III
"You have a love for our ways and an interest in our customs?" asked Sleeping Thunder. "You admired our warriors?"
"Yes," Hector answered.
They were standing with Moon outside the chief's teepee on the last day of the treaty celebrations.
"Would you like to see more of them? You have not really seen us until you have seen the Sun Dance, which we hold each year in the summer."
"I want to see much more," said Hector. The romance of the things he had recently witnessed had fascinated him. "I would like to see the Sun Dance."
"Then hear me. If you do not mind camping with Indians, come to us next year and I will show you. I will teach you all our practices, our stories and legends and more of our language. It is too late this year, but next year—. I will send a messenger to tell you where to come and when. I would like you to come—and so would Moon."
"Youwould like me to come?" Hector asked, smiling at Moon.
She flashed a demure answer with her eyes.
An attractive little thing, this Indian girl!
"Then I will come," said Hector, seizing the opportunity.
With that promise they parted.
IV
In June of the following year, Hector, in frontier outfit; his uniform laid aside, rode out to meet Sleeping Thunder and to see the Sun Dance.
MacFarlane saw him off at the stables.
"Who is she, Hec'?" he asked, raising his bushy brows and smiling meaningly. "That pretty little squaw, isn't it?"
Hector, whacking the pack-pony into motion and touching up his horse, looked down and smiled in return.
"You will have your little joke, won't you, Mac?" he said. "The girl's got nothing to do with it."
"Hasn't she?" MacFarlane mocked. "Oh, no—not at all!"
On the trail Hector headed southward, thinking of many things.
His interview with Sub-Inspector Lescheneaux, a wizened, bird-like French-Canadian commanding Hector's troop, when asking for leave, had been a droll but pleasing affair, ending very flatteringly.
"No leave ov h'absence since we first cam' out 'ere," the worthy little man had ruminated; "one ov bes' N.C.O.s in dis de-vision,oui; 'as don' more to stamp out d'illicit wheesk-ey traffic den any oder sergeant I know; desires leave ov h'absence for one for'd'night;vraiment, 'e deserve it, too. Eef Inspect-eur Denton 'as noobjection, Sergeant, you go by all means. I t'ink, Sergeant-Major Whee-taker, we say dis request granted, eh? Good luck, Sergeant—bon voyage.Tiens!"
The Sergeant-Major, too, had made Hector happy.
"He's right—right, by God, he is! Since that day at 'Red-hot' Dan's, Adair, yes, and before that, I marked you for a winner. You've certainly earned your little rest—damn my buttons, yes!"
This was true, all of it. Hector had worked hard. He had acquired a reputation in the Force as one of the smartest hunters of whiskey-runners it possessed.
But there were flies in the ointment and snakes in the grass. He had not yet been able, for all his hard work, to put down the traffic in the district allotted to him. Most of the traders and runners had long since fallen into his hands. Yet there was still a great deal of trading the source of which he could not trace. Some underground current was pouring through the district carrying liquor to the Indians. During the past few months he had made a particularly stern effort to dam the flood. Success would temporarily reward him. Then, suddenly, without warning, the stream would bubble out in some new spot—in twenty spots at once. The mystery troubled him. The hold it had secured on him made itself obvious in the fact that, though he had fixedly resolved to forget it for a fortnight, it had him now.
But the glorious appeal of the morning soon drove it from his mind. It was full June, the sky was a light blue dome, golden at bottom, where the sun blazed, and flecked elsewhere with baby clouds drifting before the lazy wind. The long grass, clean, shining, went rippling to the edges of eternity. The larks piped in the hollows and the little gophers sat up to watch him as he passed. Hector was young, the day was young, and troubles fly light as thistledown over the heads of Youth when the time of the year is June.
In a minute or two he was singing a jibing song beloved by the Force, that band of happy warriors who would not take things seriously:
So pass the tea and let us drinkTo the guardians of the land.You bet your life it's not our faultIf whiskey's contraband!
When he sighted Welland's place, where he planned to spend the night, his roving fancy clicked sharply back to roost and turned to Welland.
The friendship between them, though it had prospered in the years now gone, had never reached real intimacy. But Welland's fortunes had been amazingly strengthened during recent times. Prosperity seemed to come to him unsought There was something almost strange in it. Probably he had money invested elsewhere. As men count wealth in other places, he was not yet a Crœsus, of course, but a great improvement was palpably evident. Several new sheds and stables; acres of cultivated ground; cattle and horses; two wagons in the yard; the shack extended and freshly painted—these were obvious additions to the real and personal property owned by Welland when the Police first came to the country. Had he fallen heir to Aladdin's lamp? How, otherwise, had he acquired all this so easily?
As Hector rode slowly down upon the homestead through the velvet dusk, a strange thing happened. From the house he heard an awesome, chilling sound—dull, measured, heavy,—like blows on raw beef. And this sound was punctuated by several low screams, each whimpering, one by one, into a moan. Completely baffled, he dismounted near the stables, raised the 'long yell' that common courtesy demanded, and waited.
Welland came out, peering through the gloom.
"It's me, Joe," Hector called. "Adair!"
"Oh, that you, Hec'?" Welland responded with genuine pleasure. "Good boy! What brings you here this time o' night?"
Hector told him, still wondering——
"Leave, eh? Going down to Milk River, eh? Fine! Fine! Of course you'll spend the night here, and feed, too. Come on! I'll take your horses."
When they entered the house, Lizzie was there, smiling cheerily enough on Hector, whom she knew well by this time—Lizzie, in a new striped skirt, sharing her man's prosperity.
"It couldn't be," Hector decided. Thereupon he placed what he had heard aside, in one of those innumerable pigeonholes of memory, where facts and incidents are unconsciously stowed away till wanted.
In the morning Welland gave him surprise No. 2.
"Hec', you're interested in the suppression of the liquor traffic," he asserted. "I don't know if you've come across this arrangement, though. It's one of the neatest things devised yet."
He handed him that common relic of the prairie, a buffalo skull.
"The horns, as you know, are hollow. The tips have been cleverly cut off and made into caps, to act as corks. You pour in the whiskey and put the caps on. Perfectly tight—perfectly safe! Load a cart up with buffalo skulls, same as all the Indians are doing now, mix a few of these among 'em and you can get your stuff into any reserve in the country without being caught. Who'd suspect a wagonload of buffalo skulls?"
