The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe BlackguardThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The BlackguardAuthor: Roger PocockRelease date: February 23, 2023 [eBook #70120]Most recently updated: March 14, 2023Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1897Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACKGUARD ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The BlackguardAuthor: Roger PocockRelease date: February 23, 2023 [eBook #70120]Most recently updated: March 14, 2023Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1897Credits: Al Haines
Title: The Blackguard
Author: Roger Pocock
Author: Roger Pocock
Release date: February 23, 2023 [eBook #70120]Most recently updated: March 14, 2023
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1897
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACKGUARD ***
BY
ROGER POCOCK.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,LONDON, NEW YORK, & MELBOURNE.
THE BLACKGUARD
"Think of your sins,What made you a soldier a-serving the Queen:God save the Queen,And God save the duffer who thinks of to-morrow.God save the man who remembers his sorrow,God save the man who can think of the past,Sundown at last:Here's rest for the past, and here's hope for the morrow!"
That is exactly what the bugle said to a man who was sitting on the edge of the bench-land in the evening calm. He was a very big man, dressed in a grey woollen undershirt, worn-out riding-breeches with a two-inch yellow stripe down the legs, and jack-boots. By his side lay a broad grey slouch-hat, such as cowboys wear; on his knees a bath-towel—dry; and in his neighbourhood lingered a faint aroma of stables. The man's bare arms were like the thighs of an average sinner, his shoulders, thighs, breast, neck, all of gigantic strength and beauty, a sight that would have appealed to any athlete as beyond the loveliness of women.
The setting sun just touched his wavy, crisp, black hair with a lustre of metal. Again, his face, still, strong, silent, had an odd suggestiveness of a bronze statue, that of something Greek but uncanny, a faun, perhaps, or a satyr. The hair, sweeping low over his brows, might almost conceal incipient horns; his ears might have been tufted; his features defying all the rules—stuck on anyhow; the subtle devilry of his deep black eyes, the ugly fascination, the whimsical dignity; the bearing lofty, defiant, almost magnificent; and again, an air, indefinite enough, of sorrowful majesty;—how well everything about the man fitted one name—the Blackguard.
That was La Mancha's name, by consent of the five troops of the Mounted Police; and somehow the common use of it conveyed no sense of reproach but rather of endearment. From the Commissioner down to the smallest recruit the whole five hundred were half-afraid of him, except one man; yet no civilian ventured to speak ill of the Blackguard, or he would have had his head punched. To say bad things about the Blackguard was to slight the Force.
And the one man who did not fear this latter-day satyr, who ruled him as mind rules matter, was a certain little Corporal, who, with a neat briar pipe well alight, was picking his dainty way over the gravel—coming down from the camp in the evening calm. This was Corporal Dandy Irvine, with a sunburnt face, a neatly-pointed moustache, the buttons of his scarlet jacket glowing like gold in the light, whose clothes always fitted, whose forage-cap was correctly poised on three hairs, whose boots and spurs were always brilliantly polished. And now he just touched the Blackguard to show that he was present, and sat down beside him without any remarks whatever. So, for five minutes, the two looked gravely out over the valley like Dignity and Impudence, both too lazy to speak.
They were looking across the Kootenay Valley—the upper Kootenay, from a tongue of the bench-land made by the deep gulch of Wild Horse Creek where it came down from the mountains. At their backs rose the huge timbered foothills of the Rocky Mountains; opposite, across the vast Kootenay trench, rose the still mightier foothills of the Selkirks, and high above the deepening purple of the forests soared the clear cool azure of the snows up into the silence of those sharp-cut Alps, reaching away forever and forever to north and south against the roseate translucent afterglow. Down yonder the river wandered crimson through misty prairies, where the trees stood in clusters pointing up, as the sentinel stars came one by one on guard.
"Dandy," said the Blackguard, without stirring, "lend me five dollars."
Without comment the little Corporal took from his breast-pocket a slender roll of notes, one of which he surrendered.
"Five dollars." The Blackguard took the crisp paper, spreading it out upon his knee. "I was wondering whether there was anybody in the world who cared five dollars for me. Here, take it back—I don't want it."
"Stick to it, Blackguard,—stick to it. You've been fined a month's pay every month since last December; and I guess you'll keep up the motion every month till your time's out—stick to it."
"I'll keep up the motion," said the Blackguard vindictively. "I'll get drunk to-night. They fine me because they can't spare me off duty, and because they've jolly well proved that there isn't a guard-house in the Territories strong enough to hold me over night."
The Corporal chuckled. "How about number five cell at Regina?"
"Number five cell be ——. It was nine months last time."
"Look here, La Mancha. That nine months sticks in my gizzard. I ought to have been punished, not you."
"Take off your serge!" By taking off the serge jacket which bore his double chevron as corporal, Dandy could surrender the protection given by his rank, and become a plain trooper like the Blackguard. The summons was a challenge to fight.
"I'll keep on my serge," said Dandy; "you're too big, Blackguard."
"Then don't talk rot about number five cell. Here's Pup La Mancha, my brother, deserting, and you and me and that fool Pocock overtaking him at Lane's stopping-place. Suppose you let him go, Shifty Lane reports you at headquarters. Suppose you don't let him go, you get my brother, the Pup, a year in the cells. Suppose I let him escape and take his place, I get nine months. After all, what's nine months? I shall be blazing drunk to-night, and maybe get it again!"
"Why can't you behave yourself?"
"Why should I, Dandy? Now you've got a mother, Dandy, who gets a letter from you every week.
"'Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,Lead Thou me on.'
She's the kindly light, I suppose, but mine went out. And you've got a girl, Dandy, who believes you're a brass saint with a tin halo, which you're not, and who loves you except when she happens to love some other Johnny, which is all the same thing. I've been in love, too, with heaps of girls, two or three at a time generally, hating each other like so many Antipopes. I have a photograph-album—you've seen it in my kit-bag—of all the girls I ever really loved, except a small collection which got burnt up in a hotel fire. I tried to be good, more or less, for each of them, except when they liked me bad; and even now I could be tolerably straight, with an occasional holiday to let off steam, if I had somebody who cared."
"I care," said Dandy moodily.
"Oh, you don't count. You're only a whiff, a spit, and a damn like a Russian cigarette."
"But you have people—your family."
"Yes, I've got a brother in London, an awful snob,—also a sister."
"La Mancha, I saw the name in some paper—the Duke of—Duke of Something—Spanish Ambassador to the Court of St. James'—but, Blackguard!"—
"Well?"
"Is that your"—
"Yes, that's the Snob."
