Suddenly Redmond shivered, and his mirth died within him. The air seemed to have become charged with a tense, ominous something that filled him with a great dread—of what? he knew not. He felt an inexplicable impulse to cry out a warning to that ludicrous figure, whose crunching moccasins were now the only sounds that broke the uncanny stillness of the night. To him, the whole scene, bathed in the cold brilliance of its moonlit setting, seemed ghostly and unreal—a disturbing dream of comedy and tragedy, intermingled.
Inwards, between the telephone poles, the man came stumbling along, gradually drawing nigh to the motionless watchers. Halting momentarily, during his progress he made a quick stooping action at the base of one of the poles, as if with vague purpose, which action was remarked at least by Redmond.
Then, for the first time, he seemed to become aware of their presence, and making a pitiful attempt to dissemble his condition and assume a smart, erect military carriage he waved his riding-crop at them by way of salutation. Something in his action, its graceful, airy mockery, trivial though it was, impressed the gestures firmly in Redmond's mind. He became cognizant of a flushed, undeniably handsome face with reckless eyes and mocking lips; a slimly-built figure of a man of medium height, whose natural grace was barely concealed by the short regimental fur coat.
Halting unsteadily within the regulation three paces pending salute, he struck an attitude commonly affected by Mr. Sothern, in "Lord Dundreary," and jauntily twirled his crop, the while he declaimed:—
"Waltz me round again, Willie, Willie, Round and round and—"
"Round!" finished Slavin, with a horrible oath. There seemed something shockingly aboriginal—simian—in the swift, gorilla-like clutch of his huge dangling hands, as they fastened on the throat and shoulder of the drunken man and whirled him on his back in the snow—something deadly and menacing in his hard-breathing, soft-brogued invective:
"Yeh bloody nightingale! come off th' perch! . . . I'm fed up wid yeh!—I'll waltz yeh!—I'll tache yeh tu make a mock av Burke Slavin, time an' again! I'll—"
Redmond interposed, "Steady, Sergeant!" he implored shakily, his hand on his superior's shoulder, "For God's sake—"
But Slavin, in absent fashion, shoved him off. He seemed to put no effort in the movement, but the tense muscular impact of it sent Redmond reeling yards away.
"Giddap, Yorkey! God d——n ye for a dhrunken waster!—giddap! or I'll put th' boots tu yeh!" Terrible was the menace of the giant Irishman's face, his back-flung boot and his snarling, curiously low-pitched voice.
"No! not Burke, old man! . . . ah, don't!" gasped the rich tenor voice pleadingly from the snow—"ah, don't, Burke! . . . remember, remember . . . St. Agnes' Eve—
"St. Agnes' Eve. Ah! bitter chill it was,
The—"
It broke—that throbbing voice with its strange, impassioned appeal. Far away over the snow the faint, silvery ring of a locomotive gong fell upon the ears of the trio almost like the deep, solemn tolling of bells.
Then slowly, and seemingly in pain, the prostrate man arose.
And yet! Redmond mused, sorry a figure as he cut just then, minus fur-cap and plastered with snow, alone with the shame which was his, he had an air, a certain dignity of mien, this man, Yorke, which stamped him far above the common run of men.
The junior constable, as he noted the dark hair, silvering and worn away at the temples, adjudged him to be somewhere between thirty and forty—thirty-five was his exact age as he ascertained later.
Now, with the air of a fallen angel, he stood there in the cold, snow-dazzling moonlight; his face registering silent resignation as to whatever else might befall him. The sergeant had stepped forward. Redmond looked on, in dazed apprehension. A solemn hush had fallen upon the strange scene, and stranger trio. Their figures flung weird, fantastic shadows across the diamond-sparkling snow-crust. George glanced at Slavin, and that individual's demeanor amazed him still further. The big man's face was transformed. There seemed something very terrible just then in the pathetic working of his rugged features, as if he were striving to allay some powerful inward emotion. Then huskily, but not unkindly—as perchance the father may have spoken to the prodigal son—came his soft brogue:
"Get yu tu bed, Yorkey! get yu tu bed, man! . . . an' thry me no more! . . . ."
Mutely, like a child, Yorke obeyed the order. Glancing at Redmond he turned and walked unsteadily into the detachment.
Perturbed and utterly mystified at the sordid drama he had witnessed, its amazing combination of brutality and pathos, George remained rooted to the spot as one in a dream. Instinctively though, he felt that this was not the first time of its enactment. Mechanically he watched the door close; then sounding far off and indistinct, Slavin's hoarse whisper in his ear brought him down to Mother Earth again with a vengeance:
"Did ye mark him stoop an' 'plant' th' 'hootch?'"
George nodded. "I wasn't quite wise to what he was at," he answered.
"Let us go get ut!" said Sergeant Slavin grimly, marching to the spot, "I will not have dhrink brought into th' detachment! . . . 'tis against ordhers."
He bent down, straightened up, and turning to Redmond who had joined him exhibited a bottle. He held it up to the light of the moon. It appeared to be about half empty. Extracting the cork, he smelt.
"'Tis whiskey," he murmured simply—much as Mr. Pickwick said: "It is punch." He made casual examination of the green and gold label. "'Burke's Oirish,' begob! . . . eyah! a brave ould uniform but"—he turned a moist eye on his subordinate—"a desp'ritly wounded souldier that wears ut—betther out av pain. 'Tis an' ould sayin': 'Whin ye meet th' divil du not turn tail but take um by th' harns.' . . . Bhoy! I thrust the honest face av yeh—I have tuk tu ye since th' handy lad ye showt yersilf with that team mix-up th' morn."
Redmond, mollified, grinned shiveringly. "I don't mind a snort, Sergeant," he said, "it's d——d cold out here. Beer's more in my line though. Salue!"
He took a swallow or two; the bottle changed hands.
"Eyah!" remarked Slavin sometime later—cuddling the bottle at the "port arms." "'Tis put th' kibosh on many a good man in th' ould Force has this same dhrink. Th' likes av Yorkey there"—he jerked his head at the lighted window—"shud never touch ut—never touch ut! . . . Cannot flirrt wid a bottle—'tis wedded they wud be tu ut. Now meself"—he paused impressively—"I can take me dhrink like a ginthleman—can take ut, or lave ut alone."
Absorptive demonstration followed. Came a long-drawn, smacking "Ah-hh!" "A sore thrial tu me is that same man," he resumed, "wan more break on his part, as ye have seen this night . . . an' I musht—I will take shteps wid um."
"Why don't you transfer him back to the Post?" queried George, wonderingly, mindful of how swiftly that disciplinary measure had rewarded his own reckless conduct at the Gleichen detachment. "He's got nothing on you, has he?"
"Fwhat?" . . . Slavin, turning like a flash, glared sharply at him out of deep-set scowling eyes, "Fwhat?"
Tonelessly, George repeated his query,
Slavin's glare gradually faded. "Eyah!" he affirmed presently, "he has! . . ." came a long pause—"but not as yu mane ut . . . oh! begorrah, no!" His eyes glittered dangerously and his wide mouth wreathed into an unholy grin, "'Tis a shmart man that iver puts ut over on me at th' Orderly-room. . . Fwhy du I not sind him into th' Post? . . . eyah! fwhy du I not? . . ."
