mab Huinplircy won without the tryinpj. Yet Mab ^ave Youn;^ Aleck as much as he gave her. More. Because her love sprarij; from a simple, earnest, and uncoiitaminatcd life. Ilcr purity and affection were bein^ pla)* d a^^ainst Pierre's designs and Young Aleck's weakness. With Aleck cards and liquor went together. Pierre seldom drank. But what of .Sii^^eant F*ones ? If the man that knew him best — tlie Commandant — had been asked for his history, tiie reply would have been : " P'ive years in the Service, rij^id disciplinarian, best non- commissioned officer on the Patrol of the Cypress Hills." Tiiat was all the Commandant knew. A !5oldier-f)oliceman's life on the frontier is rough, solitary, and severe. Active duty and res{)onsibility are all that makes it endurable. To few is it fascinat- ing. A free and thourjhtful nature would, however, find much in it, in spite of great hardships, to give interest and even pleasure. The sense of breadth and vastness, and the inspiration of pure air could be a very gospel of strcn;4th, beauty, and courage, to such an one — for a time. But was Seri'eant P\>nes such an one ? The ommandant's scornful reply to a questi( n of the kind would have been: " lie is the best soldier on the Patrol." And so with hard gallops here and there after the refugees of crime or misfortune, or bolh, who fled be- fore them like deer among the j)assrs of the hills, and, like deer at ba\', often fou. .somehow, L;ot the reputation of heinj; coimectcd with the whisky runners ; not a very respectable business, and thought to be dan<;erous. Whisk)- rumiers were inclined to resent intrusion on their privac)'', with a touch of that bitini; inhospitableness which a moon- lighter of Kentuck)'" uses toward an inquisitive, un- .sympathetic marshal. On the C)q)ress Hills Patrol, however, the erring .servants of Bacchus were having a hard time of it. Vigilance never slept there in the days of which these lines bear record. Old Brown Windsor had, in words, freely espoused the cause of the sinful. To the careless spectator it seemed a charitable siding with the suffering ; a [)roor th;it the oUl man's heart was i.ot so cold as his hands. Ser- geant Fones thought differently, and his mission had just been to warn the store-keeper that there was menacing evidence gathering against him, and that his friendship with Golden Feather, the Indian Chief, had better cease at once. Sergeant Fones had a way of putting things. Old Brown Windsor endeavoured for a moment to be sarcastic. This was the brief dialogue in the domain of sarcasm : '■ I s'pose you just lit round in a friendly sort of way, hopin' that I'd kenoodie with you later." ^» < THE FATKOL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS, • Exactly." There was an unpleasant click to the word. The old man's hands got colder. He had nothing more to say. Before leaving, the Sergeant said something quietly and quickly to Young Aleck. Pierre observed, but could not hear. Young Aleck was uneasy ; Pierre was perplexed. The Sergeant turned at the door, and said in French : " What are your chances for a Merry Christmas at Pardon's Drive, I*rctty Pierre ? " Pierre said nothing He shrugged his shoulders, and as the door closed, muttered: "// est le dtabie." And he meant it. What should Sergeant Fones know of that intended meeting at Pardon's Drive on Christmas Day? And if he knew, what then? It was not against the law to play euchre. Still it perplexed Pierre. Before the Windsors, father and son, how- ever, he was, as we have seen, playfully cool. After quitting Old Brown Windsor's store, Sergeant Fones uri^ed his stout broncho to a quicker pace than usual. The broncho was, like himself, wasteful of neither action nor affection. The Sergeant had caught nim wild and independent, had brought him in, broken him, and tauc^ht him obedience. They under- stood each other ; perhaps they loved each other. But about that even Private Gellatly had views in common with the general sentiment as to the character of Sergeant Fones. The private remarked once on this point : " Sarpints alive ! the heels of the one and the law of the oiher is the love of them. They'll weather together like the Divil and Death." The Sergeant was brooding ; that was not like him. He was hesitating ; that was less like him. He 10 I'IKKKK AND HIS i'KOi'LE. tiirnofl his hroncho round as if to cross the ]V\^ Divide and to*^o b.ick to Windsor's store ; hut he changed his mind aijain, and rode on toward David Humphrey's ranch. Mc sat as if he had been born in tlie saddle. I lis was a face for the artist, strong and clear, and having a dominant exprcssioti of force. The eyes were deep-set and watchful. A kind of disdain might be traced in the curve of the short upper lip, to which the moustache was clipped close — a good fit, like his coat. The disdain was more marked this morning. The first part of his ride had been seen by Young Aleck, the second part by Mab Humi)hrcy. Iler first thought on seeing him was one of apprehension for Young Aleck and those of Young Aleck's name. She knew that people s[)()ke of her lover as a ne'er- do-wccl ; and that they associated his name freely with that of Pretty Pierre and his gang. She had a dread of Pierre, and, only the night before, she had determined to make one last great effort to save Aleck, and if he would not be saved — strange that, thinking it all over again, as she watched the figure on horseback coming nearer, her mind should swerve to what she ha I heard of Sergeant Fones's expected promotion. Tlien she fell to wondering if anyone had ever given him a real Christmas present ; if he had any friends at all ; if life meant anything more to him than carrying the law of the land across his saddle. Again he suddenly came to her in a new thought, free from apprehension, and as the champion of her cause to defeat the half-breed and his gang, and save Aleck from present danger or future perils. She was such a woman as prairies nurture ; in spirit broad and thoughtful and full of energy ; not I TMK TATKOI, ()|< TIIK < VI'KKSS HILLS. II In d I so deep as llio nioiit t.n'ii wrxinii. not so iinapjinative, but with iimrc pcrsiviciicy, iiKirc darini;. Youth to h(M- was a warmth, a ^'lors'. Shir hated excess and lawlessness, l)ut she Cfuild understand it. She felt sometimes as if siie must ^o far away into the un- peopled spaces, and shriek out her soul to the stars from the fulness of too much life. She supposed men had feelini^^s of that kind too, but that tliey fell to playin^j cartls and drinkinjjj instead of crying to the stars. Still, she prefeiied lier way. Once, Serjeant I'ones, on hNiviiii,^ the house, said ijrimly after his fashion: "Not Mab but Ariadne — excuse a soldier's l)luntness (jood-bsc I " and with a brus(pie salute he had ridden away. What he meant she did not know and could not ask. The thouf^ht instantly came to her inind : Not Scrj^eant Fones ; but — who? She wondered if Ariadne was born on the prairie. What knew she of the ^drl wiio helped Theseus, her lover, to slay the Minotaur? Wh it c^uessed she of the Slopes of Naxos ? How old was Ariadne? Twenty? — For that was Mab's a^^e. Was Ariadne beautiful ? — She ran her fingers loosely throuf^h her short brown hair, waving softly about her Greek-shaped head, and reasoned that Ariadne must have been presentable or Sergeant Fones would not have made the compari.son. She hoped Ariadne could ride well, for she could. But how white the world looked this morning ! and how proud and brilliant the sky I Nothing in the plane of vision but waves of snow stretching to the Cypress Hills ; far to the left a solitar)- house, with its tin roof flashing back the sun, and to the right the Big Divide. It was an old-fashioned winter, not one 12 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. in which bare ground and sharp winds make life out- doors inhos[)itable. Snow is hospitable — clean, im- pacted snow ; restful and silent. • But there is one spot in the area of white, on which Mab's eyes are fixed now, with somethinjr different in them from what had been there. Ai^ain it was a memory with which Serj^eant Fones was associated. One day in the summer just past she had watched him and his company put away to rest under the cool sod, where many another lay in silent company, a prairie wanderer, some outcast from a better life gone by. Afterwards, in her home, she saw the Serj:^eant stand at the window, lookinf^ out toward the spot where the waves in the sea of grass were more regular and greener than elsewhere, and were surmounted by a high cross. She said to him — for she of all was never shy of his stern ways : " Why is the grass always greenest tJiere, Sergeant Fones ? " He knew what she meant, and slowly said : " It is the Barracks of the Free." She had no views of life save t!mse of duty and work and natural joy and loving a ne'er-do- .veel, and she said : " I do not understand that." And the Sergeant replied: ''Free among the Dead like unto them that are ivouiided and lie in the grave ^ who are out of reuii'mbrancc!* But Mab said again : " I do not understand that either." The Sergeant did not at once reply. He stepped to the docjr and gave a short command to some one without, and in a moment his com[jaii\' was mounteil in line, hanu.Mjiue, dashing fellows; one the son of 4 IS md lat led |ne lea of J THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS iilLLS. X3 I an KnG^lish nobleman, one the brother of an eminent Canadian politician, one related to a celebrated English dr.iinatist. He ran his eye alonj^ the line, then turned to Mab, raised his cap with machine-like precision, and said : " No, I suppose you do not understand that. Keep Aleck Windsor from Pretty Pierre and his gang. Good-bye." Then he mounted and rode away. Every other man in the company looked back to where the girl stood in the uonrway ; he did not Private Gellatly s.iid, with a shake of the head, as she was lost to view : " Devils bestir me, what a widdy she'll mc)ke!" It was understood that Aleck Windsor and Mab Humphrey were to be married on the coming New Year's Day. What connection was there be- tween the words of Sercreant Fones and those of Private Gellatly? None, perhaps. Mab thinks upon that day as she looks out, this December morning, and sees Sergeant Fones dis- mounting at the door. David Humphrey, who is outside, offers to put up the Sergeant's horse ; but he says : " No, if you'll hold him just a moment, Mr. Humphrey, I'll ask for a drink of something warm, and move on. Miss Mab is inside, I suppose?" " She'll give }ou a drink of the best to be had on your patrol, Sergeant," was the laughing reply. "Thanks for that, but tea or coffee is g-^od enough for me," said the Sergeant. Entering, the coffee was soon in the hand of the hardy soldier. Once he paused in his drinking and scanned Mab's face clor.ely. Most people would have said the Sergeant had an affair of the law in hand, and was searching the face of a criminal ; but most people are not H PIKRkK AND HIS IM:0I'I,E. i;()()'l at interpretation. Mah was spcMkini; to the ch')rc-Lrirl at the same time and ditl not see the look. If she eould iiave defined iier thoujj^iits when she, in turn, i^hinced into the Seri^eant's feiee, a moment afterward-, she would have said : " Austerity fills tliis man. Isoliition marks him for iis own." In the e\ es were only purjjose, decision, and command. Was that the look that had been fixetl U[)on. her face a moment ago ? It must have been. His features had not changed a breath. Mab began tlieir talk. *' Tliey say you are to get a Cliristmas present of promotion Sergeant Fones." " I have not seen it gazetted," he answered enig- matically. " You and your friends will be glad of it." " I like the service." " You will have more freedom with a commission.' He made no reply, but rose and walked to the •window, and looked out across the snow, drawing on his gc'untlets as he did so. She saw that he was looking where the grass in summer was the greenest! He turned and said : "I am going to barracks now. I suppose Young Aleck will be in quarters here on Christmas Day, Miss Mab?" " I think so/' and she blushed. " Did he say he would be here ? " " Yes." " Exactly." ]1'2 looked toward the coffee. 1 hen " Thank you Good-bye." " Sergeant ? " I THR PATROL OF THE CYPKKSS HILLS. 1$ ig on "Miss Mab!" " Will you not come to us on Christinas Day ? " His eyelids closed swiltiy and opened aj^ain. " I shall be on duty." "And promoted ? " « Perhaps." "And merry and happy?** — she smiled to herself to think of Serjeant Fones being merry and happy. " Exactly." The word suited him. He paused a moment with his fingers on the latch, and turned round as if to speak ; pulled off his gauntlet, and then as quickly put it on again. Had he meant to offer his hard in good-bye? He had never been seen to tak'e the hand of anyone except with the might of the law visible in steel. He opened the door with the right hand, but turned round as he stepped out, so that the left held it while he faced the warmth of the room and the face of the girl. The door closed. Mounted, and having said good-bye to Mr. Hum- phrey, he turned towards the house, raised his cap with soldierly brusqueness, and rode away in the direction of the barracks. The girl did not watch him. She was thinking of Young Aleck, and of Christmas Day, now near. The Sergeant did not look back. Meantime the party at Windsor's store was broken up. Pretty Pierre and Young Aleck had talked to- gether, and the old man had heard his son say ; " Remember, Pierre, it is for the last time." Then they talked alter this fashion : i i6 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. "Ah, I know, ntnn ami; for the last time! Eh, bien ! You will spend Cliristmas Day with us too — No ? You surely will not leave us on the day of good fortune ? Where better can you take your pleasure — for the last time ? One day is not enough for fare- vv-ell. Two, three; that is the magic number. You will, eh ? no ? Well, well, you will come to-morrow — and — eh, mon ami, where do you go the next day ? Oh, pardofty I forgot, you spend the Christmas Day — I know. And the day of the New Year ? Ah, Young Aleck, that is what they say — the devil for the devil's luck. So ! " " Stop that, Pierre." There was fierceness in the tone. " I spend the Christmas Day where you don't, and as I like, and the rest doesn't concern you. I drink with you, I play with you — bien t As you say yourself, bien / isn't that enough ? " " Pardon ! We will not quarrel. No ; we spend not the Christmas Day after the same fashion, quite ; then, to-morrow at Pardon's Drive ! Adieu I" Pretty Pierre went out of one door, a malediction between his white teeth, and Aleck went out of an- other door with a malediction upon his gloomy lips. But both maledictions were levelled at the same person. Poor Aleck ! " Poor Aleck ! " That is the way we sometimes think of a good nature gone awry ; one that has learned to say cruel maledictions to itself, and against which demons hurl their deadly maledictions too. Alas, for the ne'er-do-weel 1 That night a stalwart figure passed from David Humphrey's door, carrying with him the warm atmosphere of a good woman's love. The chilly rilK PAIKOL OF Till'. cvrkKss IIIM.S. '7 Eh, too — good asure • fare- You orrow day? Day— ' Ah, vil for in the I don't, ^ou. I 'ou say spend quite ; iiction of an- ly lips. )erson. letimes it has Lgainst is too. iDavid warm chilly outer air of the world seemed not to touch him, Love's curtains were drawn so close. Had one stood witliin '* tlic Hunter's Room,'' as it was called, a little while before, one would have seen a man's head bowed before a woman, and her hand smoothini; back the hair from the handsome brow where dissipation had drawn some deep lines. Presently the hand raised the head until the eyes of the woman looked full into the eyes of the man. " You will not go to Pardon's Drive again, will you, Aleck?' " Never again after Christmas Day, Mab. But I must go to-morrow. I have given my word." " I know. To meet Pretty Pierre and all the rest, and for what ? Oh, Aleck, isn't the suspicion about your father enough, but you must put this on me as well?" " My father must sutfci for his wrong-doing if he does wrong, and I for mine." There was a moment's silence. He bowed his head airain. " And I have done wrong to us both. Forgive me, Mab." She leaned over and fondled his hair. " I forgive you, Aleck." A thousand new thoughts were thrilling through him. Yet this man had given his word to do that for which he must ask forgiveness of the woman he loved. But to Pretty Pierre, forgiven or unforgiven, he would keep his word. She understood it better than most of those who read this brief record can. Every sphere has its code of honour and duty peculiar to itself " Vou will come to me on Christmas morning, Aleck ? " K i8 PIKKRE AND HIS PEOPLE. " I will come on Christmas morninj^." "And no more after that of Pretty Pierre?" •* And no more of Pretty Pierre." Sh ) trusted him ; but neither could reckon with unknown forces. Scri^cunt Fones, sitting in the barracks in talk with Private Gellatly, said at that moment in a swift silence, — " Kxactly." Pretty Pierre, at Pardon's Drive, drinking a glass of brandy at that moment, said to the ceiling: •' No more oi" Pretty Pierre after to-morrow night, monsieur! Bten ! If it is for the last time, then it is for the last time. So .... so ! " lie smiled. His teeth were amazingly white. The stalwart figure strode on under the sars, the white night a lens for visions of days of rejoicing to come. All evil was far from him. Tlie dolorous tide rolled back in this hour from his life, and he revelled in the light of a new day. " When I've played my last card to-morrow night, with Pictty Pierre, I'll begin the world again," he whispered. And Sergeant Fones in the barracks said just then, in response to a further remark of Private Gellatly,— 'Exactly." Young Aleck is singing now: 43 *' Out from your vineland come Into the prairies wild ; Hire will we make our home,— Father, mother, and child ; Come, my love, to our home,— Father, mother, and child. Father, mother, and — *' THE PATROL OF THE CVl'KlvSS IHLLS. M. with with swift ass of nif^ht, n it is vs, the :ing to lis tic^e ivellcd night, n," he then» He fell to thinking aj^^iin — " atirl child- atuI (hild," — it w.is ill his ears and in liis heart. Hut Pretty Pierre was singing softly to himself in the room at Pardon's Drive : ** Three good friends with the wine at nij,dit — Vive la comj)aj^nie ! Two good fri(Mids when the sun ;^rows bright — '' Vive l.i coinp.i^^nie ! Vive la, vive la, vive I'aniour 1 Vive la, vive la, vive I'aniour I Three good friends, two good friends — Vive la compagnie I " What did it mean ? Private Gcllatly was cousin to Idaho Jack, and Idaho J.ick disliked Pretty Pierre, though he had been f one of the gang. The cousins had seen each other I lately, and Private Gellatly had had a talk with ^ the man who was ha'sh. It may be that others "^ besides Pierre had an idea of what it meant. In the house at Pardon's Drive the next night sat eight men, of whom three were Pretty Pierre, Young Aleck, and Idaho Jack. Young Aleck's face was flushed with bad liquor and the worse excitement of play. This was one of the unreckoncd forces. Was this the man that sang the tender song under the stars last night ? Pretty Pierre's face was less pretty than usual ; the cheeks were pallid, the eyes were hard and cold. Once he looked at his {)artner as if to say, " Not yet." Idaho Jack saw the look ; he glanced at his watch ; it was eleven o'clock. At that moment the door o[)ened, and Sergeant Fones entered. All started to their feet, most with curses on their lips ; but Sergeant Phones never seemed to hear any 20 riEKKF AND HIS PKOPLK. tln'ii;^ tliat could m.ikc a feature of his fare alter. Pierre's hand was on his hip, as if feelin,^ for sonic- thin^^ Serjeant Fones saw that ; but he walked to where Aleck stood, with his unplayed cards still in his hand, and, laying a hand on his sh(nil(ler, said, " Come with me." *' Why should I go with you ? " — this with a drunken man's bravado. " You are my prisoner." Pierre stepped forward. " What is his crime?" he exclaimed. " How does that concern you, Pretty Pierre?" *' He is my friend." " Is he your friend, Aleck ? " What was there in the eyes of Sergeant Fones that forced the reply, — " To-night, yes ; to-morrow, no? " " Exactly. It is near to-morrow ; come." Aleck was led towards the door. Once more Pierre's hand went to his hip ; but he was looking at the prisoner, not at the Sergeant. The Sergeant saw, and his fingers were at his belt. He o{)ened the door. Aleck passed out. He followed. Two horses were tied to a post. With difficulty Aleck was mounted. Once on the way his brain began slowly to clear, but he grew painfully cold. It was a bitter night. How bitter it might have been for the ne'er-do-weel let the words of Idaho Jack, spoken in a long hour's talk next day with Old Brown Windsor, show. ** Pretty Pierre, after the two were gone, said, with a shiver of curses, — * Another hour and it would have been done, and no one to blame. He was ready for trouble. I lis money was nearly finished. A little quarrel easily made, the door would open, and he would pass out - I T 1 THE PA'ikOL OF TIIK ("VPRESS HILLS. 