Chapter IX: The Sacrifice

I

Observe, ere we come to the Throne Mine, these various points of view:

Mr. Otto Rams. His point of view revealed to him a stony broke inventor by the name of Burrows, to be smoothly cheated out of certain patents for extracting gold from rock. This was a perfectly legitimate business proposition.

Doctor Eliphalet P. Burrows, alias Loco. His point of view was this: that after thirty years of despairing effort he had discovered, hooked, played and landed an important mining engineer representing capital, in whose rays he was now prepared to lie on his back with all four paws up and pant.

Miss Violet Burrows, alias Sarde, widlet. Her point of view was: "Once a lady, always cautious." Miss Violet loved herself, which is the true economy of the heart. She had the sense to chuck Joe Chambers, cowboy (four hundred eighty dollars a year and board), in favor of Inspector Sarde (twelve hundred dollars a year, all found, and a social position). Since the one died and the other cheated, she had a ridiculous tenderness toward a common policeman (two hundred thirty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents a year at current rating, less fines, plus board, waster, no social position). Even had she known about my marquisate, that, after all, was only a foreign title, old, worn out--a mere nothing compared with the brand-new knighthood of Sir Augustus Rams of Clapham Junction, for which no less than fifty thousand dollars had just been paid, cash down. After all, business is business, and money talks.

It is true that Joe, Sarde, Rams & Company were sporadic as flies to a spider, whereas I was chronic. It is true that the American, the Canadian and the Englishman were insipid compared with the Spaniard. They alighted with a bang, whereas I only hovered, then fluttered off to take my toll elsewhere. In my broad track, I left the women bewildered and rather cross, because I did not get them into all the trouble they wanted. So while Miss Violet's business principles would always devote her to Rams in business hours, her relaxation was to dream of me. She meant to marry Rams, but feared and hoped I would run away with her. When we arrived, she was effusive to Rams, and cut me. She tumbled all over Rams and bored him. What he wanted was supper, and that right early. He said so, and Uncle Loco bundled her into the kitchen. So when I had stabled Black Prince and Gentle Annie, I found Miss Violet, and kissed her all over for a matter of twenty minutes, while the coffee boiled over, the bacon went to cinders and the beans burned--just good enough for Rams.

Loco was entertaining quality in the parlor, and somehow reminded his weary guest of a Clapham gent, Old Cheese, who always treacled his trousers to keep off mice.

"As an original inventor," said Loco, with an elevated manner and a nasal intonation, tapping his celluloid dicky, "I share the glorious fate of Galileo, Faraday, and John Keeley of Philadelphia: contempt, disparagement, starvation--ah, here comes supper--while we live, and after a death from want--Let me help you to beans, Mr. Rams--the commemorative statue--and some bacon, Mr. Rams--the applause of nations! Ah, I see you've laid two places, Violet. But I have supped. Humbly but sufficiently I have supped. Take these away. Remove these, my dear."

With a clatter of Mexican spurs on the floor, I rolled in from the kitchen for my supper.

"Ah, Constable," said Loco, "I had--at least, I guess my niece reserved some supper for you in the kitchen."

"I only looked in, Burrows," said I, "to tell Rams here to water and feed the horses. I'm spending the night with friends."

"Ah, at the 'Tough Nut,'" Loco beamed with relief. "Most welcome there, I'm sure."

His bald head, as he sat there, was quite irresistible, so I applied a spoonful of mustard and a sprinkling of pepper to the shiny surface. Then, leaving the three freaks to their entertainment, I went out to the stable.

In a sudden passion of blind rage, Miss Violet was calling her uncle a damned fool.

So having gone into temptation and not been tempted--which really was disappointing--I found I was not engaged to marry Miss Burrows. That was all right. I watered and fed Black Prince and Gentle Annie. Then gathering both blankets, my cloak and hardtack for my supper, I turned my back on Freak House, and put out for solitude. Rams and Miss Violet searched for me long and loud, but I wanted to be alone.

Only a few paces beyond the cabins, I came to an edge of space. Thousands of feet beneath lay an abyss of clouds. Near by on the left the Throne Glacier made its broken leap, a cataract of ice, while on my right the clouded gorge of Horsethief Creek, with murmur of distant waters, curved away toward the Columbia Valley. There I could see the faint lights of our camp, and as I watched, a thread of music, delicate as some blown thread of cobweb, bade me "Come home! Come home!"

It was last post.

It seemed so far away, that life, that service, up here among the snowdrifts and the rocks of frosty silver, which cut the swinging and eternal star-field. Here was a sanctuary for driven souls, where no pursuing evil dared to come near me. This glacier was surely the throne of our Eternal Father attended by mists of spirits, hosts of stars and presence invisible who, with a sighing, wind-like breath, prayed for His coming to judge, to save, to pardon.

