Scarlett of the Mounted Part 20

It was the cool of the evening. From behind the mountains northern lights shot up in streamers of living green and rose. There was a sound of bells, and "mus.h.i.+ng," as the drivers harnessed up their dog-teams to carry the picnickers back to camp. Scarlett looked over at Evelyn with an odd contraction of the heart, where the bud of hope was trembling for life under the icy hand of circ.u.mstance, but as she did not appear to notice him he turned and went on his own road without farewell.

Then Evelyn went to Gelly where, the violence of her grief spent, she still crouched beside her lover's stiffening form. Putting an arm about her, "Come. Come home with me to live," she said. "Yes." For Gelly looked up with resentment changing to incredulity. "Please. As a favor to me. I have so much to learn. I need you."

XIII

A YEAR AFTER

Winter had come and gone; spring had pa.s.sed into a new summer. In the prosperous towns.h.i.+p of Lost Shoe Creek no one would have recognized the G.o.d-forsaken camp of the year before. While the locality was generally condemned as an auriferous proposition, its situation fitted it admirably for base of supplies to other creeks: Abe Lincoln, Jubilee, Old Glory and Princess May, where hydraulic machinery had been established and placer claims were being worked with profitable, if not phenomenal, results.

Some critics attributed the marvelous transformation that had taken place to the presence of women, dating from the arrival of Evelyn and her party; others to the gospel tidings of good-will brought by Parson Maclane, when, wild rose in b.u.t.tonhole, and followed by his dogs, Telegraph and Wrangel, he came running on the trail. A third faction was for giving the credit to law and order, personified by the ubiquitous young soldier, Sergeant Scarlett, and his right-hand man, Barney. But the wise set it down to the trinity of saving influences.

For Evelyn the time had been one of unusual happiness. Learning early that the boundless wealth of which she supposed herself possessor was not a popular subject among folk to whom daily bread came hardly, she wisely decided to omit mention of it from her conversation. Also, finding herself likely to be embarra.s.sed for ready money, since credit was denied her, she followed Scarlett's excellent advice to try roughing it, with excellent results. Moreover, at the suggestion of the good Graysons, whose neighborliness she soon learned to value, and loyally backed by the "boys," she opened a real-estate office at Lost Shoe Creek, with a branch at Perdu, showing herself an admirable business woman. Amateur theatricals, concerts, and ice-carnivals had brightened the dark season, when mining-camps in the North are as desert islands, cut off from all communication with the outside; and for the first time in her life Evelyn tasted the unalloyed pleasure that springs from giving pleasure and helpfulness that money cannot buy. One sorrow only dimmed her sky: the continued absence of her father. No one told her that, far and wide, official search was being made for Matthew Durant, nicknamed Lucky, who, on a fateful day of the previous summer had disappeared as utterly as had the earth in which he worked opened to engulf him; she still believed, uncontradicted, that his vast interests were detaining him somewhere among the baffling distances of snow-capped hills, and that any hour that suited him would bring him back to her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UBIQUITOUS YOUNG SOLDIER, SERGEANT SCARLETT.]

It was the day when, by the most lovable of paradoxes, in that region, two festivals--one of independence declared, one of allegiance covenanted--are celebrated, with crossed flags: Dominion Day and the Fourth of July, in one.

On this particular anniversary gala preparations of extra splendor were afoot in honor of the return of Bully Nick, once more a free man, not because in equity he was held worthy to be at large, so much as through a technical slip by which but six jurors had been requisitioned to sit on his case, whereas, as his backers claimed, he was territorially ent.i.tled to be adjudged guilty by a full dozen good men and true.

"Well, I'm dazzled fer fair," announced the hero, as, amid cheers from his friends and followers, he alighted from the stage. "This here bloomin' Paradise ain't never Lost Shoe Creek."

"Sure, 'tis! Betcherboots! That's what!" he was a.s.sured.

Nick rubbed astonished eyes. "By gum, a Gospel-mill!"

"Aye, and filled to overflowing every Sabbath, Nicholas," proudly stated good Maclane.

"Wa'al, y' see," Mops hastened to apologize to his leader for this hated concession to religion, "the gals like piousness."

The neat jail next the church was described by Barney as "just an impty forrum intoirely, owing to the ladies' distaste for the s.p.a.cies of bird such cages are controived for, begorra!"

The decorative touch to the personal appearance of his followers, in honor of the holiday, naturally came in for the Bully's quizzical attention: their shorn faces; the soap "with the tony smell" in vogue; the paper collars with jeweled studs in which, all day, Ikey had been doing a rus.h.i.+ng trade, were noted by him categorically till Bill silenced him by stating that "style was like for to fetch the girls."

Gumboot Annie, to whose hostelry he was conducted to drink his own health, had been allowed to reopen, he was informed, under close restriction and surveillance from "that blamed Scarlett." Nevertheless, as she told Nick, spitting with deliberation, not being in business for salubrious ends merely, she was making great profit out of "moderate drinkin' and no drunks," through the girls' preference for sober cavaliers. Or, as she phrased it, "the gals won't swaller the booze."