21 he the and loor. rere \Ud. but [ow the Italk |etty irof |one, ible. Lsily lout Ill's horse would be ^^oiie, he could not come back; he would walk. The air is cold, quite, quite cold ; and the snow is a soft bed. lie would sleep well and sound, havinc^ seen Pretty Pierre for the last time. And now!' The rest was French and furtive." From that hour Idaho Jack and Pretty Pierre parted company. Ridincj from Pardon's Drive, Younf^ Aleck noticed at last that they were not ^^oin<^ toward the barracks. He said : " Why do you arrest me? " Th(2 Ser;:(eant re[)lied : " You will know that soon cnouL,di. You arc now f^oin^^ to your own home. To-morrow \ou will keep your word and ^o to David Hi'mphrey's place ; the next day J will come for you. Which do )'ou choose : to ride with me to night to the barracks and know why you are arrested, or go, unknowing, as I bid you, and keep your word with the girl?" Through Aleck's fevered brain, there ran the words of the song he sang before : " Out from your vineland come Into the prairies wild ; Here will we make our home, — Father, mother, and child." He could have but one answer. At the door of his home the Sergeant left him with the words : " Remember you arc on parole." Aleck noticed, as the Sergeant rode away, that the face of the sky had changed, and slight gusts of wind had come up. At any other time his mind would have dwelt ui)on the fact. It did not do so now. Christma.^ Day came. People said that the fiercest 22 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. night, since the blizzard day of 1863, had been passed. But the morning was clear and beautiful. The sun came up like a great flower cxpntiding. First the yellow, then the purple, then the red, and then a mighty shield of roses. The world was a blanket of drift, and down, and glistening silver. Mab Humphrey greeted her lover with such a smile as only springs to a thankful woman's lips. He had given his word and had kept it ; and the path of the future seemed surer. He was a prisoner on parole ; still that did not depress him. Plans for coming days were talked of, and the laughter of many voices filled the house. The ne'er-do-weel was clothed and in his right mind. In the Hunter's Room the noblest trophy was the heart of a re; entant prodigal. In the barracks that morning a gazetted notice was posted, announcing, with such technical language as is the custom, that Sergeant Fones was promoted to be a lieutenant irf the Mounted Police Force of the North West Territory. When the officer in command sent for him he could not be found. But he was found that morning ; and when Private Gcllatly, with a warm hand, touching the glove of " iron and ice " — that, indeed, now, said : " Sergeant Fones, you are promoted, God help you I" he gave no sign. Motionless, stern, erect, he sat there upon his horse, beside a stunted larch tree. The broncho seemed to understand, for he did not stir, and had not done so for hours ; — thev could tell that. The bridle rein was still in the frigid fingers, and a smile was upon the face. A smile upon the face of Sergeant Fones. I i :• ;ign. )rse, to so was the THE I'ATKUL Oh THE CVI'KESS HIl.LS. 23 I'crhaps he smiled that he was going to the Barracks of the Free. ''Free amoii^ the Dead like unto them that are wounied and lie in the grave ^ that are out of remem- brance !* In the wild night he had lost his way, though but a few miles from the barracks. He had done hi^ duty rigidly in that sphere o'' life where he had lived so much alone among his many comrades. Had he exceeded his duty once in arrest- ing Young Aleck ? When, the next day, Sergeant Fones lay in the barracks, over him the flag for which he had sworn to do honest service, and his promotion papers in his quiet hand, the two who loved each other stood beside him for many a throbbing minute. And one said to herself, silently : " I felt sometimes " — but no more words did she say even to herself. Old Aleck came in, and walked to where the Sergeant slept, wrapped close in that white frosted coverlet which man wears but once. He stood for a moment silent, his fingers numbly clasped. Private Gellatly spoke softly: "Angels betide me, it's little we knew the great of him till he wint away ; the pride, and the law, — and the love of him." In the tragedy that faced them this Christmas morning one at least had seen " the love of him." Perhaps the broncho had known it before. Old Aleck laid a palm upon the hand he had never touched when it had life. " He's — too — ha'sh/' he said slowly. Private Gellatly looked up wonderingly. But the old man's eyes were wet (5oVe Garriooiu ! I Twenty years ai^o there was trouble at Fort o' God. "Out of this [)l;ice wc get betwixt the suus," said Gyng the Factor. " No help that falls abaft to- morrow could save us. Food dwindles, and ammuni- tion's nearly gone, and they'll have the cold steel in our scalp-locks if we stay. We'll creep along the Devil's Causeway, then through the Red Horn Woods, and so across the plains to Rupert House. Whip in the dogs, Baptiste, and be ready all of you at midnight." "And Grab the Idiot — what of him?" said Pretty Pierre. " He'll have to take his chance. If ht can travel with us, so much the better for him ; " and the Factor shrugged his shoulders. "If not, so much the worse, eh?" replied Pretty Pierre. "Work the sum out to suit yourself. We've got our necks to save. God'll have to help the Idiot if we can't." "You hear, Grab Hamon, Idiot," said Pierre an hour afterwards, " we're going to leave Fort o' God and make for Rupert House. You've a dragging leg, you're gone in the savvey, you have to balance your- self with your hands as you waddle along, and you slobber when you talk ; but you've got to cut away 24. .1 GODS GARRISON. as itty )tif an rod lur- ''OU fay with us quick across the Beaver IMains, antl Christ'li have to lielp )'ou if we can't. That's what the b'actor says, and that's how the case stands, Idiot — bien ?" "Grab want pi}3e -babble — bubble — wind blow/ muttered the dale one. Pretty Pierre bent over and said slowly: "If you stay here, Grah, the Indian get your scalp; if you fjo, the snow is deep and the Irost is like a badger's tooih and you can't be carried." " Oh, Oh! — my mother dead — poor Annie — by God ! Grah want pipe — poor Grah sleep in snuw — butoic, bubble — Oh, Oh ! — the longf wind, fly away." Pretty Pierre watched the great head of the Idio*. as it swung heavily on his shouldjrs, and then said ; " Mais, like th^t, so !" and turned away. When the party were about to sally forth on their perilous path to safety, Gyng stood and cried angrily: "Well, whv hasn't some one bundled u]' that moth-eaten Caliban ? Curse it all, must I dc everything myself?" •' But you see," said Pierre, **the Caliban stays at Fort o' God." *' You've got a Christian heart in you, so he!p me, Heaven !" re}>h>d the i>thcr. '* No, sir, we give lilm «• chance, — and his Maker too for that maticr, to shr>v what He's willing to do for His misfits." Pretty Pierre rejoined : " Well, I have thought The game is all agnmst Grah if he go ; but there arc two who stay at Fort o' God." And that is how, when the Factor and his h.iif- breeds and trap^jers stole away in silence towards the Devil's Causeway, Pierre anl the 1- iot rcn..»i;\cd be- hind. And that is why the flag of the H. B. C. still J 26 PIERRE AND HTS PEOPLE. flew above Fort o' God in the New Year's sun just twenty years ago to-day. The Hudson's Bay Company had never done a worse day's work than when they promoted Gyng to be chief factor. He loathed the heathen, and he showed his loathing. He bad a heart harder than iron, a speech that bruised worse than the hoof of an anjrry moose. And when at last he drove away a band of wandering Sioux, food! ess, from the stores, siege and ambush took the place of prayer, and a nasty portion feii to Fort o' God. For the Indians found a great cache of buffalo meat, and, having sent the women and children south with the old men, gave constant and biting a-surances to Gyng that the heathen hath his hour, even though he be a dog which is refused thase scraps from the white man's table that make for life in the hour of need. Besides all else, there was in the Fort the thing which the gods made last to humble the pride of men — there was rum. And the morning after Gyng and his men had der ^rted, because it was a day when frost was master of the sun, and men grew wild for action, since to stand still was to face indignant Death, they, who camped without, prepared to make a sally upon the wooden gates. Pierre saw their intent, and hid in the ground some pemmican and all the scanty rum. Then he looked at his powder and shot, and saw that there was little left. If he spent it on the besiegers, how should they fare for beast and fowl in hungry days ? And for his rifle he had but a brace of bullets. He rolled these in his hand, looking upon them with a grim smile. And the Idiot, seeing, rose 1" GODS GARRISON. 27 s, n e ind sidled towards him, and said : " Poor Grab want pipe — bubble — bubble." Then a light of childish cunning came into his eyes, and he touched the bullets blunderingly, and continued: " Plenty, plenty b'longs Grah — give poor Grab pipe — plenty, plenty, give you these." And Pretty Pierre after a moment replied : " So that's it, Grah ? — you've got bullets stowed away ? Well, I must have them. It's a one-sided game in which you get the tricks ; but here's the pipe, Idiot— my only pipe for your dribbling mouth — my last good comrade. Now show me the bullets. Take me to them, daft one, quick." A little later the Idiot sat inside the store wrapped in loose furs, and blowing bubbles ; while Pretty Pierre, with many handfuls of bullets by him, waited for the attack. " Eh," he said, as he watched from a loophole, " Gyng and the others have got safely past the Causeway, and the rest is possible. Well, it hurts an idiot as much to die, perhaps, as a half-breed or a factor. It is good to stay here. If we fight, and go out swift like Grab's bubbles, it is the game. If we starve and sleep as did Grab's mother, then it also is the game. It is great to have all the chances against and then to win. We shall see." With a sharp relish in his eye be watched the enemy coming slowly forward. Yet he talked almost idly to himself: " I have a thought of so long ago. A woman — she was a mother, and it was on the Madawaska River, and she said : * Sometimes I think a devil was your father ; an angel sometimes. You were begot in an hour between a fighting and a ^ I 28 PIERRF AND HIS PEOPLE. mass : between blood and heaven. And when you were born you made no cry. 'Ihey said that was w si[^m of evil. You refused ihe bn ast, and drank only of the milk of wild cattle. In baptism you flun^ your ha'^d before your face that the watf.'r mi^ht not touch, nor the jjriest's finder make a cross upon the water. And th;.y said it were better if y A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. om a Man's jrouck cthinj; :d her. ck s;it ethin^ to me ; is wife . She lake it ed m} ver, tc nd was •se, not 'cd out atively lat my But o me. Not way of life up len he g and ti^er- onder- \ 3V i I I M ful stuff about moose-hunt in!:;, ///^ sport of Canada. This made nic itch like sin, just to ^et my fingers on a trigger, with a full moose-yard in view. I can feci it now -the bound in the bio .d as I caught at .Malbrouck's arm and said: ' By George, I must kill moose; that's sport for Vikiofys, and I was meant to be a Viking — or a glad :^t(>r.' Malbrou "k at once replied thar he would give me some moose-hunting in December if I would come up to Marigold Lake. I couldn't exactly reply on the instatU, because, 3 ou see, there wasn't much chance for board and lodging thereabouts, unless — but he went on to say tnat I should make his hou my ' public,' — perhaps he didn't say it quite in those terms, — that he and his wife would be glad to have me. With a couple of Indians wc could go north-west, where the moose- yards were, and have some sport both exciting and prodigious. Well, I'm a mi ff, I know, but I didn't refuse that Besides, I began to see the safe side of the bet I had made with my aunt, the dowager, and I was more than pleased with what had come to pass so far. Lucky for you, too, you yarn- spinner, that the thing did develop so, or you wouldn't be getting fame and shekels out of the results of my story. " Well, I got one thing out of the night's experience ; and it was that the Malbroucks were no plebs. , tiia^ they had had their day where plates are blue and gold and the spoons are solid coin, But what had sent them up here among the moose, the Indians, and the conies — whatever they are ? How should I get at it? Insolence, you say ? Yes, that. I should come up here in December, and I should mulct my aunt in the N IH 40 PI£irehen- er and Deople Drouck iccess- ious ;. :d his fore- closure of nnortcraci^e occurred, and Malbrouck and the wife and child went west. " Five \ears after, Pretty Pierre saw them again at Marigold Lake : Malbrouck as agent for the Hudson's Bay Compan)' — still poor, but contented. It was at this period that the former visitor again appeared, clothed in purple and fine linen, and, strange as it may seem, succeeded in carrying off the little child, leaving the father and mother broken, but still de- voted to each other. " Pretty Pierre closed his narration with these words : ' Bien, that Malbrouck, he is great. I have not much love of men, but he — well, if he say, — " See, Pierre, I go to the home of the white bear and the winter that never ends ; perhaps we come back, perhaps we die ; but there will be sport for men — " Voila ! I would go To know one strong man in this world is good. Perhaps, some time I will go to him — yes. Pretty Pierre, the gambler, will go to him, and say : It is good ^or the wild dog that he live near the lion. And the child, she was beautiful ; she had a light heart and .1 sweet way.' " It was with this slight knowledge that Gregory Thome set out on his journey over the great Canadian prairie to Marigold Lake, for his December moose- hunt. Gregory has since told me that, as he travelled with Jacques Pontiac across the Height 01 Land to his destination, he had uncomfortable feelings ; pre- sentiments, peculiar reflections of the past, and melancholy — a thing far from habitual with him. Insolence is all very well, but you cannot apply it to indefinite thoughts ; it isn't effective with vague pre- m 44 PILRRE AND HIS PEOPLE. sentiments. And when Gregory's insolence was taken away fronm him, he was very like other mortals ; virtue had gone out of him ; his brown cheek and frank eye had lost something of their charm. It was these unusual broodings that worried him ; he waked up suddenly one night calling, "Margaret! Margaret!" like any childlike lover. And that did not please him. lie believed in things that, as he said himself, "he could get between his fingers;" he had little sympathy with morbid sentimentalities. But there was an English Margaret in his life; and he, like many another childlike man, had fallen in love, and with her — very much in love indeed ; and a star had crossed his love to a degree that greatly shocked him and pleased the girl's relatives. She was the grand- daughter of a certain haughty dame of high degree, who regarded icily this poorest of younger sons, and held her darling aloof. Gregory, very like a blunt unreasoning lover, sought to carry the redoubt by wild assault ; and was overwhelmingly routed. The young lady, though finding some avowed pleasure in his company, accompanied by brilliant misunder- standing of his advances and full-front speeches, had never g van him enough encouragement to warrant his play-ng young Lochinvar in Park Lane ; and his cup became full when, at the close of the season, she was whisked off to the seclusion of a country-seat, whose walls to him were impregnable. His defeat was then, and afterwards, complete. He pluckily replied to the derision of his relatives with multiplied derision, demanded his inheritance, got his traps to- gether, bought a fur coat, and straightway sailed the wintry seas to Canada. i A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 45 His experiences had not soured his temper. He believed that every dog has his day, and that Fate was very malicious ; that it brought down the proud, and rewarded the patient ; that it took up its abode in marble halls, and was the mocker at the feast. All this had reference, of course, to the time when he should — rich as any nabob — return to London, and be victorious over his enemy in Park Lane. It was singular that he believed this thing would occur ; but he did. He had not yet made his for- tune, but he had been successful in the game of buying and selling lands, and luck seemed to dog his path. He was fearless, and he had a keen eye for all the points of every game — every game but love. Yet he was born to succeed in that game too. For though his theory was, that everything should be treat- ed with impertinence before you could get a proper view of it, he was markedly respectful to people. No one could resist him ; his impudence of ideas was so pleasantly mixed with delicately suggested ad- miration of those to whom he talked. It was impos- sible that John Malbrouck and his wife could have received him other than they did ; his was the eloquent, conquering spirit. II. By the time he reached Lake Marigold he had shaken off all those hovering fancies of the woods, which, after all, might only have been the whisperings of t'lose friendly and far-seeing spirits who liked the n ■i 46 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. lad as he journeyed through their lonely pleasure grounds. John Malbrouck greeted him with quiet cordiality, and Mrs. Malbrouck smiled upon him with a different smile from that with which she had speeded him a month before ; there was in it a new- light of knowledge, and Gregory could not under- stand it. It struck him as singular that the lad)- should be dressed in finer garments than she wore when he last her ; though certainly her purple became her. She wore it as if born to it ; and with an air more sedately courteous than he had ever seen, save at one house in Park Lane. Had this rustle of fine trappings been made for him? No; the woman had a mind above such snobbishness, he thought. He suffered for a moment the pang of a cynical idea , but the eyes of Mrs. Malbrouck were on him and he knew that he was a; nothing be- fore her. Her eyes — how the\' were fixed upon him! Only two -^vomen had looked so truthfully at him before; his dead mother and — Margaret And Margaret! why, how sjangely now at this instant came the thought that she was like his Margaret! Wonder sprang to his eyes. At that moment a door opened and a girl entered the room — a girl lissome, sweet-faced, well-bred of manner, who came slowly towards them. " My daughter, Mr. Thorne," the mother briefly remarked. There was no surprise in the girl's face, only an even reserve of pleasure, as she held out her hand and said : " Mr. Gregory Thorne and I are old enemies." Gregory Thome's nerve forsook him for an instant. He knew now the reason of his vague presentiments in the woods ; he understood why, one A HAZARD OK THE NORTH. 