I ate my hardtack with a curious sense that this bread was sacramental, lay wrapped in my cloak, awake in perfect rest, and at the dawn knelt watching for the sun, until the Rocky Mountains were molten at the edges with his blinding splendor.

II

Before the freaks were astir, I mounted Black Prince, told Gentle Annie to come along or starve, and set out riding in company with health, the god who lives outdoors. No wholesome lad of two-and-twenty, well armed and mounted, in the glamour of the daybreak, is ever so unhappy as he claims; but still the boys at the "Tough Nut" hailing me for breakfast, relieved a gnawing anxiety below my belts. A bird in the hand is better than a bull flying. And after breakfast, they would not let me go, which pleased me. I had a day to spare. I learned also that frontiersmen of many tribes and trades are all one brotherhood--of fools.

"Of course," as Long Shorty told me after breakfast, "poor Loco doesn't count. He doesn't belong to our ancient Order of Fools, who follow the tracks of wandering St. Paul. Bobbie, it's your wash-up, so get a move on. Bobbie and I take turns at muddling things."

The prospector coiled his legs on the door-step, and lighted his corn-cob pipe. "We look down," said he, "on those old Spanish miners with their dinky ladders, buckets instead of pumps, and mule Arastras. That's the way Loco jeers at our fissure veins.

"He has a pair of rotary fans, which get up a cyclone between them, and the dust in that cyclone will tear a steel crowbar to pieces, yes, to dust of steel. Rock shatters to dust before it has time to drop through.

"Put money in that idea, and get at a range of mountains like the Sierra Nevada, which runs a dollar a ton in gold. It costs us two dollars to mine and mill, but Loco can do it for ninety cents. He can transmute the Sierra Nevada into gold--and we prospectors are down and out along with the buffaloes and the Indians. We're out of date, says Loco."

"Then he's a genius?"

"He's a fool. His fans get cut to powder. When I worked for him last winter, I offered--for a half interest--to make him fans which wouldn't get cut to pieces. I would have cased the fans in bott, which means black Diamonds, and made the fool a multi-billionaire. Instead of that, he sacked me. Pity, that. I'd have been half-owner of a corner in gold."

"What would you do?"

"Buy mother an orchard down home in Nova Scotia. Open up the plains for a nation--you see, I'm Canadian. Buy a fleet, and station it on the coast of China to meet the Yellow Peril--you see, I'm British, too. I'd buy me a horse like that Black Prince of yours, and"--he glanced ruefully at his long boots, which were dropping to pieces--"yes, and a new pair of boots--that is, if the cash held out."

We looked on trailing mist wreaths, combed by the torch-like pines at timber line. "The weather's going to change," said Long Shorty, then scrambled to his feet, for a man of six-foot five must have room when he wants to yawn. "Come," said he, "help me to point some drills."

That man made me thoughtful.

No climb is too high for an ass with a load of gold--Rams, for example. And here he was at the top, ready to my hand, so tame I could stroke his long seductive ears.

Now an ass-load of gold was merely wasted on Loco, and yet it might be useful to Long Shorty and Bobbie Broach. They had gone to work in their tunnel, and left me at the forge to sharpen drills. Close by among the spired pines was their log cabin, with its mud chimney, while an extension of the roof made a porch in front. Beyond that, a cutting in the hillside gave entry to the tunnel, whose waste rock made a terrace heaped with silvery ore a-glitter in the sunshine. The place was all so beautiful, so dignified, so aching poor. These men were in rags, and living on half rations, yet made a stranger welcome to all they had. Poor Bobbie Broach had been born in a muddle and stayed there, a woman had muddled Shorty's life for him, but both of them lived straight in a confusing world. I wanted to be their friend.

Rams, of his own accord, came out for a walk, expecting as rich men will to patronize the poor, and put them through their paces. He thought I had gone back to camp, did not expect to see me.

"Come here," said I. "Let's see your mouth."

"My good fellow--er--why?"

"Teeth still all right, eh? Or did Loco steal them?"

He grinned, and murmured that he knew his business.

I said I knew more about mining than a Friburg expert.

He told me huffily that he had graduated at Friburg, the greatest mining school.

I pointed to the tunnel. "Isn't that the best mining school?"

He scoffed at ignorant prospectors, then sat down on a log in the forge, with me beside him. "They'll ask you to dinner presently," said I. "Don't be unkind to them. Pretend to be genial--but make them keep their distance. Mention your rich relations. Trot out the dear Duchess of Clapham Junction. They'll be frightfully impressed. At dinner, tell them how much better food you've been used to, and ask them how much there's to pay. We of the lower classes love being patronized. So good for us."