Chin sunk on his huge chest, he mused awhile.
George waited.
"Listen, bhoy!" A terrible earnestness crept into the soft voice. "I'll tell ye th' tale. . . . 'Twas up at th' Chilkoot Pass—in the gold rush av '98. . . . Together we was—Yorkey an' meself—stationed there undher ould Bobby Belcher. Wan night—Mother av God! will I iver forghet ut? Bitther cowld is th' Yukon, lad; th' like av ut yu' here in Alberta du not know. Afther tu crazy lost cheechacos we had been that day. We found thim—frozen. . . . A blizzard had shprung up, but we shtrapped th' stiffs on th' sled an' mushed ut oursilves tu save th' dogs.
"I am a big man, an' shtrong . . . . but Yorkey was th' betther man av us tu that night—havin less weight tu pack. I was all in—dhrowsy, an' wanted tu give up th' ghost an' shleep—an' shleep. . . . Nigh unto death I was. . . ."
The murmuring voice died away. A shudder ran through the great frame at the remembrance, while the hand clutching the bottle trembled violently. Unconsciously Redmond shook with him; for the horror Slavin was living over again just then enveloped his listener also.
"But Yorkey," he continued "wud not let me lie down. . . . God! how that man did put his fishts an' mucklucks tu me an' pushed an' shtaggered wid me' afther th' dogs, beggin' an' cursin' an' prayin' an' callin' me names that ud fairly make th' dead relations av a man rise up out av their graves. . . . Light-headed he got towards th' ind av th' thrail, poor chap! shoutin' dhrill-ordhers an' Injia naygur talk, an' singin' great songs an' chips av poethry—th' half av which I misremimber—excipt thim—thim wurrds he said this night. 'Shaint Agnus Eve,' he calls ut. Over an' over he kept repeathin' thim as he helped me shtaggerin' along. . . 'God!' cries he, betune cursin' me an' th' dogs an' singin' 'Shaint Agnus Eve'—'Oh, help us this night! let us live, God! . . . oh, let us live!—this poor bloody Oirishman an' me! . . .'"
The sergeant's head was thrown back now, gazing full at the evening star the moonbeams shining upon his upturned, powerful face. Cold as was the night Redmond could see glistening beads of sweat on his forehead. As one himself under the spell of the fear of death, the younger man silently watched that face—fascinated. It was calm now, with a great and kindly peace. Slowly the gentle voice took up the tale anew:
"We made ut, bhoy—th' Post—or nigh tu ut . . . in th' break av th' dawn. . . . For wan av th' dogs yapped an' they come out an' found us in th' snow. . . . Yorkey, wid his arrums round th' neck av me—as if he wud shtill dhrag me on . . . . an' cryin' upon th' mother that bore um. . . . Tu men—in damned bad shape—tu shtiffs . . . . an' but three dogs lift out av th' six-team we'd shtarted wid. . . . So—now ye know; lad! . . . Fwhat think ye? . . ."
What George thought was: "Greater love hath no man than this." What he said was: "He's an Englishman, isn't he?"
Slavin nodded. "Comes of a mighty good family tu, they say, but 'tis little he iwer cracks on himself 'bout thim. Years back he hild a commission in some cavalry reg'mint in Injia, but he got broke—over a woman, I fancy. He's knocked about th' wurrld quite a piece since thin. Eyah! he talks av some quare parts he's been in. Fwhat doin'? Lord knows. Been up an' down the ladder some in this outfit—sarjint one week—full buck private next. Yen know th' way these ginthlemin-rankers run amuck?"
"How does he get away with it every time?" queried Redmond. "Hasn't any civilian ever reported him to the old man?"
"Yes! wance—an' 'Father,' th' ould rapparee! he went for me baldheaded for not reporthin' ut tu."
With a sort of miserable heartiness Slavin cursed awhile at the recollection. "Toime an' again," he resumed, "have I taken my hands tu um—pleaded wid um, an' shielded um in many a dhirty scrape, an' ivry toime sez he, wid his ginthlemin's shmile: 'Burke! will ye thry an' overlook it, ould man?' . . . Eyah! he's mighty quare. For some rayson he seems tu hate th' idea av a third man bein' here, tho' th' man' wud die for me. Divil a man can I kape here, anyway. In fwhat fashion he puts th' wind up 'him, I do not know; they will not talk, out av pure kindness av heart an' rispict for meself, I guess. But—a few days here, an' bingo!—they apply for thransfer. Now ye know ivrythin', bhoy—fwhat I am up against, an' fwhy I will not 'can' Yorkey. Ye've a face that begets thrust—do not bethray ut, but thry an' hilp me. Bear wid Yorke as best ye can—divilmint an' all—for my sake, will yeh?"
Not devoid of a certain simple dignity was the grim, rugged face that turned appealingly to the younger man's in the light of the moon.
And Redmond, smiling inscrutably into the deep-set, glittering eyes, answered as simply: "I will, Sergeant!"
He declined an offer. "Nemoyah! (No) thanks, I've had enough."
For some unaccountable reason, Slavin smiled also. His huge clamping right hand crushed George's, while the left described an arc heavenwards. Came a throaty gurgle, a careless swing of the arm, and—
"Be lay loike a warrior takin' his rist,
Wid his—
"I misrimimber th' tail-ind av ut," sighed Sergeant Slavin, "'Tis toime we turned in."
In silence they re-entered the detachment. Yorke, minus his moccasins, fur-coat and red-serge, lay stretched out upon his cot sleeping heavily, his flushed, reckless, high-bred face pillowed on one outflung arm. Above him, silent guardians of his rest, his grotesque mixture of prints gleamed duskily in the lamp-light.
Into Redmond's mind—sunk into a deep oblivion of dreamy, chaotic thought—came again Slavin's words:
"Shtudy thim picthures, bhoy! an', by an' large ye have th' man himsilf"
Soon, too, he slept; and into his fitful slumbers drifted a ridiculously disturbing dream. That of actually witnessing the terrible scene of the long-dead Indian Mutiny hero, Major Hodson, executing with his own hand the three princes of Oude.
Inshalla! it was done—there! there! against the cart, amidst the gorgeous setting of Indian sunset and gleaming minaret. "Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!" came a dying scream upon the last shot—the smoking carbine was jerked back to the "recover"—a moment the scarlet-turbaned, scarlet-sashed English officer gazed with ruthless satisfaction at his treacherous victims then, turning sharply, faced him.
And lo! to Redmond it seemed that the stern, intolerant, recklessly-handsome countenance he looked upon bore a striking resemblance to the face of Yorke.
CHAPTER IV
Burn'd Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire,
And shook his very frame for ire,
And—"This to me!" he said,—
MARMION
Early on the morrow it came to pass that Sergeant Slavin, cooking breakfast for all hands, heard Yorke's voice uplifted in song, as that worthy made his leisurely toilet. He shot a slightly bilious glance at Redmond, who, "Morning Stables" finished, lounged nearby.
"Hear um?" he snorted enviously. "Singin'! singin'!—forever singin'!—eyah! sich nonsince, tu."