47 •leasure ih quiet im witli she had t a new under- he lad)- le wore purple nd with id ever :ad this Mo; the less, he ng of a ck were ng be- i upon ithfully irgaret. ^t this Ke his it that room lanner, Driefly s face, ut her re old im for vague , one night, when he had been more cliildlike than usual in his memory of the one woman who could make life joyous for him, the voice of a I'ovdjreur, not Jacques's nor that of anyone in camp, sani; : ** My dear love, she waits for me, None other my world is adorning; My true love I come to thee, My dear, the white star of the morning- Eagles spread out your wings,— Behold where the red dawn is breaking I Hark, 'tis my darlin.; sings. The flowers, the song-birds awaking See, where she comes to me, My love, ah, my dear love 1" And here she was. He raised her hand to his lips, and said : " Miss Carley — Miss Margaret, you have your enemy at an advmtage." "Miss Carley in Park Lane, Margaret Malbrouck here in my old home," she replied. There ran swiftiy through the young man's brain the brief story that Pretty Pierre had told him. This, then, was the child who had been carried away, and who, years after, had made captive his heart in London town ! Well, one thing was clear, the girl's mother here seemed inclined to be kinder to him than was the guardian grandmother — if she was the grand- mother — because they had their first talk undisturb- ed, it may be encouraged ; amiable mothers do such deeds at times. "And now pray, Mr. Thorne," she continued, " may I ask how came you here in my father's house after having treated me so cavalierly in London ? — not even Iii *» 4S PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. sendin*^ a P. P. C. when you vanished from ;/our worshippers in Vanity Fair." " As for my being here, it is simply a case of blind fate ; as for my friends, the only one I wanted to be sorry for my going was behind earthworks which I could not scale in order to leave my card, or — or any- thing else of more importance ; and being left as it were to the inclemency of a v/inter world, I fled from—" She interrupted him. "What I the conqueror, you, flying from your Moscow ? " He felt rather helpless under her gay raillery; but he said : **Well, I didn't burn my kremiln behind me." "Your kremlin?" ** My ships, then : they — they are just the same," he earnectly pleaded. Foolish youth, to attempt to take such a heart by surprise and storm ! " That is very interesting," she said, ** but hardly wise. To make fortunes and be happy in new countries, one should forget the old ones. Meditation is the enemy of action." "There's one meditation could make me conquer the North Pole, if I could but grasp it definitely." *' Grasp the North Pole ? That would be awkward for your friends and gratifying to your enemies, if one may believe science and history. But, perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor fellow I for my father teiis me you are going over the hills and far away to the moose-yards, How valiant you are, and how quickly you grasp the essentials of fortune-making ! " " Miss Malbrouck, I am in earnest, and I've always been in earnest in one thing at least i came out 1 I A HAZARD OF iilL iNOKlli. 4^ from yout e of blind ited to be s which I r — or any- left as it •Id, I fled leror, you, llery; but f> ne. same," he 3t to take it hardly in new editation iquer the > iwkward es, if one you are her teiis y to the quickly J always me out hcie to maKC money, and I've made some, and shall mnke more ; but just now the moose are as brands for the burning, and I have a gun sulky for want of exercise." " What an elo(]uent warrior-temper! And to whom are your deeds of valour to be dedicated ? Before whom do you intend to lay your trophies of the chase ? " " Before the most provoking but worshipful lady that I know." " Who is tlie sylvan maid ? What princess of the glade has now the homage of your impressionable heart, Mr. Thorne?" And Gregory Thorne, his native insolence standing him in no stead, said very humbly: ** You ate that sylv in maid, that princess — ah, is this fair to me, is it fair, I ask you ? " "You really mean that about the trophies?" she replied. "And shall you return like the mighty khans, with captive tigers arH lions, led by stalwart slaves, in your train, or shall they be captive moose or grizzlies ? " "Grizzlies are not possible here," he said, with cheer- ful seriousness, "but the moose is possible, and more, if you would be kinder — Margaret." ** Your supper, see, is ready," she said. " I venture to hope your appetite has not suffered because of long absence from your friends." Ke coUid only dumbly answer by a protesting motion of the hand, and his smil§ was not remarkably buoyant. The next morning they started on their moose- hunt. Gregory Tiiurne was cast down when he J» 50 PIEUKE AND HIS PEOPLE. crossed the tlircshokl into the winter morning with- out hand-clasp or ^od-spctd from Margaret Mal- brouck ; but Mrs. Malbrouck was there, and Gregory, lookinj;^ into her eyes, thoujiii^lit how good a thing it would be for him, if some such face looked benignly out on him every morning, before he ventured forth into the deceitful day. But what was the use ol wishing? Margaret evidcnily did not care. And though the air was clear . nd the sun shone brightly, he felt there was a cheerless wind blowing on him ; a wind that chilled him ; and he hummed to himself bitterly a song of the voyageurs : ** O, O, the winter wind, the North wind,— My snow-bird, where art thou gone ? O, O, the wailing wind the night wind,— The cold nest; I am alone. O, O, my snow-bird I •* O, O, the waving sky, the white sky,— My snow-bird thou fliest far; O, O, the eagle's cry, the wild cry,— My lost love, my lonely star. O, O, my snow-bird I * He was about to start briskly forward to join Mal- brouck and his Indians, who were already on their way, when he heard his name called, and, turning, he saw Margaret in the doorway, her fingers held to the tips of her ears, as yet unused to the frost. He ran back to where she stood, and held out his hand. " I was afraid," he bluntly said, " that you wouldn't for- sake your morning sleep to say good-bye to me." " It isn't always the custom, is it," she replied, " for ladies to send the very early hunter away with a A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. SI ing with- ret Mal- Grcgory, thing it benignly red forth e use oi re. And brightly, 1 him ; a ) himself oin Mal- on their ning, he d to the He ran nd. " I dn't for- le." ed, « for with a tally-ho ? But since you have the grace to be afraid of anything, I can excuse myself to myself for fleeing the pleasantest dreams to speed you on your warlike path." At this he brightened very much, but she, as if repenting she had given him so much pleasure, added: " I wanted to say good-bye to my father, you know ; and — " she paused. " And ? " he added. " And to tell him that you have fond relatives in the old land who would mourn your early taking off; and, therefore, to beg him, /or their sakes, to keep you safe from any outrageous moose that mightn't know how the world needed you." " But there you are mistaken," he said ; " I haven't anyone who would really care, worse luck ! except the dowager ; and she, perhaps, would be consoled to know that 1 had died in battle, — even with a moose, — and was clear of the possibility of hanging another lost reputation on the family tree, to say nothing of suspension from any other kind of tree. But, if it should be the other way ; if I should see your father in the path of an outrageous moose — what then ? " " My father is a hunter born," she responded ; "he is a great man," she proudly added. " Of course, of course," he replied. " Good-bye. I'll take him your love. — Good-bye ! " and he turned away. " Good-bye," she gaily replied ; and yet, one look- ing closely would have seen that this stalwart fellow was pleasant to her eyes, and as she closed the door to his hand waving farewell to her from the pines, she said, reflecting on his words. ^1 I $« PIKRKK AND HIS I'KOI'LE. "You'll take hini my love, will yiA\? liiit, Mas'ei Grrinjory, you carry a frtit^^ht of which you do not know the measure ; and, perhaps, you never shall, though you are very brave and honest, antl not so impudent as you used to be, — and I'm not so sure that I like you so much better for tJiat either, Monsieur Grej^ory." Then she went and laid her cheek against her mother's, and said : " Thc\''ve gone away for big game, mother dear ; what siiall be our quarry?" " My child," the motlicr replied, " the story of our lives since last you were with mc is my only quarry. I want to know from your own lips all that you have been in that life which once was mine also, but far away from me now, even thou';h you come from it, bringing its memories without its messaj^es." " Dear, do you tiiink that life there was so sweet to me? It meatit as little to }our daughter as to you. She was always a child of the wild woods. What rustle of pretty gowns is pleasant as the silken shiver of the maple leaves in summer at this door? The happiest time in that life was when we got away to Holwood or Marchurst, with the balls and calls all over." Mrs. Malbrouck smoothed her daughter's hand gently and smiled approvingly. "But that old life of yours, mother; what was it? You said that you would tell me some day. Tell me now. Grandmother was fond of me — poor grand- mother ! But she would never tell me anything How I longed to be back with you ! . . . Sometimes you came to me in my sleep, and called to me to come with you ; and then again, when I was gay in I :l A HAZARD OF THE NOKTII. 53 loor ? s it? 1 me and- King imes e to ly in it tlio sunshine, you came, aiul only smiled but never beckoned ; tlioui;!! your eyes seemed to me very sad, and I wondered if mine would not also become sad throuL^h looking in them so — arc they sad, mother?" And she laughed up brightly into her mother's face. " No, dear ; they are like the stars. You ask me for my part in that lite. 1 will tell you soon, but not now. \\(i i)atient. Do >'ou not tire of this lonely life? Are you truly not anxious to return to — " " ' To the husks that the swine did eat? ' No, no, no ; for, see : I was horn for a free, strong life ; the prairie or the wild wood, or else to live in some far castle in Welsh mountains, where I should never hear the voice of the social 7hon must ! — oh, what a must! never to be quite free or natural. To be the slave of the c(Kie. I was born — I know not how 1 but so longing for the sky, and space, and endless woods. I think I never saw an animal but I loved it, nor ever louncred the mornings out at llolwood but I wished it were a hut on the mountain side, and you and father with me." Mere she whispered, in a kind of awe : " And yet to think that Holwood is now mine, and that I am mistress there, and that I must go back to it— if only you would go back with me . . . ah, dear, isn't it your duty to go back with me?" she added, hesitatingly. Audrey Malbrouck drew her daughter hungrily to her bosom, and said : " Yes, dear, I will go back, if it chances that you need me ; but your father and I have lived the best days of our lives here, and we are content. But, my Margaret, there is another to be thought of too, is there not ? And in that Cc^^e is my duty then so clear ? " €^- 54 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. The girl's hand closed on her mother's, and she knew her heart had been truly read. III. The hunters pursued their way, swin^^ing grandly aiong on their snow-shoes, as they made for the Wild Hawk Woods. It would seem as if Malbrouck was testing Gregory's strength and stride, for the march that day was a long and hard one. He was equal to the test, and even Big Moccasin, the chief, grunted sound approval. But every day brought out new capacities for endurance and larger resources; so that Malbrouck, who had known the clash of civilisation with barbarian battle, an-^I deeds both dour and doughty, and who loved a man of might, regarded this youth with increasing favour. By simple pro- cesses he drew from Gregory his aims snd ambitions, and found the real courage and power behind the front of irony — the language of manhood and culture which was crusted by free and easy idioms. Nov^ and then they saw moose-tracks, but they were some days out before they came to a moose-yard — a spot hoof-beaten by the moose ; his home, from which he strays, and to which he returns at times like a repentant prodigal. Now the sport began. fhe dog-trains were put out of view, and Big Moccasin and another Indian went off immediately to explore the country round about. A few hours, and word was brought that there was a small herd feeding not far away. Together they crept stealthily within range of the cattle. Gregory Thome's blood leaped as he saw the noble quarry, with their widespread •I u A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 55 horns, sniffing the air, in which they had detected something unusual. Their leader, a colossal beast, stamped with his forefoot, and threw his head back with a snort. " The first shot belongs to you, Mr. Thorne," said Malbrouck. " In the shoulder, you know. You have him in good line. I'll take the heifer." Gregory showed all the coolness of an old hunter, though his lips twitched slightly with excitement. He took a short but steady aim, and fired. The beast plunged forward and then fell on his knees. The others broke away. Malbrouck fired and killed a heifer, and then all ran in pursuit as the moose made for the woods. Gregory, in the pride of his first slaugiiter, sprang away towards the wounded leader, which, sunk to the earth, was shaking its great horns to and fro. When at close range, he raised his gun to fire again, but the moose rose sucideily, and with a wild bellowing sound rushed at Gregory, who knew full well that a straight stroke from those hoofs would end his moose- hunting days. He fired, but to no effect. He could not, like a toreador, jump aside, for those mighty horns would sweep too wide a space. He dropped on his knees swiftly, and as the great antlers almost touched him, and he could feel the roaring breath of the mad creature in his face, he slipped a cartridge in, and fired as he swurig round ; but at that instant a dark body bore him down. He was aware of grasping those sweeping horns, conscious of a blow which tore the flesh from his chest ; and then his knife — how came it in his hand ? — the instinct of the true hunter. He plunged it oi;::"; twice, past a foaming I m 56 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. mouth, into that firm body, and then both fell to- gether ; each having fou^i^ht valiantly after his kind. Gregory dragc^ed himself from beneath the still heaving body, and stretched to his feet; but a blindness came, and the next knowledge he had was of brandy being poured slowly between his teeth, and of a voice coming through endless distances : " A fighter, a born fighter," it said. " The pluck of Lucifer — good boy ! '* Then the voice left those humming spaces of infinity, and said : " Tilt him this way a little, Big Moc- casin. There, press firmly, so. Now the band steady — together — tighter — now the withes — a little higher up — cut them here.** There was a slight pause, and then : " There, that's as good as an army surgeon could do it. He'll be as sound as a bell in two weeks. Eh, well, how do you feel now ? Better ? That's right ! Like to be on your feet, would you ? Wait. Here, a sup of this. There you are . . . Well ? " *' Well/' said the young man, faintly, " he was a beauty." Malbrouck looked at him a moment, thoughtfully, and then said : " Yes, he was a beauty." " I want a dozen more like him, and then I shall be able to drop 'em as neat as you do." " H'm ! the order is large. I'm afraid we shall have to fill it at some other time;" and he smiled a little grimly. "What! only one moose to take back to the Height of Land, to — " something in the eye of the other stopped him. "To ? Yes, to ? " and now the eye had a suggestion of humour. " To show I'm not a tenderfoot." f ' t hi ^1 A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 57 i "Yes, to show you're not a tenderfoot. I fancy that will be hardly necessary. Oh, you will be up, eh ? Well ! " " Well, I'm a tottering imbecile. What's the matter with my le^s ? — my prophetic soul ! it hurts ! Oh, I see ; that's where the old warrior's hoof caught me sideways. Now, I'll tell you what, I'm going to have another moose to take back to Marigold Lake." « Oh ? " " Yes. I'm going to take back a young, live moose." "A significant ambition. For what ?