"But from what I saw he must be an awful bad lot."
The Blackguard's eyes flashed ominously. "Drop that. If you talk bad about my people I'll have to chuck you into the river. Then you'll get wet."
"And you'll be sorry. Are all your people such swells?"
For answer the Blackguard drew from beneath his undershirt a crucifix which hung from a slender chain of gold about his neck. "That's from one of my relations,"—he kissed it reverently,—"Isabella—God bless her—of Spain."
"Why, Blackguard, are you of the Blood-Royal—a prince?"
"Not quite that,—I suppose in English I should be Lord So-and-so. Regimental Number 1107, Constable La Mancha, my lord—ahem—you are charged with having, on the night of the 18th instant, been drunk, and assaulted the guard; also with having, on the night of the same instant, set the guard-room on fire; also with having, on the same night, et cetera.— Sounds well,—eh, Dandy?"
The Corporal laughed. "We've been together four years now, and this is the first time you told me a word about yourself. We have lots of gentlemen in the ranks—I suppose I'm a gentleman myself if it comes to that, but"—
"A fat lot of use it is, eh?"
"That's so. What were you doing all those years in England?"
"Military attaché at the Legation until I had my last big row with the Snob. You see, I met a woman at a Foreign Office reception—a regular cat—and found her out for a she-spy in the secret service of—let's say Russia. When the Snob took to fooling around after her, I warned him; but he only thought I was jealous, and called me names. So we had a row, and I gave him a black eye, Eton style. Then I had to give him another to make it even. After that, of course, all was over between us. I took some keys off him, plundered the safe, told him what train I should catch, the name of the steamer—gave him every chance if he wanted a public scandal. He didn't want a scandal—might have cost him his job, so now he's the Ambassador and I'm the Blackguard. That's all."
"Poor devil!"
"Yes, poor devil," yawned the Blackguard cheerfully, as he stood up to stretch himself. "Anything fresh?"
"Nothing much." The Corporal was brushing some dead grass from his breeches. "There's a civilian at the officers' mess, came from Golden City by the 'Duchess' and rode over from Windermere. He's bound for the Throne Mine."
The Blackguard looked across the valley and saw one glimmering light far up on the mountains—the light of the Throne Mine.
"Well," he said, "I'm off to the canteen."
"Don't be a fool! Come and play poker in my tent."
"What's the use?" The Blackguard laid his hand on Dandy's shoulder. "You're a good fellow. I know jolly well what you mean, but I've got a devil—Good-night—and an appointment with Mother Darkie."
Then the Corporal turned sorrowfully away.
"Women and wine and war!War and wine and love!With a sword to wear, and a steed to ride,And a wench to love—give me nought beside,But a bottle or so at the eventide:Women and wine and war!
Women and wine and war!War and wine and love!Oh, war's my trade, and wine's my play,Wine crown the night, and war the day—With a kiss or so in a casual way:Women and wine and war!
Women and wine and war!War and wine and love!Here's a broken head, and a drunken spree,And the blue-eyed wench deserted me,Go! lecture the woman, and let me be:Women and wine and war!"
So sang the Blackguard, while all his riotous gang roared out the chorus, and Mother Darkness, perched on the bar with my Lord of Misrule's big arms about her waist, rocked to and fro, crying "Lordy! Lordy!" at intervals.
"Boys," said the Blackguard, "who wouldn't be a soldier at fifty cents a day and die for a living!"
"Shut yer jaw! Can't you drink, Blackguard, without making speeches? Why, the smell of a cork sets you off. You'd talk the legs off a brass monkey!"
"What I say is," shouted Mutiny Saunders, in hot argument with his chum, Tribulation Jones,—"what I sez is, when a man's got an 'orse and looks after that 'orse, and grooms that 'orse, and gits to like 'is 'orse, and some 'alf-breed hofficer wants to take that 'orse away from 'im, and 'e bucks stiff-legged,—what I sez is, 'air on 'im!"
"Camp on 'is trail!" suggested Tribulation,—"make 'is life a burden to 'im. Oh, my Gawd, tear a bone out of 'im! What do you say, Blackguard?"
"Oh, keep it till the break of day.
"'Women and wine and war!'
Eh, Mother Darkness? Come and be Mrs. Blackguard. Boys, celebrate our nuptials, dance at our wedding, for Mother Darkness is to be Queen of the May—and share my Government straight, and pay my debts, and take in washing, and be my wife."
He kissed her ugly black face, while she rocked to and fro muttering "Lordy! Lordy!"
"I'll take a scarecrow in—I'll have a bally scarecrow for my wife!" shouted Billy Boy out of a corner. "Send round the poison, Blackguard."
"Yes, and to the blazes with poverty. Mother Darkness, my last dollar for the drinks—for now I'm clean-busted."
So while the drinks went round once more the Blackguard snatched up his guitar, and caught the lilt of some grand old Andalusian dance—
"Sing with me,Carita;Dance with me,Carita,Let the mad world sing the lilt of our gladness!Dance with me,Carita;Merrilie,Carita,Let the glad earth catch the lilt of our madness!"
The log-cabin allowed but space to swing a cat, as the saying is—although nobody had ever swung cats in it since its erection a month ago. Kept by a motherly negress, enterprising in the matter of illicit whisky, this shanty served as a canteen for the camp, levied half the available pay of D Troop, occasioned more trouble than all the Red Indians in Kootenay, and generally played the very deuce with public morals. As to the men who sat on soap boxes and barrels round the walls, or perched on the bar, giving cheek to Mother Darkness, well, of course, they should have been in bed long ago, and certainly they ought to have abstained from the trash which passed current at a shilling a drink for whisky; but then—the shanty was by proclamation "out of bounds"; to be found in it meant a heavy fine; to be caught beyond the limits of the camp after "lights out" meant punishment, and to drink illicit liquor was officially accounted worse than all the deadly sins; so, according to the natural history of man, there was every inducement for a roaring night. And the men? To the stature and strength of an English Life Guardsman add the intelligence, courage, and impudence of a Black Watch veteran, and you have the prescription for a constable of the North-West Mounted Police. There is not in all the Empire a more splendid corps than this widely-scattered regiment of irregular cavalry, in time of peace hare-brained, half-mutinous, almost beyond the power of human control; in many a time of instant danger approved for stern endurance, utter loyalty, and headlong courage. These men in the shanty, waking the night with song and chorus, had each of them done great deeds of arms, for which nobody in authority or otherwise had given as much as a "Thank you." The tale has been told at many a camp fire, how a constable was sent once to track down a mad Indian who had killed and eaten his children. Months afterwards the Officer Commanding at Fort Edmonton was interrupted in the midst of a muster parade by a bearded civilian in rags, who walked up to him and halted at three paces with a correct salute.