But, to George, who possessed a musical ear, the ringing tenor sounded rather airily and sweetly—
"Hark! hark! the lark at Heaven's Gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs—"
"Fwhat yez know 'bout that?" Slavin forked viciously at the bacon he was frying. "Blarney my sowl! an' him not up for 'Shtables' at all! . . ."
"With ev'rything that pretty is:— My lady sweet, arise! arise! My lady sweet, arise!"
"My lady shweet!"—Slavin snorted unutterable things.
Yawning, the object of his remarks sauntered into the kitchen just then, and, deeming the occasion now to be a fitting one, the sergeant introduced his two subordinates to each other.
Yorke, with a bleak nod and handshake, swept the junior constable with a swiftly appraising glance. As frigidly was his salutation returned. Redmond remarked the regular features, suggestive rather of the ancient Norman type, the thin, curved, defiant nostrils and dark, arching eyebrows. The face, with its indefinable stamp of birth and breeding was handsome enough in its patrician mould, but marred somewhat by the lines of cynicism, or dissipation, round the sombre, reckless eyes and intolerant mouth. He had a cool, clear voice and a whimsical, devil-may-care sort of manner that was apparently natural to him, as was also a certain languid grace of movement. He possessed an irritating mannerism of continually elevating his chin and dilating his curved nostrils disdainfully in a sort of soundless sniff. Beyond a slight flush he showed little trace of his previous night's dissipation.
"Where do you hail from?" he enquired of George with casual interest over the mess-table later.
"Ontario," replied George laconically, "my people are farmers down there."
For a moment Yorke's arched brows lifted in puzzled surprise—came a repetition of his offensive sniffing mannerism; and he stared pointedly away again. It was difficult to be more insulting in dumb show.
George, mindful of his promise to Slavin, groaned inwardly. "I am going to hate this fellow" he thought.
The sergeant, from the head of the table, kept a keen watch upon the pair.
"An' fwhat?" came his soft brogue, by way of diversion, "an' fwhat made yu' take on th' Force?"
"Oh, I don't know!" Wearily, George shoved his hands deep into his pockets and leant back in his chair. "Old man's pretty well fixed—now. He's a member of the legislature for —— County. I was at McGill for some terms—medicine." A hopeless note crept into his tones. "I fell down on my exams . . . ran amuck with the wrong bunch an' all that—an'—an' . . . kind of made a mess of things I guess. . . . Went broke—came West. . . . That's why. . . ."
With a forlorn sort of forced grin he gazed back at his interlocutor. Yorke, unheeding the conversation, continued his breakfast as if he were alone.
"H-mm!" grunted Slavin, summing up the situation with native simplicity, "That's ut, eh?—but, for all ye have th' spache an' manners av a ginthleman—ranker somehow—somehow I misdoubt ye're a way-back waster like Misther Yorkey here!"
That hardened "ginthleman," absently sipping his coffee, flung a faintly-derisive, patient smile at his accuser. A perfect understanding seemed to exist between the two men. Redmond, musing upon the pathetically-sordid drama he had witnessed not so many hours since, relapsed into a reverie of speculation.
The silence was suddenly broken by the sharp trill of the telephone.
Slavin arose lethargically from the mess-table and answered it.
"Hullo! yis! Slavin shpeakin'! Fwat?—all right Nick! I'll sind a man shortly an' vag um! So long! Oh, hold on, Nick! . . . May th' divil niver know ye're dead till ye're tu hours in Hivin! Fwhat?—Oh, thank yez! Same tu yez! Well! . . . so long!"
"Hobo worryin' Nick Lee at Cow Run. Scared av fire in th' livery-shtable. Go yu', Yorkey!" He eyed George a moment in curious speculation. "Yu' had betther go along tu, Ridmond! Exercise yez harse an'"—he lit his pipe noisily—"learn th' lay av th' thrails." He turned to the senior constable. "If ye can lay hould av th' J.P. there, get this shtiff committed an' let Ridmond take thrain wid um tu th' Post. Yu' return wid th' harses!"
"Why can't Redmond nip down there on a way-freight and do the whole thing?" said Yorke, a trifle sulkily. "It seems rot sending two men mounted for one blooming hobo."
"Eyah!" murmured Slavin with suspicious mildness, "'tis th' long toime since I have used me shtripes tu give men undher me wan ordher twice."
Yorke flashed a slightly apprehensive glance at his superior's face. Then, without another word, he reached for his side-arms, bridle, and fur-coat. He knew his man.
Redmond followed suit and they adjourned to the stable.
"I saw that beggar yesterday—on my way up," remarked George, ill-advisedly.
Yorke stared. "The hell you did! . . . why didn't you vag him then?" he retorted irritably.
Bursting with silent wrath at the "choke-off," with difficulty Redmond held his peace. In silence they saddled up and leading the horses out prepared to mount. Yorke swung up on the splendid, mettled black—"Parson." He had an ideal cavalry seat, and as with an easy grace he gently controlled his impatient horse, with an inscrutable, mask-like countenance he watched Redmond and the sorrel "Fox."
With toe in the leather-covered stirrup the latter reached for the saddle-horn. Poor George! fuming inwardly over one humiliation caused him shortly to be the recipient of another. Too late to his preoccupied mind came Slavin's warning of the day before.
Like a flash the sorrel whirled to the "off-side" and Redmond, swung off his balance, revolved into space and was pitched on his hands and knees in the snow. Fortunately his foot had slipped clear of the stirrup. In this somewhat ignominious position dizzily he heard Yorke's mocking tones:
"What are the odds on Fox, bookie? . . . I'd like a few of those dollars when you've quite finished picking them all up."
With an almost superhuman effort the young fellow controlled himself once more as he arose. Not lightly had he given a promise. Silently he dusted the snow from his uniform and strode over to where the sorrel awaited him. The horse had made no attempt to run away; apparently being an old hand at the game. It now stood eying its dupe, with Lord knows what mirth tickling its equine brain.
Slipping the "nigh" rein through the saddle-fork, then back to the cheek-strap again, George snubbed Fox's head towards him, making it impossible for the horse to whirl to the "off" as before. Warily and quietly he then swung into the saddle and the two men set off.
A few yards from the front of the detachment Yorke suddenly pulled up and, dismounting, felt around in the snow at the base of a well-remembered telephone-pole. It was Redmond's hour to jeer now, if he had been mindful to do so. But another usurped that privilege.
A queer choking sound made them both turn round. Slavin, his grim face registering unholy mirth, lounged in the doorway.
"Fwhat ye lukkin for, Yorkey?"
"Oh, nothing!" came that gentleman's answer.
"Ye'll find ut in th' bottle thin."
Insult was added to injury by the sergeant casually plucking that article from it's "rist" and chucking it over.
Yorke's face was a study. "Oh!" cried he dismally, "what wit! . . . give three rousing cheers!" . . . He mounted once more. "Well! there's no denying you are one hell of a sergeant!"
That worthy one grinned at him tolerantly. "Get yez gone!" he spat back, "an' du not linger tu play craps on th' thrail either—th' tu av yez!"