"You think I'm such an infernal cad?"

"Why, Rams, you've been wondering if you ought to tip me."

He flushed at that.

A chipmunk, proud of his gaily striped fur coat, was showing off on the anvil. "Cheep?" said he disdainfully.

"Cheep," said I, to pass the time of day.

"Cheep!" Polite, but hurried, he found just time to curl his dainty tail up his furry back to please me.

"Cheep! Cheep!" said I, and he scampered up my boot-leg expecting lunch.

"How's the nut business, eh? Cheep?"

"Oh, if that's all!" He scampered back to the anvil, then turned and swore at me.

The distant clang of a hammer now noticeably ceased, and Broach, a muddy little man with a putty face, came out from the tunnel, crossed to the shack and went in. Presently there was dinner smoke at the chimney, while from the tunnel came fainter sounds of tapping, then thumping, then silence, and Shorty came running out. A volley of stones came flying after him, the hillside quivered, and smoke poured from the tunnel.

Rams had picked up a thick, short yellow stick like barley sugar with the feel of wax.

"Give that to me," said I in a sharp whisper.

But he was sulky.

"Put that down," said I, "it's dynamite!"

I grabbed too late. Rams had thrown the stick at my chipmunk, and it whirled, spinning over and over until it struck the anvil.

A red flower seemed to bud there, which grew to a giant blossom, filling the world.

A pain in my right thigh pulled me awake, to find myself on a bunk inside the shack. Shorty was cooking by stove-light, while wisps of red smoke toiled round his lanky frame, and rain thrashed the roof. The wind leaped at the cabin, roaring like a beast.

"Rams killed?" I ask.

"We set a broken arm," he said, "and packed him to the Throne. How do you feel?"

"Dunno. Surprised, I think. Where's Broach?"

"Taken your horses down to your camp. He'll bring up grub, and a doctor. Here's some coffee."

I found that my thigh was snapped, a simple fracture which my friends had set and splinted without disturbing me. My skull was bruised, too, and I did not feel really well when Shorty lifted me up to give me coffee.

Then he sat on the edge of the bunk with his own tin cup. "I guess," he said, "that tenderfoot was careless."

"Threw dynamite at a chipmunk."

"There's a hole," said Shorty, "where we had our forge."

"How much will that cost Rams?"

"Don't know yet. It's our first capitalist, so it's lucky it wasn't put out of business, eh? That arm should tie it down six weeks, while we sell it wild-cats. We've got a dandy bunch of wild-cat claims, and they might cost a Friburg expert--"

"He's that."

"Say fifty thousand dollars. Thanks, old man. We're grateful."

III

My blood came by inheritance, my vices by contagion. My blood was wholesome, healing me rapidly from the start, and as to contagion of vice, or any kind of foulness, there really was no room in that little shack. I do believe most heartily that unhappy people infect their homes with selfishness, nagging, peevishness, rancor, melancholia, murder, which like the microbes of disease, are living evils, the devils which our Lord Christ found such sport in hunting. But where Shorty and Broach kept house there was only room for fairies, and they swarmed. I know, because fairies are so exactly like children in the way they love noise and mess. Think how delighted they are in hiding things which humans leave lying about! These prospectors, for instance, had mislaid everything they had not really lost.

But if fairies are merely untidy, squirrels are dissolute. A pair of them lived in the roof, who kept a squirrel maid to help them scatter flour, nuts and cinders. She had lost an eye, and never threw anything straight.

Besides these people, I had visitors, beginning with Sergeant Gathercole, an ex-vet, a nice chap, and a temperate man when sober. He had a charming habit, I remember, during meal times of combing out his tawny mustache with his fork. Gathercole came with a pack-horse load of government grub, a proper splint and bandages which made me comfortable, and any amount of advice, messages, even presents from fellows I disliked. The troop, he told me, was leaving for Wild Horse Creek, but Black Prince was to stay with our Windermere detachment, and I could send down for him when I was fit for duty.

For the first fortnight, I had only occasional news of the three freaks up at the Throne. They lived in the clouds, believing that they held the mighty secret by which whole mountain ranges could be milled for gold. They dreamed of wealth beyond imagination, and carried themselves like demigods--at first.

Then at our shack there arrived, with pomp and circumstances, Doctor Eliphalet Burrows impressively arrayed in a silk hat, frock suit and nice brown shoes. Some one had told him long ago that his voice was resonant, so he did cultivate the same, producing it like a bull frog from his thin hind legs. According to his niece, Mrs. Sarde, he had a most charming smile, and this, too, he used at random. Indeed, he was so mellow and rotund, so large and resonant, that one might safely compare him with a drum--played by Mistress Violet.