— a sacrifice to the gods you have offended in your classic existence ? " " Both. A peace-offering, and a sacrifice to — a goddess." " Young man," said the other, the light of a smile playing on his lips, " * Prosperity be thy page ! ' Big Moccasin, what of this young live moose ? '* The Indian shook his head doubtfully. " But I tell you I shall have that live moose, if I have to stay here to see it grow." And Malbrouck liked his pluck, and wished him good luck. ^ And the good luck came. They travelled back slowly to the Height of Land, making a circuit. For a week they saw no more moose ; but meanwhile Gregory's hurt quickly healed. They had now left only eight days in which to get back to Dog Ear River and Marigold Lake. If the young moose was to come it must come soon. It came soon. They chanced upon a moose-yard, and while the Indians were beating the woods, Malbrouck nd Gregory watched. Soon a cow and a young moose came swing: nc f i 5« PIERRF. AND HIS PEOPLE. down to the embankment. Malbrouck whispered : " Now if you must have your live moose, here's a lasso. I'll brini^ down the cow. The young one's horns are not large. Remember, no pulling. I'll do that. Kce[) your broken chest and bad arm safe. Now!" Down came the cow with a plunge into the yard — dead. The lasso, too, was over the horns of the calf, and in an instant Malbrouck was swinging away with it over the snow. It was making for the trees — exactly what Malbrouck desired. He deftly threw the rope round a sapling, but not too taut, lest the moose's horns should be injured. The plucky animal now turned on him. He sprang behind a tree, and at that instant he heard the thud of hoofs behind him. He turned to see a huge bull-moose bounding towards him. He was between two fires, and quite unarmed. Those hoofs had murder in them. But at the instant a rifle shot rang out, and he only caught the forward rush of the antlers as the beast fell. The young moose now had ceased its struggles, and came forward to the deaci bull with that hollow sound of mourning peculiar to its kind. Though it afterwards struggled once or twice to be free, it be- came docile and was easily taught, when its anger and fear were over. And Gregory Thorne had his live moose. He had also, by that splendid shot, achieved with one arm, saved Malbrouck from peril, perhaps from death. They drew up before the house at Marigold Lake on the afternoon of the day before Christmas, a triumphal procession. The moose was driven, a peaceful captive with a wreath of cedar leaves around % -}'i A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 59 i-- I its neck — the humorous conception of Gregory Thorne. Malbrouck had announced their coming by a blast from his horn, and Margaret was standing in the doorway wrapped in furs, which may have come originally from Hudson's Bay, but which had been deftly re-manufactured in Regent Street. Astonishment, pleasure, beamed in her eyes. She clapped her hands gaily, and cried : " Welcome, welcome, merry-men all!" She kissed her father; she called to her mother to come and see ; then she said to Gregory, with arch raillery, as she held out her hand : " Oh, companion of hunters, comest thou like Jacques in Arden from dropping the trustful tear upon the prey of others, or bringest thou quarry of thine own ? Art thou a warrior sated with spoil, master of the sports, spectator of the fight, Prince, or Pistol ? Answer, what art thou ? " And he, with a touch of his old insolence, though with something of sad irony too, for he had hoped for a different fashion of greeting, said : " All, lady, all ! The Olympian all ! The player of many parts. I am Touchstone, Jacques, and yet Orlando too." " And yet Orlando too, my daughter," said Mal- brouck, gravely ; " he saved your father from the hoofs of a moose bent on sacrifice. Kad your father his eye, his nerve, his power to shoot with one arm a bull moose at long range, so ! — he would not refuse to be called a great hunter, but wear the title gladly." Margaret Malbiouck's face became anxious in- stantly. *' He saved you from danger — from injury, father?" she slowly said, and looked earnestly at Gregory ; " but why to shoot with one arm only ? *' I 60 PIERRF ANT) HIS PEOPLE. " Because in a fij^ht of his own with a moose — a hand-to-hand figlit — he had a bad moment with the hoofs of the beast." And this youni^ man, who had a reputation for insolence, blusiicd, so that the paleness which the girl now noticed in his face was banished; and to turn the subject he interposed : " Here is the live moose that I said I should brin^. Now say that he's a beauty, please. Your father and I—" But Majbrouck interrupted : " He lassoed it with liis one arm, Margaret. He was determined to do it himself, because, being a superstitious gentleman, as well as a hunter, he had some foolish notion that this capture would propitiate a goddess whom he imagined required offerings of the kind." " It is the privilege of the gods to be merciful," she said. " This peace-offering should propitiate the angriest, cruellest goddess in the universe ; and lor one who was neither angr)- nor really cruel — well, sl.c should be satisfied . . . aliogetiier satisfied," she addeti, as she put her cheek against the warm fur of the captive's neck, and let it feel her hand with its hps. There was silence for a minute, and then with his old gay si)irit all returned, and as if to give an air not too serious to the situation, Gregory, remembering his Euripides, said : " let the steer bleed, And the rich altars, as they pay their vows, Breathe incense to the j^ods : for me, I rise To better life, and grateful own the blessin^^." " A pagan thought lor a Christmas Eve," she said A HAZARD OF THK NORTH. 61 oose — a /ith the tion for ich the to turn d brtn^. ' father it. He Deing a he had :)pitiate ings of il," she te the nd lor ell, slic added, of the I'ps. th his lir not bering f 2 said to him, with lier fin<^ers feeling for the folds of silken flesh in the throat of the moose ; " but wounded men must be humoured. And, mother dear, here are our Ar£,^onauts returned ; and — and now I think I will go." With a quick kiss on her father's cheek — not so quick but he taught the tear that ran through her happy smile — she vanished into the house. That night there was gladness in tiiis home. Mirth sprang to the lips of the men like foam on a beaker of wine, so thnt the evening ran towards midnight swiftly. All tiie tale of the hunt was given by Mal- brouck to joyful ears ; for the mother lived again her youth in the sunrise of this romance which was being sjjed before her eyes ; and the iather, knowing that in this world there is nothing so good as courage, nothing so base as the shifting eye, looked on the young man, and was satisricd, and told his story well ; — told it as a brave man would tell it, bluntly as to deeds done, warmly as to the pleasures of good sport, directly as to all. In the eye of the young man there had come the glance of larger life, of a new-developed manhood. Whrn he felt that dun body crashing on him, and his life closing with its strength, and ran the good knife home, there flashed through his mind how much life meant to the dying, how much it ought to mean to the living and then this girl, this Margaret, swam betore his eyes- — and he had been graver since. He knew, as truly as if she had told him, that she could never mate with any man who was a loiterer on God's highway, who could live life without some sincerity in his aims. It all came to him a^ain in this room, so austere in its appointments, yet so I I I 1} ■ ' k 62 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. gracious, so full of the spirit of humanity witliout a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds. As this thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the father and mother, and the memory of his boast carr. ba^ -t. at he would win the stake he laid, to know w... ;-i.<;ry' of John and Audrey Mal- brouck before tiiis c >iiiin^^ <^hristmas morning. With a faint smile at his own past insolent self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. " I have lost my bet," he unconsciously said aloud. He was roused by John Malbrouck rer» irking : " Yes, you have lost your bet ? Well, what was it ? " The youth, the childlike quality in him, flushed his face deeply, and then, with a sudden burst of frank- ness, he said : " I did not know that I ha ' spoken. As for the bet, I deserve to be thrashed for ever having made it ; but, duffer as I am, I want yon to know that I'm something worse than duffer. The first time I met you I made a bet that I should know your history before Christmas Day. I haven't a word to say foi m)'self. I'm contemptible, i beg your pardon ; for your history is none of my business. I was really inter^-jLed ; that's all ; but your lives, I believe it, as if it was in the Bible, have been great — yes, that's the word ! and I'm a better chap for having known you, though, perhaps, I've known you all along, because, you see, I've lo — I've been friends with your daughter — and — well, really I haven't anything else to say, except that I hope you'll forgive me, and let me know you always." Malbrouck regarded him for a moment with a grave smile, and then looked toward his wife. Both turned A HA/ARO 01? iiiE .NUKTil. their glances quickly upon ^^^argaret, whose eyes were gent) e; on tne tire ; tne look upon ner face was very something new and beautiful had come to reign there. A mr Ticui, and Malbrouck spoke: "You did what was youthful and curious, but not wrong ; and you shall not lose your hazard. I — " " No, do not tell me," Gregory interrupted ; " only let me be pardoned." "As I said, lad, you shall not lose your hazd*^a. l will tell you the brief tale of two lives." "But, I beg of you! For the instant I fo.g(^<- I have more to confess." And Gregory told '^hem in sub-stance what Pretty Pierre had disclosed Iv .i'm in the Rocky Mountains. When he had finished, Malbrouck said : " My tale then is briefer still : I was a common soldier, English and humble by my mother, French and noble through my father — noble, but poor. In Burmah, at an out- break among the natives, I rescued my colonel from immediate and horrible death, though he died in my arms from the injuries he received. His daughter too, it was my fortune, through God's Providence, to save from great danger. She became my wife. You remember that song you sang the day we first met you? It brought her father back to mind painfully. ^\ hen we came to England her people — her mother — would not receive me. For myself I did not care ; for my wife, that was another matter. She loved me and preferred to go with me anywhere ; to a new country, preferably. We came to Canada. " We were forgotten in England. Time moves so fast, even if the records in red-books stand. Our daughter went to her grandmother to be brought up 64 FIKKKK AND HIS I'K> )1'LE. .nd educated in Kni^^land — thouL^h it was a sore trial to us both — that she mi^ht fill nobly that place in life for which she is destined. VV^ith all she learned she did not forget us. We were happy save in her absence. We are happy now ; not because she is mistress of HoKvood and Marchurst — for her grand- mother and another is dead — but because such as she is our daughter, and — " He said no more. Margaret was beside him, and her fingers were on his li[)s. Gregory came to his feet suddenly, and with a troubled face. "Mistress of Holwood and Marchurst!" he said; and his mind ran over his own great deficiencies, and the list of eligible and anxious suitors that Park Lane could muster. He had never thought of her in the light of a great heiress. But he looked down at her as she knelt at her father's knee, her eyes upairned to his, and the tide of his fear retreated ; for he saw in them the same look that she had cist on him, when she leaned her cheek agb.inst the moose's neck that aitcrnooii. When the clock struck ' welve upon a moment's pleasant silence, John Aiiiibrouck said to Gregory Thorn? : "Yes, you have won your Christmas hazard, my boy." But a softer voxe tnan his whispered : ** Are you — content — Gregory ? " The Spirits of Christmas-tide, whose paths lie north as well as south, smiled as they wrote his answer on their tablets ; for they knew, as the man said, that he would always be content, and — which is more in the sight of ari<>els — that the woman would be content also. H pratric IDaoabon^ Little Hammer was not a success. He was a dis- appointment to the missionaries; the officials of the Hudson's liay Company said he was "no g-^od ;" the Mounted Police kept an eye on him ; the Crces and Blackfeet would have nothing to do with him ; and the half-breeds were profane regarding him. But Little Hammer was oblivious to any depreciation of his merits, and would not be suppressed. He loved the Hudson's Bay Company's Post at Yellow Quill with an unwavering love ; he ranged the half-breed hospitality of Red Deer River, regardless of it being chrown at him as he in turn threw it at his dog ; he saluted Sergeant Gellatly with a familiar How! v/henever he saw him ; he borrowed tabac of the half- breed women, and, strange to say, paid it back — with other tabac got by daily petition, until his prayer was granted, at the H. B. C. Post. He knew neither shame nor defeat, but where women were concerned he kept his word, and was singularly humble. It was a woman that induced him to be baptised. The day after the ceremony he begged "the loan of a dollar for the love of God " from the missionary ; and being refused, straightway, and for the only time it was known of him, delivered a rumbling torrent of half- breed prolanity, mixed with the unusual oaths of the barracks. Then he walked away with great humility. 66 PIERRE AND HIS TKOPLE. 1 f. I There was no swaj^jrcr rbout Little Hammer. He was simply unquenchable and continuous. He some- times jTot drunk ; but on such occasions he sat down, or lay down, in the most convenient place, and, like C.'t'sar besiilc Pompey's statue, wrapped his mantle about his face and forgot the world. He was a vaga- bond Indian, abandoned yet self-contained, outcast yet (^rc:;rtrious. No social ostracism unnerved him, no threats of the H. H. C. officials moved him ; and when in the winter of 187 — he was driven from one place to another, starving and homeless, and c.une at last emaciated and nearly dead to the Post at Yellow Quill, he asked for f(?od and shelter as if it were his ri<;.it, and not as a mendicant. One nif^ht, shortly after his reception and restora- tion, he was sitting in the store silently smoking the Company's tabac. Sergeant Gellatly entered. Little Hammer rose, offered his hand, and muttered, ^^IIoivV The Sergeant thrust his hand aside, and said sharply: " VVMnn I take y'r hand, Little Hammer, it'll be to put a grip an y'r wrists that'll stay there till y'are in quarters out of which y'll come nayther winter nor summer. Put that in y'r pipe and smoke it, y* scamp 1" Little Hammer had a bad time at the Post that nieht. Lounii-inof half-breeds reviled him; the H. B.C. officials rebuked him ; and travellers who were coming and going sliared in tiie derision, as foolish people do where one is brow-beaten by many. At last a trap- per entered, whom seeing, Little Hammer drew his blanket up about his iiead. The traj per sat down very near Little Hammer, and began to smoke. He laid his plug-tabac and his knife on the counter beside A I'KAIKIb: VAOAUONU. 6? »• him Litth' IlaintiuM rcachod ovor .ukI took the knife, piitlitif^ it svvifll) witliiii his blanket. The trajipcr saw th<' act, and, turning sliai[)lyoti the Indian, called him a tliicf. Little liannncr cluickled strangely and said nothiii;^; but his exes peered sharply above the blanket. A laiij^h went round the store. In an instant the trap[)er, with a loud oath, caught at the Indian's throat ; but as the blanket dropped back he gave a startled cry. There was the flash of a knife, and he fell back dead. LiltK.* I lamnier stood above him, smiling, for a moment, and then, turninj^ to Sergeant GellatK', held out his arms silentlv for the handcuffs. The next day two men were lost on the prairies. One was Scr<;e;int Gellatly ; tlic other was Little Hanuncr. The horses they rode travelled so close that the leg of the Indian crowded the leg of the white man ; and the wilder the storm grew, the closer still they rode. A pondrc day, with its steely air and fatal frost, was an ill thing in the world ; but these entangling blasts, these wild curtains of snow, were desolating even unto d ath. The sun above was smothered ; the earth beneath was trackless ; the compass otood for loss all round. What could Sergeant Gellatly expect, riding with a murderer m his lelt hand : a heathen that had sent a knife throu'j:h the heart of one of the lords of the North ? Wtiat should the gods do but frown, or the elements be at, but howling on their path? What should one hope for but that vengeance should be taken out of the hands of mortals, and be delivered to the angry spirits ? But if the gods were angry at the Indian, why should Sergeant Gellatly only sway to and fro, and iii ? ! iiif 1 - li 'I li I 1 68 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. ;1( ily forward now laugh recklessly, and now trill sleepily lorwai on the neck of his horse ; while the Indian rode slraii^ht, and neither wavered nor wandered in mind, but at last slipped from his horse and walked beside the other? It was at this moment that the soldier heard, "Sergeant Gellatly, Sergeant C-'^llatly," called through the blast ; and he thought it came from the skies, or from some other world. "Me darlin','* he said, "have y' come to me?" But the voice called again : " Sergeant GelLitly, keep awake ! keep awake! You sleep, you die; that's it. Holy. Yes. Hozv!" Then he knew that it was Little Hammer calling in his ear, and shaking him ; that the Indian was dragging him from his horse ... his revolver, where was it ? he had forgotten ... he nodded . . . nodded. liut Little Hammer said : " Walk, hell! you walk, yes;" and Little Hammer struck him again and again ; but one arm of the Indian was under his shoulder and around him, and the voice was anxious and kind. Slowly it came to him that Little Hammer was keeping him alive against the will of the spirits — but why should they strike him instead of the Indian ? Was there any sun in the world ? Had there ever been ? or fire or heat anywhere, or anything but wind and snow in all God's universe ? . . . Yes, there v/ere bells ringing — soft bells of a village church; and there was incense burning — most sweet it was ! and the coals in the censer — how beautiful ! how comforting! He laughed with joy again, and he forgot how cold, how maliciously cold, he had been , he forgot how dreadful that hour was before he became warm ; when he was pierced by myriad needles through the body, and there was an incredible aching at his heart. ,.. t''^* A PRAIRIE VAGABOND. 69 « ►-• And yet something kept thundering on his body, and a harsh voice shrieked at him, and there were many hghts dancing over his shut eyes ; and then curtains of darkness were dropped, and centuries of obHvion came, and his eyes opened to a comforting silence, and some one vv?.s putting brandy between his teeth, and after a time he he ird a voice say : " Bien, you see he was a murderer, but he save his captor. Voilh, such a heathen ! But you will, all the same, bring him to justice — you call it that. But we shall see." Then someone replied, and the words passed through an outer web of darkness and an inner haze of dreams. "The feet of Little Hammer were like wood on the floor wlien you brous^dit the two in. Pretty Pierre — and lucky for them you found them. . . . The thing would read right in a book, but it's not according to the run of things up here, not by a damned sight ! " " Private Bradshaw," said the first voice again, "you do not know Little Hammer, nor that story of him. You wait for the trial. I have something to say. You think Little Hammer care for the prison, the rope? — Ah, when a man wait five years to kill — so! and it is done, he is glad sometimes when it is all over. Sergeant Gellatly there will wish he went to sleep forever in the snow, if Little Hammer come to the rope. Yes, I think." And Sergeant Geilatly's brain was so numbed that he did not grasp the m-'aning of the words, though he said them over and over a;.;ain. . . . Was he ilead? No, for his body was beating, beating . . well, it didn't matter . . . nothing m.ittcred ... he was sinking to forgetfulness . . . sinking. I 111: \ 70 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. So, for hours, for weeks — it might have been for years — and then he woke, clear and knowing, to *' the unnatural, intolerable day " — it was that to him, with Little Hammer in prison. It was March when his memory and vigour vanished ; it was May when he grasped the full remembrance of himself, and of that fight for life on the prairie : of the hands that smote him that he should not sleep ; of Little Hammer the slayer, who had driven death back discomfited, and brought his captor safe to where his own captivity and punishment awaited him. When Sergeant Gcllatly appeared in court at the trial he refused to bear witness against Little Hammer. " D* ye think — does wan av y' think — that I'll speak a word agin the man — hay then or no hay then — that pulled me out of me tomb and put me betune the barrack quilts ? Here's the stripes aff me arm, and to gaol I'll go ; but for what wint before I clapt the iron on his wrists, good or avil, divil a word wir I say. An' here's me left hand, and there's me right fut, and an eye of me too, that I'd part with, for the cause of him that's done «i trick that your honour wouldn't do — an' no shame to y' aither — an* y'd been where Little Hammer was with me." His honour did not reply immediately, but he looked meditatively at Little Hammer before he said quietly, — " Perhaps not, perhaps not." And Little Hammer, thinking he was expected to speak, drew his blanket up closely about him and grunted, "How/ " Pretty Pierre, the notorious half-breed, was then called. He kissed the Book, making the sign of the Cross swiftly as he did so, and unheeding the ironical, the A PRAIRIE VAGABOND. 