Long and grimly, with his bald head sunk between his huge shoulders, he gazed after the departing riders. "Eyah! 'tis best so!" he murmured softly, "a showdown—wid no ould shtiff av a non-com like meself tu butt in. . . . An', onless I am mistuk that same will come this very morn, from th' luks av things. . . . Sind th' young wan is as handy wid his dhooks as Brankley sez he is! . . . Thin—an' on'y thin will there be peace in th' fam'ly."
He re-lit his pipe and, shading his eyes from the snow-glare focussed them on two rapidly vanishing black specks. "I wud that I cud see ut!" he sighed, plaintively, "I wud that I cud see ut!"
It was a glorious day, sunny and clear, with the temperature sufficiently low to prevent the hard-packed snow from balling up the horses' feet. The trail ran fairly level along a lower shelf of the timber-lined foothills, which on their right hand sloped gradually to the banks of the Bow River in a series of rolling "downs." Sharply outlined against the blue ether the Sou' Western chain of the mighty "Rockies" reared their rosily-white peaks in all their morning glory—silent guardians of the winter landscape.
Deep down in his soul young Redmond harboured a silent, dreamy adoration for the beauty of such scenes as this. Under different conditions he would have enjoyed this ride immensely. But now—with his mind a seething bitter chaos consequent upon his companion's incomprehensible behavior towards him, he rode in a sort of brooding reverie. Yorke was equally morose. Not a word had fallen from their lips since they left the detachment.
Right under the horses' noses a big white jack-rabbit suddenly darted across the snow-banked ruts of the well-worn trail, pursuing its leaping erratic course towards a patch of brush on the river side. Simultaneously the animals shied, with an inward trend, cannoning their respective riders together. Yorke reined away sharply and glared.
"Get over'" he said curtly, "don't crowd me!"
He spoke as a Cossack hetman might to his sotnia, and, at his tone and attitude, something snapped within Redmond. To his already overflowing cup of resentment it was the last straw. His promise to Slavin he flung to the winds, and it was replaced with vindictive but cool purpose.
"Showdown!" he muttered under his breath, "I knew it had to come!" He was conscious of a feeling of vast relief. Aloud he responded, blithely and rudely, "Oh! to hell with you!"
Yorke checked his horse with a suddenness that brought the animal back onto its haunches. Sitting square and motionless in the saddle for a moment he stared at George with an expression almost of shocked amazement; then his face became convulsed with ruthless passion.
The junior constable had pulled up also, and now wheeling "half-left" and lolling lazily in his saddle with shortened leg stared back at his enemy with an expression there was no mistaking. His debonair young face had altered in an incredible fashion. Although his lips were pursed up with their whistling nonchalance his eyes had contracted beneath scowling brows into mere pin-points of steel and ice. He looked about as docile as a young lobo wolf—cornered.
"Ah!" murmured Yorke, noting the transformation; and he seemed to consider. He had seen that look on men's faces before. Insensibly, passion had vanished from his face; the bully had disappeared; and in his place there sat in saddle a cool, contemptuous gentleman.
"Are you talking back to me?" he said. He did not look astounded now—seemed rather to assume it.
Redmond's scowling brows lifted a fraction. "Talking back?" he echoed, "sure! Who the devil do you think you're trying to come 'the Tin Man' over?"
Reluctantly Yorke discounted his first impressions. Here was no self-conscious bravado. Warily he surveyed George for a moment—the cool appraising glance of the ring champion in his corner scanning his challenger—then, swinging out of the saddle, he dropped his lines and began to unbuckle his spurs.
There was no mistaking his actions. Redmond followed suit. A few seconds he looked dubiously at his horse, then back at Yorke.
"Oh, you needn't be scared of Fox beating it," remarked that gentleman a trifle wearily, "he'll stand as good as old Parson if you chuck his lines down."
Shading his eyes from the sun-glare he took a rapid survey of their surroundings, then led the way to a wind-swept patch of ground, more or less bare of snow. Arriving thither, as if by mutual consent they flung off caps, side-arms, fur-coats and stable-jackets. Yorke, a graceful, compactly-built figure of a man, sized up his slightly heavier opponent with an approving eye.
"You strip good" he said carelessly. "Well! what's it to be? . . . 'muck' or 'muffin'?"
"'Muffin' of course!" snapped Redmond angrily, "what d'ye take me for?—a 'rough-house meal ticket'?"
"All right!" said Yorke soothingly, "don't lose your temper!"
It may have been a shrewdly-calculated attempt to attain that end; and yet again it may have been only sheer mechanical habit that prompted him to stretch forth his hands in the customary salute of the ring.
With an inarticulate exclamation of rage the younger man struck the proffered hands aside and led with a straight left for the other's head. Yorke blocked it cleverly and fell into a clinch.
"Ah!" murmured Yorke in his antagonist's ear with a sinister smile, "rotten manners! for just that, my buck, I'll make you scoff 'muffin' 'till you're quite poorly!"
Working his arms cautiously, he sprang clear of the clinch, then, rushing his man and feinting for the ribs, he rocked Redmond's head back with two terrific left and right hooks to the jaw.
The jarring sting of the punches, although dazing him slightly, brought Redmond to his senses, as he realized how vulnerable his momentary loss of temper had rendered him. He now braced himself with dogged determination and, covering up warily, circled his adversary with clever foot-work. Yorke, tearing in again was met with one of the crudest jabs he had ever known—flush in the mouth. Gamely he retaliated with a stinging uppercut and a right swing which, coming home on Redmond's cheek-bone, whirled him off his balance and sent him sprawling.
Dazed, but not daunted, he scrambled to his feet. Yorke, blowing upon his knuckles with all the air of an old-time "Regency blood," waited with heaving chest and scornful, narrowed eyes.
"Want to elevate the sponge?" he queried sneeringly.
"No!" panted George grimly, "it was you started the whole rotten dirty business, and, by gum! I'll finish it!"
Dancing in and out he drew an ineffective left from his opponent and countered with a pile-driving right to the heart. Yorke gave vent to a groaning exclamation and turned pale. He spat gaspingly out of his mashed lips and propped Redmond off awhile; then, suddenly springing in again he attempted to mix it. George was nothing loath, and the two men, standing toe-to-toe, slugged each other with a perfect whirlwind of damaging punches to face and body.
Even in the giddy whirl of combat, in either man's heart now was a wonder almost akin to respect for each other's ring knowledge and gameness. It was not George's first bout by many, but the physical endurance of this hard, clean-hitting Corinthian of a man was an astounding revelation to him; the science of the graceful, narrow-waisted figure was still as quick and as punishing as a steel trap.
Yorke, for his part, reflected with bitter irony how utterly erroneous had been his primary calculations—how Nemesis was hard upon his heels at last in the guise of this relentless youngster, who fought like a college-bred "Charley Mitchell."
Ding! dong!—hook, jab, uppercut, block, and swing; in and out, back and forth, side-stepping and head-work—one long exhausting round. Flesh and blood could not stand the pace—though it was Redmond now who forced it. Neither of the men was in training and the long strain began to tell upon them both cruelly—especially upon the veteran Yorke. Still, with frosted hair and streaming faces, the sweat-soaked, bruised and bleeding combatants staggered against each other and strove to make play with their weary arms, until utter exhaustion rang the time gong.