He contrasted my trivial injuries with the grave condition of his esteemed friend Rams, who had sustained an oblique fracture of the humerus, whereas I had only a mere broken thigh-bone. The rich man's finer nature, so delicately strung, made him most exquisitely susceptible to pain.

Next, Loco proceeded to find himself in a most embarrassing--ahem--situation, being suah that, notwithstanding the expressed wish of his deah niece, I would not permit him to discuss that unfortunate contretemps which had attended my visit to his humble--ahem--abode.

I told him that mustard made the hair grow.

Charmed as he had been to receive as his honored guest the distinguished English mining engineer, his deah friend Rams, a six weeks' visit was more than he deserved. The fact was that, to be perfectly frank, provisions were running--ahem--and he regarded with concern an impending inconvenience to his illustrious guest. Now he was given to understand that the authorities had placed at my disposal a pack-horse load of--ahem--ahem-- To be precise, did I think that, under the peculiar--ahem--which had arisen through my misunderstanding the--er--nature and uses of dynamite, I should be--ahem--disposed, et cetera?

I told him I'd see him damned first, and he said he would pray for me on his way home.

It is the nature of women to disdain those who love them, and to love those who abhor them. I loved all women, so Mistress Violet, knowing she owned me anyway, could not be bothered to call until I had been about a month in bed. The good hope of catching Rams was better than the poor possession of her Blackguard, so when she came at last it was on business, without the least pretense to sentiment. I had pretty well cured her of trying that on me.

"I just _got_," she explained, "to marry Rams, and that's all there is about it. I've come to sit with you all the time now to make him jealous."

"I understand," said I, "the watched pot never boils."

"I got him bubbling once or twice," she giggled.

At an elevation of eight thousand feet, water will boil without being hot enough to cook an egg. So on this mountain top, Rams' bubbling point was a long way short of a grand passion. "Worms ain't more slippery," said Mistress Violet. "After all we done, too."

Loco's festal apparel and brown shoes, her own frocks--of the kind which shriek to heaven, and a heap of household linen, had all been bought on credit to astonish Rams. "As to provisions--my! Sass! Jells! Egg-powders! Apple-butter! Tomay-toes! Pait-defore-grass! We ran our face for the lot."

"But when Rams actually came," said I, "he got burnt beans, and sow-belly done to cinders."

"Whose fault was that?" she bridled. "Besides, he put off coming, until he arrived with a bang, and we weren't even dressed. We'd been wearing store clothes for a month--and there was me caught with my bangs in curling-irons."

"Still, Rams is in clover now."

"That's all you know. We got a house full of fancy groceries, but no grub. And would you believe it--when I sent Loco down for beans, flour and bacon, the trader at Windermere wanted him to pay cash!"

"The wretch!"

"And now," she culminated, "it's up to you to lend me fifty dollars."

I saw no fun for me in feeding beans to Rams. Besides, my two hundred nice little dollars felt so snug in my hind pocket. They stayed there, too.

I was a very acrobat on my crutches, before the quality at Freak House bestowed another visit. This time, my caller was Rams, in a state of panic.

"I may have dallied," so began his plaint, "but not philandered. Believe me, I never. Once, of course, I chucked her under the chin, and when she said that pimples on the neck could be kissed away--of course! But it never went so far as a hint, much less a suggestion."

"Then, why this fuss?"

It appeared that Loco, who had tact enough to stampede a locomotive, wanted to know the intentions of his deah young friend with regard to his--ahem--niece.

The American heavy father, especially when he happens to be the heavy uncle, can be frightfully impressive on that subject. Rams, too, had been reading Wild West in his leisure moments, and, as everybody knows, the denizens of that region invariably shoot. In Rams' dilated vision, Loco Burrows was a westerner, a frontiersman, with symptoms of desperado and a gun.

"Asked me," the Englishman groaned, "if my intentions were honorable. As if I had intentions! Why, my dear fellow, strictly on the q.t., she's lower middle class!"

"You don't say so?"

"Fact. My father, Sir Augustus, you know, will cut me off with a bob. Still, I didn't want to be shot."

"So you're engaged? A thousand felicitations!"

Rams fled.

But then he came back next day in a dreadful state of mind, bearing an old number of the _Macleod Gazette_, with mention in it of Inspector Sarde. "We have much pleasure in announcing that the popular inspector is coming back to our district. Are we to be introduced to the beautiful Mrs. Sarde we heard so much of?"