"What the deuce do you want?" said the Officer Commanding.
"Come to report, sir."
"Who the devil are you?"
"Constable Saunders, sir,—got my prisoner in the guard-room."
That was Mutiny Saunders, who had tracked his victim fearlessly into goodness knows what awful recesses of the northern forest, who had been struck off the strength of the Force as "missing," but who never deigned to report himself alive until he carried out an almost impossible order and vindicated the majesty of British Justice by making the most extraordinary arrest in all the annals of the Empire.
Tribulation Jones, now arguing with Mutiny about a horse, was one of the seventy-five men who took part in the "Poundmaker Racket," when Crozier's Troop, confronted by thousands of armed Indians, charged, rode them down, wheeled, charged again, scattered them and carried off a necessary prisoner, and all without a single shot being fired.
Billy Boy, now howling out the chant of "Old King Cole," once drove a team two hundred and ten miles in two days without killing his horses, and in the darkest days of the North-West Rebellion carried despatches right through the enemy's lines.
Mackinaw Bob, leaning back against the shanty wall very drunk, was one of the thirty men who in Fort Walch defied for three days the largest Indian army ever raised, to wit, the Sioux forces of Sitting Bull, when they came to Canadian territory triumphant after the massacre of General Custer's 7th Cavalry.
The Blackguard? But the Blackguard's story is the purport of this present writing. He had taken up the bad old song called "Limerick," of many naughty verses, strung to an idiotic tune—
"Ho, there was a non-com. at MacleodWho got so infernally proudThat he busted his vestWith the swell of his chest,And they bore him away in a shroud.
Yah, there was a recruit at headquartersWho loved all the officers' daughters,But he couldn't choose which,So occasioned a hitch,And broke all the girls' hearts at headquarters."
"Boys, who's this Tenderfoot they've got at the officers' mess?"
"I found the duffer," said one of the boys just in from Windermere patrol,—"he'd strayed like a something Maverick—didn't know who he was or where he belonged to—lost his led horse with all his dunnage. I rounded him up and headed him in towards camp. His name's Ramsay."
"Is he any good?"
"No. Puts on enough side for a Governor-General, called me my good fellah—the blawsted Henglish jumped-up, copper-bottomed, second-hand, brass-bound swine."
"Where is he going to sleep?"
"Colonel's tent, I guess, unless the old man turns up unexpected; but he's still at the mess with a brandy-and-soda and two blanked adjectived Inspectors. I want to know what we've done that he should be palmed off on a white man's camp instead of old Isadore's Reserve, the rat-tailed, lop-eared, pigeon-livered son of a"—
"Boys, Providence has sent him here to be kicked, and shall we dispute the wisdom of Providence? I'll see to it, you fellows; and now, unless somebody's got credit with my future wife for the drinks, let us close the exercises by singing in a loud voice the words of that venerable summons known as the 'General Salute.'"
So the boys took up the goodly measure to a strenuous accompaniment of beaten pans in an uproar worthy of Pandemonium—
"Now here comes the Gen-e-ral, all venom and spleen,And he rides like a sack, with a string round the middle, OhHis head's full of fea-thers, and his heart's all woe,So 'present' while the band plays 'God save the Queen!'"
"Soldier, soldier, where are your breeches, pray?Soldier, soldier, get up and dust;Where the deuce have you hidden your brains away?Soldier, soldier, get up and dust.Busted the bugler? Send him to hospital;Can't you shut up that confounded row?Show a leg, and no damned profanity—Get out and sweat for a shillin' a day."
When the bugle had concluded making these remarks, when the echoes of the hills were calling back their greeting, the valley stirred under its blanket of mist, the Alps blushed red to the sun's first kiss, and the shadows of night ran to covert among the scented pines. The bugler was raking up a fire in front of the guard-tent with a view to his morning coffee, the picket was lounging drowsily home from the horse lines, and from every tent came sleepy execrations.
"Show a leg there! Get a move on you! Who the —— told you to tread on my legs! Réveille! Oh, give us a rest; who said Réveille?"
The bugler sounded "Dress!" and there was a further stirring as though half the tents would be overthrown. One by one the canvas flaps were thrown open, as men came out with their towels in search of tin basins generally mislaid. Then, it seemed but a few minutes afterwards, the bugler set the brazen tormentor to his lips to call stables—
"Oh, come to the stables and water your horses,And groom them a little and give them some hay,Groom them damned little and give them bad hay,Government grooming and Government hay;For if you don't do it the Colonel will know it,Then orderly-room—and the devil to pay."
At that the troop fell in, each man with his curry-comb and brush, some in canvas jackets, some without, one or two in deer-skin coats, all with long boots, and otherwise compromising their civilian appearance with traces of uniform, except the Orderly Sergeant, who wore correct undress. He had to bring parade to attention and call the roll, then, after a smart numbering off, to give the "Fours right, quick march!" which sent the column briskly away to the horse lines. Half an hour sufficed to water horses, clean up bedding, groom and feed, then the beasts were left in charge of a picket detailed to herd them to pasture for the day. The parade was dismissed, and the men strolled home to their tents thinking audibly on the subject of breakfast.
"Constable La Mancha," the Orderly Sergeant had been consulting his notes.
"Well?"
"Consider yourself under arrest."
"Kiss my socks!" said the Blackguard. "Why, what have I done?" he continued innocently.
"Done? You'll find out soon enough."
"Yes, Sergeant—but which charge in particular—I've got to prepare my defence."
"Oh, give us a rest! Get off to breakfast,—I'm busy."
"'Twas ever thus!" said the Blackguard sorrowfully. "Thank goodness, the Colonel's away." But even as he turned abruptly towards the tents a mounted man coming up from behind barely avoided riding over him. "What d'you think you're doing?" cried the Blackguard angrily. The rider swerved gracefully clear with a touch of the rein, a hard-featured, clear-eyed veteran, grey with long service, sitting his horse with an easy dignity, dressed in rough frontier clothes, weary, travel-stained—the Colonel himself.
La Mancha saluted in haste, startling the horse into a succession of desperate plunges. "Just like my luck!" groaned the Blackguard, and would have gone on towards the camp fires of his mess, but the Colonel, alighting now before his tent on the far side of the parade ground, called to him, "La Mancha!"
"Yes, sir!" the Blackguard ran to the tent.
"Just take my horse to the lines, unsaddle, give him a rub down, then water, and send my servant."