Gasping and swaying to and fro, his puffed lips wreathed into a ghastly semblance of his old scornful smile, Yorke dropped his guard and stuck out his chin. He mouthed and pointed to it tauntingly. In spite of himself, a sorry grin flickered over George's battered, weary young face. He mouthed back—speech was beyond either; sagging at the knees he reeled forward and his right arm went poking out in a wobbling, uncertain punch.
It glanced harmlessly over Yorke's shoulder, but the violent impact of his body sent the other heavily to the ground. An ineffectual struggle to maintain his equilibrium and he, too, fell—face downwards, with his head pillowed on Yorke's heaving chest.
CHAPTER V
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
KIPLING
A great peace lay upon the frozen landscape—the deep, wintry peace of the vast, snow-bound Nor'West. A light breeze murmured over the crisping snow, and moaned amongst the pines in the timber-lined spurs of the foothills. High overhead in the sunny, dazzling blue vault of heaven a huge solitary hawk slowly circled with wide-spread, motionless wings, uttering intermittently its querulous, eerie whistle.
Awhile the two exhausted men lay gasping for breath—absolutely and utterly spent. Suddenly Yorke shivered violently and sighed. Redmond raised himself off the prostrate form of his late opponent and, staggering over to the pile of their discarded habiliments, slowly and painfully he donned his fur coat and cap; then, picking up Yorke's, he stumbled over to the latter. The senior constable was now sitting up, with arms drooping loosely over his knees. George wrapped the coat around the bowed shoulders and put on the cap.
"You're cold, old man!" he said simply. "We'd best get our things on now, and beat it."
Wearily Yorke raised his head, and, at something he beheld in that disfigured, but unalterably-handsome face, Redmond's heart smote him.
Often in the past he had fondly imagined himself nursing implacable, absolutely undying hatreds; brooding darkly over injuries received in fancy or reality, planning dire and utterly ruthless revenge, etc. But, deep, deep down in his boyish soul he knew it to be only a dismal failure—that he could not keep it up. His was an impulsive, generous young heart—equally quick to forgive an injury as to resent one. Now in his pity and misery he could have cried—to see his erstwhile enemy so hopelessly broken in body and spirit.
Therefore it did not occur to him that it was sheer sentimental absurdity on his part now to drop on one knee and put his arms around that shivering, pride-broken form.
"Yorkey!" he mumbled huskily, "old man! . . . Yor—"
He choked a bit, and was silent.
Waveringly, a skinned-knuckled, but sinewy, shapely hand crept out and gently ruffled Redmond's curly auburn hair. Vaguely he heard a voice speaking to him. Could that tired, kind, whimsical voice belong to Yorke? It said: "Reddy, my old son! . . . we're still in the ring, anyway. . . . Seems—do what we would or could—we couldn't poke each other out. . . ."
Came a long silence; then: "If ever a man was sorry for the rotten way he's acted, it's surely me right now. . . . Got d——d good cause to be p'raps. . . . I handed it to you about the sponge . . . egad! I well-nigh came chucking it up myself—later. My colonial oath! but you're the cleverest, gamest, hardest-hitting young proposition I've ever ruffled it out with! . . . Where'd you pick it up? Who's handled you?"
George slowly rose to his feet. "Man named Scholes—down East" he answered. He eyed Yorke's face ruefully and, incidentally felt his own, "I used to do a bit with the gloves when I was at McGill. Talking about sponges!—I only wish we had one now to chuck up—in tangible form."
He abstracted the other's handkerchief and, rolling it with his own into a pad dabbed it in the snow. Yorke winced. "Hold still, old thing!" said Redmond, "we'll have to clean off a bit ere we hit the giddy trail again."
For some minutes he gently manipulated the pad. "There! you don't look too bad now. Have a go at me!"
Figuratively, they licked each other's wounds awhile. Yorke had grown very silent. Chin in hands and rocking very slightly to and fro, all huddled up in his fur coat, he gazed unseeingly into the beyond. His face was clouded with such hopeless, bitter, brooding misery that it worried Redmond. He guessed it to be something far deeper than the memory of their recent conflict. He strove to arouse the other.
"Talk about game cocks!" he began lightly. "Ten years ago, say! you must have been a corker—regular 'Terry McGovern'."
"Eh?" Yorke's far-away eyes stared at him vaguely. "I was in India then. Army light-weight champion in my day. Slavin wasn't joshing much at breakfast, by gum! . . . Now we're here! . . . We're a bright pair!" He made as though to cast snow upon his head, "Ichabod! Ichabod! our glory has departed!"
He lifted up his tenor voice, chanting the while he rocked—
"Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!"
Redmond flinched and raised a weakly protesting hand. "Don't, old man!" he implored miserably, "don't! what's the—"
"Eh!" queried Yorke brutally—rocking—"does hurt?"
"If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep, And all we—"
"No! no! no! Yorkey!" George's voice rose to a cry, "not that! . . . quit it, old man! . . . that's one of the most terrible things Kipling ever wrote—terrible because it's so absolutely, utterly hopeless. . . ."
"Well, then!" said Yorke slowly—
"Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?"
"It wasn't beer," muttered Redmond absently, "it was whiskey. Slavic and I drank it." With an effort he strove to arouse himself out of the despondency that he himself had fallen into.
"Listen! . . . Oh! quit that d——d rocking, Yorkey! . . . Listen now! we've put up a mighty good scrap against each other—we'll call that a draw—let's put up another against our—well! we'll call it our rotten luck . . . D——n it all, old man, we're not 'down an' outs' doing duty in this outfit—the best military police corps in the world! . . . Let's both of us quit squalling this eternal 'nobody loves me' stuff! This isn't any slobbery brotherly love or New Jerusalem business, or anything like that, either. I'm not a bloomin' missionary!" He qualified that assertion unnecessarily to prove it. "But let's stick together and back each other up—just us two and old man Slavin—make it a sort of 'rule of three.' We can have a deuce of a good time on this detachment then! . . ."
He spoke hotly, eagerly, with boyish fervour, his soul in his eyes.
Yorke remained silent, with averted eyes. That imploring, wistful, bruised young countenance was almost more than he could stand. George, dropping on one knee beside him put a tremulous hand on the senior constable's shoulder. "What's wrong, Yorkey?" he queried. He shook the bowed shoulder gently. "What's made you consistently knock every third buck that's been sent here? 'till they got fed up, and transferred? . . . They tried to put the wind up me about it at the Post. What's bitin' you? I don't seem to get your angle at all!"