71 if hesitating, laughter -in the court. Then he said : *' Bien, I will tell you the story: the whole truth. I was in the Stony Plains. Little Hammer was 'good Injin ' then. . . . Yes, sacre ! it is a fool who smiles at that. I have kissed the Book. Dam ! . . . He would be chief soon when old Two Tails die. He was proud, then, Little Hammer. He go not to the Post for drink; he sell not next year's furs for this year's rations ; he shoot straight." Here Little Hammer stood up and said : " There is too much talk. Let me be. It is all done. The sun is set — I care not — I have killed him ;" and then he drew his blanket about his face and sat down. But Pierre continued: '* Yes, you killed him — quick, after five years — that is so ; but you will not speak to say why. Then, I will speak. The Injins say Little Hammer will be great man ; he will bring the tribes together ; and all the time Little Hammer wa3 strong and silent and wise. Then Brigley the trapper — well, he was a thief and coward. He come to Little Hammer and say: ' I am hungry and tired.' Little Hammer give him food and sleep. He go away. Bien, he come back and say, — ' It is far to go ; I have no horse.' So Little Hammer give him a horse too. Then he come back once again in the night when Little Hammer was away, and before morning he go; but when Little Hammer return, there lay his bride — only an Injin girl, but his bride — dead! You see ? Eh? No? Well, the Captain at he Post he says it was the same as Lucrece. — I say it was Hke hell. It is not much to kill or to die — that is in the game ; but that other, mon Dieu I Little Hammer, you see how he hide his head : not because I 72 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. he kill the Tarquin, that Brigley, but because he is a poor vaurien now, and he once was happy and had a wife. . . . What would you do, jud^j^e honourable ? . . . Little Hammer, I shake vour hand — so ! — Hoivr But Little Hammer made no reply. The judge sentenced Little Hammer to one month in gaol. He might have made it one thousand months — it would have been the same ; for when, on the last morning of that month, they opened the door to set him free, he was gone ! That is, the Little Hammer whom the high gods knew was gone ; though an Ill-nourished, self-strangled body was up- right by the wall. The vagabond had paid his penalty, but desired no more of earth. Upon the door was scratched the one word : Howl -y w > M f" I Sbe of tbe (Triple Cbcvron. "V Between Archangel's Rise and Paixlon's Drive on the Canadian Prairie there was but one house. It was a tavern, and was known as Galbraith's Place. There was no man in the Western Territories to whom it was not familiar. There was no traveller who crossed the lonely waste but was glad of it, and would go twenty miles out of his way to rest a night on a corn-husk bed that Jen Galbraith's hands had filled, to eat a meal that she had prepared, and to hear Peter Galbraith's talcs of early days on the plains, when buffalo were like clouds on the horizon, when Indians were many and hostile, and when men called the Great North West a wedge of the American desert. It is night on the prairie. Jen Galbraith ands in the doorway of the tavern sitting-room an 1 watches a mighty beacon of flame rising befr her, a Hundred yards away. Every night this b-acon made a circle of light on the prairie, and Galbraith's Place was in the centre of the circle. Summer and winter it burned from dusk to daylight. No hand fed it but that of Nature. It never failed ; it was a cruse that was never empty. Upon Jen Galbraith it had a weird influence. It grew to be to her a kind of spiritual companion, though, perhaps, she would not so have named it This flaming gas, bubbling up 73 :) 74 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. from the depths of the earth on the lonely plains, was to her a mysterious presence grateful to her ; the re- ceiver of her thoughts, the daily necessity ir. her life. It filled her too with a kind of awe ; for, when it burned, she seemed ncjt herself alone, but another self of her whom she could not quite understand. Yet she was no mere dreamer. Upon her practical strength of body and mind had come that rugged poetical sense, which touches all who live the life of mountain and prairie. She showed it in her rpeech ; it had a measured cadence. She expressed it in her body ; it iiad a free and rhythmic move- ment. And not Jc.i alone, but many another dweller on the prairie, looked upon it with a superstitious reverence akin to worship. A blizzard could not quench it. A gale of wind only fed its strength. A rain-storm made a mist about it, in which it was enshrined like a god. Peter Galbraith could not fully understand his daughter's fascination for this Prairie Star, as the North-Western people called it. It was not without its natural influence upon him ; but he regarded it most as a comfortable advertisement, and he lamented every day that this never-failing gas well was not near a large population, and he still its owner. He was one of that large family in the earth who would turn the best things in their lives into merchandise. As it was, it brought much grist to his mill ; for he was not averse to the exercise of the insitmating pleasures of euchre and poker in his tavern ; and the hospitality which ranchmen, cowboys, and travellers sought at his hand was ot'ten prolonged, ?nd remuner- ative to him. 1 1 i 1 SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 75 Pretiy Pierre, who had his patrol as gamester defined, made semi-annual visits to Galbraith's Place. It occurred generally after the rounding-up and branding seasr)ns, when the cowboys and ranch- men were " flush " with money. It was generally conceded that Monsieur Pierre would have made an early excursion to a place where none is ever "ordered up," if he had not been free with the money which he so plentifully won. Card-playing was to him a science and a passion. He loved to win for winnin^^'s sake. After that, money, as he himself put it, was only fit to be spent for the good of the country, and th ' men should earn more. Since he put his philosophy into instant and generous practice, active and deadly prejudice against him did not have lengthened life. The Mounted Police, or as they are more poeti- cally called, the Riders of the Plains, watched Gal- braith's Place, not from any apprehension of violent events, but because Galbraith was suspected of infringing the prevailing law of Prohibition, and because for some years it had been a tradition and a custom to keep an eye on Pierre. As Jen Galbraith stood in the doorway looking ab- stractedly at the beacon, her fingers smoothing her snowy apron the while, she was thinking thus to her- self: " Perhaps father is right. If that Prairie Star were only at Vancouver or Winnipeg instead of here, our Val could be something more than a prairie-rider. He'd have been different if father hadn't started this tavern business. Not that our Val is bad. He isn't; but if he had money ae could buy a rancu,- something.'' 76 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 4 Our Val, as Jen and her father called him, was a lad ol twenty-two, one year younger tlian Jen. He was prairie-rider, cattle-dealer, scout, cowboy, happy- go-lucky vagrant, — a splendid Bohemian of the plains. As Jen said, he was not bad ; but he had a fiery, wandering spirit, touched withal by the sunniest humour. He had never known any curb but Jen's love and care. That had kept him within bounds so far. All men of the prairie spoke well of him. The great new lands have codes and standards of morals quite their own. One enthusiastic admirer of this youth said, in Jen's hearing : " He's a Christian — Val Galbraith!" That was the western way of announc- ing a man as having great civic and social virtues. Perhaps the respect for Val Galbraith was deepened by the fact that there was no broncho or cayuse that he could not tame to the saddle. Jen turned her face from the flame and looked away from the oasis of warmth it made, to where the light shaded away into darkness, a darkness that was unbroken for many a score of miles to the north and west. She sighed deeply and drew herself up with an aggressive n:otion as if she was freeing herself of something. So she was. She was trying to shake ofif a feeling of oppression. Ten minutes ago the gas-lighted house behind her had seemed like a prison. She felt that she must have air, space, and freedom. She would have liked a long ride on the buffalo- track. That, she felt, would clear her mind. She was no romantic creature out of her sphere, no exotic. She was country-born and bred, and her blood had been ciiarged by a prairie ii inct passing through J n SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 77 *>r three generations. She was part of this life Tier mind was free and strontr, and her body w?.s free and healthy. While that freedom and health was genial, it revolted aj^ainst what was gross or irregular. She loved hor.ses and do.!;^s, she liked to take a gun and ride away to the Poplar Hills in search of game, she found pleasure in visiting the Indian Reservation, and talking to Sun-in-the-North. tne only good Indian chief she knew, or that anyone el.se on the prairies knew. She loved all that was strong and untamed, all that was panting with wild and glowing life. Splendidly developed, softly sinewy, warmly bountiful, yet without the least phy.sical over- luxuriance or suggestiveness, Jen, with her tawny hair and dark-brown eyes, was a growth of unre- strained, unconventional, and eloquent life. Like Nature around her, glowing and fresh, yet glowing and hardy. There was, however, just a strain of pensiveness in her, partly owing to the fact that there were no women near her, that she had virtually lived her life as a woman alone. «» II. As she thus looked into the undefined horizon two things were happening : a traveller was approaching Galbraith's Place from a point in that horizon ; and in the house beliind her someone was singing. The traveller sat erect upon his horse. He had not the free and lazy seat of the ordinary prairie-rider. It was a cavalry seat, and a military manner. He be- longed to that handful of men who patrol a frontier of near a thousand miks, and are the security of ■ I If li ! : 'I i I 1 7» PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. peace in three hundred thousand miles of territory — the Riders of the Plains, the North-West Mounted Police. This Rider of the Plains was Scr!:;cant Thomas Gellatly, familiarly known as Ser^i ant Tom. Far away as he was he could see that a woman was standing in the tavern door. lie guessed who it was, and his blood quickened at the guessini^. But rein- ing his horse on the furthest ed^e of the lighted circle, he said, dcbatingly : "I've little lime enough to get to the Rise, and the order was to go through, hand the information to Inspector Jules, anti be back with- in forty-eight hours. Is it flesh and blood they think I am ? Me that's just come back from a journey of a hundred miles, and sent off again hke this with but a taste of sleep and hltle food, and Corporal Byng sittin' there at Fort Desire with a pipe in his mouth and the fat on his back like a porpoise. It's famished I am with hunger, and thirty miles yet to do; and s/ic standin* there with a six month's wel- come in her eye. . . . It's in the interest of Justice if I halt at Galbraith's Place for hc..^.f-an-hour, bedad ! The blackguard hid away there at Soldier's Knee will be arrested all the sconcr ; for horse and man will be able the better to travel. I'm glad it's not me that has to take him whoever he is. It's little I like leadin' a fellow-creature towards the gallows, or puttin' a bullet into him if he won't come. . , . Now what will we do, Larry, me boy ? " — this to the broncho — "Go on without bite or sup, me achin' behind and empty before, and you laggin' in the legs, or stay here for the slice of an hour and get some heart into as ? Stay here is it, me boy ? then lave go me fut i 4 I SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 79 1, i 1/ with your teeth and push on to the Prairie Star there." Sosayingf, Ser<^cant Tom, whose language in soliloquy, or when excited, was more marked by a broqjue than at other times, rode away towards Galbraith's Place. In the tavern at that moment, Pretty Pierre was sitting on the bar-counter, where temperance drinks were professedly sold, singing to himself. His dress was singularly neat, if coarse, and his slouch hat was worn with an air of jauntiness that accorded well with his slight make and almost girlish delicacy of com- plexion. He was pufhng a cigarette, in the breaks of the song. Peter Galbraith, tall, gaunt, and sombre- looking, sat with his chair tilted back against the wall, rather nervously pulling at the strips of bark of which the yielding chair-seat was made. He may or may not have been listening to the song which had run through several verses. Where it had come from, no one knew ; no one cared to know. The number of its verses were legion. Pierre had a sweet voice, of a peculiarly penetrating quality; still it was low and well-modulated, like the colour in his cheeks, which gave him his name. These were the words he was singing ac Sergeant Tom rode towards the tavern : *' The hot blood leaps in his quivering breast — Voi/d I 'Tis his enemies near ! There's a chasm deep on the mountain crest — Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear ! They follow him close and they follow him fast, And he flies like a mountain deer ; Then a mad, wild leap and he's safe at last 1— Oh, the sweet Saint GHbrielle hear! A cry and a leap and the darr^er's past — Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear !" IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 iJO ""^^ 1.4 15 ■ 2.2 12.0 \= 1.6 6' V] /) /^ d? ^J. / ^^. Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 >!^ ,^ K<^ U.i t So PIERRE AND HIS PF:0PLE. '] . At the close of the verse, Galbraith said ; " I don't like that song. I — I don't like it. You're not a father, Pierre." •' No, I ani not a father. I have some virtue of that. I have spared the world something, Pete Galbraith." " You have the Devil's luck ; your sins never get you into trouble." A curious fire flashed in the half-breed's eyes, and he said, quietly : " Yes, I have great luck ; but I have my little troubles at times — at times." "They're different, though, from this trouble of Val's." There was something like a fog in the old man's throat. " Yes, Val was quite foolish, you see. If he had killed a white man — Pretty Pierre, for instance — well, there would have been a show of arrest, but he could escape. It was an Injin. The Government cherish the Injin much in these days. The redskin must be protected. It must be shown that at Ottawa there is justice. That is droll — quite. Eh, bien ! Val will not try to escape. He wail^ too long — near twenty-four hours. Then, it is as you see. . , . You have not told her ? " He nodded towards the door of the sitting-room. " Notliin;jj. It'll come on Jen soon enough if he doesn't get away, and bad enough if he does, and can't come back to us. She's fond of him — as fond of him as a mother. Alwajs was wiser than our Val or me, Jen was. More sense than a judge, and proud — but not too proud, Pierre — not too proud. She knows the right thing to do, like the Scriptures ; and she does it too. . . . Where did you say he was hid?" " I don't e not a n'rtue of ig, Pete ever get yes, and ; but I )uble of the old he had e — well, but he rnment redskin Ottawa bien ! —near You door of if he es, and fond of Valor roud — She ; and I hid?" SHE OF THE TRIFLE CHEVRON. 8i " In the Hollow at Soldier's Knee. He stayed too long at Moose Horn. Injins carried the news on to Fort Desire. When Val started south for the Border other Injins followed, and when a halt was made at Soldier's Knee they pushed across country over to Fort Desire. You see, Val's horse gave out I rode with him so far. My horse too was broken up. What was to be done ? Well, I knew a ranchman not far from Soldier's Knee. I told Val to sleep, and I would go on and get the ranchman to send him a horse, while I came on to you. Then he could push on to the Border. I saw the ranchman, and he swore to send a horse to Val to-night. He will keep his word. He knows Val. That was at noon today, and I am here, you see, and you know all. The danger ? Ah ! my friend, — the Police Barracks at Archangel's Rise. If word is sent down there from Fort Desire before Val passes, they will have out a big patrol, and his chances, — well, you know them, the Riders of the Plains ! But Val, I think will have luck, and get into Montana before they can stop him, I hope ; yes." " If I could do anytliing, Pierre ! Can't we — " The half-breed intcrrup.ed : "No, we can't do anything, Galbraith. I have done all. The ranch- man knows me, he will keep his word, by the Great Heaven I" It would seem as if Pierre had reasons for relying on the ranchman other than ordinary prairie courtesy to law-brcakcrs. " Pierre, tell me the whole story over, slow and plain. It don't seem nateral to think of it ; but if you go over it again, perhaps I can get the thing more reas'nable in my mind. No, it ain't naterai to * I ll 115 83 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. me, Pierre — our Val running away I " The old man leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. " Eh, well, it was an Injin. So much. It was in self-defence — a little, but of course to prove that! There is the difficulty. You see, they were all drink- ing, and the Injin — he was a chief — proposed — he proposed that Val should sell him his sister, Jen Galbraith, to be the chiefs squaw. He would give him a cayuse. Val's blood came up quick — quite quick. You know Val. He said between his teeth : * Look out, Snow Devil, you Injin dog, or I'll have your heart Do you think a white girl is like a redskin woman, to be sold as you sell your wives and daughters to the squaw-men and white loafers, you reptile?* Then the Injin said an ugly word about Val's sister, and Val shot him dead like lightning ! . . . Yes, that is good to swear, Galbraith. You are not the only one that curses the law in this world. It is not Justice that fills the gaols, but Law.** The old man rose and walked up and down the room in a shuffling kind of way. His best days were done, the spring of his life was gone, and the step was that of a man who had little more of activity and force with wliich to turn the halting wheels of life. His face was not altogether good, yet it was not evil. There was a sinister droop to the eyelids, a suggestion of cruelty about the mouth : but there was more of good-nature and passive strength than either in the general expression. One could see that some genial influence had dominated what was inherently cruel and sinister in him. Still the sinister predis- position was there. SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 83 the were was and life, evil, istion )re of the some !ntly fedis- • He can't never come here, Pierre, can he ? " he said, despairingly. " No, he can't come here, Galbraith. And look : if the Riders of the Plains should stop here to-night, or to-morrow, you will be cool — cool, eh?