THE MERRY LADY.

By Roger Pocock, Author of “A Frontiersman,” etc.

I.

The poplar groves were gemmed with diamond frost, and they stood in a fairy circle surrounding a glade of snow. Beyond lay all the immensity of the Canadian Plains, above rode the sun in a heaven of cloudless blue, but within the glade there was war. Jets of sharp flame flickered from all the groves, giving birth to clouds like pearls, which drifted on the serene air and made a bluish film of smoke above the waves of the snowdrift. Across the foot of the glade some sleighs were drawn up for defence, each giving shelter to a knot of men, though the woodwork shattered in splinters about their ears. Lying with carbines at rest underneath the sleighs, they watched for the smoke pearls in the woods, then sighting low to clear the combs of the snowdrifts, they fired steadily at hidden enemies. A shower of diamond dust would fall from some fairy tree while the marksman swore thoughtfully, and loaded to try again. So rifles blazed and crashed, so bullets whined or sang, but all this was merely a twittering as of summer birds amid that mighty silence of the plains, which filled the vault of heaven sun-high with peace.

Yesterday a village of retired buffalo-hunters, French-Indian half-breeds, sorely annoyed with the Canadian government, had set up a toy republic, and persuaded some Indian tribes to come out on the warpath. To-day a troop of the Northwest Mounted Police, assisted by a handful of volunteers, had come out from Fort Carlton to make enquiries—and been neatly ambushed. The party of the first part numbered three hundred and sixty-one and the party of the second part only ninety-six, as witnessed this Disagreement, dated near Duck Lake, in the District of Saskatchewan, in the Northwest Territory of Canada, this 26th day of March, 1885.

The trooper farthest to the left of the sleigh rampart was a man of giant girth and stature, with an ugly face. Officially he was Regimental Number 1107, Constable la Mancha, J., but his pet name was the Blackguard, presumably because of his manners and customs. When the fighting began he had been much alarmed, then displeased because a bullet whipped some fur from his buffalo overcoat, and in another minute full of cheerful fury, boiling hot with a frantic appetite for trouble. Moreover, the very moment he began pumping lead into the nearest clump of bushes a naked Indian was seen to leap into the air, and fall headlong. “My meat!” cried the Blackguard, and took a ferocious interest in getting more. A few minutes later he heard the man next him on the right utter a little grunt, and gave his hot carbine a rest while he looked round to see what was wrong. A gallant young Canadian, Corporal Buck McCannock, had been hit, and rolled over on his back beside la Mancha. The Blackguard felt rather sick, watching the red flush fade beneath the tan while the man’s strong features became wan and pinched.

“Say, Buck, old chap, can I help?” Buck’s eyes were closed, and he did not seem to hear. The sunlight glowed on the scarlet serge of his jacket, the glittering buttons, the bright accoutrements, as he lay with his buffalo coat spread wide upon the snow. Only his face was in shadow.

“Buck, old man!”

His eyes opened, his right hand160 moved out, his fingers plucking at la Mancha’s sleeve, then very slowly his left hand groped at the breast of his jacket, and drew out a paper until it caught between the buttons. La Mancha saw that Buck’s lips were moving now, and bending down he heard a broken whisper, “Take this—tell her—tell her—”

The clay-white face relaxed, and the Blackguard saw a bluish shadow come up like rising water over it, over the glazing eyes. Then the lips parted. He wrenched the letter from the clutch of a dead hand, which slid away down the breast of the scarlet jacket, and dropped to the ground.

It was the shattering blow of a bullet in the sleigh box above his head which roused la Mancha to turn and fight again. Hitherto he had merely disliked those men behind the snowdrifts, but now he wanted to skin, and burn a few of them slowly, and prayed to the saints that each bullet should inflict a painful and mortal wound, followed by a disagreeable hereafter.

Then he heard footsteps in the creaking snow, and knew that the troop surgeon had found the corpse beside him. He heard the doctor whisper: “Buck? Poor Buck!”