"Oh, I don't know!" Yorke coughed and spat drearily. "Kind of rum reason, you'll think. Long story—too long—dates back. Listen then! Ten years back, in the pride of my giddy youth, I held a Junior Sub's commission in the —— Lancers—in India. This is just a synopsis of my case, mind! . . . Well! the regiment was lying at Rawal Pindi, and—I guess I kind of ran amuck there—got myself into a rotten esclandre—entirely my own fault I'll admit:
Man is fire, and Woman is tow, And the Devil, he comes and begins to blow—
the same old miserable business the world's fed up with. Since then seems I've kind of made a mess of things. Burke Slavin's about right—his estimate of me." He sighed with bitter, gloomy retrospection. "I've always had a queer, intolerant sort of temperament. If I'd lived in the days of the Indian Mutiny I guess I'd have been in 'Hodson's Horse'." (Redmond started, remembering his curious dream.) "He was a man after my own heart," Yorke continued slowly, "resourceful, slashing sort of beggar . . . he ruffled it with a high hand. Bold and game as Sherman, or Paul Jones, but as ruthless as Graham of Claverhouse. He put the ever-lasting fear into the rebels of Oude—something like Cromwell did in Ireland. My old Governor served through the Mutiny—he's told me stories of him. My God!"
He drew his fur coat closer round him. "Well!"—Redmond watched the sombre profile—"as I was saying . . . I 'muckered'. . . . Since then, with the years, I guess I've been climbing down the ladder of illusions till I'm right in the stoke-hole, and Old Nick seems to grin and whisper: 'As you were! my cashiered Sub.—As you were!' every time I chuck a brace and try to climb up again. How's that for a bit of cheap cynicism?"—the low, bitter laugh was not good to hear—"Man!"—the brooding eyes narrowed—"I've sure plumbed the depths—knocking around, with the right to live. Port Said, Buenos Aires, Shanghai. . . . I've certainly travelled. Some day I'll throw the book at you. Now—substance and ambition gone by the board long ago, and mighty little left of principle I guess—I am—what I am—everything except a prodigal, or a remittance-man—I never worried them at Home—that way. . . ."
He spoke with a sort of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more than that individual cared to show. Redmond felt it was useless to offer mere conventional sympathy in a case like this. He did the next best thing possible—he remained silently attentive and let the other run on.
"You take three men now—stationed in the same detachment," resumed Yorke wearily, "by gum! they're thrown together mighty close when you come to think of it. It's different to the Post, where there's a crowd. Life's too short to start in explaining minutely just what that difference is. Fact remains! . . . to get along and pull together they've got to like each other—have something in common—give and take. Otherwise the situation becomes d——d trying, and trouble soon starts in the family."
"By what divine right I should consider myself qualified to—to—Oh! shut up, you young idiot! . . ." Redmond, forehead pressed into the speaker's shoulder, giggled hysterically in spite of himself—"Shut up! d'you hear? or I'll knock your silly block off!"
The two bodies shook, with their convulsive merriment. "You can't do it! old thing," came George's smothered rejoinder, "and you know darned well you can't—now! . . . Go on, you bloomin' Hodson!—proceed!"
Yorke gave vent to a good-natured oath. "Hodson? . . . you do me proud, my buck! . . . Well now!—this 'three men in a boat' business! . . . I'll admit I 'rocked' it with Crampton. I virtually abolished him because—oh! I couldn't stick the beggar at all. I simply couldn't make a pal of him. He was fairly good at police work, but a proper cad, in my opinion. Always swanking about the palatial residence he'd left behind in the Old Country. He called it ''is 'ome' at that. Typical specimen of the middle-class snob. Followed Taylor. Thick-headed, serious-minded sort of fool. Had great veneration for 'his juty.' No real knowledge of the Criminal Code, and minus common sense, yet begad! the silly beggar tried to be more regimental that the blooming Force is itself. I systematically put the wind up to him 'till he got cold feet and quit."
Redmond recalled the fact that Taylor had been his predecessor.
"Followed!" he echoed mockingly, looking up at his handiwork.
Yorke, with a twisted smile glanced down at the bruised, but debonair young face. Benevolently he punched its owner in the back. "Followed . . . a certain young fellow, yclept 'Nemesis'," he said, "I sized you up for one of these smart Alecks—first crack out of the box, and egad! I think I'm about right."
Said Redmond, "How about our respected sergeant? we seem to have forgotten him."
"Slavin?" ejaculated the senior constable; and was silent awhile. There was no levity in him now. Slowly he resumed, "I guess as much as it's humanly possible for two men to know each other—down to the bedrock, it's surely Burke Slavin and I. Should too, the years we've been together. The good old beggar! . . . We slang each other, and all that . . . but there's too much between us ever to resent anything for long."
"I know," said Redmond simply, "he told me himself—last night."
"Eh?" queried Yorke sharply. "My God! . . . Tchkk!" he clucked, and burying his hands in his face he gave vent to a fretful oath. "My God!" he repeated miserably, "I'd forgotten—last night! . . . I sure must have been 'lit' . . . to come that over old Burke. . . ."
"You sure were!" remarked Redmond brutally.
"Keats' 'St. Agnes' Eve'! . . . Oh, Lord!" . . . He drew in his breath with a sibilant hiss, "There seems something—something devilish about—"
"I know! I know!" breathed Yorke tensely, "what . . . you mean." His haggard eyes implored Redmond's. "No! no! never again . . . I swear it. . . ."
There came a long, painful silence. "See here; look!" began Yorke suddenly. He stopped and surveyed George, a trifle anxiously. "Mind! . . . I'm not trying to justify myself but—get me right about this now. Don't you ever start in making a mistake about Slavin—blarney and all. No, Sir! I tell you when old Burke runs amôk in those tantrums he's a holy fright. He'd kill a man. Might as well run up against a gorilla."
A vision of the huge, sinister, crouching figure seemed to rise up in
Redmond's mind—the great, clutching, simian hands.
"In India," continued Yorke, "we'd say he'd got a touch of the 'Dulalli Tap.' The man doesn't know his own strength. I was taking an awful chance—getting his goat like that last night. It's a wonder he didn't kill me. He's man-handled me pretty badly at times. Oh, well! I guess it's been coming to me all right. Neither of us has ever dreamt of going squalling to the Orderly-room over our . . . differences. I don't think Burke's ever taken the trouble to 'peg' a man in his life. Not his way. 'I must take shteps!' says he, and 'I will take shteps!' and when he starts in softly rubbing those awful great grub-hooks he calls hands—together! . . . well! you want to look out."
Lighting a cigarette he resumed reminiscently: "They were a tough crowd to handle up in the Yukon. The devil himself 'd have been scared to butt in to that 'Soapy Smith' gang; but, by gum! they were afraid of Slavin. He doesn't drink much now, but he did then—mighty few that didn't—up there—and I tell you, even our own fellows got a bit leery of him when he used to start in 'trailing his coat.' They were glad when he 'came outside.' That's one of the reasons why he's shoved out on a prairie detachment. He wouldn't do at all for the Post. He never reports in there more than he has to—dead scared of the old man, who's about the only soul he is afraid of on earth. The O.C.'s awful sarcastic with him at times, and that gets Burke's goat properly. He sure does hate getting a choke-off from the old man."
He grinned guiltily. "That's why he prefers to wash the family linen strictly at home—what little there is. But, sarcasm and all, the O.C. gives him credit for being onto his job—and it's coming to him, too. He's quick acting and he's got the Criminal Code well-nigh by heart. Regular blood-hound when he starts in working up a case."