On being confronted with this damning text, the lady had explained with tears that she was not exactly a widow, because her late husband was living, and had never married her.

Whereat Rams flew in a passion, broke his collar stud, and with one end of his collar pointing out the sun, "said a few words." I fancy he used language.

"What an escape!" he said. "Suppose I'd married her! Why, oh, why, should these awful people be trying to hound me into a marriage? There's something fishy. I smell a rat. I'm not such a fool as I look--not by a long chalk. If this invention is all right, why should they--? I'm off."

Suspicious of anything fishy which smelt of rats, he went muttering homeward. "Have another go at Loco's estimates--tampered--suppose--damned--m'n-m-m--"

The clouds were trailing along the hill, and a fine rain washed the autumn foliage into a riot of orange, flame, lemon and soft amber, melting into fog against green gloom of timber, and its deep blue glades. I was alone since early yesterday, for Broach had taken his toothache down to the Windermere blacksmith, and Long Shorty had gone with him for a load of stores. I redded the cabin tidy, baked a batch of bread, made dinner and my siesta, then sewed a pink seat to Shorty's blue overalls, while the rain changed to sleet, the sleet to snow, and a young storm woke to howls as the dusk deepened into a horrid night. Then the prospectors came home with my horse and an official letter. I had orders to attach all property of Eliphalet Pardoe Burrows for debt, and to arrest him on a charge of issuing fraudulent checks. But morning would be the proper time for that, and meanwhile there was supper to cook for weary men.

And all this time there was an argument proceeding at the Throne. With an unlimited capacity for fooling himself, and none for fooling others, the inventor had made false estimates of his great invention, and Rams, with the quivering nostrils of suspicion, at last had found him out. Here were round numbers rather than square facts, and pretty little improvements of dull assays, a few naughts cocked on to tiresome statistics, and quite a dainty cookery of accounts. So Rams was shocked to the soul at finding bigger rascals than himself, denouncing Loco for swindling, forgery and fraud, accusing Mistress Violet of attempted bigamy and blackmail. Both said exactly what they thought of Rams, but Mistress Violet began first, said most, continued longest and had the best of it. From noon to midnight, she made a general confession of the young man's imperfections, and the depravity of Englishmen, denounced her Uncle Loco and bewailed her fate. And then the trouble began for the two men, having made common cause against the lady, fell out between themselves. They got in a passion, and threw things, including the lamp, which set the whole place in flames. So while the woman stood outside warming herself by that fire, and wearying the very skies with her indignation, the men, driven to ignominious flight, set out upon the trail snarling at each other like two dogs. Had they come to me, I should have tied them together and watched the fun, but they ignored my presence at the "Tough Nut," and went on to lay their demands for justice before the sergeant in charge at Windermere.

The sky was clearing then, and the moon rose on silver waves of Alps and deep blue troughs between, along the stormy ranges which crown the continent.

And there the woman, who had no further use for Loco or any hope from Rams, was left among black ruins on the mountainside, abandoned. When a selfish soul has nothing left but self, then loneliness is tragic. Like ivy torn from a wall, this creature had nothing left to cling to, no strength to stand alone. The bitter dawn wind swept the last sparks from her burned world, and the raw chill snatched all her warmth away. So she lay moaning.

IV

Down at the "Tough Nut" cabin, we slept soundly, having seen nothing but the driving snow, heard nothing but the storm. But as the dawn light roused me I remembered that the Throne cabins must be seized for debt, and Loco taken down to Windermere, for which there would be scarcely time in the brief autumn day. So without disturbing my friends I brewed a cup of coffee, and made my way on crutches to the stable behind the cabin. I saddled Black Prince, climbed to his back and rode up the drifted trail, which showed the floundering tracks of Rams and Loco bound for Windermere. I found the Throne cabins a heap of smoldering ashes, with a few blowing sparks, and on the slab of rock which had been the door-step lay that poor woman.

She was no less the complete minx than usual. I told her that the moans and wriggles completely spoiled her performance as a swooning lady. She wanted to play at abandoned heroine, but I was a deal too cold and hungry for heroics, and told her pretty roughly to shut up. Then she thought that the rescued damsel always rode with the knight at her bridle, forgetting that real paladins never have game legs. I told her that the walk would do her good, and a mile of floundering through drifts certainly warmed the cat. By the time we reached the "Tough Nut" she was hungry, and after breakfast purred, making eyes at the prospectors, although for a solid year they had been beneath her notice.

If I had only been able to help my friends to the wealth of that gilded ass, poor crooked Rams! The time had come for parting with Shorty and Bobbie Broach, and they refused to snare the little wad in my pocket. They lent and saddled their pony for the woman, and when Black Prince had finished his breakfast we had to hit the trail.