Hector examined it, brain busy.
"Where did you get it?"
"One of those In'juns you arrested about two weeks ago gave it to me. I did him a good turn once. Want it?"
"I might get it when I come back. Here's how!"
"All right. Good hunting!"
Trouble brooded on Hector's face as he turned his horses out into the morning.
He was miles on his way before the holiday spirit came back to him and the buffalo skull went bang into its pigeon-hole.
Milk River, now! And Moon! And Sleeping Thunder!
V
The nights between the days which witnessed the Sun Dance Hector thought wonderful, for it was then that Sleeping Thunder opened his heart. Each night they sat beside the crimson fire, before the teepee, under a splendid canopy of purple strewn with stars. The silence of the plains, with only the howl of a lonely wolf by way of contrast, was about them as they sat, their voices took on mystic qualities unknown to them by day, the air was tense with hidden forces. Nothing stirred and there was nothing to divert them but the flitting form of Moon, attending the fire.
Hector spoke of one thing which dominated his mind, puzzling him.
"At this meeting, Sleeping Thunder, I have seen two ceremonies: one the making of a brave, the other the renewal of the vows of wives and maidens. To me these are as far apart as sun and earth. The first, to me—and I speak for all white men—is barbarous and cruel. But the second is very beautiful. Why do we find these things in the same race and practised by one people?"
Sleeping Thunder, answering him, revealed the entire sum and substance of his Indian philosophy:
"Because you find a thing you think terrible standing side by side with something that is beautiful, you are puzzled. But there is nothing strange in this. It is true to Nature. In one man, to say nothing of peoples, you will find great evils dwelling with much that is good. In the white race, as in the Indian, practices that are beautiful and practices that are ugly walk hand in hand. The white man's law, shielding the weak from the strong, is beautiful. The white man's gambling dens and saloons are not. The Indians, my son, are not the only people possessed at once by good and evil!"
The old man smiled, his bright eyes fixed on Hector.
"But is it evil——" he resumed, "this ceremony of making warriors? What, after all, do we most admire in a man? White men and red alike, we especially admire strength, courage and fortitude. You are content to await the great test of action to prove that your comrades possess these qualities. Till then you credit them with all the strength, courage and fortitude they should rightly have. But we Indians, we are not so easily satisfied. We demand that a young man prove himself before the hour of action. When danger rises in your very path and Death awaits you with his arrow on the string, that is no time, we say, to test a man for the first time. Your safety, perhaps your life, depends, in that moment, on the courage, strength and fortitude of those about you. Then surely you should see that those about you are brave and strong and hardy before entrusting either life or safety to their keeping? That is wisdom, my son, that is right. The boy must show that he is fit to go before we take him with us. Therefore, we try him in the Sun Dance. If he succeeds—then, we need have no further doubts. If he fails—the lives of men are saved and no needless risks are encountered by the remainder of the tribe. The test is severe? Yes; because, otherwise, it would be worthless. But no lasting injury results. What, then, are a few drops of blood, a little agony?
"My son, the Indian does not shun, he embraces the opportunity of that ceremony. Does it not show that he has courage, strength and fortitude, which crown a man with glory as his antlers crown the caribou?
"Now in a woman—what do we admire?" The chief's voice grew tender. "Is it gentleness, is it obedience? These things we honour, yes. But greater than these, and higher than them all, is Purity! White men and red alike, that is the thing we would have especially in woman. We are ourselves weak and corrupt. We feel in our hearts the need of something to help us to be better. So we ask that help from these, our women. We make of Purity a torch of light and put that torch in the hands of those we love, to guide us through the storm. We would have our women—" here he swept a hand towards the skies—"as high above us, as white and clear as yonder stars, to show the way, as they do. We would have them like the peaks of the World's Backbone, which you call the Rocky Mountains, looking always, like them, upon our deeds, landmarks, like them, to guide us by day, as the stars guide us by night, crowned with that virtue, Purity, as the peaks are crowned with spotless snow and, like those peaks, so glorious, so unchanging, so near the Great Spirit—nearer, far, than we!—that only to look on them fills our hearts with awe and wonder. So we would have our women.
"But here again the white and red man part. Your women shrink from a public declaration such as ours endure. Unlike you, we do more than teach our women purity. We ask them to dedicate themselves to purity before the eyes of all. We hold that virtue up before them as a thing to be prized. Then is the shame which follows any falling from the heights made trebly terrible. So do our women learn that it is for them to be true to the laws of the Great Spirit and leave love-making to the male—as with birds, animals, fishes, so must it be with men and women."
Moon, in the shadows, stirred restlessly.
"Both these ceremonies, my son, are beautiful, for they glorify strength, courage and fortitude in men, purity in women. Then there is nothing strange in the observance of these ceremonies by one and the same people. I wonder—do you understand now?"
"I think—I think I see," said Hector.
He looked for Moon; but she had disappeared.
VI
When the great meeting was over, Hector said goodbye to Sleeping Thunder.
"You go from us, my son," the old man exclaimed, extending his hand, "knowing far more of my people than when you came. The Indian's ways and the white man's ways are not the same and it is not good that one should take to himself the habits of the other. The Great Spirit made us different and so we should remain. For one, vast cities, such as you have pictured to me—buildings of stone—sheltered lives; for the other, open plains—teepees—and roving lives that are wild and free. But it is good that we should know one another, since, though you are white and we are red, we are not less brothers. For this, at least, you will not regret your visit, O my son, and I will always hold you as a friend—in time of need, especially, a friend. And now you ride back to your people and no-one knows when we will meet again. But we shall meet again, be sure of that!"
Hector smiled.
"I hope so, Sleeping Thunder," he said; then added regretfully, "Tell Moon I am troubled that she was not here to say goodbye. Tell her I do not understand."
Pain momentarily darkened the chief's face. Then he also smiled.
"Who shall read the mind of a woman?" he questioned. "Go your way. I will tell her."
Again they shook hands. Hector wheeled his horses and rode away.
An Indian watched his going from a clump of bushes on the outskirts of the camp, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.