When la Mancha looked round again Dr. Miller was gone and a red-haired trooper was busy stripping the ammunition from the dead man’s belt.

“Down, fool,” said the Blackguard; “that scalp of yours draws fire—you ruddy oot.”

Red lay down on the edge of the dead man’s coat, and threw his feet across the Blackguard’s legs lest the snow should wet them. Then he grunted with content.

“Happy?” asked the Blackguard.

“’Ungry—gimme blood! Look there!”

Red jerked his thumb backwards over his shoulder and showed his chum how one of the officers, Inspector Sarde, lay near them. Sarde was hiding behind the next sleigh on the left, making an abject display of cowardice. “The lantern-jawed, swivel-eyed, white-livered, scarehead, misbegotten, jumped up son of a dog’s wife,” was the Blackguard’s comment.

“I kicked ’im,” Red grinned in ferocious joy, “cruel ’ard, too.”

“Red, help me to clear that bluff in front there; sight at one hundred yards, and fire low.”

“Low it is.” Red settled himself to work, fired, and pumped a cartridge while he watched results.

“What makes you sing, eh, Blackguard? I’m in a funk, I am—” he fired again.

“Was I singing?” La Mancha let drive at a smoke puff. “I bagged a buck Indian just now—aim low—got ’im.

“Carry him reverently, gently, slow—

Pace by the trunnions with patient tread;

Over the drifts of the rolling snow,

With arms reversed for the Dead.”

“Nice and cheerful, ain’t yer!” cried Red sarcastically, but la Mancha enjoyed himself.

“Little we thought of him while he shared

All that was worst in the long campaign;

Little he guessed that we really cared,

But drums roll now for the slain.

Spreading the Flag o’er his last long sleep,

Leading the horse which he may not ride.

Tho’ for the living the roads are steep—

The road for the Dead rolls wide.”

“’Ere, stop that!” Red howled at him, then wiped his eyes with his sleeve, as the Blackguard went on in a broken voice, revelling in grief.

“Bravely he suffer’d and manly fought;

Great with Death’s majesty rides he there;

Royal the honors he dearly bought—

The peace which we may not share.”

“Oh, shut up!” Red wailed, but la Mancha grinned at him. “Blackguard, got any more ammunition?”

The Blackguard chuckled: “For my self? why, plenty!” and he fired at a pearly gust of smoke among fairy trees of diamond. Then he heard the death scream of a horse at the rear, the shouting of orders, and a bugle crying, “Cease firing! Retire!”

II.

The horses were bought up from the rear, bucking, fighting, breaking away, or falling in their traces as the teamsters took them in charge. Then the enemy charged, the rear guard held them back, and confusion verged161 towards panic under a galling fire. La Mancha, with Red for his off man, was lucky enough to get a team away unharmed, but, as his horses plunged through breast-high drifts, he heard the outcry of two wounded men. Their sleigh, with one horse killed, and the other dying, had been abandoned.

“All right, Gilchrist!” he called. “Keep your hair on, Smith!” then swung his team about—“Drive on!” yelled Inspector Sarde, jumping directly in his path.

For answer the Blackguard drove straight over him to the rescue. In another moment willing helpers had carried the wounded men to la Mancha’s sleigh, and half a dozen jumped in to defend them, as the teamsters swung away towards the trail.

When he had tailed in with the retreat he turned, “What became of Sarde the Coward?” he called back over his shoulder.

“In your sleigh, constable!” answered the officer. “Sergeant, put this man under arrest.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant saluted. “Constable la Mancha,” he called, “for charging an officer with cowardice in the field, consider yourself under arrest.”

The charge was made, and only la Mancha could withdraw that now. Sarde looked from face to face and all eyes accused him; all these men were witnesses against him on a charge of cowardice in the field. He set his teeth.

“Sergeant,” he said, “when we reach the Fort you will put this constable under close arrest.”

