The Luck of the Mounted Part 5

"Nay! I dhrive mostly," Slavin was telling him, "buckboard an' team's away handier for a man av weight like meself. Eyah!" he sighed, "tho'

time was whin I cud throw a leg over wid th' best av thim. Yorke--he gen'rally rides th' black, Parson, so ye'll take th' sorrel, Fox, for yeh pathrols. He's a good stayer, an' fast. Ye'll want tu watch him at mounthin' tho'--he's not a mane ha.r.s.e, but he has a quare thrick av turnin' sharp tu th' 'off'--just as ye go tu shwing up into th' saddle.

Many's th' man he's whiraroo'd round wid wan fut in th' stirrup an' left pickin' up dollars off th' bald-headed.' Well! let's tu supper."

With the practised hand of an old cook he prepared a simple but hearty repast, upon which they fell with appet.i.tes keenly edged with the cold air.

"Are ye anythin' av a cuk?"

Redmond grinned deprecatingly and then shook his head.

"Eyah!" grumbled Slavin, "seems I cannot hilp bein' cuk an' shtandin'

orderly-man around here. I thried out Yorkey. . . . Wan day on'y tho'--'tis th' divil's own cuk he is. 'Sarjint!' sez he, 'I'm no bowatchee'--which in Injia he tells me means same as cuk. An' he tould th' trute at that."

Some three hours later, as they lay on their cots, came to them the faint, far-off _toot_! _toot_! of an engine, through the keen atmosphere.

"That's Number Four from th' West," remarked Slavin drowsily, "Yorkey shud be along on ut. Well! a walk will not hurt th' man if--"

He chuntered something to himself.

Half an hour elapsed slowly--three quarters. Slavin rolled off his cot with a grunt and strode heavily to the front door, which he opened.

Redmond silently followed him and together the two men stepped out into the crisply-crunching hard-packed snow. It was a magnificent night.

High overhead in the star-studded sky shone a splendid full moon, its clear cold rays lighting up the white world around them with a sort of phosph.o.r.escent, scintillating brilliance.

Though not of a particularly sentimental temperament, the calm, peaceful, unearthly beauty of the scene moved George to murmur--half to himself:

"_Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot, alas!

As benefits forgot_."

To his surprise came Slavin's soft brogue echoing the last lines of the old Shakespearian sonnet, with a sort of dreamy, gentle bitterness: "As binifits forghot--forghot!--as binifits forghot! . . . . Luk tu that now! eyah! 'tis th' trute, lad! . . . . for here--unless I am mistuk, comes me bould Yorkey--an' dhrunk as 'a fiddler's ---- again. Tchkk! an'

me on'y just afther warnin' um. . . ."

And, a far-away black spot as yet, down the moonlit, snow-banked trail, indistinctly they beheld an unsteady figure slowly weaving its way towards the detachment. At intervals the night-wind wafted to them s.n.a.t.c.hes of song.

"Singin', singin'," muttered Slavin, "from break av morrn 'till jewy eve! . . . Misther B---- Yorke! luks 'tis goin' large y'are th' night."

Nearer and nearer approached the stumbling black figure, weaving an eccentric course in and out along the line of telephone poles; and, to their ears came the voice of one crying in the wilderness:--

"_O, the Midnight Son! the Midnight Son! (hic) You needn't go trottin' to Norway-- You'll find him in ev'ry doorway--_"

A sudden cessation of the music, coupled with certain slightly indistinct, weird contortions of the vocalist's figure, apprised the watchers that a snow-bank had momentarily claimed him. Then, suddenly and saucily, as if without a break, the throbbing, high-pitched tenor piped up again--

"_You'll behold him in his glory If you on'y take a run (hic) Down the Strand--that's the Land Of the Midnight Son_."

Dewy eve indeed!--a far cry to the Strand! . . . How freakish sounded that old London variety stage ditty ridiculing the nightly silence of the great snow-bound Nor' West. Redmond could not refrain an explosive, snorting chuckle as he remarked the erratic gait of the slowly approaching pedestrian. As Slavin had opined, he was "going large." His vocal efforts had ceased temporarily, and now it was the junior constable's merriment that broke the frosty stillness of the night.

But Slavin did not laugh. Watchfully he waited there--curiously still, his head jutting forward loweringly from between his huge shoulders.

"Tchkk!" he clucked in gentle distaste--"In uniform . . . an' just afther comin' off the thrain! . . . th' like av that now 'tis--'tis scandh'lus! . . ."

Suddenly Redmond shivered, and his mirth died within him. The air seemed to have become charged with a tense, ominous something that filled him with a great dread--of what? he knew not. He felt an inexplicable impulse to cry out a warning to that ludicrous figure, whose crunching moccasins were now the only sounds that broke the uncanny stillness of the night. To him, the whole scene, bathed in the cold brilliance of its moonlit setting, seemed ghostly and unreal--a disturbing dream of comedy and tragedy, intermingled.