From the shadows, night after night, he had sullenly watched the stranger talking with the chief outside the teepee, watched him sitting with the father of Moon.
Loud Gun was glad to see the last of the white man.
I
The country round Fort Walsh lay deep in snow. The cold was intense. Darkness was falling.
Hector, turning back to the stove from this cheerless prospect, thanked God that no law-breaker—no whiskey-runner especially—was likely to be out on such a day, and hence, that he himself was unlikely to be required to take the trail.
He looked at the thermometer hanging in the window.
"Thirty below!" he said to himself. "I pity the poor Nitchies in their teepees."
The poor Indians well merited a little pity. This was, for them, a small-pox winter, a famine winter. Throughout the district, they were dying by thousands. The Mounted Police were working hard to save them, issuing rations and ammunition to the bands that crowded to them for aid. There were men out on the job at that moment. But they could do very little among so many.
Hector, dozing by the fire, thought suddenly of Moon and Sleeping Thunder, contrasting the terrible situation of to-day with that seen in the happy camp at Milk River months before. He wondered if any harm had come to them.
The door swung open to admit MacFarlane.
"Come in, Mac," Hector welcomed him. "Guard mounted?"
"Yes," said MacFarlane.
He plumped down in his ponderous way upon his comrade's cot.
"There's an In'jun outside, Hec'—wants to see you."
"An Indian?"
"Yes. Funniest thing," he chuckled. "Won't see anyone else. 'Sergeant Adair'—those were exactly the words. The nerve of these confounded In'juns! What d'you think? There's the small-pox in camp and they want you there, to save someone or other. As if your life didn't count a damn! I'd have thrown the creature out, but she's so thin and drawn and came so far. You'll have to go and say 'No' yourself," he roared again, slapping his big thigh. "That comes o' making yourself too nice to 'em, Hec'! That comes of your trip to Milk River!"
"Eh?"
Hector had risen. His face reflected none of his comrade's mirth.
"Why, didn't I say? It's that little squaw, Hec'——"
"Where did you leave her?"
"Why, she's out in the yard, Hec'!"—MacFarlane's jaw had dropped. "You're—you're not—going?"
"You fool," Hector flashed. "Certainly I'm going!"
In the yard he found her—haggard, worn out, snow-encrusted, terrible.
"Moon!" he gasped, pity and horror in his voice.
"My father—" she answered dully. "He is dying."
Pleading desperately, trembling hands outstretched, she told him everything. The plague had suddenly appeared on the reserve some weeks before. Sleeping Thunder, to escape it, had taken to wandering with his band in the loneliness of the prairie; but without success. Two—three—had died. Then the chief himself had been stricken. Fear conquered loyalty, and the braves, closing their ears to the prayers of the old man and his daughter, left them to die.
"And Loud Gun?" asked Hector.
She smiled wanly.
"He was kicked by a horse long before. He was in the care of the white doctors—is still there. We were alone."
In this extremity, Sleeping Thunder had thought of Hector. By gigantic efforts Moon had grappled with the difficulties surrounding her and fought a way to Fort Macleod, her father helpless in the sledge behind her.
"We believed you were there," she explained simply.
Despair had almost mastered her when she learned that Hector and his division had been transferred to Fort Walsh. But she had bravely turned her face to the new trail. That morning she had reached a spot some miles distant, pitched camp, made her father as comfortable as possible and pressed on to reach Fort Walsh before dark.
"I know that you will come," she ended.
For a moment he marvelled at the girl's strength and resolution.
Then he voiced another thought.
"But why did you come tome? You might have gone to your Indian agent—to any detachment. At Fort Macleod they would have helped you. Did you try them?"
"No," she said. "We wanted you.You! You alone can save him. We know you will give us what he needs. At Fort Macleod, they would not have helped us as you will help us."
"They would certainly have done so. I can do nothing more than they."
"You can save my father!" she repeated. "Say you will come!"
Hector tried to grasp the beauty and wonder of this thing. He had heard and seen a little of Indian fidelity and trust but until now had never guessed the depths they could fathom. Moon, travelling through all the difficulties confronting her, ignoring every hand that might have helped her, had come to lay her plea before him, with absolute faith that he alone could save her father. The thought humbled him.
But had she thought of the risks he must undergo? She was asking him to face almost certain death, at a time when her own people had deserted her, on the slight justification of their friendship. It was plain that she had thought of all this and in spite of them had not hesitated.
"I will always hold you as a friend—in time of need, especially, a friend."
There, in Sleeping Thunder's words, was the whole substance of the matter.
This was a time of need.
Hector did not waste an instant in considering the risks. He accepted them, in the spirit in which soldiers accept the perils of battle, as inevitable.
"These people—God knows why—" he thought, "rely on me more than on anyone else in the world."
"I will come—at once," he said.
Moon dropped on her knees at his feet and burst into tears.
II
On a fine spring evening, Sleeping Thunder sat with Hector outside the teepee.
The chief, by this time, was fully restored to health.
"In a few days," he said wistfully, "I return to the reserve. The agent has sent for me."
"You should never have left it," Hector reproved him. "You know the law."
"Did the law save me and mine?" the old chief countered. "It could not have done for me what you have done."
Hector smiled quietly. He had given up trying to disillusion the Indian.
"And that," Sleeping Thunder resumed, "brings me to what I wish to say. Have patience. I am old and it is not easy for me to put my thoughts into words."
He gazed steadily out towards the West. The sun was sinking in as perfect a spring sky as Hector had ever seen. The wind rustled the long grass. A bird piped drowsily. A tethered horse stamped. All else was silence.
The figure of Moon, busy round the cooking fire, stood black against the sunset.
"My son, you may remember, long ago, when we were at the Sun Dance camp, I told you that the white man's ways are not our ways and one should not adopt the habits of the other."
"I remember," Hector answered.
"I have changed my mind. That is, I think sometimes the law may be set aside. I wish to set it aside now—today—or soon."
"Go on," said Hector.
"You saved my life. I owe it to you; I know it. No man can owe to another man anything more precious. Then how can he repay such a debt? In this manner only, my son—by offering him the thing he values most in all the world—values as highly as—perhaps more highly than—his life, by tendering it as a gift. So shall he repay the debt he owes."