So the Blackguard was busy, and cursing until long after the breakfast bugle; but the Colonel, refreshed by a wash and a hasty change into uniform, made his way to the table set under an awning for the officers' mess.
"Good-morning, gentlemen."
His kindly grey eyes had noted a civilian sitting with his two officers at breakfast, a handsome English youngster, neatly built but small, perhaps twenty years old, to judge by the light down of an incipient moustache; unused to the world, as might be known from the awkward self-consciousness of manners; very green, to judge by the ridiculous bourgeois attempt at a riding costume.
The two Inspectors had risen, big Fraser Gaye, late of Carrington's Horse in South Africa, and little Gunby, from the Kingston Military School.
"Good hunting, sir?" asked the one, but the other was kicking the Englishman furtively to make him stand up. "Good-morning, sir;" he was kicking strenuously, his face reddened with the exertion,—"let me present Mr. Ramsay."
"You're welcome, Mr. Ramsay. Glad to see you;—sit down."
The Colonel had taken a chair at the head of the table, observant of Mr. Ramsay, and smiling with inward laughter. "Why," he wondered, "must a green youngster try to hide his ignorance with a cloak of affectation? He's speechless still with a sort of stage fright, so he pretends a lofty reserved indifference." "No," the Colonel turned suddenly upon Fraser Gaye, talking to give his guest a chance of cooling off, "the hunting was not very good. June is a bad month when one has to respect the game laws. Do you know what game is always in season, Mr. Ramsay?"
The Colonel's winning smile meant, as his subalterns knew, the advent of his very oldest joke. "No?" for Mr. Ramsay was still speechless. "Ah, the kind of sport I speak of is out of date where you come from. Man is the one game animal never out of season in the West."
"Man?" Mr. Ramsay had found his tongue at last; so while the Mess Orderly was laying breakfast before him, the Colonel went on reassured—
"Yes. My Division has been sent across the Rockies here into British Columbia because the Kootenay tribes have been a little restive. There was a medicine man from somewhere in Idaho at the bottom of all the trouble, and he being an American subject, I was not willing to risk the loquacity of the newspapers yonder. To arrest him meant worry and red tape without end."
"What, sir?" the senior Subaltern spoke anxiously. "Have you"—
"No," the Colonel smiled over his coffee cup, "I went as a civilian; as a civilian I herded him like a steer across the Tobacco Plains, and left him in gaol under a bogus charge in United States territory. That's my hunting, gentlemen."
The Colonel had given his guest time enough to shake off any embarrassment; indeed, the youngster had by this time helped himself uninvited to a second rasher of bacon, put on an air of assured worldliness, and was evidently trying to assume the easy devil-may-care freedom of manners which he supposed to be characteristic of the Far West.
"A little more bacon?" said the Colonel gracefully, with a wink towards his senior Inspector.
"Oh—ah—thanks—yes—I mean I've helped myself." The Tenderfoot was blushing to the roots of his hair.
"I hope my young gentlemen have been entertaining you properly?" continued the Colonel, at which the junior Inspector burst out laughing.
"We've tried, sir." Mr. Fraser Gaye met an inquiring glance from the Colonel. "We gave this gentleman your tent, with some of our bedding; but when he tried to turn in last night he fell foul of one of the Quartermaster's sheep lashed to the cot. Mr. Ramsay says he was kicked half-way across the parade ground."
"I must say," the Colonel tried to be grave, "I had some misgivings when I met La Mancha just now. He wore that eager-child innocence of expression which always means some fresh outrage. I promise you, Mr. Ramsay, that he shall have occasion to repent."
"Aw—I wouldn't be hard on him, don't you know. I'm sure it was only"—
The Englishman was genuine now, so that despite his airs and graces the Colonel liked him. Even the mess waiter, standing with a wooden face behind, allowed a glance to escape of intelligent appreciation, and the senior Inspector, noting it, was glad that news of this plea for mercy would reach the troop.
The Colonel changed the subject. "Well, Mr. Ramsay, how do you like our mountains?"
Again the Tenderfoot fell into needless embarrassment, until little Gunby came to his relief.
"Mr. Ramsay turned up last night, sir, on horseback." The Subaltern could not refrain from grinning at the remembrance. "He's got business up at the Throne Camp, so I took the liberty of promising"—
"A man to show him the way, eh? Quite right. Mr. Ramsay is welcome. Who's Orderly Officer? Oh! Then Mr. Fraser Gaye will detail a good man—and now"—
The Colonel rose, seeming scarcely to have taken more than a cup of coffee, and with a glance drew the senior Subaltern to his own tent, where he received a full report of events during his late absence.
"Get rid of that young fool," was his last instruction before closing the interview. "If you let him stay in camp another day I shall have to punish half the men for practical jokes. Get rid of him before noon."
"Come to your mother, my love,Come to your mother, my boy."Defaulters Call.
"Regimental Number 1107, Constable la Mancha," the Colonel read from a sheet of blue foolscap, "you are charged with having, on the night of the 2nd instant, been drunk."
The Blackguard nodded.
"You are further charged with having, on the same instant, acted contrary to the discipline of the Force, in that you did cruelly ill-treat an animal—namely, a sheep."
The Blackguard nodded.
"You are further charged with having used insulting and abusive language to the Sergeant of the Guard."
The Blackguard smiled. "I told him to"—
"Silence!" said the Sergeant-Major quietly.
The Colonel laid down the charge-sheet with a gesture of weariness.
"Have you anything to say for yourself?"
"It's all correct, sir."
"You have no excuse or apology?"
"None, sir."
"Constable la Mancha, are you aware that your defaulter sheet is notoriously the blackest in the Force?"
The Blackguard answered with a smile of innocent frankness which would have disarmed a grizzly bear.
"In four months from now your time expires, otherwise, for continuous misbehaviour, I should be compelled to recommend your discharge. I cannot have my whole division demoralised by one"—he was going to say "blackguard!" "Consider this matter. Fined one month's pay."
The Blackguard saluted.
"Thank you, sir."
"Right about turn," said the Sergeant-Major, "quick march."
Then the Colonel chuckled. Presently he looked up at the senior Inspector.
"Have you seen to Mr. Ramsay?"
"I'm afraid, sir, that I have only one duty man available who knows the trail."
"You mean La Mancha? Hum!—I wish we had a dozen men as useful. Well, never mind the rules—he's safer occupied."
The Inspector spoke to the Orderly Sergeant, who left the tent saluting.