There was plenty for me to think about on that long day's march to Windermere. Loco was on his way to a term of imprisonment, and when he came back his employers would not be pleased with his excessive zeal as their caretaker at the Throne. Rams, of course, would go home to his native land, where there are more fools to be cheated than in any other country of equal size.

And this woman was left on my hands. What could I do with her? She had no relatives, had earned no friends, and could not find employment where there were no employers, and she was destitute, many hundreds of miles out in the wilderness. Had I been wise, I should no doubt have given her the couple of hundred dollars in my pocket to pay her way to the settlements, and there make a fresh start in life. Had I been wise--but, then, I doubt if any really and truly wise man would have much of a story to tell in making a chronicle of his life. Had I been altogether a bad man, I should have used this woman committed to my mercy, had her as mistress until her tongue galled, then turned her loose, the worse for having known me, to take the one trail open to her talents. But had I been altogether bad--should I confess my errors in a book?

Perhaps there were other ways of dealing with this affair, but at the age of twenty-three, I lacked the experience which makes all things clear to the reader. I could see but one way consistent with decency and my honor. And all the way from the Throne to Windermere, and through the day's march from there to Canal Flats, and all the weary trail from thence to the mission, I saw no other course but that of marriage.

The three years since first we met in the train at Winnipeg had enlarged the girl into womanhood, the slattern into a housewife. Shallow she was, innately vulgar, with no heart, no morals, and no mind; but by this time she had learned enough to wash, to mind her manners, restrain a shrill unpleasant voice, limit her temper to only occasional field days, and turn her increase of beauty to account in the ruling of men. To this young animal was given hair as glorious as the sunshine, a skin like transparent milk, suffused with the glow of peaches, and covered with a bloom most rare and lovely, eyes very changeful and bewildering, health, strength, grace of bearing, and the temper of the spring-time between sun and shower. Small blame to me if my five senses worshiped this triumph of nature's artifice, which the creature had for sale for Sarde's position, Rams' money, or any passing storm of her ambition. Those greater women whose souls are not for sale will be the last to judge her.

We Latins are perhaps more womanish than the blond men of the North, having more sympathy, and deeper understanding of women. It was my fate to discern, to see right through them, and I had no illusions concerning Mistress Violet. Her beauty appealed with frightful strength to my manhood. In saying, "With my body I thee worship," I should speak the truth. But, "With my spirit I thee worship," I could say to Rain, and to no other woman I ever knew. Passion I had for many, devotion I had toward all things beautiful, but love for only one woman, and her I might not marry.

I have spent days trying to write this passage, to express in words of clean, just, decisive English the relations between a man and a woman brought together in wedlock, where the woman gave all, but the man gave nothing because he withheld his soul.

"He who called Arms and Letters a pair of sisters, knew nothing about their family, for no lineages are so far apart as saying and doing."

Yes, playing the man of letters, with nothing to do but look back, I gabble most confoundedly; but in those days I was a man-at-arms. I might be indeed troop jester, but the jester's habit is the mask of reticence. I made the woman merry, to ease the way as best I could for her, but told her nothing. How could I tell such a creature that, in giving my hand, I gave my mother's rank, my mother's dignities. The woman might be Sarde's wife, or Sarde's discarded mistress, for all I cared, but not the Marchioness of the Alpuxarras to tarnish the old and lovely memories of my house. Rank is a responsibility, at times a burden, a thing we try to forget in our private life, not to be soiled in the filthy conversation of camp or barrack, not to be tarnished by a woman of doubtful character. Unless I could pass my knighthood on to the sons of a gentlewoman, the succession would go to my brother. And so, before we parted at Wild Horse Creek, I gave to Don Pedro's keeping the badge of the Golden Fleece.

The incompetent in charge at the Kootenay Mission was my friend of the church parades, and he refused me marriage. Had he been a Christian, there had been no marriage, for ever so gladly would I have made confession to a real priest, and at his orders provided for the woman in her necessities. But this parson was merely a creature of convention, since the weeds of respectability sprang up to choke the flowering of his soul. He objected to me as a Papist, to the woman as a Prohibitionist or a vegetarian, or some such uncouth sectarian outside the pale. He objected to the social misalliance, as though he were priest to a god of etiquette. He demanded a permit from my commanding officer. He demurred on grounds of infancy.

"We don't mind getting married," I told him, "unless you prefer that this woman should be my mistress."

At that, he collapsed altogether, and merely to save him from being mixed up in a scandal, that marriage was made in hell.

"Whom God hath joined," he said, "let no man put asunder."