Hector waited, wondering. The old man sat for a long while silent, his face very tender.
"You see my daughter there—Moon-on-the-Water? Is she not beautiful? She has the eyes of a young deer, her hair is like the sky at midnight, her form like a willow drooping by the river and, when she laughs, we hear the voices of the prairie winds. She is the daughter of a line of mighty warriors and the blood of many chiefs is in her veins. She loves me with all her heart—has she not proved it?—and I know that she would gladly die for me. She is a light among all women. Where will you find her like?"
Hector, remembering her mellow voice, the mystery of her smile, the graceful swaying of her dress, answered,
"Yes, she is beautiful. She loves you."
"She loves me—yes. AndI?" The old chief's voice trembled. Far off, through the stillness, faint and doleful, they heard the sound of a trumpet at Fort Walsh. "And I?—I hold her dearer than anything I possess. Many have wooed her, my son, and I have been offered much for her. Ten ponies, fifty rifles, have been offered me by more than one lover. She is worth twenty ponies—compared with other women! And so—you see how dear she is to me and how high the value young men have set upon her."
"Yes," said Hector.
"Then, to repay the debt I owe you with that which is most precious to my heart, I offer you my daughter Moon, to be your wife."
"Your daughter Moon?"
"Yes."
Sleeping Thunder glanced keenly at Hector. The white man was silent; and he could not understand it.
"I know that I am pledging much. It is a great honour I do you, my son." Smiling, the chief stretched out a kindly hand and patted Hector's shoulder. "But of all the world there is no man to whom I would more gladly give my daughter. You are a good man—strong, just, brave, true-hearted. And the debt I owe is great. Be not afraid."
The sunset glow was melting rapidly into the mauves and blues of night. Moon had stopped her work and Hector saw her gazing enraptured towards the West. The light was on her face and, in that moment, she was very beautiful.
But an agony of pity and despair possessed him.
"Sleeping Thunder," he said at last, scarcely knowing what he said, "I know how you have honoured me. Beautiful though your daughter is, faithful and precious to you, you are wrong, my friend—yes, I say it—you do not owe your life to me. The Great Spirit is my witness I speak truth. No, do not disagree with me. My comrade, Murray, he who nursed you through the winter—saved you, not I. This gratitude is lavished over nothing. I value it more than I can say, but still I know it is so."
Struggling with his thoughts, he steeled himself to go on.
"I cannot take this gift, Sleeping Thunder. I have not earned the right. I honour Moon, but—but—there is no love between us—not the love there should be between man and wife."
The old chief flinched and his grey head sank on his breast.
"Then how could good come of such a union? We do not love; and even if we did, your words were truth, Sleeping Thunder. The red man's ways are not our ways. How could she be happy in our life, among our people?"
"There are squaw men among you."
Hector had foreseen the interruption.
"Yes, but do they treat their wives as they should? You know they do not. They make slaves of them and when they are tired or they fall in love with a white woman, they cast them off. I could not do that and would not. But, aside from this, the girl would not be happy. My people—they would look on her with contempt. And as the years went by and cities came where the prairies are desolate today, life would become intolerable for her. You know that is true."
The chief's head had fallen lower still.
"It is true," he whispered.
"I would give my right hand rather than that this should have happened. It cannot be—you know it, Sleeping Thunder."
The old man raised his head suddenly and looked up at the towering young form. He smiled sadly.
"It is true," he answered. "I will say no more."
The night swallowed them.
III
Returning to Fort Walsh, Hector had time to grasp the full significance of the chief's proposal. He had not even faintly foreseen that the old man's gratitude would express itself in the form it had actually taken. Marriage was far from his thoughts. Moon? He was fond of Moon and admired her in many ways—but not in that way. He admired and loved Sleeping Thunder. Hitherto relations between them had been ideal. But this sudden rock had split them and emphasized the unalterable differences in race and life. He wished with all his soul that things could have remained as they were.
Well, the thing was done and over! Only one course of action now remained for either party—to forget it all as soon as possible.
But here he found himself mistaken.
He had just come off duty on the afternoon when Sleeping Thunder was to start for the reserve when he was informed that an Indian was asking for him at the entrance to the fort.
The Indian was Loud Gun, recently back from hospital.
"How!" said Loud Gun, raising a hand in salute and looking down on Hector with his keen, proud eyes.
"How!" returned Hector. "What do you want?"
In a few words, the Indian explained. Moon-on-the-Water Water had sent him. Would Hector go with him and ask no questions?
A few minutes later Hector was in the saddle.
In a little coulee some distance short of Sleeping Thunder's camp, they came suddenly upon Moon.
She was alone. In her richest dress, she made a striking picture—the picture of an ideal Indian princess—calm, strong, beautiful. They greeted her solemnly. As Hector dismounted, she turned to Loud Gun.
"Go over the ridge there," she said, "and wait till I come."
The tone was pitilessly cold. Loud Gun bowed his head submissively and departed without a word.
They were alone, the Indian woman and the white man, face to face.
Moon began.
"You wonder why I sent for you? Perhaps you think I step beyond the rights of squaws?"
Something of her dignity was gone. She smiled wistfully.
"I do wonder why you sent for me, Moon," responded Hector. "But that is all."
There was an awkward pause.
"What is it?" Hector prompted. "Come, what is it, Moon?"
She seemed dumb for a moment. Her head was turned away and her face hidden.
"Is it about your father?"
"Yes," she answered swiftly, with a sudden straightening of her head. "It is about my father—my father—and—"
"Nothing has happened?"
"No. But this matter—I was saying—it is about my father—and—and you—and me!"
He waited. She made a strange, gasping sound in her throat. He began to see a light.
"Moon!" he exclaimed, alarmed.
Her voice came thickly to him.
"My father said he did it as an act of gratitude. You said—you said there was no love between us. He did not do it as an act of gratitude. He did it—" She dropped her bands suddenly and all her strength came to sustain her in that crisis. Her eyes were fearless. "He did it—because I wanted him to do it. You say there is no love between us." Her voice was half a laugh, half a moan. "No love with you, perhaps—but love—great love for you—there is with we!"
"No, Moon, no!"