Inwards, between the telephone poles, the man came stumbling along, gradually drawing nigh to the motionless watchers. Halting momentarily, during his progress he made a quick stooping action at the base of one of the poles, as if with vague purpose, which action was remarked at least by Redmond.

Then, for the first time, he seemed to become aware of their presence, and making a pitiful attempt to dissemble his condition and a.s.sume a smart, erect military carriage he waved his riding-crop at them by way of salutation. Something in his action, its graceful, airy mockery, trivial though it was, impressed the gestures firmly in Redmond's mind. He became cognizant of a flushed, undeniably handsome face with reckless eyes and mocking lips; a slimly-built figure of a man of medium height, whose natural grace was barely concealed by the short regimental fur coat.

Halting unsteadily within the regulation three paces pending salute, he struck an att.i.tude commonly affected by Mr. Sothern, in "Lord Dundreary,"

and jauntily twirled his crop, the while he declaimed:--

"_Waltz me round again, Willie, Willie, Round and round and--_"

"_Round_!" finished Slavin, with a horrible oath. There seemed something shockingly aboriginal--simian--in the swift, gorilla-like clutch of his huge dangling hands, as they fastened on the throat and shoulder of the drunken man and whirled him on his back in the snow--something deadly and menacing in his hard-breathing, soft-brogued invective:

"Yeh b.l.o.o.d.y nightingale! come off th' perch! . . . I'm fed up wid yeh!--I'll waltz yeh!--I'll tache yeh tu make a mock av Burke Slavin, time an' again! I'll--"

Redmond interposed, "Steady, Sergeant!" he implored shakily, his hand on his superior's shoulder, "For G.o.d's sake--"

But Slavin, in absent fashion, shoved him off. He seemed to put no effort in the movement, but the tense muscular impact of it sent Redmond reeling yards away.

"Giddap, Yorkey! G.o.d d----n ye for a dhrunken waster!--giddap! or I'll put th' boots tu yeh!" Terrible was the menace of the giant Irishman's face, his back-flung boot and his snarling, curiously low-pitched voice.

"No! not Burke, old man! . . . ah, don't!" gasped the rich tenor voice pleadingly from the snow--"ah, don't, Burke! . . . remember, remember . . . St. Agnes' Eve--

"St. Agnes' Eve. Ah! bitter chill it was, The--"

It broke--that throbbing voice with its strange, impa.s.sioned appeal. Far away over the snow the faint, silvery ring of a locomotive gong fell upon the ears of the trio almost like the deep, solemn tolling of bells.

Then slowly, and seemingly in pain, the prostrate man arose.

And yet! Redmond mused, sorry a figure as he cut just then, minus fur-cap and plastered with snow, alone with the shame which was his, he had an air, a certain dignity of mien, this man, Yorke, which stamped him far above the common run of men.

The junior constable, as he noted the dark hair, silvering and worn away at the temples, adjudged him to be somewhere between thirty and forty--thirty-five was his exact age as he ascertained later.

Now, with the air of a fallen angel, he stood there in the cold, snow-dazzling moonlight; his face registering silent resignation as to whatever else might befall him. The sergeant had stepped forward.

Redmond looked on, in dazed apprehension. A solemn hush had fallen upon the strange scene, and stranger trio. Their figures flung weird, fantastic shadows across the diamond-sparkling snow-crust. George glanced at Slavin, and that individual's demeanor amazed him still further. The big man's face was transformed. There seemed something very terrible just then in the pathetic working of his rugged features, as if he were striving to allay some powerful inward emotion. Then huskily, but not unkindly--as perchance the father may have spoken to the prodigal son--came his soft brogue:

"Get yu tu bed, Yorkey! get yu tu bed, man! . . . an' thry me no more! . . . ."

Mutely, like a child, Yorke obeyed the order. Glancing at Redmond he turned and walked unsteadily into the detachment.

Perturbed and utterly mystified at the sordid drama he had witnessed, its amazing combination of brutality and pathos, George remained rooted to the spot as one in a dream. Instinctively though, he felt that this was not the first time of its enactment. Mechanically he watched the door close; then sounding far off and indistinct, Slavin's hoa.r.s.e whisper in his ear brought him down to Mother Earth again with a vengeance:

"Did ye mark him stoop an' 'plant' th' 'hootch?'"

George nodded. "I wasn't quite wise to what he was at," he answered.

"Let us go get ut!" said Sergeant Slavin grimly, marching to the spot, "I will not have dhrink brought into th' detachment! . . . 'tis against ordhers."

He bent down, straightened up, and turning to Redmond who had joined him exhibited a bottle. He held it up to the light of the moon. It appeared to be about half empty. Extracting the cork, he smelt.