*' "Yes, I will be quite cool, Pierre." Tlien he seemed to think of something else and looked up half- curiously, half-inquiringly at the half-breed. Pierre saw this. He whistled quietly to himself for a little, and then called the old man over to where he sat Leaning slightly forward he made his reply to the look that had been bent upon him. He touched Galbraith's breast lightly with his delicate fingers, and said : " I have not much love for the world, Pete Galbraith, and not much love for men and women altogether ; they are fools — nearly all. Some men — you know — treat me well. They drink with me — much. They would make life a hell for me if I was poor — shoot me, perhaps, quick ! — if — if I didn't shoot first. They would wipe me with their feet. They would spoil Pretty Pierre." This he said with a grim kind of humour and scorn, refined in its suppressed force. Fastidious as he was in appearance, Pierre was not vain. He had been created with a sense of refine- ment that reduced the grossness of his life ; but he did not trade on it ; he simply accepted it and lived it naturally after his kind. He was not good at heart, and he never pretended to be so. He continued : " No, I have not much love; but Val, well, I think of him some. His tongue is straight; he makes no lies. His heart is fire ; his arms are strong; he has no fear. He does not love Pierre ; but he dues not pretend to love him. He does not think of me like the rest PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. I So much the more when his trouble conies I help him. I help him to the death if he needs me. To make him my friend — that is good. Eh ! Perhaps. You see, Galbraith ? " The old man nodded thoughtfully, and after a little pause said: '* I have killed Injins myself;" and he made a motion of his head backward, suggestive of the past. With a shrug of his shoulders the other replied : "Yes, so have I — sometimes. But the government was different then, and there were no Riders of the Plains." His white teeth showed menacingly under his slight moustache. Then there was another pause. Pierre was watching the other. " What's that you're doing, Galbraith ? '* " Rubbin' laudanum on my gums for this toothache. Have to use it for nuralgy, too," Galbraith put the little vial back in his waistcoat pocket, and presently said : " What will you have to drink. Pretty Pierre ? '* That was his way of showing gratitude. " I am reformed. I will take coffee, if Jen Galbraith will make some. Too much broken glass inside is not good. Yes." Galbraith went into the sitting-room to ask Jen to make the coffee. Pierre still sitting on the bar- counter sang to himself a verse of a rough-and-ready, satirical prairie ballad : "The Riders of the Plains, my boys, are twenty thousand strong — Oh, Lordy, don't they make the prairies howl I 'Tis their lot to smile on virtue and to collar what is wrong, And to intercept the happy flowin' bowl. I idy, and I SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 85 They've a notion, that in glory, when we wicked ones have chains They will all be major-generals — and that I They're a lovely band of pilgrims are the Riders of the Plains — Will some sinner please to pass around the hat ?" As he reached the last two lines of the verse the door opened and Serc^eant Tom entered. Pretty Pierre did not stop sini^inpj. His eyes simply grew a little brighter, his cheek flushed ever so slightly, and there was an increase of vigour in the closing notes. Sergeant Tom smiled a little grimly, then he nod- ded and said : " Been at it ever since, Pretty Pierre ? You were singing the same song on the same spot when I passed here six months ago." " Eh, Sergeant Tom, it is you ? What brings you so far from your straw-bed at Fort Desire ? " and from underneath his hat-brim Pierre scanned the face of the trooper closely. " Business. Not to smile on virtue, but to collar what is wrong. I guess you ought to be ready by this time to go into quarters, Pierre. YouVe had a long innings." " Not yet. Sergeant Tom, though I love the Irish, and your company would make me happy. But I am so innocent, and the world — it cannot spare me yet. But I think you come to smile on virtue, all the same, Sergeant Tom. She is beautiful is Jen Gal- braith. Ah, that makes your eye bright — so. You Riders of the Plains, you do two things at one time. You make this hour someone happy, and that hour someone unhappy. In one hand the soft glove ot kindness, in the other, voi/d ! the cold glove of steel. We cannot all be great like that, Sergeant Tom." 86 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, i •* Not great, but clever. Votld, ! The Pretty Pierre I In one hand he holds the soft paper, the pictures that deceive — kings, queens, and knaves; in the other, pictures in gold and silver— money won from the pockets of fools. And so, as you say, bien I and we each have our way, bed ad ! " Sergeant Tom noticed that the half-breed's eyes nearly closed, as if to hide the malevolence that was in them. He would not have been surprised to see a pistol drawn. But he was quite fearless, and if it was not his duty to provoke a difficulty, his fighting nature would not shrink from giving as good as he got Besides, so far as that nature permitted, he hated Pretty Pierre. He knew the ruin that this gambler had caused here and there in the West, and he was glad that Fort Desire, at any rate, knew him less than it did formerly. Just then Peter Galbraith entered with the coffee, followed by Jen. When the old man saw his visitor he stood still with sudden fear ; but catching a warning look from the eye of the half-breed, he made an effort to be steady, and said : " Well, Jen, if it isn't Sergeant Tom ! And what brings you down here, Sergeant Tom } After some scalawag that's broke the law?" Sergeant Tom had not noticed the blanched anxiety in the father's face ; for his eyes were seeking those of the daughter. He answered the question as he advanced toward Jen : " Yes and no, Galbraith ; I'm only takin' orders to those who will be after some scalawag by daylight in the mornin', or before. The hand of a traveller to you, Miss Jen." Her eyes replied to his in one language ; her lips I ^ SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 97 U spoke another. ** And who is the law-breaker, Sergeant Tom ? " she said, as she took his hand. Galbraith's eyes strained towards the soldier till the reply came : " And I don't know that ; not wan o' me. I'd ridden in to Fort Desire from another duty, a matter of a hundred miles, whin the major says to me, 'There's murder been done at Moose Horn. Take these orders down to Archangel's Rise, and deliver them and be back here within forty-eight hours.* And here I am on the way, and, if I wasn't ready to drop for want of a bite and sup, I'd be movin' away from here to the south at this moment." Galbraith was trembling with excitement. Pierre warned him by a look, and almost immediately after- ward gave him a reassuring nod, as if an important and favourable idea had occurred to him. Jen, looking at the Sergeant's handsome face, said : * It's six months to a day since you were here. Sergeant Tom." ** What an almanac you are, Miss Jen !" Pretty Pierre sipping his coffee here interrupted musingly : " But Miss Jen's almanac is not always so reliable. So I think. When was I here last, Miss Jen ? " With something like menace in her eyes Jen replied : ** You were here six months ago to-day, when you won thirty dollars from our Val • and then again, just thirty days after that" " Ah, so 1 You remember with a difference." ' A moment after, Sergeant Tom being occupied in talking to Jen, Pierre whispered to Peter Galbraith : ** His horse — then the laudanum I " Galbraith was puzzled for a moment, but soon 88 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. nodded sip^nificantly, and the sinister droop to his eyes became more marked. Me turned to the Sergeant and said : " Your horse must be fed as well as yourself, Sergeant Tom, I'll look after the beast, and Jen will take care of you. There's some fresh coffee, isn't there, Jen ? " Ten nodded an affirmative. Galbraith knew that the Sergeant would trust no one to feed his horse but himself, and the offer therefore was made with design. Sergeant Tom replied instantly : " No, I'll do it if someone will show me the grass pile." Pierre slipped quietly from the counter, and said : ** I know the way, Galbraith. I will show." Jen turned to the sitting-room, and Sergeant Tom moved to the tavern door, follo^"ed by Pierre, who, as he passed Galbraith, touched the old man's waistcoat pocket, and said : " Thirty drops in the coffee." Then he passed out, singing softly : •• And he sleepeth so well, and he sleepeth so long— The fight it was hard, my dear ; And his foes were many and swift and strong— Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear 1 " There was danger ahead for Sergeant Thomas Gellatly. Galbraith followed his daughter to the sitting-room. She went to the kitchen and brought bread, and cold venison, and prairie fowl, and stewed dried apples — the stay and luxury of all rural Canadian homes. The coffee-pot was then placed on the table. Then the old man said : " Better give him some of that old cheese, Jen, hadn't you ? It's in the cellar." He wanted to be rid of her for a few moments. \ SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 99 " S'pose I had," and Jen vanished. Now was Galbraith's cliance. lie took the vial of laudanum from his pocket, and opened the coflee-pot. It was half full. This would not suit. Someone else — Jen — might drink the coffee also I Yet it had to be done. Sergeant Tom should not go on. Inspector Jules and his Riders of the Plains must not be put upon the track of Val. Twelve hours would make all the difference. Pour out a cup of coffee ? — Yes, of course, that would do. It was poured out quickly, and then thirty drops of laudanum were carefully counted into it. Hark ! They are coming back ! — Just in time. Sergeant Tom and Pierre enter from outside, and then Jen from the kitchen. Galbraith is pouring another cup of coffee as they enter, and he says : " Just to be sociable I'm goin' to have a cup of coffee with you, Sergeant Tom. How you Riders of the Plains get waited on hand and foot ! " Did some warning flash through Sergeant Tom's mind or body, some mental shock or some physical chill ? For he distinctly shivered, though he was not cold. He seemed suddenly oppressed with a sense of danger. But his eyes fell on Jen, and the hesitation, for which he did not then try to account, passed. Jen, clear- faced and true, invited him to sit and eat, and he, starting half-abstractedly, responded to her " Draw nigh. Sergeant Tom," and sat down. Common- place as the words were, they thrilled him, for he thought of a table of his own in a home of his own, and the same words spoken everyday, but without the "Sergeant," — simply "Tom." He ate heartily and sipped his coffee slowly, talk- ing meanwhile to Jen and Galbraith. Pretty Pierre 90 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. ii I watched them all. Presently the gambler said: "Let us go and have our game of euchre, Pete Galbraith. Miss Jen can well take care of Scrjrcant Tom." Galbraith drank the rest of his coffee, rose, and passed with Pierre into the bar-room. Then the half breed said to him : " You were careful — thirty drops ? " "Yes, thirty drops." The latent cruelty of his nature was awake. "That is riyht. It is sleep; not death. He will sleep so sound for half a day, perhaps eighteen hours, and then I — Val will have a long start." In the sitting-room Ser^j^cant Tom was saying : *' Where is your brother, Miss Jen ? " He had no idea that the order in his pocket was for the arrest of that brother. He merely asked the question to start the talk. He and Jen had met but five or six times ; but the impression left on the minds of buth was pleasant — ineradicable. Yet, as Sergeant Tom often asked himself during the past six months, why should he think of her ? The life he led was one of severe en- durance, and harshness, and austerity. Into it there could not possibly enter anything of home. He was but a non-commissioned officer of the Mounted Police, and beyond that he had nothing. Ireland had not been kind to him. He had left her inhospit- able shores, and after years of absence he had but a couple of hundred dollars laid up — enough to pur- chase his discharge and something over, but nothing with which to start a home. Ranching required capital. No, it couldn't be thought of; and yet he had thought of it, try as he would not to do so. And ), $ SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 91 : "Let Ibraith. ) ?e, and en the -thirty of his ^e will I hours, ;aying : had no rrest of to start but the isant — asked uld he ere en- t there -le was ounted reland lospit- but a o pur- othing quired y^et he And she? There was that about this man who had lived life on two continents, in whose blood ran the warm and chivalrous Celtic fire, which appealed to her. His physical manhood was noble, if rugged ; his disposition genial and free, if schooled, but not en- tirely, to that reserve which his occupation made necessary — a reserve he would have been more care- ful to maintain, in speaking of his mission a short time back in the bar-room, if Jen had not been there. She called out the frankest part of him ; she opened the doors of his nature ; she attracted confidence as the sun docs the sunflower. To his question she replied: "I do not know where our Val is. He went on a hunting expedition up north. We never can tell about him, when he will turn up or where he will be to-morrow. He may walk in any minute. We never feel uneasy. He always h-is such luck, and comes out safe and sound wherever he is. Father says Val's a hustler, and that nothing can keep in the road with him. But he's a little wild— a little. Still, we don't hector him. Sergeant Tom ; hectoring never does any good, does it ? " " No, hcf^^orlng never does any good. And as for the wildni^ss, if the heart of him's right, why that's easy out of him whin he's older. It's a fine lad I thought him, the time I saw him here. It's his free- dom I wish I had — me that has to travel all day and part of the nig'nt, and thin part of the day and all night back again, and thin a day of sleep and the same thing over ai^ain. And that's the life of me, sayin* nothin' of the frost and the blizzards, and no home to go to, and no one to have a meal for me like 1 93 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. this whin I turn up/* And the sergeant wound up with, " Whooroo ! there's a speech for you, Miss Jen !** and laughed good-humoured ly. For all that, there was in his eyes an appeal that went straight to Jen's heart. But, woman-like, she would not open the way for him to say anything more definite just yet. She turned the subject. And yet again, woman-like, she knew it would lead to the same conclusion : " You must go to-night ? " " Yes, I must." " Nothing — nothing would keep you ? " " Nothing. Duty is duty, much as I'd like to stay, and you givin' me the bid. But my orders were strict. You don't know what discipline means, per- haps. It means obeyin* commands if you die for it ; and my commands were to take a letter to Inspector Jules at Archangel's Rise to-night. It's a matter of murder or the like, and duty must be done, and me that sleepy, not forgettin' your presence, as ever a man was, and looked the world in the face." He drank the rest of the coffee and mechanically set the cup down, his eyes closing heavily as he did so. He made an effort, however, and pulled himself to- gether. His eyes opened, and he looked at Jen steadily for a moment. Then he leaned over and touched her hand gently with his fingers, — Pierre's glove of kind- ness, — and said : " It's in my heart to want to stay ; but a sight of you I'll have on my way back. But I must go on now, though I'm that drowsy I could lie down here and never stir again." Jen said to herself : " Poor fellow, poor fellow, how tired he is ! I wish " — but she withdrew her hand. } SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON 93 vound up liss Jen!" hat, there It to Jen's e way for »^et. She n-like, she :e to stay, Jers were cans, per- die for it ; Inspector matter of , and me IS ever a hanically le did so. mself to- steadily ched her of kind- to stay ; But I could lie Dw, how land. He put his hand to his head, and said, absently : " It's my duty and it's orders, and . . . what was I sayin' ? The disgrace of me if, if . . . bedad ! the sleep's on me ; I'm awake, but I can't open my eyes. ... If the orders of me — and a good meal . . . and the disgrace . . . to do me duty — looked the world in the face — " During this speech he staggered to his feet, Jen watching him anxiously the while. No suspicion of the cause of his trouble crossed her mind. She set it down to extreme natural exhaustion. Presently feel- ing the sofa behind him, he dropped upon it, and, falling back, began to breathe heavily. But even in this physical stupefaction he made an effort to re- assert himself, to draw himself back from the coming unconsciousness. His eyes opened, but they were blind with sleep; and as if in a dream, he said . " My duty . . . disgrace ... a long sleep . . . Jen, dearest Jen " — how she started then I — " it must be done . . . my Jen ! " and he said no more. But these few words had opened up a world for her — a new-created world on the instant. Her life was illuminated. She felt the fulness of a great thought suffusing her face. A beautiful dream was upon her. It had come to her out of his sleep. But with its splendid advent there came the other thing that always is born with woman's love — an almost pathetic care of the being loved. In the deep love of women the maternal and protective sense works in the parallels of mutual regard. In her life now it sprang full-statured in action ; love of him, care of him ; his honour her honour; his life her life. He must not sleep like this if it was his duty to go on. Yet how i 94 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. Utterly worn he must be I She had seen men brought in from fighting prairie fires for three days without sleep ; had watched them drop on their beds, and lie like logs for thirty-six hours. This sleep of her lover was, therefore, not so stran^^je to her ; but it was perilous to the perfo'-mance of his duly. " Poor Sergeant 1 om," she said. " Poor Tom," she added ; and then, with a great flutter at the heart at last, " My Tom ! " Yes, she said that ; but she said it to the beacon, to the Prairie Star, burning outside brighter, it seemed to her, than it had ever done be- fore. Then she sat down and watched him for many minutes, thinking at the end of each that she would wake him. But the minutes passed, his breathing grew heavier, and he did not stir. The Prairie Star made quivering and luminous curtains of red for the windows, and Jen's mind was quivering in vivid waves of feeling just the same. It seemed to her as if she was looking at life now through an atmosphere charged with some rare, refining essence, and that in it she stood exultingly. Perhaps she did not define it so ; but that which we define she felt. And happy are they who feel it, and, feeling it, do not lose it in this world, and have the hope of carrying it into the next! After a time she