"Yes!"—a whisper now—a sob that choked her—"I love you, pony-soldier! Pity me! Pity me!"
Amazement, deep concern, an overwhelming grief, swept over Hector. Why had she sent for him for this?
His talk with Sleeping Thunder had been nothing beside the possibilities before him now.
"Moon—"—he fought for words—was the soul of gentleness—"You are not yourself. This cannot be."
She wheeled suddenly, half turning her back. He saw her struggling fiercely with an emotion far more powerful than he had thought could move an Indian woman, least of all Moon.
"I know! I know!" she began. Bitterness, an agony of injured pride, a would-be scornful disregard of the humiliation she was facing, blended in the words that tumbled from her lips. "I know! I know that I—a chief's daughter—am not good enough for you. I know my love would bring you to contempt, would be a drag upon the wheels that take you on to greatness! I know that I would be a jest—a thing to scorn—a—a—"
"Moon," said Hector hotly, "that is not true! Why do you speak so of me?"
She calmed herself with an effort.
"It is not of you I speak," she smiled, with a glance towards him. "You are too kind, too generous for that. You would not scorn me, think that I dishonoured you, consider me a hindrance—no!" Her burning passion mastered her again. "But all your world—the white man's world—would do so. I am the daughter of a chief—I have said it—I am as good, in the eyes of the Great Spirit, as they are. I would be faithful to you and steadfast! I would work for you while life remained in me. But they would spit and laugh at me and call you 'fool' because you married me! Your white world—your white men—ah, and your white! women, your white women!—they would do that. And why? Why?" She rocked in anguish. "Just because I am an Indian—an Indian!"
He could not answer her.
She turned again towards him, terribly overwrought, clutching her breast.
"That is true! You know it!"
"Moon—please do not say these things."
"It is true—will you not admit it? Ah, you will not speak—that means you agree. Because you do not wish to hurt me, you will not speak—but you answer with your silence."
A long pause came. Hector wheeled and looked, unseeing, towards Fort Walsh. Waiting, he heard her fighting back to calmness. She brought herself at last to look at him. His cap was off, his profile cleanly cut against the strong sunlight, his hair ruffled by the soft wind and his scarlet tunic was like a flame to her senses. Her love for him welled up like a strong, deep tide in her desolate heart, mastering her.
"Yet I must face the degradation," she said suddenly, vast tenderness giving a pleading beauty to her voice, "because I love you—I cannot help myself. If I might be your wife—Oh, then I would laugh at all the cruel contempt that poor Indians like me have ever known! But if that cannot be—then let me be your servant and slave. Only to see you, to give my life to your service!"
"Moon," he declared, "I will hear no more. I will not have you speak like this to me!"
"Oh, do not think to save me from shame." She laughed bitterly. "Already I—the daughter of a chief—have broken the laws of my people in telling you my love. I will be an outcast. The sin is on my head. Then let me speak and beg that I may be your slave. I could keep silent no longer. Long have I loved you. You would not hear my father. But I cannot bear to give you up. So I sent for you. And all I ask from you is pity—pity! As for the scorn of my people and yours—I do not care!"
Her passion died away, exhausted, in a little while. And he took her hand and answered her.
"Listen, Moon," he said. "No-one will ever know that this has passed between us. There is no shame in this for you. I hold you too highly ever to grant this prayer of yours. It is not right. Your father said that white men and red cannot live together as man and wife in happiness. There are many Indian warriors, good men, brave and true, who love you. There is Loud Gun—"
"I do not love him!" she flashed.
"There is Loud Gun," he repeated remorselessly. "He loves you. Marry him—and forget me. I will always be your friend, Moon—"
"I cannot forget you. I love you," she persisted.
He shook his head.
"You must. Be sure, you will be happy with him. We must not meet again."
"Pity me!" she whispered.
He turned blindly and heedlessly to his horse.
"Pity me!" she almost shrieked.
But he was mounted now. And, as she flung out a desperate hand, he touched his horse with the spur.
He heard her wailing, Indian fashion, behind him—forced his mount to a fast gallop—faster, faster, to drown that dreadful sound in the rush of wind.
Weak tears blinded him.
So he left her.
IV
Before another day had passed over Fort Walsh, Hector had pondered the situation regarding Moon and come to certain conclusions. First of all, he must obviously see no more of the girl. Secondly, he must do something to repair the damage he had innocently caused. Here he ran into a stone wall. How was he to influence Moon without seeing her himself? In whom could he confide his difficulties, knowing that they would meet with sympathy? Was there anyone he knew with the necessary authority among the Indians, whose words carried weight and whom they loved and trusted?
A battering-ram appeared suddenly from nowhere and smashed the barrier down.
His man was Father Duval.
Father Duval and his work were equally well known to every man in the Police or out. None could say how long he had been in the North-West but only that he seemed as much a part of the country, as strong and staunch and vital and even as eternal as the Rockies. He had made one at the first Christmas celebration of the Force at Fort Macleod six years before and at that time was alleged to have already passed the greater part of his life as a missionary among the tribes in the district. His influence with the Indians, converts and otherwise, was illimitable. They regarded him as their spiritual and temporal parent and went to him for counsel in every predicament. His face was as familiar to them as those of their greatest chiefs, his black-robed figure as common to their camps as a travois or a teepee. The Police recognized him as a useful medium for dealing with the Indians in matters requiring great diplomacy. He was the cheerful, tireless go-between for white man and red, the friend of every Indian, settler and Mounted Policeman.
Father Duval was obviously the man.
As soon as Hector could get away he sought the priest out, riding over to the mission.
"Yes, he will see you," said the lay-brother, lifting a cloud from Hector's heart.
At a knock, the door of the severe little room which was the priest's sanctum was opened and the renowned Father Duval himself stood on the threshold, the kindliest and most lovable of men, his hand outstretched, a twinkling smile upon his rugged face.
"Ah! Entrez, mon petit!" he exclaimed. "Parlez-vous francais?"
Hector shook his head and faltered out a negative. Father Duval's smile deepened and he shrugged his shoulders whimsically.
"Too bad, too bad! Teach yourself,mon petit. It ees ver' important to comprehen' many lan-gwidges,oui.Eh bien! We try to—'ow ees it?—get along without it.Entrez, cher ami, entrez!"