He yawned, and rising stiffly to his feet stretched his cramped limbs. "We-ll! Reddy, my giddy young hopeful!—Now we've fallen on each other's ruddy necks and kissed and wept and had a heart-to-heart talk we'll—"
"Aw, quit making game, Yorkey! Is it a go? You know what I said?"
Strangely compelling, Yorke found that bruised, eager, wistful young face, with its earnest, honest eyes. "All right!" he agreed, with languid bonhomie. "You've certainly earned the office of Dictator, and, as I remarked—we really have quite a lot in common. Mind, though, you don't repent of your bargain. One thing!" the curved, defiant nostrils dilated faintly, "Seems the world always has use for us runagates in one capacity. It's just the likes of us that compose the rank and file of most of the Empire's military police forces. Who makes the best M.P. man, executing duty, say, in a critical life-and-death hazard? The cautious, upright, model young man, with a tender regard for a whole skin and a Glorious Future? Or the poor devil who's lost all, and doesn't care a d——n? We tackle the world's dangerous, dirty criminal work and—swank and all—Society don't want to forget it."
He pointed to their horses who were playfully rearing and biting at each other in equine sport. "Look at old Parson and Fox tryin' to warm themselves? Bloomin' fine example we've set 'em. Well! allons! mon camarade, let's up and beat it."
CHAPTER VI
A deed accursed! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But this foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out.
THOMAS TAYLOR
Hastily dressing, the two policemen mounted and took the trail once more. Side by side as they rode along, in each man's heart was an estimate of the other vastly different from that with which they started out that memorable morning.
Yorke, his spirits now fully recovered, became quite companionably communicative, relating picturesque, racy stories of India, the Yukon, and other countries he had known. George, in receptive mood, listened in silent appreciation to one of the most fascinating raconteurs he had ever met in his young life. Incidentally he felt relieved as he noted his comrade now tactfully avoiding morbid egotism—dwelling but lightly upon the milestones that marked his chequered career.
The bodily stiffness and soreness, consequent upon their recent bout, was now well-nigh forgotten, though occasionally they laughingly rallied each other as the sharp air stung their bruised faces. They were just surmounting the summit of a long, steep grade in the trail.
Said Redmond dubiously: "See here; look! I'm darned if I like getting the freedom of the City of Cow Run sportin' such a pretty mug as this! How many more miles to this giddy burg, old thing?"
Yorke grinned unfeelingly. "Hard on nine miles to go yet. We're about half way. Isch ga bibble! . . . open your ditty-box and sing! you blooming whip-poor-will."
"A werry heart goes all the way,
But a sad one tires in a mile a';
A—"
The old lilt died on his lips. With a startled oath he reined in sharply and, shielding his eyes from the sun-glare, remained staring straight in front of him. They had just topped the crest of the rise. The eastward slope showed a low-lying, undulating stretch of snow-bound country, sparsely dotted with clumps of poplar and alder growth, through which the trail wound snake-like into the fainter distance. Southwards, below the rolling, shelving benches, lay the river, a steaming black line, twisting interminably between frosty, bush-fringed banks.
No less startled than his companion, Redmond pulled up also and stared with him. Not far distant on the trail ahead of them they beheld a dark, ominous-looking mass, vividly conspicuous against the snow. Suddenly the object moved and resolved itself unmistakably into a horse struggling to rise. For an instant they saw the head and the fore-part of the body lift, and then flop prone again. Close against it lay another dark object.
"Horse down!" snapped Yorke tersely. "Hell!" he added, "looks like a man there, too! come on quick!"
Responding to a shake of the lines and a fierce thrust of the spurs, their horses leapt forward and they raced towards their objective.
"Steady! steady!" hissed Yorke, checking his mount as they drew near the fallen animal and its rider, "pull Fox a bit, Red! Mustn't scare the horse!"
Slackening into a walk, they flung out of saddle, dropped their lines, crouched, and crept warily forward. The horse, a big, splendid seal-brown animal, had fallen on its right side, with its off fore-leg plunged deep in a snow-filled badger-hole. The body of the man lay also on the off-side with one leg under his mount. The stiffened form was a ghastly object to behold, being literally encased in an armour-like shell of frozen, claret-coloured snow.
At the approach of the would-be rescuers the poor brute whinnied pitifully and made another ineffectual attempt to rise. Yorke flung himself onto the head and held it down, while George dived frantically for the man's body, and tugged until he had got the leg from under.
"Hung up! by God!" gasped the former, "his foot's well-nigh through the stirrup!"
Redmond, ex-medical student, made swift examination. "Dead!" he pronounced with finality, "Good God! dead as a herring! The man's been dragged and kicked to death!" He made a futile effort to release the imprisoned foot.
"No! no!" cried Yorke sharply, "no use doing that if he's dead.
Coroner's got to view things as they are."
The horse began to struggle again painfully. Peering down the badger-hole they could see the broken bone of its leg protruding bloodily through the skin. Yorke released one hand and reached for his gun.
"Poor old chap!" he said, "we'll fix you. Quick Red! pull the body as far back as the stirrup-legadeiro'll go! That'll do! There, old boy! . . ."
And with practised hand he sent a merciful bullet crashing through brain and spinal cord. The hind legs threshed awhile, but presently, with a muscular quiver they stiffened and all was still. Yorke, releasing his hold struggled to his feet, and the two men stared pityingly at what lay before them. What those merciless, steel-shod hoofs had left of the head and the youthful body indicated a man somewhere in his twenties. His ice-bound outer clothing consisted of black Angora goatskin chaps and a short sheepskin coat.
"Can't place him—like this," muttered Yorke, after prolonged scrutiny, "but I seem to know the horse."
Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation—something between a groan and a cry. Redmond, startled at a new horror apparent on the other's ghastly face, clutched him by the arm.
"What's up?" he queried tensely.
Yorke struggled to speak. "Fox!" he gasped presently—"this morning. . . . I never told you. My God!—You might have got hung up like this, too."
"No! no! Yorkey!" Redmond almost shouted the disclaimer, "Slavin wised me up to that trick of his yesterday. I forgot. It was my own fault I got piled like that. Forget it, old man! I say forget it!"
He shook the other's arm with a sort of savage gentleness.
A look of vague relief dawned on Yorke's haggard face. "Ay, so!" he murmured, and paused with brooding indecision. "That's absolved my conscience some, but not altogether."
They remained silent awhile after this. Presently Yorke pulled himself together and spoke briskly and decisively. "Well, now! we'll have to get busy. Blair's place is only about three miles from here—nor'east—they're on the long-distance 'phone. Doctor Cox of Cow Run's the coroner for this district. If I can get hold of him I'll get him to come out right-away—and I'll notify Slavin."
Catching up his horse he swung into the saddle. "I'll be back here on the jump. You stick around, and say, Reddy, you might as well have a dekko at the lay of things while you're waiting. Where he came off the perch, how far he's been dragged, and all that. Be careful though, keep well to the side and don't foul up the tracks. And don't get too far away, either!"
He galloped off and soon disappeared over a distant rise. Left to himself George mounted Fox and set to work to follow out the senior constable's instructions.