"But why blame Him?" I asked, and the service ended.

Of the same breed are marriage and repentance.

V

Our borrowed pony had been left behind at Windermere, from whence the señora and I rode double on Black Prince. My broken leg was scarcely fit for travel, and the wedding delayed us also for some hours on our way to troop headquarters at Wild Horse Creek.

But swift and direct went a despatch from the sergeant in charge at Windermere to the officer commanding D Division. The news reached Sam a day ahead of us.

To him, as the nearest magistrate, it was reported that Doctor Eliphalet P. Burrows was in custody charged with fraud, with destroying the security for his debts, and with burning the Throne cabins where he was caretaker in charge. Mr. Rams was detained on charges brought by Burrows. Constable la Mancha, riding double with the runaway wife of Inspector Sarde, was on his way to report to the O.C.D. Division.

So we were expected, and on my arrival in camp at Wild Horse Creek, I was paraded at once before my officer commanding.

"Constable," he asked, "what do you mean by bringing Mrs. Sarde into my camp?"

"The lady, sir, whom I have brought is the Señora de la Mancha."

Sam turned to the orderly corporal. "Place this man," he said, "under arrest."

I handed over my side-arms.

"Prisoner," said Sam, "you will be charged with going through the form of marriage without permission, and in defiance of regulations. You're entitled to twenty-four hours to prepare your defense."

"I don't ask a minute, sir. Whatever you do is going to be dead straight to-day or to-morrow."

"You take a grave risk playing with me," said Sam.

"I see, sir, that you're striking camp, for a march. I don't want to be a prisoner and a nuisance while there are wheels in mud-holes."

That spirit appealed most powerfully to Sam. "Defend yourself," he said gravely. "I'm your best friend."

He knew I loved him dearly.

"Sir, I found this lady abandoned on the Selkirks in several feet of snow. I took her to the padre at the mission. It was no time for fooling, I gave her the only protection possible. Sir, you'd have done the same. Now I've come straight to report."

"What, go through a mock marriage with an officer's wife?"

"That, sir, is not true."

"What, you charge my brother officer!--Corporal, just stand back out of ear-shot. Now, La Mancha, what on earth do you mean?"

I told him of Sarde's bogus marriage with Miss Burrows, performed by Happy Bill, a bogus parson, of how the facts were discovered by Joe Chambers, who died, passing the woman's defense to me, of my duel with Sarde to obtain her release, and her return to her guardian, Loco Burrows.

"You bring no charge, then," asked Sam, "against Inspector Sarde?"

"None, if he leaves me alone."

Sam recalled the orderly corporal.

"Prisoner," said he, "you plead guilty to a charge of marrying without leave. I'm sorry to say that my duty requires me to report this matter to the Commissioner, and he will give sentence. All I can do is to report with a strong recommendation to leniency, for, in spite of your defaulter sheet, you're the best duty man in my division.

"But--why, man, you'd been warned by express orders from the commissioner that your next offense would be final. You've no more chance than a snowflake in hell. Don't you see, you idiot, that a constable can't marry an officer's wife, or--or mistress? It's impossible.

"And I won't have a woman with my column. We may be in for a rough trip crossing the Rockies. But, then, we can't leave a woman here in the bush. You'll have to take furlough. Corporal, make out a fortnight's pass. He'll report at Fort French.

"La Mancha, I think, on the whole, you'd better turn in your accouterments, kit, all government property. I'll advance your pay to this date."

"Is it so bad as that, sir?"

"I'm afraid so, La Mancha. You must leave camp before watch-setting. Good-by, my boy. God bless you."

So he shook hands with me.

And after I had gone, he spoke in private to the corporal. "Warn that boy," he said, "not to report at Fort French. I'd rather see him desert than get a year's hard labor, and discharged with ignominy, or even transferred to the civil courts on a charge of bigamy. It's expensive sometimes, Corporal, to be a gentleman, eh?"

So far as the troop knew, I had a honeymoon furlough, and as I should visit the United States, my kit was turned in for safety. The boys raked the camp for rags which represented my kit turned into store, so that I had my buffalo coat, blankets and good clothing to take away with me. Breeches with the yellow stripe torn off, boots and Brat's old coat were all I could raise in the way of civilian dress, but the officers gave me a horse, the sergeants' mess another, the troop subscribed saddles, pack gear and camp outfit, by way of a wedding present.

While I was packing, I came upon my war-dress as a Blackfoot chief, the gift of Many Horses, dear Rain's squinting brother, on that day, only three years ago, when I made her a widow. If only I had married Rain!

I wept when I was born, and every day explains the reason why.