By this time they had shaken hands. Hector jingled into the room, his uniform sounding a note of war in that haunt of peace. The contrast between them was very marked. The older man was like an old tower, strong in age, solid, the younger like a steel blade, keen, vivid, highly tempered. They sat down.
Hector slowly, hesitatingly, began his story. Father Duval listened, one hand on his chin, the other in his sash, his eyes, possessed by just a shadow of encouragement, incessantly fixed on Hector.
When at last Hector ceased, the priest put out a hand and laid it over his, smiling so sympathetically that Hector knew him a friend and helper from that moment.
"You—are you of our faith?" he asked.
Hector shook his head.
"Mon enfant,"—his face seemed to light up with a holy radiance—"it does not matter. I bless you all de same. You 'ave don' right to come to me, Sergeant. All you 'ave don' in disaffaire'as been right. You 'ave acted as a man ov honour,oui, an' wit' such a beeg, beeg 'art. Ah,mon petit,le Bon Dieu, 'e smile,vraiment, when 'e look down on men lak' you.Mes pauvres petits, de Indian, dey do not get ver' much de consideration you 'ave give to dat ol' chief an' 'is leetle girl.Maintenant, regardez! 'Elp you—but of course—naturelment!Attendee une minute! I 'elp you,oui. For I am well acquaint' wit' dat leetle Moon an'mon braveSleeping Thunder. Only, 'ow? 'Ow? What to do?Attendez!Attendez!"
Hector waited.
"You say de name ov dat yo'ng fellow, it is—?" the priest queried suddenly.
"Loud Gun," said Hector.
"Loud Gun?Oui.Bon! I 'ave it now. I feex it all.Regardez, mon petit. Don't you worry no more. I will see dat poor leetle girl made 'appy,oui. She marry some good Indian fellow—Loud Gun perhaps, perhaps some oder—but she will forget you an' she will be 'appy,oui, vraiment, I will send you a leetle letter later on an' tell you all about it. An' now, don' you be sad, leetle boy." He patted Hector on the shoulder and beamed up into his eyes with beautiful benevolence. "So de poor Moon, she fall in lov' wit' you, eh?" he added softly. "Vraiment, Sergeant, I am not sooprise'! A fine beeg fellow—an' ver' 'an'some,oui. Now, go—allez, won petit! Forget all dis—an' I write to you. It all come out right soon—you see!"
"God bless you, father!" Hector exclaimed.
His spirits had leaped as high as heaven.
V
"Here's a letter, Hec'," said MacFarlane, three months later. "An In'jun brought it. You're a devil for the In'juns, Hec', old boy!"
Hector took the letter curiously. No Indians were in his mind.
The letter was from Father Duval. Some English lay-brother had written it but the priest's unmistakable signature brought it to a close.
'Dear Sergeant Adair:
Don't fear. She is happy. I have married her myself, today, at my mission here, to Loud Gun. I promise you, her heart is mended! She is happy.
I am always your friend,
FRANCOIS M. DUVAL, O.M.I.'
Slowly Hector read the letter, as slowly tore it into little pieces—as one who tears something that is past and done with—and, going to the open window, let the pieces fly from his fingers in the prairie breeze....
"You're a devil for th' In'juns, Hec'," MacFarlane repeated.
The sweet face of Moon drifted momentarily before Hector's eyes, in the wake of the scraps of paper—fading, at last, like them—a something done with—
"You've got a soft spot for 'em, haven't you, eh?" MacFarlane persisted.
"Yes," said Hector.
I
Old problems were disappearing now in the North-West Territories, new problems cropping up, old crimes and criminals dying away, new crimes and criminals upon the increase. During the two years which had passed since Hector first met Moon, he had been constantly dealing with these matters, old and new, under desperate conditions. Sheer bull-dog grinding in the face of gigantic difficulties; days and weeks of ceaseless exposure to the cruel cold of mid-winter, the fierce heat of midsummer, drenching rain, stabbing blizzard, rivers in flood-time, trails knee-deep in mud; innumerable arrests, when, single-handed he dragged the wanted man, fighting like a mad dog, from under the very wings of death, in the face of regiments of carbines; other arrests, quiet, subtle, efficient; cases which took inexhaustible patience to bring to a conclusion; cases which leaped from nowhere, demanding instant decision and unhesitating action; and all these cases and arrests, trackings, traps and desperate fights requiring at one time or another, the tip-top pitch of courage, zeal, determination and diplomacy—these things had been Hector's life in those stirring years.
The whiskey-smugglers, haling their stuff across the border for the consumption of Indians and whites, still occupied much of his attention. These were old hands, dealing in old crimes. The worst of the new enemies of the law were the cattle-rustlers, who came in with the ranching industry. Some were whites, most were Indians.
Hector had gradually come to the conclusion that—in the Macleod district at least—the whiskey-runners and cattle-rustlers were operating hand in glove from some central headquarters. Some clever criminal, or group thereof, had organized the two activities into one gigantic business. So far he kept these suspicions to himself, because he had not yet enough evidence to lay before the Inspector. In the meantime, he worked away steadily and in the working gained a reputation for physical strength, courage, determination and a high sense of duty among the officers and men, the settlers and the Indians which was worth far more than any King's ransom.
In the autumn following the receipt of Father Duval's letter he was re-transferred to Fort Macleod. There occurred an incident which nearly wrecked his reputation for all time.
II
"We've got a shipment here for you, Sergeant Adair," announced Randall, the keeper of the Weatherton Company's store at Fort Macleod. Hector walked over to the counter through the crowd of Indians, settlers and policemen.
The trader, when he reached him, was busy with a customer and Hector had to wait. He passed the time in talking to Welland, who was lounging at his elbow—Mr. Joseph Welland now, keener, sprucer, more cordial and certainly more prosperous than ever.
"Well, Hec'—how's the whiskey-running? Putting it down any?" Welland began, while he carelessly picked his teeth with a bit of match.
The question was delivered in a low tone, implying caution.
"So-so," Hector replied vaguely.
Experience had taught him to trust nobody.
"But they're a cunning crowd behind it," he added.