"Blackguard," he said, overtaking the culprit, "got a job for you. Saddle your horse and Polly. You're to take that Tenderfoot up to the Throne Mine. Report before lights out to-morrow, and see you don't 'mislay him' anywhere."
An hour later, when the sun was high in the heavens, Mr. Ramsay, attended by a "common soldier," set out in state westward for the Selkirk Mountains. The Englishman's feelings were mixed, firstly with admiration for the common soldier's ease in the saddle, for his coal-black charger, standing sixteen hands, clumsy as a dray-horse, the one weight-carrying animal in D Division, for the belt weighed down at one side with a ponderous service revolver, and glittering all across his back with twenty cartridges of burnished brass like a serpent of golden fire. His second feeling was pride at being sent out with such an escort, for the Blackguard on horseback was magnificent. His third feeling was poignant humiliation over what had passed when, in presence of a dozen grinning troopers, he had tried to mount the gentle brown mare at the lines.
"If you will mount on the off side," was La Mancha's stinging comment, "she'll kick off your head to begin with."
Then somebody had made a remark about his riding-breeches, which came from the most expensive tailor in London. "Why, you idiot, they're for swimming. Don't you see the baggy parts blow like footballs to keep the duffer afloat?" He had not caught some further remarks about his leggings, but a chill went up his back at the thought of it. All across the continent he had looked in vain for such baggy riding-breeches, such leather leggings, such loud-checked tweed as his tailor had insisted upon in Conduit Street. Such things were not worn in Canada.
But now, away from the atmosphere of that camp, in which he had scarcely dared to breathe, away from the troopers who had looked upon him as a sort of penny toy, and the officers who had failed to see how much he needed rest after yesterday's ride, Mr. Ramsay felt that he must shake off his diffidence.
They had reached the river, and, as the Blackguard slacked rein in mid-stream to let the big horse drink, Mr. Ramsay did the same, not observing that he had halted his animal so far forward that the water went down muddy and foul for the other. The Blackguard favoured him with a glance of some virulence, and went on a little. On the far bank there was more humiliation—dismounting to recinch the saddles after the western custom, the shortening of his own stirrup leathers, then the mounting, this time a little better done.
"Blackguard," said Mr. Ramsay, meaning to be distantly affable, as became their social relations; but the soldier looked round to favour him with a prolonged stare. Then, drawing a deep breath—
"If you want to call me, don't trouble to speak, just whistle—so"—
At the whistle a dog came leaping out from some bushes by the river. "Why, it's Powder! Come along, then, dear old chap!"
So for some time, while they paced slowly over the meadows and climbed the high bench beyond, the common soldier and the dog made perfect company, while the Tenderfoot rode behind full of bitterness.
"My good man," he said at last, irritably, drawing abreast, "the day before yesterday I left Windermere on horseback—I'd never been on the back of a horse in all my life."
"So I see;" said the Blackguard, glancing over the other with scorching criticism.
"I was frightened to death, but whatever you think of me I can keep my cowardice to myself."
"So I observe. Sure sign of a thoroughbred!" said the Blackguard gravely. "Now, if you pick up Powder by the tail, he won't let out a whimper."
Mr. Ramsay looked at the animal, which was piebald red and white like a cow, exhibited in its person symptoms of about eighteen different kinds of dog, and had not the slightest vestige of a tail, not even a bud. The Tenderfoot tried to be freezingly polite.
"Fit for the Dogs' Home, I should think."
"No," said the Blackguard, "he's very rare—thoroughbred of his kind—the only known specimen. He's getting sick of this expedition already. Go you home, Powder!"
Powder, assuming an expression of disdain, hopped off languidly on three legs.
"He's official dog to D Troop," explained the Blackguard; "draws his rations out of the hindquarters of every civilian dog within ten miles."
Mr. Ramsay took a case from his pocket, and with much gravity and puppyish affectation drew out a cigar, which, with vigorous balancing in the saddle, he managed to light, throwing the flaming match beside the trail.
The Blackguard, greatly amused, pulled up, dismounted, quenched an incipient fire with his foot, then, swinging easily into the saddle, remarked upon certain penalties for setting the country alight.
Mr. Ramsay maintained a scornful silence. Neither this, nor the distant affability, nor the freezing politeness had been quite a success, but there was still a trace of condescension in his voice when he remarked experimentally upon the shot-gun slung in place of a carbine on the horn of La Mancha's saddle.
"Ah, my good fellow, what kind of shooting do you expect?"
"Side-hill hens," the Blackguard waxed serious.
"What are they? We have none at home."
"Oh, in this mountain country the prairie chickens have one leg shorter than the other, so that they can graze along the slopes."
"But then, they could only go one way! It sounds like nonsense."
"Quite true, though; they keep to the right. I'll show you their notice-boards presently. Then higher up we may get a few chiffons, or a brace of fichus."
"I never heard of your local game. Very inferior sport, I should suppose."
"Yes. The chiffon is only a four-legged bird—grows fur and teeth."
"Of course, you mean it's an animal?"
"No—plain bird. And the fichu is more curious still. We only get hen birds now, because the cock birds are all extinct."
"Aw—nonsense! How could they breed?"
"They don't," said the Blackguard sorrowfully.
By this time Mr. Ramsay was full of misgivings, but gaining the top of the bench-land, the Blackguard led off at a trot which soon shook not only misgivings out of the Tenderfoot, but also several vital organs, and even one or two distinctly profane remarks when he lost the cigar. He was so sore after yesterday's travelling that every jerk spelt agony, and nothing but courage withheld him from crying aloud.
"Sore tail, eh?" said La Mancha at last, and, loosing rein, let his horse break into a fresh pace, the delightfully easy canter known in the west as a "lope." "Is that better?"
"Haw! I could keep this up all day. You need not consider me."
So they went on across the gently rolling grass land, past many a graceful thorp of pines and bluff of tremulous aspen, through meadow lands ablaze with big yellow daisies and swaying acres bright with golden rod. The air was rich with perfume from the woods, where unseen birds rang out ecstatic songs; canaries flaunted their gorgeous hues from branch to branch, and humming-birds whirring each like an emerald in his mist of wings over the blossoms of rich scented briar. Great gardens of wild roses mile by mile, steeped with intoxicating perfume, then cedars towering out of the dreamy heat, then of a sudden they entered a green twilight of forest, cool, still, mysterious, like some ghostly sea where coral red along the misty aisles great trees went up into a cloud of leaves. So the Blackguard drew rein as though it were irreverent to canter into church, and mile after mile the trail went upward into the shadow, steeper and steeper as they neared the hills.
