A Romany of the Snows Part 38

"That's in the game. The girl is worth fighting for, hein?"

"Of course, and the law must protect her. It's a free country."

"So true, my captain," murmured Pierre drily. "It is wonderful what a man will do for the law."

The tone struck Halby. Pierre was scanning the horizon abstractedly.

"You are always. .h.i.tting at the law," he said. "Why do you stand by it now?"

"For the same reason as yourself."

"What is that?"

"She has your picture in her room, she has my lucky dollar in her pocket."

Halby's face flushed, and then he turned and looked steadily into Pierre's eyes.

"We'd better settle this thing at once. If you're going to Fort O'Battle because you've set your fancy there, you'd better go back now. That's straight. You and I can't sail in the same boat. I'll go alone, so give me the pistol."

Pierre laughed softly, and waved the hand back. "T'sh! What a high-c.o.c.k-a-lorum! You want to do it all yourself--to fill the eye of the girl alone, and be tucked away to By-by for your pains--mais, quelle folie! See: you go for law and love; I go for fun and Jimmy Throng. The girl? Pshaw! she would come out right in the end, without you or me. But the old man with half a lung--that's different. He must have sweet bread in his belly when he dies, and the girl must make it for him. She shall brush her hair with the ivory brush by Sunday morning."

Halby turned sharply.

"You've been spying," he said. "You've been in her room--you--"

Pierre put out his hand and stopped the word on Halby's lips.

"Slow, slow," he said; "we are both--police to-day. Voila! we must not fight. There is Throng and the girl to think of." Suddenly, with a soft fierceness, he added: "If I looked in her room, what of that? In all the North is there a woman to say I wrong her? No. Well, what if I carry her room in my eye; does that hurt her or you?"

Perhaps something of the loneliness of the outlaw crept into Pierre's voice for an instant, for Halby suddenly put a hand on his shoulder and said: "Let's drop the thing, Pierre."

Pierre looked at him musingly.

"When Throng is put to By-by what will you do?" he asked.

"I will marry her, if she'll have me."

"But she is prairie-born, and you!"

"I'm a prairie-rider."

After a moment Pierre said, as if to himself: "So quiet and clean, and the print calico and muslin, and the ivory brush!"

It is hard to say whether he was merely working on Halby that he be true to the girl, or was himself softhearted for the moment. He had a curious store of legend and chanson, and he had the Frenchman's power of applying them, though he did it seldom. But now he said in a half monotone:

"Have you seen the way I have built my nest?

(O brave and tall is the Grand Seigneur!) I have trailed the East, I have searched the West, (O clear of eye is the Grand Seigneur!) From South and North I have brought the best: The feathers fine from an eagle's crest, The silken threads from a prince's vest, The warm rose-leaf from a maiden's breast (O long he bideth, the Grand Seigneur!)."

They had gone scarce a mile farther when Pierre, chancing to turn round, saw a horseman riding hard after them. They drew up, and soon the man--a Rider of the Plains--was beside them. He had stopped at Throng's to find Halby, and had followed them. Murder had been committed near the border, and Halby was needed at once. Halby stood still, numb with distress, for there was Lydia. He turned to Pierre in dismay. Pierre's face lighted up with the spirit of fresh adventure. Desperate enterprises roused him; the impossible had a charm for him.

"I will go to Fort O'Battle," he said. "Give me another pistol."

"You cannot do it alone," said Halby, hope, however, in his voice.

"I will do it, or it will do me, voila!" Pierre replied. Halby pa.s.sed over a pistol.

"I'll never forget it, on my honour, if you do it," he said.

Pierre mounted his horse and said, as if a thought had struck him: "If I stand for the law in this, will you stand against it some time for me?"

Halby hesitated, then said, holding out his hand, "Yes, if it's nothing dirty."

Pierre smiled. "Clean t.i.t for clean tat," he said, touching Halby's fingers, and then, with a gesture and an au revoir, put his horse to the canter, and soon a surf of snow was rising at two points on the prairie, as the Law trailed south and east.

That night Pierre camped in the Jim-a-long-Jo, finding there firewood in plenty, and Tophet was made comfortable in the lean-to. Within another thirty hours he was hid in the woods behind Fort O'Battle, having travelled nearly all night. He saw the dawn break and the beginning of sunrise as he watched the Fort, growing every moment colder, while his horse trembled and whinnied softly, suffering also. At last he gave a little grunt of satisfaction, for he saw two men come out of the Fort and go to the corral. He hesitated a minute longer, then said: "I'll not wait," patted his horse's neck, pulled the blanket closer round him, and started for the Fort. He entered the yard--it was empty. He went to the door of the Fort, opened it, entered, shut it, locked it softly, and put the key in his pocket. Then he pa.s.sed through into a room at the end of the small hallway. Three men rose from seats by the fire as he did so, and one said: "Hullo, who're you?" Another added: "It's Pretty Pierre."

Pierre looked at the table laid for breakfast, and said: "Where's Lydia Throng?"

The elder of the three brothers replied: "There's no Lydia Throng here.

There's Lydia Bontoff, though, and in another week she'll be Lydia something else."

"What does she say about it herself?"

"You've no call to know."

"You stole her, forced her from Throng's-her father's house."

"She wasn't Throng's; she was a Bontoff--sister of us.

"Well, she says Throng, and Throng it's got to be."

"What have you got to say about it?"

At that moment Lydia appeared at the door leading from the kitchen.

"Whatever she has to say," answered Pierre.

"Who're you talking for?"

"For her, for Throng, for the law."

"The law--by gosh, that's good! You, you darned gambler; you sc.u.m!" said Caleb, the brother who knew him.

Pierre showed all the intelligent, resolute coolness of a trained officer of the law. He heard a little cry behind him, and stepping sideways, and yet not turning his back on the men, he saw Lydia.

"Pierre! Pierre!" she said in a half-frightened way, yet with a sort of pleasure lighting up her face; and she stepped forward to him. One of the brothers was about to pull her away, but Pierre whipped out his commission. "Wait," he said. "That's enough. I'm for the law; I belong to the mounted police. I have come for the girl you stole."

The elder brother s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper and read. Then he laughed loud and long. "So you've come to fetch her away," he said, "and this is how you do it!"--he shook the paper. "Well, by--" Suddenly he stopped. "Come,"