The Blackguard was singing gaily as he drove, singing in vengeful triumph, forgetting the dozen or so of his comrades whose bodies lay on the bloody snow, abandoned. Then he remembered and was silent, while the crackle of musketry dwindled away astern, as the men of the rear guard fell back. Only the lope of the horses, the creaking of the runners, and occasional sobbing gasps of a hurt man in the sleigh, disturbed the silence of the wilderness. La Mancha handed the reins to his off man:

“Take the team, Red; I want—”

He took a letter from his pocket, and sat, all humped up, reading gloomily.

Eight miles away the fellows down in the Fort were waiting for news, the news of victory. Red’s heart, as he drove, was aching; his face burned with shame as he thought of the Outfit thrashed—the Greatest Regiment on Earth disgraced—the dead left in the field, the sleighs full of wounded men in their agony—then the settlements! What could save the far-strung, lonely settlements now from being sacked and burned, the men tortured to death, the women—the children! He dared not think of them at the mercy of Red Indian tribes at war. And Buck was dead; poor old Buck, who had rooked him last night at cribbage—dead!

“Dearest,” the Blackguard read, “I can’t bear him any longer. Meet me behind the stockade at dusk. Your poor Polly.”

Who the deuce was Polly? What had he to tell her anyway from Buck? He put away Buck’s letter, and drove on, climbing the hillocks, swishing down the hollows among lakes and groves, until the deep valley of the Saskatchewan opened ahead, and far down beside the river he saw the old Hudson’s Bay Company’s post, Fort Carlton, where the Union Jack flamed out above the stockade, and the garrison waited for news of victory.

Away to the right, upon the eastern trail, a string of loaded sleighs was sweeping down long slopes toward the Fort, covered by mounted men with all the glitter and pageantry of war—the reinforcement which had come too late—B Troop, triumphant after a tremendous forced march to the rescue. The Blackguard grunted his disparagement, and spoke to his off man:

“Who’s poor Polly?”

Red laughed: “Sarde’s wife, of course.”

The Blackguard whistled softly. “So she’s poor Polly—oh, you sly dog! Oh, Buck!”

III.

The Blackguard slept in the cells a prisoner—“Pretty well, thank you!” as he told Red, through the window,162 afterwards. All day he lay at ease while the rest of the fellows made dismal lamentations about overwork. That soothed him, also the aftertaste of a nice fight, while in his cheery soul he gloated on things to come, the war, the downfall of Sarde, and meetings with that officer’s merry lady. No wonder she could not bear any more Sarde—small blame to her, for he was dismal and the lady gay, with a sense of humor, an engaging laugh, a dimple or two, and a pert eye for any fun in sight. Poor Polly! And so she let Buck hold her hand of an evening? Poor Buck! The Blackguard sighed. “But I’m rather nice”—he felt that Buck would approve—“and disengaged, too! I’m grateful, refreshing, comforting, well broken, docile, with the sweetest manners, the dearest little ways.” He chuckled as he thought of other merry ladies whom he had fondly loved, two or three at a time, charming girls by swarms down the perspectives of nice memory. “I did my duty.” He crooned, and composed himself for a nap.

Red came in the afternoon with news. The fort was to be abandoned, evacuated at midnight, and the garrison was to fall back, defending the settlements eastward. The boys had been turned loose to loot the Hudson’s Bay store—and here was the Blackguard’s share, flung in through the bars: a box of cigars, a mouth organ, a fine revolver, a baby’s bottle, some chocolate creams, and a family Bible which caught him full in the eye and floored him.

The Blackguard found that he could not play the mouth organ while he was eating chocolates and smoking, but had to take them by turns. The shadow of night stole softly in through the bars before he was bored.