Suddenly the green gloaming parted ahead, framing the blue haze of an abrupt mountain; then, as though out of some submarine cavern, the riders came into an open glade at the very base of the Selkirk range, where the afternoon sun half-blinded them. On either hand steep wooded heights shot up into mid-sky—between them a winding meadow barred just ahead with a great snake fence, save where there came forth a rumbling stream, milk-white because it had sprung full-grown from the mills of the gods—from the far-away glacier of the Throne.
The Blackguard let out a long "halloo," answered at once by a rifle shot; and the Tenderfoot was just in time to see a whiff of blue smoke against the big snake fence.
"Two cowboys in camp," explained the Blackguard as they rode forward; "they've made the fence to corrall old General Buster's bulls."
"Aw—a pretty rough lot, I suppose."
"Be civil, or they'll eat you," the Blackguard grinned; "they always shoot at sight unless you halloo their password. That's why I yelped. They're cannibals too. Have you much money on you? Well, it's too late to save it now—so hope for the best."
Thus prejudiced against the cowboys, Mr. Ramsay found their appearance displeasing. Both men wore blue shirts with large pearl buttons arranged in a shield pattern on the breast, and heavy leather "chaparejos" leggings, suspended from a revolver belt; one pair with leather fringes all down the outer seam, the other completely faced with the hairy black bearskin. Black Bear was a swarthy Mexican, ominously scowling, and adorned with large gold earrings; Leather, who answered to the uncouth name Arrapahoe Bill, was a lengthy hard fair sinner, whose tawny hair curled down well over his neck.
"Ho-la, the blackguard!" was Black Bear's greeting, followed by a torrent in guttural Spanish, while the horses were being rapidly unsaddled and turned loose to graze within the fence. As to Arrapahoe Bill, one glance at the Tenderfoot's baggy breeches reduced him to ominous silence.
"Well, Bill—how's tricks?" said the Blackguard afterwards, lying at ease before the tent, while he watched the Mexican's cookery of coffee and venison.
"Tricks?" growled Arrapahoe Bill, pointing at Mr. Ramsay,—"where did you getthat?"
"Oh, let me introduce you,—this is Mr. Ramsay from—Clapham Junction."
"How do?" said the cowboy stiffly.
"Come, Bill," the Blackguard seemed amused, "a cheerful specimen you are, you confounded old grizzly. Wake up and be civil."
"Mistah Ramsay from Clapham Junction," said the cowboy with difficulty, as though his tongue was stiff, "there ain't no civility whar I come from, but white men are always welcome, sah, among gentlemen."
"I am not, as you suppose, from Clapham Junction," said the Tenderfoot, thinking thus to mitigate the situation, "but—thanks all the same," he added lamely.
"Mistah Ramsay," continued the Blackguard, with a malicious grin, "is an English capitalist going up to see the Throne Mine."
"Huh!" the Mexican chuckled with a snarling laugh, "the outfit of the Throne Mine is goneloco."
"That means," explained La Mancha, "that the people at the Throne are lunatics."
"Really?"
"All yesterday they fire off guns—they have afiesta. Then followed another torrent of guttural Spanish.
"A birthday party," explained La Mancha. "'Ware petticoats! It seems that they've got a woman up there—the Burrows girl, they call her; arrived since I was this way before."
"Perhaps," suggested the Tenderfoot stiffly, "Mr. Burrows has a niece or a daughter."
"Anyway, she's a good-looking piece, by all accounts. Wish I'd been up there for the birthday,—I like girls."
"Come, Mr. Tenderfoot." Arrapahoe Bill was cleaning his sheath knife by stabbing it into the earth. "Soldier, the kettle's a-boil. Sling in that coffee."
The soldier slung coffee and sugar into the camp kettle, let it boil a minute, then served the scalding stuff into four tin cups. Meanwhile Black Bear was busy filling four tin plates with a stew of reindeer. So the meal commenced, for three ravenous frontiersmen and one doubtful Britisher who had never before tasted venison, nor knew what manner of beast had furnished it.
"More girl deer," said the Black Bear in his dubious English.
"More what?" The Tenderfoot cast a glance of extreme suspicion at the stew.
"Dear girl, he means," explained the Blackguard,—"dear little Indian girl shot yesterday."
The Englishman, ghastly white, got up, clutching his breast with both hands, and walked away with great dignity into the woods.
"'Ware rattlesnakes!" shouted Arrapahoe Bill, with a grim chuckle; and then, knowing that the victim of this awful jest was beyond all fear of snakes, the three men laughed. Yet even while the Blackguard relished the flavour of the joke came its bitter aftertaste, which froze the grin on his face and made him follow Mr. Ramsay.
"Look here," he said, coming to where his charge leaned shaking against a tree, "don't be a fool! That dish, my Emerald, was venison, the meat of the cariboo, of the reindeer. You know what venison is?"
The Englishman turned slowly, looking over his shoulder with a glance of scorn and rage. "I know what you are," he said in a low even voice,—"I know what you are now."
"A blackguard, yes, I know. And yet—and yet—you needn't make such a fuss about it."
The Englishman turned full upon him, quite quiet, though the sweat stood upon his forehead in white drops. "I am a Tenderfoot—you laugh at me—think I'm afraid of you. I don't know your ways here, but I've read of them in books. There is one thing in common between us two. Will you fight?"
"No,—you're too small."
"I don't mean with fists. Go and borrow for me a revolver from those friends of yours—you have your own."
"You're a brave man," said the Blackguard, bantering, "but you see, my dear fellow, I can't fight, because my business is to keep you out of mischief."
"You needn't try to shuffle out of it now—fetch that revolver."
"Little stranger, I am a dead shot, I have killed men—worse luck—before now; while you never fired a gun in all your life."
"I choose your own weapons, you coward!"
"Little man, over all this country, from sea to sea, there's a flag"—the Blackguard took off his hat—"which does not allow any nonsense. We're not in the United States just now. I beg your pardon, I, Don José Santa Maria Sebastian Iago las Morẽnas de la Mancha, otherwise known as the Blackguard, beg your pardon. Come, don't be a silly ass!"
It was not what La Mancha said, nor the grace with which he spoke, the certain scornful simplicity as of a great aristocrat, which moved the Englishman. Rather it was the wonderful tender light in the man's eyes.
Ramsay's hand went out instinctively, and the two men were friends.
"Do you know my side of life—London?" asked the Tenderfoot haughtily, as he followed La Mancha by a corkscrew trail up the lower foothills.
"Rather," said the Blackguard,—"the mare's a great pal of mine."
"TheLordMayor, I suppose, you mean?"