rose, went over to him and touched his shoulder It seemed strange to her to do this thing. She drew back timidly from the pleasant shock of a new experience. Then she remembered that he ought to be on his way, and she shook him gently, then, with all her strength, and called to him quietly all the time, as if her low tones ought to wake him, if nothing else could. But he lay in a deep and SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 9S brought without , and lie er lover it was » im," she heart at he said outside one be- r many J would eathing lie Star for the 1 waves if she . (Sphere hat in define happy >e it in to the uched this iasant bered him him wake and stolid slumber. It was no use. She went to her seat and sat down to think. As she did so, her father entered the room. •* Did you call, Jen ? " he said ; and turned to the sofa. " I was calling to Sergeant Tom. He's asleep there ; dead-gone, father. I can't wake him." *' Why should you wake him ? He is tired." The sinister lines in Galbraith's face had deepened greatly in the last hour. He went over and looked closely at the Sergeant, followed languidly by Pierre, who casually touched the pulse of the sleeping man, and said as casually : *' Eh, he sleep well ; his pulse is like a baby ; he was tired, much. He has had no sleep for one, two, three nights, perhaps; and a good meal, it m?kes him comfortable, and so you see !" Then he touched lightly the triple chevron on Sergeant Tom's arm, and said : " Eh, a man does much work for that. And then, to be moral and the friend of the law all the time ! " Pierre here shrugged his shoulders. " It is easier to be wicked and free, and spend when one is rich, and starve when one is poor, than to be a sergeant and wear the triple chevron. Rut the sleep will do him good just the same, Jen Galbraith." ** He said that he must go to Archangel's Rise to- night, and be back at Fort Desire to-morrow night" "Well, that's nothing to us, Jen," replied Galbraith, roughly. " He's got his own business to look after. He and his tribe are none too good to us and our tribe. He'd have your old father up to-morrow for selling a tired traveller a glass of brandy ; and worse 96 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. than that, ay, a great sight worse than that, mind you, Jen." Jen did not notice, or, at least, did not heed, the excited emphasis on the last words. She thought that perhaps her father had been set against the Sergeant by Pierre. " There, that'll do, father," she said. " It's easy to bark at a dead lion. Sergeant Tom's asleep, and you say things that you wouldn't say if he was awake. He never did us any harm, and you know that's true, father." Galbraith was about to reply with anger ; but he changed his mind and walked into the bar-room, followed by Pierre. In Jen's mind a scheme had been hurriedly and clearly formed ; and with her, to form it was to put it into execution. She went to Sergeant Tom, opened his coat, felt in the inside pocket, and drew forth an official envelope.- It was addressed to Inspector Jules at Archangel's Rise. She put it back and buttoned up the coat again. Then she said, with her hands firmly clenching at her side, — " I'll do it." She went into the adjoining room and got a quilt, which she threw over him, and a pillow, which she put under his head. Then she took his cap and the cloak which she had thrown over a chair, as if to carry them away. But another thought occurred to her, for she looked towards the bar-room and put them down again. She glanced out of the window and saw that her father and Pierre had gone to lessen the volume of gas which was feeding the flame. This, she knew, meant that her father wuuld go to bed when he came back to the house, and it suited her purpose. r ;* SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 97 id you, :ed, the :hought nst the easy to md you awake. it's true, but he ar-room, dly and to put it , opened orth an spector ck and ith her t." a quilt, ich she and the las if to rred to lut them low and sen the his, she hen he urpose. ri r. She waited till they had entered the bar-room again, and then she went to them, and said : " I guess he's asleep for all night. Best leave him wiicre he is. I'm going. Good-night." When she got back to the sitting-room she said to herself: " How old fathers looking ! he seems broken up to-day. He isn't what he used to be." She turned once more to look at Sergeant Tom, then she went to her room. A little later Peter Galbraith and Pretty Pierre went to the sitting-room, and the old man drew from the Sergeant.'s pocket the envelope which Jen had seen. Pierre took it from him. "No, Pete Galbraith Do not be a fool. Suppose you steal that paper. Sergeant Tom will miss it. He will understand. He will guess about the drug, then you will be in trouble. Val will be safe now. This Rider of the Plains will sleep long enough for that. There, I put the paper back. He sleeps like a log. No one can suspect the drug, and it is all as we like. No, we will not steal ; that is wrong — quite wrong " — here Pretty Pierre showed his teeth — " we will go to bed. Come ! " Jen heard them ascend the stairs. She waited a half-hour, then she stole into Val's bedroom, and when she emerged again she had a bundle of clothes across her arm. A few minutes more and she walked into the sitting-room dressed in Val's clothes, and with her hair closely wound on the top of her head. The house was still. The Prairie Star made the room light enough for her purpose. She took Sergeant Tom's cap and cloak and put them on. She drew the envelope from his pocket and put it in her bosom — she showed the woman there, though for o 9S PIERRE AND HIS PKOPLK. the rest of this night she was to be a Rider of the Plains, — Sergeant Tom, — S/ie of the Triple Chevron. She went towards the door, hesitated, drew back, then paused, stooped down quickly, tenderly touched the soldier's brow with her lips, and said : " I'll do it for you. You shall not be disgraced — Tom." III. This was at half-past ten o'clock. At two o'clock a jaded and blown horse stood before the door of Ihe barracks at Archangel's Rise. Its rider, muffled to the chin, was knocking, and at the same time pulling his cap down closely over his head. " Thank God the night is dusky," he said. We have heard that voice before. The hat and cloak are those of Sergeant Tom, but the voice is that of Jen Galbraith. There is some danger in this act ; danger for her lover, contempt for herself if she is discovered. Presently the door opens and a corporal appears. " Who's there ? Oh," he added, as he caught sight of the familiar uniform ; "where from?" " From Fort Desire. Important orders to Inspector Jules. — Require fresh horse to return with; must leave mine here. — Have to go back at once." " I say," said the corporal, taking the papers — " what's your name ? " " Sergeant Gellatly." ** Say, Sergeant Gellatly, this isn't accordin' to Hoylc — come in the night and go in the night and not stay long enough to have a swear at the Gover'- ment. Why, you're comin* in, aren't you? You're comin' across the door-mat for a cup of coffee and a SHK OF THE TRIPLK rilKVRON. 99 to t and over'- 'ou're ind a warm while the horse is gettin' ready, aren't you. Serc^cant Gcllatly ? — Scrp^cant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly ! I've heard of you, but — yes; I will hurry. Here, Waugh, this to Inspector Jules! If you won't step in and won't drink and will be unsociable, sergeant, why, come on and you shall have a horse as good as the one you've brouglit. I'm Corporal Galna. Jen led the exhausted horse to the stables. For- tunately there was no lantern used, and therefore little cliance for the garrulous coiporal to study the face of his companion, even if he wished to do so. The risk was considerable ; but Jen Galbraith was fired by that spirit of self-sacrifice which has held a world rocking to destruction on a balancing point of safety. The horse was quickly saddled, Jen meanwhile remaining silent. While she was mounting, Corporal Galna drew and struck a match to light his pipe. He held it up for a moment as if to see the face of Sergeant Gellatly. Jen had just given a good-night, and the horse the word and a touch of the spur at the instant. Her face, that is, such of it as could be seen above the cloak and under the cap, was full in the light. Enough was seen, however, to call forth, in addition to Cor- poral Gaina's good-night, the exclamation, — "Well, I'm blowed ! " As Jen vanished into the night a moment after, she heard a voice calling — not Corporal Gaina's — "Sergeant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly!" She sup- posed it was Inspector Jules, but she would not turn back now. Her work was done. A half-hour later Corporal Galna confided to Private Waugh that Sergeant Gellatly was too too PtF.RKi: AND HIS PEOPLE. lid I! I - dainned pretty for the force — wonHercd if they called him Beauty at Fort Desire — couldn't call him Pretty Gellatly, for there was Pretty Pierre who had right of possession to that title — would like to ask him what soap he used for his complexion — 'twasn't this yellow bar-soap of the barracks, that wouldn't lather, he'd bet his ultimate dollar. Waugh, who had sometime seen Sergeant Gellatly, entered into a disputation on the point. He said that "Sergeant Tom was good-lookincT, a regular Irish thoroughbred ; but he wasn't pretty, not much ! — guessed Corporal Galna had nightmare, and finally, as the interest in the theme increased in fervour, announced that Sergeant Tom could loosen the teeth of, and knock the spots off, any man among the Riders, from Archangel's Rise to the Cypress Hills. Pretty 1 not much — thoroughbred all over ! " And Corporal Galna replied, sarcastically, — " That he might be able for spot dispersion of such a kind, but he had two as pretty spots on his cheek, and as white and touch-no-tobacco teeth as any female ever had.** Private Waugh declared then that Corporal Galna would be saying Sergeant Gellatly wasn't a man at all, and wore earrings, and put his hair into papers ; and when he could find no further enlargement of sarcasm, consigned the Corporal to a fiery place of future torment reserved for lunatics. At this critical juncture Waugh was ordered to proceed to Inspector Jules. A few minutes after, he was riding away toward Soldier's Knee, with the Inspector and another private, to capture Val Gal- braith, the slayer of Snow Devil, while four other troopers also started off in different directions. il 6HB OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 101 IV. <*> r It was SIX o'clock when Jen drew rein in the yard at Galbraith's Place. Through the dank humours of the darkest time of the night she had watched the first grey streakr of dawn appear. She had caught her breath with fear at the thought that, by some accident, she might not get back before seven o'clock, the hour when her father rose. She trembled also at the sup- position of Sergeant Tom awaking and finding his papers gone. But her fearful ness and excitement was not that of weakness, rather that of a finely nervous nature, having strong elements of imagina- tion, and, therefore, great capacities for suffering as for joy ; but yet elastic, vigorous, and possessing unusual powers of endurance. Such natures rebuild as fast as they are exhausted. In the devitalising time preceding the dawn she had felt a sudden faint- ness come over her for a moment ; but her will surmounted it, and, when she saw the ruddy streaks of pink and red glorify the horizon, she felt a sudden exaltation of physical strength. She was a child of the light, she loved the warm flame of the sun, the white gleam of the moon. Holding in her horse to give him a five minutes' rest, she rose in her saddle and looked round. She was alone in her circle of vision ; she and her horse. The long hillocks of prairie rolled away like the sea to the flushed morning, and the far-off Cypress Hills broke the monotonous skyline of the south. Already the air was dissipated of its choking weight, and the vast solitude was filling with that sense of freedom 103 PIERRc AND HIS PEOPLE. . ■■ |i which night seems to shut in as with four walls, and day to gloriously widen. Tears sprang to her eyes from a sudden rush of feeling ; but her lips were smiling. The world was so different from what it was yesterday. Soinetliing had quickened her into a glow in <^ life. Then she urged the horse on, and never halted till she reached home. She unsaddled the animal that had shared with her the hardship of the long, hard ride ; hobbled it, and entered the house quickly. No one was stirring. Sergeant Tom was still asleep. This she saw, as she hurriedly passed in and laid the cap and cloak where she had found them. Then, once again, she touched the brow of the sleeper with her lips, and went to her room to divest herself of Val's clothes. The thing had been done without any- one knowing of her absence. But she was frightened as she looked into the mirror. She was haggard, and her eyes were bloodshot. Eight hours or nearly in the saddle, at ten miles an hour, had told on her severely; as well it might. Even a prairie-born woman, however, understands the art and use of grooming better than a man. Warm water quickly heated at the gas, with a little acetic acid in it, — used generally for her scouring, — and then cold water with oatmeal flour, took away in part the dulness and the lines in the flesh. But the eyes ! Jen remembered the vial of tincture of myrrh left by a young Englishman a year ago, and used by him for refreshing his eyes after a drinking bout. She got it, tried the tincture, and saw and felt an immediate benefit. Then she made a cup of strong green tea, and in ten minutes was like herself aj-ain. SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 103 I Now for the horse. She went quickly out where she could not be seen from the wimlows of the house, and gave him a rubbin;^^ down till he was quite dry. Then she gave him a little water and some feed. The horse was really the touchstone of discovery. But Jen trusted in her star. If the worst came she would tell the talc. It must be told anyway to Sergeant Tom — but that was different now. Even if the thing became known it would only be a thing to be teased about by her father and others, and she could stop that. Poor girl ! as if that was the worst that was to come from her act 1 Sergeant Tom slept deeply and soundly. He had not stirred. His breathing was unnaturally heavy, Jen thought, but no suspicion of foul play came to her mind yet. Why should it? She gave herself up to a sweet and simple sense of pride in the deed she had done for him, disturbed but slightly by the chances of discovery, and the remembrance of the match that showed her face at Archangel's Rise. Her hands touched the flaxen hair of the soldier, and her eyes grew luminous. One night had stirred all her soul to its depths. A new woman had been bom in her. Val was dear to her — her brother Val ; but she realised now that another had come who would occupy a place that neither father, nor brother, nor any other, could fill. Yet it was a most weird set of tragic circumstances. This man Ipefore her had been set to do a task which might deprive her brother of his life, certainly of his freedom ; that would disgrace him ; her father had done a great wrong too, had put in danger th*- life of the man she loved, to save his son she herscll in doing this deed lor her lover had } T04 PIERRE AND lilS PEOPLE. I; i lii placed her brother in jcc^parcly, had crossed swords with her father's purposes, iia 1 done the one thing that stood between that father's son and safety ; Pretty Pierre, whom she hated and despised, and thought to be the enemy of her brother and of her home, had proved himself a friend ; and belli nd it all was the brother's crime committed to avenge an in- sult to her name. But such is life. Men and women are unwittini^ly their own executioners, and the executioners of those they love; V. An hour passed, and then Galbraith and Pierre appeared. Jen noticed that her father went over to Sergeant Tom and rather anxiously felt his pulse. Once in the night the old man had come down and done the same thing. Pierre said something in an undertone. Did they think he was ill ? That was Jen's thought. She watched them closely ; but the half-breed knew that she was watching, and the two said nothing more to each other. But Pierre said, in a careless way : "It is good he have that sleep. He was played out, quite." Jen replied, a secret triumph at her heart: "But what about his orders, the papers he was to carry to Archangel's Rise ? What about his being back at Fort Desire in the time given him ?" " It is not much matter about the papers. The poor devil that Inspector Jules would arrest — well, he will get off, perhaps, but that does no one harm. Eh, Galbraith? The law is sometimes unkind. And as , for obeying orders, why, the prairie is wide, it is a hard y \' SHE OF THE TKiri.' CHEVRON. T05 i ride, horses go wronpj ; — a little tale of trouble to In- spector Jules, another at Fort Desire, and who is to know except Pete Galbraith, Jen Galbrailh, and Pierre? Poor Sergeant Tom, It was ^ood he sleep so." Jen felt there was iron)' bdiind the smooth words of the gambler. Me had a habit of saying things, as they express it in that coimtr\', between his teeth. That signifies what is animal-like and cruel. Gal- braith stood silent during Pierre's remarks, but, when he had finished, said : "Yes, it's all right if he doesn't sleep too long ; but there's the trouble — too Uniii ! " Pierre frowned a warning, and then added, with un- concern : " I remember when y^u sleep thirty hours, Galbraith — after the prairie fire, three years ago, Ehl" " Well, that's so ; that's so as you say it. We'll let him sleep till noon, or longer — or longer, won't we, Pierre ? " " Yes, till noon is good, or longer." " But he shall not sleep longer if I can wake him," said Jen. "You do not think of the trouble all this sleeping may make for him." " But then — but then, there is the trouble he will make for others, if he wakes. Think. A poor devil trying to escape the law!" " But we have nothing to do with that, and justice is justice, Pierre." " Eh, well, perhaps, perhaps." Galbraith was silent. Jen felt that so far as Sergeant Tom's papers were concerned he was safe ; but she felt also that by noon io6 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. he ought to be on his way back to Fort Desire — after she had told him what she had done. She was anxious for his honour. That her lover shall appear well be- fore the world, is a thing deep in the heart of every woman. It is a pride for which she will deny herself, even of the presence of that lover. " Till noon," Jen said, " and then he must go." VI. :!. ! I I I' ^ 1 < V I 1 f Jen watched to see if her father or Pierre would notice that the horse was changed, had been travelled during the night, or that it was a different one al- together. As the morning wore away she saw that they did not notice the fact. This ignorance was per- haps owing largely to the appearance of several ranch- men from near the American border. They spent their time in the bar-room, and when they left it was nearly noon. Still Sergeant Tom slept. Jen now went to him and tried to wake him. She lifted him to a sitting position, but his head fell on her shoulder. Disheartened, she laid him down again. But now at last an undefined suspicion began to take possession of iier. It made her uneasy ; it filled her with a vague sense of alarm. Was this sleep natural ? She re- membered that, when her father and others had slept so long after the prairie fire, she had waked them once to give them drink and a little food, and they did not breathe so heavily as he was doing. Yet what could be done? What was the matter? There was not a doctor nearer than a hundred miles. She thought of bleeding, — ^thc old-fashioned remedy still used on the i .y^ ;^«. SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 107 prairies — but she decided to wait a little. Somehow she felt that she would receive no help from her father or Pierre. Had they anythin^r to do with this sleep ? Was it connected with the papers ? No, not that, for they had not souglit to take them, and had not made any remark about their being gone. This showed their unconcern on that point. She could not fathom the mystery, but the suspicion of something irregular deepened. Her father could have no reason for injuring Sergeant Tom ; but Pretty Pierre — that was another matter ! Yet she remembered too that her father had appeared the more anxious of the two about the Sergeant's sleep. She recalled that he said : " Yes, it's all right, if he doesn't sleep too long." But Pierre could play a part, she knew, and could involve others in trouble, and escape himself. He was a man with a reputation for occasional wickednesses of a naked, decided type. She knew that he was pos- sessed of a devil, of a very reserved devil, but liable to bold action on occasions. She knew that he valued the chances of life or death no more than he valued the thousand and one other chances of small im- portance, which occur in daily experience. It was his creed that one doesn't go till the game is done and all the cards are played. He had a stoic indifference to events. He might be capable of poisoning — poisoning ! ah, that thought ! of poisoning Sergeant Tom for some cause — but her father ? The two seemed to act alike in the matter. Could her father approve of any harm happening to Tom ? She thought of the meal he had eaten, of the coffee he had drunk — the coffee I Was that the key ? But she said to herself that she was I08 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. fl !