Later on he began to get hungry, and as supper was delayed some hours he clamored at the door. To his amazement he was at once let out by a half-breed washerwoman, and looking round saw that the guardroom was full of civilian refugees. For a minute he stood watching them as they sat around a glowing stove, whose naked iron flue went red-hot through the wooden ceiling. “You’ll have the place on fire soon,” he said, and they only smiled at him. Where was the Guard? Away relieving sentries, he supposed, as he reached his sidearms down from a peg, belted on his revolver, and strolled outside. He found himself in the covered entry of the fort, under the gate house. On his right the great courtyard was littered with sleighs, and swarming with men at work preparing for the retreat. On his left the gates swung ajar. To look more business-like he swung an axe across his shoulder, and marched out, explaining to the sentry that he was on duty. The riverside meadows lay silver below the moon and the fresh night allured him as he skirted the stockade, answering a challenge from the bastion, then turned towards the rear side of the fort. He was thinking of the merry lady who might have been there had he come last night. She was there!

He drew near to the cloaked and silent woman, and lifted his cap; “Mrs. Sarde, I think?”

She shrank back against the upright posts of the stockade, thrust out white hands against him, and barely repressed a scream. “Who are you? What are you?” she cried.

He saw that her face was pale, touched by the moonlight into a spiritual delicacy. “The Blackguard, madam,” he answered.

“Oh, how you frightened me! What is it, la Mancha? You’ve brought a message for me?”

“You thought I was a ghost,” he whispered; “you thought I was—”

“Buck? Yes.” He saw a tear run down her cheek. “Yes, I thought so.”

“I am his messenger.” The Blackguard’s voice was soft and low, he leaned towards her, his hand against the stockade, as he bent down. “His last thought was of you, he tried to give me a message, but his voice failed then.”

“My brother! My poor brother!” The Blackguard started back.

“The deuce!” he stammered, “what a beastly sell! Your brother, madam?”163 He uncovered his head. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Sarde; I beg your forgiveness.”

“Nobody knew,” her voice was broken with tears; “not even my husband. Poor boy—things had gone wrong down East. He had to change his name, and when he joined the Force—for my sake, he wouldn’t say that he was my brother. He was in the ranks, you see, and I—”

“You are in trouble, madam”—a new reverence had come into la Mancha’s manner. “I was your brother’s friend—may I take his place and serve you?”

“How kind of you to think of that, Mr. la Mancha. But then, you see, my husband—you understand?”

“Has the right to protect you; yes, he has that great honor.”

“Oh, don’t mind me!” came Sarde’s sarcastic interruption, and both of them turned round, startled, horrified, to face the officer of the guard, visiting round unattended. “You may well start—the pair of you,” said Inspector Sarde, his eyes glittering with rage, then with bitter sarcasm he went on; “A husband’s rights? Moonshine! Myths! Lies! Woman, get back to the fort at once, or I’ll have you arrested for being out of bounds.”

“But, Cuthbert,” she pleaded, “you don’t understand. This gentleman—”

“Go, I say; go! Leave me to settle with this—this gentleman!”

Poor Polly crept away, and the two men watched her in silence until she had turned the corner of the stockade.

“Ah!” the Blackguard laid his axe against the wall. “At last!”

“And now, mister gentleman, may I venture to ask what you’re doing outside your cell?”

“You may.”

“Stand to attention; call me ‘sir’ when you address an officer.”

“Dear, dear! I would shout, I would screech if I were you. Then everybody will hear.”

“The Commissioner shall hear.”

“What? That I’m here to defend your wife’s honor, which you have insulted, you—you poached cat!”

“Right about turn, quick march for the guard room, or—”

“Or what?”

The officer was silent.

“That’s right. Now be good. I want to point out,” said the Blackguard with yearning sweetness, “that although I am tempted, without witnesses, I have not kicked you. No. I have denied myself even calling you names, you—you mule-foaled outrage on nature’s modesty; you stridulating, splay-footed, pop-eyed mistake of Providence; you supercilious brass-mounted, misdirected Excuse. I will not shock myself by speaking the truth about your appearance, origin, or destiny as a spatchcocked and fried Sin, but I daresay you’ll understand this—”

He flicked his glove across the officer’s face, and stood back, smiling blandly.

“How dare you!”

“With my glove, so—” he struck again, lightly, gracefully, tigerishly. “You see there are the snipers in the hills, taking the pot-shot, eh? which will explain your death, without my inconvenience; eh? It will account for all—we have revolvers—and so! Carramba! What more does the fool want?”