"No, the grey mare—horse's old woman, you know. Besides, I know the place well. The Grand Trunk passes through it; there's quite a station."
"Why, hundreds of lines go to London."
"Well, I don't know about hundreds. There's the Grand Trunk, and perhaps they carry a line of portmanteaux or hat-boxes. But I always take the Grand Trunk. More commodious. Besides, one has to have a lot of clothes for a big place like London; it has ten thousand people."
"Five millions, you mean."
"Oh, come off; there are not that number in the whole of Ontario, or Canada, for that matter."
"London, Ontario? But I was talking of the real London."
"I see; another place, I suppose, of the same name—called after it, most likely. Oh yes, I know, of course."
The Tenderfoot raged furiously.
"All right, keep on your shirt," said the Blackguard; "I'll be quite serious if you like. Yes, I know Town—lots of relations there."
"What name?" asked the Tenderfoot innocently. "Where do they live?"
"All over the place—different branches of the family, you know, but you can always tell them by their coat-of-arms—the Medici arms, three golden globes and a side door. They're mostly uncles."
In spite of himself, Mr. Ramsay laughed. "I know them. What made you say I came from Clapham Junction?"
"Where do you live, then?"
"Balham."
"I was only two miles wrong, my friend; it's written on you."
"Written on me?"
"Yes, it will rub off in time, that brand of the respectable suburbs. Good old southern suburbs!"
"I don't see what you mean, but you know your London."
"Yes, Tenderfoot, but notyourLondon. Mine was the jolly old London of dress rehearsals, actors' dressing-rooms, suppers at Salviati's, a brake for the Derby, Tattersall's, Lord's, Sunday at Richmond, Monday with the Vagabonds, at the House, in the Night Club, in the Row, in Mayfair, in Whitechapel, on the River, in the Bucket Shop, up the Spout, or the deuce knows where."
"I never saw that London," said the Tenderfoot gravely.
"What was your London, then?"
"Oh, the City, the City all day, and for my sins Exeter Hall, because my father's that sort of man; and in the evenings, parlour games, lawn tennis, parties,—my mother's that kind of woman; lecturing on minerals at the Polytechnics, debating at the mock Parliament, slumming in Southwark. Lord, how sick I was of it all—oh, how sick and tired! But now these woods, this life, if I could only understand,—meeting men, real men like you, with bodies instead of only souls."
"Poor little beggar! Yet I suppose there were things you liked even in your London?"
"Yes, cycling, boating, the debates, the lecturing, thinking, reading, finding out things. After all, it's a wonderful place, the centre of everything, the middle of the whole world."
"Give me the outside edge," said the Blackguard, "the jumping-off place where you look out into the dark occasionally, and catch a glimpse of heaven or hell through the window."
"That sounds like poetry."
"And it feels like life. I've never read a book, but I've lived—you bet, I've lived! Great gods, it's better than books; it's better than London, as you'll see when you get to live. You don't understand things yet. You don't know what it is to be in danger, to feel your heart jump with excitement, to feel your blood dance at the order to fire, to kill men, to be shot at. I used to like a bull feast once in Spain, but that's tame; to fight in our insurrections—that was better. Even a dead nation must have a little fun, and so, because we're not strong enough to fight our neighbours, we have comical insurrections among ourselves. We are quite bloodthirsty, and some people really get hurt. But there's not even that these last few years. Poor old Spain! Once she was mistress of the earth, once we Spaniards lived for war and wine and love, and had it all until we were satisfied. Now there are one or two live Spaniards like me, but to live as our fathers lived we have to serve under another flag.
"When you wake up, when you've forgotten all about that infernal old Balham, you'll see that there's another London, the centre of the Empire, which has stolen the fire from heaven that once belonged to Spain. We're making that Empire, we cowboys and miners, magistrates and mounted police of the frontier,—making the new empire in Australia, in Canada, in Africa, in India. That's what it means, the frontier which you've been trying, after your little Balham way, to live in these last few days." Then the Blackguard relapsed into a shamefaced chuckle. "By Jove, I didn't think I had it in me. I'm going to preach to the boys when I get back to camp. I'll make 'em sit up, and if they laugh I'll punch their heads till they're sick."
The hillside was clothed beneath the pines with a dense wet jungle of rotting deadfall, fruit bushes gorgeous with blossom, and the immense leaves poised on viciously barbed stems of the devil-club. After climbing for a very long time, the riders came to the brow of this lowest spur of the mountains, from whence the trail wound on through big timber for many a weary mile, gently rising save where there was an occasional abrupt slope to be surmounted. The top of the ridge was a gigantic stairway, and it was sundown before the Tenderfoot and his guide came to the base of the upper foothills.
"I say," said the Tenderfoot, as they breathed their horses before breasting the zig-zag trail up this mountain,—"I've been too much ashamed to say anything, but will these people at the Throne mind my coming without any luggage?"
"They won't mind, if you don't."
"I set off from Windermere driving a pack-horse in front of me."
"I see, and the horse went back to Windermere? They'll send it along with the mail or our next patrol. I'll tell Grab-a-root, the Quartermaster."
"I say, you've rum names in this country—Grab-a-root, Dandy, Mutiny, Tribulation, Arrapahoe Bill, The Blackguard. Does everybody have a nickname?"
"No; only men who are pretty well liked—or hated."
"Have I one?"
"Oh, you're only a Tenderfoot,—you don't count."
The youngster sighed. "They called me Charlie at home; but here—I see now."
"Poor old Charlie!"
"And Mr. Burrows up yonder?"
"The Lunatic, eh? We must be getting on."
"Is it very far?" the lad sighed pitifully.
"A mile or two. Come on."
The big timber insensibly gave place to pines scattering up the slope of ever-lessening girth and stature, sharp, slender cones, black like funeral torches. It seemed ten weary miles to the top of this upper foothill. The summit was a desolate moor, streaked with snow in its hollows, stony, with patches of grassy swamp and scattered torches twisted in uncouth torture, very small, yet looming monstrous against the waning light. Ahead was a stony ridge speckled with juniper bushes, and on its brow two spots like jutting rocks.
"Look," said the Blackguard, pointing to a tiny glimmer under one of these spots; "they're lighting their lamp at the Throne."