"Well?" queried Yorke, swinging wearily out of his saddle an hour or so later, "How'd you make out? Find the place where he flopped? Rum sort of perch you've got there—you look like Patience on a monument!"
George, seated upon the rump of the dead horse, nodded and grunted laconic response: "Sure. 'Bout two miles down the trail there. How'd you get along, Yorkey? Did you raise Slavin and the coroner?"
"Got Slavin all hunkadory," said the senior constable briefly, "he should be here soon, now. Dr. Cox'd just left for Wilson's, two miles this side of Cow Run. They're on the 'phone, too; so I left word there for him to come on here right away." He seated himself alongside the other.
Awhile they carried on a desultory, more or less speculative conversation anent the fatality, until they grew morbidly weary of contemplating the poor broken body. Yorke slid off the dead horse suddenly.
"Wish Slavin were here!" he said, "let's take a dekko from the top of the rise, Reddy, see'f we can see him coming. I'm getting cold sitting here."
Redmond, nothing loath, complied. Mounting, they turned back to the summit of the ridge. Reaching it, the jingle of bells smote their ears, and they espied the Police cutter approaching them at a rapid pace.
"Like unto Jehu, the son of Nimshi!" murmured Yorke, "he's sure springing old T and B up the grade."
Sergeant Slavin pulled up his smoking team along-side his two mounted subordinates. "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?"
Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details. At one point in his narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?" And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey."
The sergeant listened, but absently. To them it did not seem exactly to be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.
"Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu—th' pair av yez," he remarked casually.
Remembrance smote the two culprits. They exchanged guilty glances and swallowed the home-thrust in silence.
Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-march, thin!" said he.
Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering unholy delight.
Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he—"
"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . . Isch ga bibble, anyway!"
"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself—over and over again, "Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" "'Tis so they name each other—now! Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu—from th' mugs av thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply.
They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.
"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut happened?"
Redmond made affirmative response.
"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.
"Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!
Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"
He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick, seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. Enlightenment came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder.
"D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere! It's
'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse. Tchkk! this must be him. My God!"
"Shure!" snapped Slavin testily. "Wake up! Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man? One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!" He tenderly pocketed the clippers. "Yes! ye shud know him!"—dryly—"lukked troo th' bottom av a glass wid him often enough."
"Let's see'f he's got any letters or anything in his pockets—to make sure!" began Redmond eagerly. Suiting the action to the word he bent down to investigate. But Slavin intruded a huge arm. "Hould on, bhoy!" he said, with all an old policeman's fussiness over rightful procedure. "Du not touch! That is th' coroner's bizness. Did they not dhrill that inta yeh at Regina?"
He stared thoughtfully at the corpse. "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah! dhrink an' th' divil!"—sadly. "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . . shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man." Austerely he glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this same dhrink!"
"How do you know the poor beggar was drunk?" queried the latter, a trifle sulkily. "He may have been as sober as you or I."
"Shpeak for yehsilf!" retorted Slavin dryly, "Ah! this must be Docthor
Cox comin' now!"
A cutter containing two men was approaching them rapidly. Presently it drew up alongside the group and a short, rotund gentleman, clad in furs, sprang out and came swiftly, bag in hand. He was middle-aged, with a gray moustache and kind, alert, dark eyes. Greeting the policemen quietly, he turned to the broken body.
"Tchkk! good God!" He shook his head sadly. Redmond thought he had never seen a medical man so unprofessionally shocked. Presently he straightened up and turned to Slavin. "Can you identify him, Sergeant?"
That worthy nodded. "Eyah! 'tis Larry Blake, I'm thinking Docthor. Best frisk him now an' see, I guess. Maybe he has letthers."
Hastily diving into his bag the coroner produced a pair of long keen scissors and slit the short, frozen sheepskin coat. In the breast-pocket of the coat underneath, amongst other miscellany two old letters rewarded his search. He glanced at the superscriptions and handed them up to Slavin.
"Larry Blake it is," he said. He felt the soggy, pulped head. "Skull's stove right in. Any one of these smashes would have sufficed to kill him." He clipped the hair around a ghastly gaping crevice at the base of the head.
Suddenly he peered closely, uttered an exclamation, peered again and drew back. "Sergeant!" he said sharply, "D'ye see that?—No need to ask you what that is!" In an unbroken portion of the back of the skull he indicated a small, circular orifice. The trio craned forward and made minute examination. Slavin ejaculated an oath and glanced up at Yorke—almost remorsefully.
"I take ut all back," he said. Meeting the coroner's blank, enquiring stare he added: "Booze, Docthor—we thought ut might be. . . . Yeh know Larry!"
The physician of Cow Run nodded understandingly. Slavin bent again and made close scrutiny of the bullet-hole. "Back av th' head, no powdher marks!" He straightened up. "Docther, are ye thru? All right, thin! Guess we'll book up an' start in."
Methodically they all produced note-books and entered the needful particulars. The lanky individual who had driven the coroner out brought forward a tarpaulin and spread it on the ground. With some difficulty the over-shoed foot was disengaged from the imprisoning stirrup, the body rolled in the tarpaulin and deposited in the rear of the doctor's cutter. The saddle and bridle were flung into the Police cutter. They then rolled the dead horse clear of the trail.
That night the coyotes held grim, snarling carnival.
Slavin turned to Redmond. "Ye've located th' place, eh?" The latter nodded. "All right, thin, get mounted, th' tu av yez, an' lead on!"
Keeping needfully wide of the broad, claret-bespotted swath in the snow, the party started trailing back. Yorke and George rode ahead. The latter glanced around to make sure of being out of earshot of their sergeant.
"We-ll of all the hardened old cases! . . . Slavin sure does crown 'em!" he muttered to his comrade.
"Hardened!" Yorke laughed grimly. "You should have seen him up in the Yukon! The man's been handling these rotten morgue cases 'till he'd qualify for the Seine River Police. He's got so he ascribes well-nigh everything now to 'dhrink an' th' divil.'" His face softened, "but I know the real heart of old Burke under it all."
About two miles down the trail Redmond halted.
"Here it is!" he said. And he indicated an irregular, blood-soaked, clawed-up patch in the snow where the sanguinary swath ended. They dismounted. Slavin drawing up alongside the coroner's cutter handed over his lines to the teamster.
"Now!" said he, "let's shtart in! . . . Ye must have 'shpotted this on yeh way up, Docthor?" He pointed to the patch.
The latter nodded. "Yes! we thought it must have happened here."
For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at their surroundings. The frozen landscape at this point presented a singularly lonely, desolate aspect. Flat, and for the greater part absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible. Far to the right-hand, more than a mile away, stretched the first of the shelving benches, where the high ground sloped away in irregular jumps, as it were, to the river.
"Best ye shtay fwhere ye all are," cautioned the sergeant, "'till I size up th' lay av things a bit. I du not want th' thracks fouled up. H-mm! let's see now!" He remained in deep, thoughtful silence a space. "Thravellin' towards us," he muttered—"th' back av th' head!"
Hands clasped behind bent back, and with head thrust loweringly forward from between his huge shoulders he paced slowly down the trail for some hundred yards. That grim, intent face and the swaying gait reminded Redmond of some huge bloodhound casting about for a scent.