“Sir! I’m an officer, a gent—”

“Exactly—gent. Something less than a gentleman, eh? Well, I waive that. I waive the matter of rank—I accommodate you with every kindness; eh, what?”

Sarde hesitated.

“Come, I know you’re a coward, but never mind that. Brace up! You shall be a man for once. There now; at fifteen paces, eh? No? Don’t disappoint me, please,” the Blackguard pleaded. “I spoil for it—I beg you—have you no inside? Are you a shadow in trousers? Nombre de Dios! It’s for your wife’s honor!”

“I tell you that officers can’t fight with—”

“With me, Senor? I waive that, I tell you—I, Jose Santa Maria Sebastian Sant Iago Nuñez Ramiro de Guzman, de la Mancha, Marques de las Alpuxarras, Conde del Pulgar, a peer of Castile, am ready to waive my rank and fight a scrambled skunk! Draw! Stand back! At the word164 three I fire—one—two—Sangre de Cristo!”

Sarde had fired.

“What the deuce do you mean by firing before I give the word, eh? I’ll punch your head for that!” The Blackguard clutched at a burning pain on his shoulder, his hand was dyed with the blood of a spurting artery—and yet this seemed to concern him less than the red glare from within the fort which had flushed the face of his adversary. He reeled backwards now, staring up at the stockade, whose timbers loomed black against a fiery glow, which was rapidly mounting to heaven above Fort Carlton.

“Sarde,” said la Mancha, gravely, “you see that?”

“Had enough?” asked Sarde; “I’m going to kill you now. I fire when I count three—one—two—defend yourself—”

“Presently, my good man, presently,” la Mancha waved his hand to Sarde. “Don’t you see that the fort is on fire?”

“On fire—what? On fire! By the living—”

“Hush, don’t gabble, Sarde. You’ve played the man at last; I forgive you for firing too soon—I let you off the charge of cowardice in the field. Oh, you needn’t thank me—it’s for your wife’s sake. Yes, I let you off—I ask your pardon, sir. Oh, yes, why not?”

Within the fort a bugle was crying the terrible monotonous repetitions of the General Assembly, and men were yelling, as they ran, of wounded patients shut up in the blazing house. “The fort’s on fire. The fort’s on fire,” Sarde moaned.

La Mancha clutched Sarde’s arm to steady himself as he reeled backwards faint with pain from his wound.

“Those refugees,” he explained; “half-breeds in the guard room with a red hot stove. I warned them. Look, the gate house is on fire, the gate is blocked with flames, the only gate, and the fire will spread all round the buildings! All those people going to be burned to death unless we can cut a road through the stockade—you’ve hit my shoulder—I can’t use the axe. But you”—he shook the officer with frantic violence—“a Canadian, a born axeman— Do you hear? Save the garrison or they’ll burn to death! Take that axe!”

The Canadian sprang forward, the axe became a live thing in his hands; the gleaming blade flamed in red air, buried itself in quivering timber, then swung again, and lit, and swung again in a whirl of splinters.

La Mancha sat down in the snow, his blood-drenched hand upon the wound, his body rocking to the steady swing of the axe, though he could hardly see his enemy now, because of the red smoke curling between the timbers.

“Good man!” he gasped, “you are a man at last! You’ll save the garrison, you’ll get promoted, you’ll win back that lady’s love-you’re winning back your honor! Strike, man—strike!”

It is well known to the two hundred thousand readers of this magazine that its bald-headed editor often pulls his hair on the platform. He boarded the cars one day and slung his big valise between two seats and sat down by a drummer. The drummer looked at the valise and then at the bald-headed man and bluntly asked, “Are you a traveling man, sir?” “Yes, sir,” was the reply. “What line of goods are you selling?” queried the drummer. “Sweetened wind,” was the answer. “Oh, you are!” said the drummer; “preacher or lecturer?”—Robert L. Taylor.

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