"So they are," Welland agreed emphatically. "Not a doubt of it. That bunch in the Calgary country, now—"
"Is there a bunch working in the Calgary country?" asked Hector innocently.
"You know there is." Welland twinkled. "Guileless angel, ain't you? But, talking of whiskey—"
"Talkin' o' whiskey, are yah?" The trader's oily voice cut in suddenly. "You'll be able to talk o' whiskey for a long time, Sergeant, when you've signed this invoice!"
He winked meaningly at Welland, whose face for one moment betrayed surprise, then became intensely vigilant.
"What's this? What's this?" he exclaimed, half in jest, half in earnest, while his eyes flashed swiftly to the invoice.
Hector read and signed the piece of paper, which told him that Mr. John Adair, of Blenheim County, Ont., had recently shipped to him through Weatherton's chain of stores, evidently as a Christmas gift, one case of Scotch whiskey.
"Well, I'm shot!" Welland remarked. "I'll come an' see you when you've opened it, Hec'. How'll you get it into barracks?"
The last demand, with its veiled insinuation, irritated Hector. But he snubbed Welland by showing no concern.
"Bring it to my quarters next time you're over that way, Randall," he told the store-keeper.
"You're on, Sergeant," Randall leered, rolling his bleary eyes. "An' I hope to drink your health."
"You'll do it in water, then," Hector said quietly. "This whiskey goes to Mother Earth and no-one else."
"Wha-a-t?" Welland cried, amazed. "You're not—?"
"Yes, I am." Hector gathered up his whip and gloves. "I'm going to spill the lot of it, in Randall's presence, too. Nobody's going to say I'm a wholesale drinker myself and down on everyone else drinking."
"But Hec'! It came in a perfectly honest, legal way—"
"Can't help that. Shouldn't have come at all. I can take a drink with others, on the square or in the mess. But I'm not going to stock it myself. I've got too many people ready to take a crack at me and I won't run any chances."
"But Hec', it's a crime to waste—"
"No!" said Hector, real determination in the negative.
Welland drew back, defeated, shrugged his shoulders, and looked at the trader with a sneer.
"Hell!" he exclaimed audibly. "'Course he wants it for himself. That goody-goody stuff is bluff. That's the way with these zealots—no liquor, no! But that just applies toyou—not me!"
The tone surprised Hector. He had not expected this thrust from Welland.
"Will you come over andseeme get rid of that whiskey?" he flashed.
But Welland only laughed derisively.
"Well, Randall will be witness enough," Hector declared. "Think what you please, and be damned!"
With that, he clanked fiercely out of the store.
The trader exchanged glances with Welland, his florid face growing redder with suppressed delight.
III
Though John had sent the whiskey in a perfectly legitimate way, Hector could not use it, for the reason that, to do his work properly, he must keep up his reputation as an incorruptible enemy of liquor. If he gave way, his enemies would certainly adopt the cynical attitude that Hector, being able to get whiskey for himself whenever he pleased, had nothing to gain by winking at the operations of those less fortunate and so was zealous where he would otherwise have been slack. A better course than destroying the whiskey would have been to ship it straight back to John in Welland's presence; but Hector failed to think of this at the time.
In the late afternoon, Randall drove his sleigh into barracks.
"I got the case outside, Sergeant," he said. "Will I bring it in?"
"No," said Hector. "Dump it on the parade-ground."
Hector took an axe. They went out together.
"Why, Sergeant!" exclaimed Randall, in great alarm. "Yah ain't really goin'—? Ah, say, don't, Sergeant, don't! It's a sinful waste o' the gifts o' Providence, Sergeant—Ah!"
His voice rose to a shriek as Hector reduced the case to a pulp of splintered wood and broken glass.
"Now you tell anyone who ever mentions it what I do to private stock, Randall," said Hector, as he pitched the wreckage into the sleigh. "You understand. You've got to tell the truth.Savvy?"
"A'right, Sergeant, a'right!" Randall shrank back in alarm. "But it's an awful waste o' good Scotch!"
He drove off lamenting.
Hector's mistake had been in securing only one witness to the destruction of the whiskey. He was to pay for it later.
IV
Soon after this, Hector noticed a distinct falling off of the respectful regard held for him by the officers, the men, the civilians. They did not force the change upon him but they hinted at it in a thousand ways.
At a loss for an explanation, he did the wisest thing possible—ignored the change and went on his way in silence.
One day came light, when Inspector Denton summoned him and revealed the truth in a private interview.
"You sent for me, sir?" said Hector, entering the Inspector's sitting-room and saluting smartly.
Inspector Denton was a big man, much inclined to fatness. He had a ruddy face eloquent of good living, a drooping, luxuriant moustache, and an eye-glass which he hardly ever used. Ignorant recruits, judging by appearances, took him for a brainless martinet. As a matter of fact, the strength of a lion, the heart of a Viking and the endurance of a grizzly were hidden beneath his deceptive exterior and when action demanded those who doubted it were rapidly disillusioned.
The Inspector, as Hector entered, was seated by the stove, his tunic open, his feet in gaudy carpet slippers.
"Ah, Adair!" exclaimed the Inspector. "Er—just close the door, will you?"
Hector obeyed.
"I've been—ah—hearing tales about you, Adair," the Inspector began, composedly. "I don't like 'em. My advice is—er—if they're true—stop! I find it difficult to believe 'em, Adair. So I thought I'd talk it over quietly with you—er—alone."
"Tales about you!" Hector saw in a flash that the causes of the mysterious change were about to be revealed to him.
"Very good, sir," he said; and eagerly waited.
"Arethey true?"
"I don't know what they are, sir."
"You don't, eh?Umph!"
The Inspector pondered. Then he looked at Hector again.
"Like me to tell you? Well—er—fact is, Adair, they say you're doing a lot of secret drinking, on cases sent from the East an' so on. Very foolish, Adair, if so. Must drink openly or not at all. Ah—makes your work in suppressing the traffic look so—so hypocritical, y'know—besides bringing the Force into disrepute. It's rather hard to explain what I mean but—er—you understand, eh?"
Hector's face crimsoned with passion.
"It's a lie!" he rapped fiercely. And he told the Inspector everything.