The señora never guessed that I was outlawed, but seemed much more than content with a hundred men to play with. She had come down in the world from an inspector's lady to a constable's poor thing, but seemed much more at home in her new part, playing cat's cradle with Red Saunders. Red 'oped she would 'ave 'appiness.

Throned in Buckie's tent, she held her court after supper, while I dragged up my friends and introduced them. "Allow me to present Wee James' legs--the upper part of him having gone aloft." Wee James stood six-foot seven.

"This is Tubby, our brevet acting deputy vice-cook. Allow me to make known Detective-Sergeant Ithuriel Fat McBugjuice, bai bingah, yaas. The grin with a face attached belongs to Mutiny. Rich Mixed makes his bark and wags his compliments. Here's Sergeant Snuffleton, all present, and correct waist measurement fifty-nine, my dear, and bustle a number twelve. Calamity makes his bow. And this is Tribulation, with a bad cold from oversleeping on sentry."

I went to the lines, where Buckie and Brat were loading my pack-horse, and would not let me interfere with that, or with the saddling. Restless, I wandered among the tents, where the boys were preparing for a morrow in which I should have no share. "Sweat, you poor workers," I told them. "Lick, spit and polish, for every day has its dog; but I'm a free civilian. No more parades, no more pack drill, no guards, no cells, no more fatigues except good bed fatigue.

"Go it, you pigeon-breasted shave-tails, clean harness, you poor-souled rookies, you pemmican eaters, you pie-biters, you ring-tailed snorters!

"The Blackguard was taken young and raised on alkali--everybody's dog on government beans and sow-belly, rode sweating hell-for-leather after horse thieves, rebels and coyotes, wore government socks, and didn't believe in the gawspel--

"Sweat, you slaves, rustle, you gophers, till the civvies send kids to camp for a convent training, you sons of sin--but I'm for the open range, and you'll hear my long wolf-howls by starlight."

Then I was back with Black Prince to say good-by, and when Brat came to fetch me, I turned on him with a snarl, blaspheming horribly.

So I got the señora astride on a man saddle, and mounted my own plug, taking the lead-rope from Buckie to tow the pack-horse, and gave Sergeant-Major Samlet an episcopal benediction. The whole troop had gathered round us to shake hands at parting, and fire a volley of old boots and rice as our bridal procession moved out into the darkness, into the wilderness. Three rousing cheers drowned the music of last post, the funeral music which is played over open graves.

Buckie and Brat came down to the ford of Wild Horse Creek, and there, while Rich Mixed barked all round us, I had to say good-by. Brat was laughing still over the sergeant-major's pleasure at my Latin compliments: "_Maledico! Maledicite!_" Then our horses went splashing into the ford, and I saw my dog break back to his home in camp, for the bugle was calling "Lights out" to the very stars. God who mends breaking hearts may have heard me laugh when my dog deserted me.

The news of my marriage with Mrs. Sarde swept through the regiment like flames through grass. All men knew now that either Sarde had made a bogus marriage, or else the Blackguard had committed bigamy. Then Sarde's position become impossible, for his brother officers demanded of him that he clear himself of scandal or send in his papers. He produced counsel's opinion that a marriage made in good faith before any genuine minister of religion would hold in law. He obtained a warrant for my arrest and extradition on charges of abduction and bigamy. If I came to trial, my very innocence involved a year's imprisonment for desertion from the force.

To allay the danger of my being arrested, the Brat and Buckie put about the news of my death, killed by the fall of a horse down somewhere in Montana. Then Sarde felt safe, and slandered my memory.

When God made everything that creepeth, He saw it was good. So Sarde was good, but I do not think that he improved with keeping.

The story of my death grew from a rumor into a belief, and the old hands remembered that Brat once had a brother--killed, poor chap, by the fall of a horse down somewhere in Montana.

We who once served in the great regiment have often come together by accident in the later years, meeting old comrades in the Klondike gold rush, or the South African field force, or the national reserve of British veterans. We make new partnerships for auld lang syne in Sikkim or Patagonia, Damaraland or Samoa, or, dressed up like ridiculous waiters, dining at some white table in town. We parted as troopers to meet as officers, our scalawags are squires, our wasters wealthy men, but our meetings are grave with memories of Toby who died a tramp, of Jumbo who shot himself, of Monte who was rolled on by a horse. Spirits are calling to us across the deep from every continent, and all the oceans. The glass that was lifted for a toast of the good old times falls broken, because some remembered voice comes from among the candles: "Well, here's luck!"

I have been present when men, who did not suspect my membership, spoke of the tribal memories, and one of them, I remember, mentioned the Blackguard kindly, as numbered among our dead.