THE Burrows girl was sitting on a soap box outside the Throne cabin. Supper was over, the dishes were just washed up, her uncle sat within reading a book of mathematics, so the Burrows girl could enjoy the cool solitude of the hills watching the afterglow. She knew she was ruddy, sunburned, and freckled; she also knew that the effect was rather becoming, that week by week her dainty beauty was budding steadily with considerable prospect of real loveliness,—all of which gave very good cause for contentment. As yet man had not appeared in her paradise, because so far a month's observation had convinced her that none of the neighbouring prospectors were sufficiently young to count. At school she had been three times in love with men seen distantly in church or street, but these had all gone blindly by, and were probably fools. Now, according to all her text-books, which were mostly novels, to every maid there comes in time a man. This man takes himself seriously as a lord of creation, but is really not at all so formidable as he looks, being a vulnerable creature, prone to make an ass of himself on the smallest provocation from a woman. The greater the lord of creation, the more abject his enslavement, the more complete the conquest. There was one story about a young lad, called Una, leading a growling lion around with a string.
"I want my lion to be very growly indeed," said the Burrows girl to the stars; whereat the stars, seeing two young men toiling painfully up the trail, began to wink.
"Why," said the Burrows girl, "there's something moving yonder. Two men, I declare, on horseback, coming up to the cabin. Uncle!" she called,—"Uncle!"
"Well, my dear?" An elderly man in a velveteen jacket came lounging to the door and stood against the lamplight.
"Visitors, Uncle! Oh, bother!" continued the Burrows girl fretfully; "they'll be wanting supper."
"The duties of hospitality," said the man sententiously, "must"—
"Oh, drat the duties! You never have to wash up." Then, to appease him: "I don't want any company, Uncle—except you. I wonder who are they? Not prospectors, anyway. The big one looks like a soldier."
"Mounted police."
"And the little one?" she spoke under her breath. "'In this style three and sixpence,'—I've seen lots like him; but the big one is 'positively thrown away at a guinea.'"
"Good evening, gentlemen."
"Same to you," said the big man, reining up close before the cabin. "I had orders to deliver this package with the talking end up."
"Mr. Burrows, I think," said the little man, drawing nearer. "My name's Ramsay, and my father asked me to deliver this letter of introduction."
"What! From Augustus Ramsay & Co.? This is indeed fortunate. Welcome; most heartily welcome, Mr. Ramsay. Let me present to you my niece, Miss Violet."
For some minutes the Blackguard sat his horse impatient, holding Ramsay's rein while compliments flew thick—Balham compliments, bourgeois civilities. He was the "common soldier" once more, Ramsay's soldier-servant from the Burrows' point of view. Then the girl came to him, rather ashamed, he thought, asked him to "get down," hoped he was not very tired, led him off to a shed which served for a stable, showed him the water-hole, the oats, the lantern, the compressed hay, and finally ran off to light up her kitchen stove for a second supper.
"She's almost a lady," thought the Blackguard, while he groomed and watered and fed the exhausted horses.
Within the cabin Mr. Burrows was holding forth while his niece laid the table. From his talk one would have supposed that he spoke from some rostrum, possibly from a throne.
"Look at me," he said majestically,—"do I look like a fool?"
The Tenderfoot blushed.
"Answer this. Does my appearance suggest insanity?"
The Tenderfoot went on blushing.
"These ignorant prospectors have given forth to the whole neighbourhood that because my methods of mining differ from theirs, I am nothing better than a lunatic."
"I should think that you would treat them with silent contempt."
"I do, young man,—I do treat them with silent contempt. Why, only the other day I asked one of them what he meant by——; but, pshaw, I can afford to overlook what they mean. After all, these prospectors only reflect the greater world outside, which ever has resented improvements, and looked upon the inventor as a public enemy. It was thus with Galileo, Watt, Stephenson, Faraday—contempt, disparagement, starvation, while they lived; then, when they died of want, a commemorative statue. For my part, I desire no statue which commemorates rather the littleness of the living than the greatness of the dead. I overlook such small considerations; they are beneath my notice. What did you say, Violet? Supper? Ah!—a second supper. This mountain air has the advantage of being conducive to a second supper. I entirely approve of mountain air. Draw up, young man, to the table."
So they began to eat bacon and beans, the Lunatic discoursing monotonously, the Tenderfoot exchanging first flirtation signals with the Burrows girl, as she waited on them, while the Blackguard just outside splashed cumbrously over a tin basin and a model brickbat of scrubbing soap.
"Ah!" Mr. Burrows sighed over his second helping, which left seemingly but a scanty remainder for the big hungry man outside. "These considerations of diet, my young friend,"—and so on.
With a last wrench at the roller towel, which he had puffed over and blown into with great satisfaction, the Blackguard rolled down the sleeves of his grey undershirt, wished inwardly that he had brought a jacket, since he was to be the guest of a woman, and strode with loud-clanking spurs across the doorstep.
"Ah, Constable," said Lunatic Burrows indifferently, "I had forgotten. I hope Miss Burrows has reserved some supper for you in the kitchen."
The Blackguard's face looked black and threatening as he drew up his shoulders, his head almost touching the beams. "I only came in," he said haughtily, "to tell this youngster not to trouble about the horses—I've seen to them."
"I've kept your supper in the oven," said Miss Burrows anxiously. "You'll forgive us for beginning without you?"
La Mancha bowed stiffly, but his eyes were tender at once when he saw the girl's real courtesy.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Miss Burrows. Fact is, I have friends at the Tough Nut Claim who want me to stay over night." Then he turned to her Uncle: "You needn't disturb yourself, Burrows."
"Oh yes—certainly—very proper, I'm sure. Your friends at the Tough Nut will"—
"For shame, Uncle," cried the girl indignantly; and the Tenderfoot stood up.
"I hope you'll excuse me too, Mr. Burrows, if I say good-night. I'm going with my friend."
Mr. Burrows turned to him in speechless astonishment, but the Blackguard came at once to the rescue. "Sit down again, youngster," he said gently; "we'll make a man of you yet. Good-night, Miss Burrows; good-night, youngster; so-long, Burrows,—see you again in the morning."
Then he turned on his heel and walked out.
"I think it's too bad," said the girl; "I never felt so shamed in all my life."
"Ah, well, you see," drawled Lunatic Burrows, with a sigh of relief. "A few more beans, Mr. Ramsay—just a few more."
"Who is he?" asked the girl.
"Why, that's Mr. La Mancha."
"La Mancha—is that the Blackguard?" Miss Burrows went to the door, looking out into the clear starlight on the hills. "I've heard of him. They say he's a tremendous swell. What a splendid man!"
"A swell?" drawled Mr. Burrows, awakening as though from some dream. "Dear, dear, you really ought to have warned me. It's all your fault, Violet. How was I to know? Run after him—bring him back at once."
Miss Violet turned her back on him, and went off to the kitchen.