"I see!" said Denton thoughtfully. "Isee! Well, we must kill this lie—er—immediately, Adair. It's done you a lot of harm—shaken people's confidence in you—er—considerably, very considerably. Even I was—er—-a bit affected. Now let's see. How can we kill it, eh? How can we kill it?"
"I'll kill it, sir!" said Hector decidedly. "I'll kill it, all right!"
"Right you are, Adair! Good example, eh? Even stricter attention to duty—if that were possible—eh? But no violence. Anyway, that's all about it, s'far as I'm concerned. Damn' glad it wasn't true, Adair. Er—settle it quietly, eh? Damn' glad, Adair. Close the door, er—will you, when you go out?"
So this was the cause of the change in feeling! Obviously, it was the work of Randall or Welland, who must at least have started the rumour, whatever their part in its subsequent growth may have been! The story must be killed, the Inspector had said. Well, he would kill it, there and then!
Conscious of his innocence, Hector, for the first time since joining the Police, lost that crowning attribute, self-control.
On fire to avenge his honour, he left the Inspector's and went rapidly over to Weatherton's.
V
The door of the store was dashed open. Fifty startled men, settlers, constables, Indians and half-breeds, turned together towards it, leaving a lane to the counter.
Sergeant Adair came in. They all knew him—but not this Sergeant Adair. The quiet, friendly yet sternly restrained N.C.O. was gone and in his stead was a passionate giant, fists clenched, eyes like knives, lips set and cheeks aflame.
A hush fell on the crowd. It remained for Joe Welland to break it.
The rancher, in a big buffalo coat, was smoking a cigar at the counter. Turning with the rest, he looked at Hector coolly, though with genuine concern, and his voice cut evenly through the silence:
"What's the matter, Adair?"
Hector gripped himself before replying. He was joyfully conscious of the presence of many of his friends, assembled, as if by preordainment, to witness his vindication. There was MacFarlane, staring open-mouthed; Sergeant-Major Whittaker, by the stove, motionless in the act of pulling on his gloves, alert as a bird; Jim Jackson, master of ceremonies at the first Christmas celebration at the fort years before, pausing as he buttoned his fur coat for the trail; Martin Brent, seated on a sack of flour, pipe in mouth, stoically viewing the proceedings; Cranbrook—Corporal Cranbrook now; and a dozen others. For a moment Hector marshalled his words. Then he stepped swiftly into the centre of the room, the silent crowd shrinking before him.
"Thisis the matter!" he burst out furiously. "Which of you two started these lies about me—you—oryou?"
And he pointed an accusing finger, first at Welland, then at Randall.
Deathly silence came again. Men looked at one another. Welland gaped.
"What d'you mean, Hec'? No-one's——
"Oh, yes, they have! Someone's been spreading tales that I've been getting secret whiskey from the East. Don't deny it! I know positively the story's gone 'round for weeks. Am I right, boys?—am I right?"
He flung the appeal to the crowd. They growled assent.
"That's right—that's true."
"Do you hear them?" Hector cried. "There's proof, isn't it? Now, which of you two began it? You know, Welland, that I had a case sent unexpectedly from the East. Randall knows it. You know I said I was going to destroy it. Randall saw me smash it with an axe that same afternoon. Now, no one else in the world knew that whiskey had come to me! Then, which of you spread the story? That's what I want to know."
The crowd waited breathlessly.
Welland calmly flicked the ash from his cigar and smiled.
"Say, you can take this as straight," he asserted. "I'vesaid nothing. If anyone's told any yarns, it's Randall there, not me."
And he glanced with stern contempt at the store-keeper.
Randall started, staring with alarm and consternation.
"Well, say!" he shrilled. "For God's sake, Welland——"
"You shut up!" flashed Welland. Then, quietly, to Hector: "That's your man, Adair."
Hector turned quickly to the crowd.
"Did this man start the rumour?" he demanded, pointing at Randall.
For a moment no-one answered. Fear of a tempest held them silent.
"Did he?"
"I heard it first from him, Sergeant."
The voice, pleasant, careless but assured, was Cranbrook's.
That broke the spell. A chorus of "So did I," "I did, too," rolled solemnly through the crowd.
Hector's fury broke.
MacFarlane raised a husky shout as a dozen bystanders threw themselves on Hector:
"What'you going to do? What'you going to do?"
Jim Jackson rushed into action, shouting, "No, Adair—no!"
Then came a babble:
"Hold him! Hold him!" and a storm of curses——
At the stove Whittaker still stood motionless but smiling quietly——
And Hector burst out of the crowd like a lion from a thicket of spears, grim, silent, deadly. He tossed Jackson and MacFarlane aside with a great sweep of his arm—the powers of twenty men added to his own giant strength in that moment. The trader's frenzied shriek, "Sergeant—for the love of Christ!" he did not heed at all. Seizing Randall in a grip that brought a scream to his lips, he dragged him swiftly across the counter. The scattered crowd closed in. Seeing them, he swung the trader like a flail through the air, dashing them off their feet. In the cleared space, he shook his victim as if he were a sawdust dummy.
"You dog! You dog!" they heard him crying.
Once more the crowd rushed, to save Hector from murder.
"Get back, damn you! He's mine!" Hector roared, pinning the maddened Randall against the counter and staving them off.
"Say you're a liar, you cur! You swine!" he gasped, "Say it or I'll kill you—I'll kill you——"
"I am! I am!" sobbed Randall. "Sergeant—Sergeant——"
"Let him go, Hec'! Let him go!"
MacFarlane's voice gave Hector back his sanity. But, shifting his grip, he tossed the trader, screaming, above his head and held him there, his eyes roving furiously 'round the room.
Then, taking ten great strides, he hurled him crashing but unhurt into a pile of hardware.
"I could kill you!" was in his mind. But instead he said, "Lie there, you dog; lie there!"
Ignoring the crowd utterly—it parted in his path with awed silence—he went to the door, flung it wide open.
The crash of the heavy portal slamming to aroused the crowd to tumult.
VI
Within twenty-four hours the whiskey rumour was as dead as a last year's calendar and Hector was back upon his pedestal.
Mention of his name thenceforward produced this invariable comment:
"Play straight with Adair. He's an easy-goin' bird, but a ring-tailed devil when he's roused!"