| II K: Mi '* I foolish, that her love had made her sa No, it could not be. But a fear grew upon her, strive as she would against it. She waited silently and watched, and twice or thrice made ineffectual efforts to rouse him. Her father came in once. He showed anxiety ; that was unmistakable, but was it the anxiety of guilt of any kind ? She said nothing. At five o'clock matters abruptly came to a climax. Jen was in the kitchen, but, hearing footsteps in the sitting-room, she opened the door quietly. Her father was bending over Ser- geant Tom, and Pierre was speaking : " No, no, Gal- braith, it is all right You are a fool. It could not kill him." "Kill him — ^iU him," she repeated gaspingly to herself "You see he was exhausted; he may sleep for hours yet. Yes, he is safe, I think." " But Jen, she suspects something, she — ** ** Hush ! " said Pretty Pierre. He saw her standing near. She had glided forward and stood with flash- ing eyes turned, now upon the one, and now upon the other. Finally they rested on Galbraith. "Tell me what you have done to him; what you and Pretty Pierre have done to him. You have some secret. I will know." She leaned forward, something of the tigress in the poise of her body. " I tell you, I will know." Her voice was low, and vibrated with fierceness and determination. Her eyes glowed like two stars, and her fine nostrils trembled with disdain and indignation. As they drew back, — the old man sullenly, the gambler with a slight gesture of im- patience, — she came a step nearer to them and waited. J SHE OF THE TRIPLE CTTEVKON. 100 Upon man «!» the cords of her shapely tliroat swelling with excite- ment. A moment so, and then she said in a tone that su<^f^ested menace, determinatif)n : *' You have poisoned him. Tell mc the truth. Do you hear, father — the truth, or I will hate you. I will make you repent it till you die." " Hut—" Pierre began. She interrupted him. " Do not speak, Pretty Pierre. You are a devil. You will lie. Father — 1" She waited. " What difference does it make to you, Jen ?" " What difference — what difference to me ? That you should be a murderer ? " " But that is not so, that is a dream of yours, Jen Galbraith," s lid Pierre. She turned to her father aj^ain. ** Father, will you tell the truth to me ? I warn you it will be better for you both." The old man's brow was sullen, and his lips were twitching nervously. ** You care more for him than you do for your own flesh and blood, Jen. There's nothing to get mad about like that. I'll tell you when he's gone. . . . Let's — let's wake him," he added, nervously. He stooped down and lifted the sleeping man to a sitting posture. Pierre assisted him. Jen saw that the half-breed believed Sergeant Tom could be wakened, and her fear diminished slightly, if her indignation did not. 1 hey lifted the soldier to his feet. Pierre pressed the point of a pin deep into his arm. Jen started forward, woman-like, to check the action, but drew back, for she saw heroic measures might be necessary to bring him to consciousness. no PIKRRE AND HIS PEOPFR. I ■\l\ I '- I :i Hut, nevertheless, her an^er bmkc bounds, and she said: "Cowards — cow.uds ! Wh.it spite made you do this?" " Damration, ]cuj' said the fatluT, " you'll hector me till I maki.* you sorry. What's this Irish poh'ceman to you ? What's he beside your own flesh and blood, I say n^ain." "Why (IOCS my own flesh and blood do such wicked tricks to an Irish soldier f Why does it give poison to an Irish s tidier ? " " Poison, Jen ? You needn't speak so f^host-like. It was onh' a dose of laudanum ; not enough to kill him. Ask Picne." Inwardly she believed him, and said a Thank-God to herself, but to the half-breed she remarked : " Yes, ask Pierre! — you are behind all this. It is some evil scheme of yours. Why did you do it? Tell the truth for once." Her eyes swam anf;ril\- with Pierre's. Pierre was complacent ; he admired her wild at- tacks. He smiled, and replied : *' My dear, it was a whim of mine ; but you need not tell hiin, all the same, when he wakes. You see this is your father's house, though the whim is mine. But look : he is waking — the pin is good. Some cold water, quick!" The cold water was broucrht and dashed into the face of the soldier. He showed signs of returning consciousness. The effect of the laudanum had been intensified by the ^^horoughly exhausted condition of the body. But the man was perfectly healthy, and this helped to resist the danger of a fatal result. Pierre kept up an intermittent speech. '* Yes, it was a mere whim of mine. Eh, he will think he has been an ass to sleep so long, and on duty, and orders SlIK OF THK TKII'IK r|{F.VI<0\. 1 I I to rnr\ to Archanj^cl's Rise! " More he showed liis teeth ai^ain, white atul re^uilar Hke a (lo;^'s. That was the impression they pjavc, his lips were so red, and the contrast was so ulder rchief Gel- n her man. tmon rave. )lice. easy the the rhat are are ^ice. But they get across, cut the ferry loose, mount horses, and ri(ie away together. The man that was hit — yes, Sergeant Tom. The other that was not hit was Val Galbraith." Jen gave a cry of mingled joy and pain, and said, with Tom Gellatly's cold hand clasped to her bosom : " Val, our Val, is free, is safe." " Yes, Val is free ana safe — quite. The Riders of the Plains could not crDss the river. It was too high. And so Tom Gellatly and Val got away. Val rides straight for the American border, and the other rides here." They were now near the house, but Jen said, eagerly: "Goon. Tell me all." " I knew what had happened soon, and I rode away, too, and last night I found Tom Gellatly lying beside his horse on the prairie. I have brought him here to you. You two are even now, Jen Galbraith." They were at the tavern door. The traveller and Pierre lifted down the wounded and unconscious man, and brought him and laid him on Val Galbraith's bed. The traveller examined the wounds in the shoulder and the head, and said : " The head is all right. If I can get the bullet out of the shoulder he'll be safe enough — in time." The surgery was skilful but rude, for proper instru ments were not at hand ; and in a few hours he, whom we shall still call SeiL^eant Tom, lay quietly sleeping, the horrible pallor gone from his face and the feeling of death from his hand. It was near midnight when he waked. Jen was sitting beside him. He looked nund and saw her. Her face was touehed with the light that shone from 124 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. ; 1 the Prairie Star. "Jen," he said, and held out his hand. She turned from the window and stood beside his bed. She took his outstretched hand. " You are better, Sergeant Tom ? " she said, gently. " Yes, I'm better ; but it's not Sergeant Tom I am any longer, Jen." " I forgot that." ** I owed you a great debt, Jen. I couldn't remain one of the Riders of the Plains and try to pay it. I left them. Then I tried to save Val, and I did. I knew how to do it without getting anyone else into trouble. It is well to know the trick of a lock and the hour that guard is changed. I had left, but I re- lieved guard that night just the same. It was a new man on watch. It's only a minute I had ; for the regular relief watch was almost at my heels. I got Val out just in time. They discovered us, and we had a run for it. Pretty Pierre has told you. That's right. Val is safe now — " She said in a low strained voice, interrupting him : ** Did Val leave you wounded so on the prairie ? " " Don't let that ate at your heart. No, he didn't I hurried him off, and he didn't know how badly I was hit. But I — I've paid my debt, haven't I, Jen?" With eyes that could not see for tears, she touched pityingly, lovingly, the wounds on his head and shoulder, and said : " These pay a greater debt than you ever owed me. You risked your life for me — ^yes, for me I You have given up everything to do it I can't pay you the great difference. No, never !" " Yes — yes, you can, if you will, Jen. It's as aisy I If you'll say what I say, I'll give you quit of that difference, as you call it, forever and ever." ■ r I i SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 125 I ** First, tell me. Is Val quite, quite safe?** " Yes, Jen, he's safe over the border by this time ; and to tell you the truth, the Riders of the Plains wouldn't be dyin' to arrest him again if he was in Canada, which he isn't. It's little they wanted to fire at us, I know, when we were crossin' the river, but it had to be done, you see, and us within sight. Will you say what I ask you, Jen ? " She did not sp^ak, but pressed his hand ever so slightly. " Tom Gellatly, I promise,** he said. " Tom Gellatly, I promise — " " To give you as much — " " To give you as much — " "Love—"' There was a pause, and then she falteringly said, ** Love—" "As you give to me — " " As you give to me — " " And I'll take you poor as you are — " " And I'll take you poor as you are — " " To be my husband as long as you live — ** ** To be my husband as long as you live — * "So help me, God." " So help me, God." She stooped with dropping tears, and he kissed her once. Then what was girl in her timidly drew back, while what was woman in her, and therefore maternal, yearned over the sufferer. They had not seen the figure of an old man at the do>Y. They did not hear him enter. They only knew of Peter Galbraith's presence when he said : " Mebbe — mebbe I might say Amen 1 '* Zhvcc ®ntlaw0. i ' The missionary at Fort Anne of the H. B. C. was vio- lently in earnest. Before he piously followed the latest and most amp!}* endov/ed batch of settlers, who had in turn preceded the new railway to the Fort, the word scandal had no place in the vocabu'ary of the citizens. The H. B.C. had never imf.orted it into the Chinook language, the common meeting-ground of all the tribes of the North ; and the British men and native-born, who made the Fort their home, or place of sojourn, had never found need for its use. Justice was so quickly distributed, men were so open in their conduct, good and bad, that none looked askance, nor put their actions in ambush, nor studied innuendo But this was not according to the new dispensation : that is, the dispensation which shrewdly followed the settlers, who as shrewdly preceded the railway. And the dispensation and the missionary were known also as the Reverend Ezra Ijadgley, who, on his own declaration, in times past had "s. call " to preach, and in the far East had served as local preacher, then probationer, then went on circuit, and now was missionary in a district of which the choice did credit to his astuteness, and gave abundant room for his piety and holy rage against the Philistines. He loved a word for righteous mouthing, and in a moment of inspiration pagan and scandal came to him. Upon 126 THREE OUTLAWS. 127 these two words he stamped, through them he per- spired mightily, and with them he clenched his stubby fingers : such fingers as dug trenches, or snatched lewdly at soft flesh, in days of barbarian battle. To him all men were Pagans who loved not the sound of his voice, nor wrestled with him in prayer before the Lord, nor fed him with rich food, nor gave him much strong green tea to drink. But these men were of opaque stuff, and were not dismayed, and they called him St. Anthony, and with a prophetic and deadly paiicnce waited. The time came when the missionary shook his denouncing finger mostly at Pretty Pierre, who carefully nursed his silent wrath until the occasion should arrive for a delicate revenge which hath its hour with every man, if, hating, he knows how to bide the will of Fate. The hour came. A girl had been found dying on the roadside beyond the Fort by the drunken doctor of the place and Pierre. Pierre was with her when she died. " An' who's to bury her, the poor colleen ? " sai Shon McGann afterwards. Pierre musingly replied : " She is a Protestant There is but one man." After many pertinent and vigorous remarks, Shon added : " A Pagan is it he calls you, Pierre : you that's had the holy water on y'r forehead, and the cross on the water, and that knows the book o' the Mass like the cards in a pack ? Sinner y' are, and so are we all, God save us ! say I ; and weavin' the stripes for our backs He may be, and little I'd think of Him failin' in that : but Pagan ! — faith, it's black should be the white of the eyes of that preachin' sneak 128 PIERRE AND HIS I'EOI'LK. ■'i: ' ! m 1 1 and a rattle of teeth in his throat— divils go round me!" The half-breed, still musing, replied : " An eye for an eye, and a tooth tor a tooth — is that it, Shon ? " " Nivir a word truer by song or by book, and stand by the text, say I. For Papist I am, and Papist are you ; and the imps from below in y'r finders whin poker is the [;aine ; and outlaws as they call us both — you for what it doesn't concern rne, and I for a wild night in ould Donegal ; — but Pagan I Wurra I whin shall it be, Pierre ? " "When shall it be?" " True for you. The teeth in his throat and a lump to his eye, and what more be the will o* God. Fightin' there'll be, av coorse ; but by you Pll stand, and sorra inch will I give, if they'll do it with sticks or with guns, and not with the blisterin' tongue that's lied of me and me frinds — for frind I call you, Pierre, that loved me little in days gone by. And proud I am not of you, nor you of me; but we've tasted the bitter of avil days together, and divils sur- round me, if I don't go down with you or come up with you, whichever it be ! I'or there's dirt, as I say on their tongues, and over their shoulder they look at you, and not with an eye full front." Pierre was cool, even pensive. His lips parted slightly once or twice^ and showed a row of white, malicious teeth. For the rest, he looked as if he were pc'litely interested but not moved by the excitement of the other. Me slowly rolled a cigarette and re- plied : " He says it is a scandal that I live at Fort Anne. Well, I was here before he came, and I shall be here aiter he goes — yes. A scandal — Tsh I what THREE OUTLAWS. 129 Is gfo round An eye for Shon ? " s and stand i Papist are "^crs whin all us both r for a wild urra I whin nd a lump J o* God. I'll stand, vith sticks ^^ue that's call you, 3y. And )ut we've ivils sur- come up as I say ' iook at parted »f Wiiite, he were itement and re- at Fort I shall I vviiat is that ? You know the word Raca of the Book ? Well, there shall be more Raca soon — perhaps. No, there shall not bcfi<;hting as you think, Shon ; but — " here Pierre rose, came over, and spread his fingers lii;htly on Shon's breast — " but this thing is between this man and me, Shon McGann, and you shall see a great matter. Perhaps there will be blood, perhaps not — perhaps only an end." And the half-breed looked up at the Irishman from under his dark brows so covertly and meaningly that Shon saw visions of a trouble as silent as a plague, as resistless as a great flood. This noiseless vengeance was not after his own heart. He almost shivered as the delicate fingers drummed on his breast. " Angels begird me, Pretty Pierre, but it's little I'd like you for enemy o' mine ; for I know that you'd wait for y'r foe with death in y'r hand, and pity far from y'r heart ; and y'd smile as you pulled the black- cap on y'r head, and laugh as you drew the life out of him, God knows how ! Arrah, give me, say I, the crack of a stick, the bite of a gun, or the clip of a sabre's edge, with a shout in y'r mouth the while I " Though Pierre still listened lazily, there was a wicked fire in his eyes. His words now came from his teeth with cutting precision : " I have a great thought to-night, Shon McGann. I will tell you when we meet again. But, my friend, one must not be too rash — no, not too brutal. Even the sabre should fall at the right time, and then swift and still. Noise is not battle. Well, a/^ revoir ! To-morrow I shall tell you many things." He caught Shon's hand quickly, as quickly dropped it, and went out indolently singing a favourite song, — " Void le Sabre de mon Phel " UO PIKkKli AND HIS I'KOI'LK. \\ -l I! It was dark. Pretty Pierre stood still, and ihoiii^lit for a while. At last he spoke aloud : " Well, 1 shall do it now I have him — so ! " And he opened and shut his hand swiftly and firmly. He moved on, avoidin^^ the more habited parts of the place, and by a roundabout came to a house standing very close to the bank of the river. lie went softly to the door and listened. Lij^ht shone through the curtain of a window. He went to the window and looked beneath the curtain. Then he came back to the door, opened it very gently, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. A man seated at a table, eating, rose; a man on whom greed Imd set its mark — greed of the flesh, greed of men's praise, greed of mone^'. His frame was thick-set, his body was heavily nourished, his ej'e was shifty but intelligent; and a close observer would have seen something elusive, something furtive and sinister, in his face. His lips were greasy with meat as he stood up, and a fear sprang to his face, so that its fat looked sickly, l^ut he said hoarsely, and with an attempt at being brave: — "How dare you enter my house without knocking ? What do you want ? " The half-brccd waved a hand protestingly towards him. " Pardon I " he said. " Be seated, and finish your meal. Do you know me ? " " Yes, I know you." " Well, as I said, do not stop your meal. T have come to speak with you very quietly about a scandal — a scandal, you understand. This is Sunday night, a good time to talk of such things." And Pierre seated himself at the table, opposite the man. TIIKFE OUTLAWS. 13^ (Hi tll()ll