This was too much for the Bully's equanimity. "The gals, indeed!"

Slapping his knee, he chuckled. "The h.e.l.l!"

"Eh, Nicholas?" the minister challenged him. "Did I understand you to say 'the h.e.l.l?'"

"The h.e.l.l you did, Parson!" The Bully turned on him truculently. "And what the h.e.l.l hev you agin it?"

"If no better argument, Nicholas," smiled Maclane, "the girls won't stand for h.e.l.l."

"Parson," Nick acknowledged his defeat, "the drinks is on me." Later he took occasion to state, "I ain't convarted. But, say, Parson, you're jes' the squarest proposition Gawd ever grub-staked ter prospect fer human souls, and, say--I won't oppose you none. And when I pa.s.s in my checks jes' you stand by my grave, and put up a little prayer fer my epitaffy, 'He done his level d.a.m.nedest, angels cud no more. Amen.'"

Then he took from Gelly's arms the fine infant she had brought to show him, described by its fond father as "a velly G.o.dam skuk.u.m Clistian baby." Dandling it tenderly, "See here, son," he adjured it, "ef I find indications of you takin' arter me--gamblin', cussin', drinkin',--why, grandpop 'ull spankee, d'ye see?"

His mind thus freed, his future pacific course outlined, Nick inquired, circ.u.mstantially for "the girls." Sarah, he learned, was the great lady of the place, making a large income as a "lady-barber," her firm hand, unshaken as her masculine compet.i.tors were apt to be by sprees, making her a peculiarly safe artist to be trusted to operate with a razor in the region of the jugular, and her husband's copper proposition still remaining an undeveloped a.s.set, she was forcing him to work for regular wage as a teamster. In spite of which, on his occasional lapses Sandy was wont to boast that at heart he was "a mon for a' that."

The orphans all had settled down; Mary, having discovered a new violet at the foot of a glacier, had paired off with the young botanist who had been sent out from Ottawa to report on the flora of the region. Ruth was running postoffice and postmaster. Ethel and the town doctor had made a match. Kate's lot was cast with Bill, now doing a.s.sessment work and writing to his mother regularly. Effie had pre-empted the young editor of the weekly _Claim_, helping both to write his editorials and set them up in type. Gertrude had struck it rich with the bank manager. All would be on hand at the ball to-night. No, Evelyn had not made a choice. Rumor a.s.signed her to Scarlett, yet how matters stood between them no man could say with certainty.

At this the Bully's eye took on a fiery glow. "Ef thet thar uniformed cuss is a-playin' fast an' loose with Lucky's gal, d'ye see, it's up ter me to set it straight!" And, forthwith, he led the way to Evelyn's bower.

Evelyn was found, outside her cabin, superintending the arrangements for a grand display of fireworks in honor of the double holiday; the crowning piece to show the two flags crossed beneath a wondrous rainbow.

By a coincidence that exactly suited the Bully's plans, Scarlett was, at the minute, seen approaching. After greetings had been interchanged with all heartiness, suddenly the young soldier found himself surrounded by the men--Nick, in the center, pointing a gun at his heart. Evelyn shrieked, and would have interposed, but was forced back by hands roughly tender, tenderly peremptory.

"Well, boys," asked Scarlett, calmly, "is this some new kind of game?"

"Thet's as mebbe," answered Nick. "See here, Missy Durant, it ain't human natur fer a gal ter stay single in a minin'-camp."

"That's what!" the boys interrupted him to say.

"And I reckon you've had your pick of every miner an' prospector in the district--aye, and loafer, worthy of the name!"

"Sure! Betcherlife!" the boys confirmed him.

"Now," concluded the Bully, magnificently, "the question we're debatin'

is jes' this: Hev you give this here blamed Scarlett the mitten, or hev you not?"

Evelyn laughed merrily. "To tell the truth, Nick, he hasn't given the opportunity--as yet."

"And I wouldn't take it if she gave it me," added the soldier, referring to the mitten.

The Bully looked from one to the other, and, in spite of their enigmatic replies, reading in the glances they exchanged some happy understanding, surrendered for good and all.

"Boys," he announced, "the drinks, as usual, is on us when we run up agin the church, perlice, and gals--Here, Parson." He handed his weapon to Maclane who, fearing trouble, had hurried to the spot. "Keep this here shootin'-iron. I ain't fit ter be trusted with it, d'ye see? When I want a shot at moose or ptarmigan I'll borrow the loan of it from you."

"That's what! Betcherlife!" applauded the boys.

When, at last, they found themselves left together, Evelyn held up a mocking finger at her lover. "To think you had to be coerced! For shame!"

"I wanted to give ye time," he explained, "to feel surer of yourself and me."

"I knew it," she exclaimed. "You feared I might suspect you of interested motives. But the surest proof of my love for you has been my certainty that you care for me for myself alone, not for what I bring."

"That's the sweetest thing that ever has come from your lips," announced the soldier. "Not another word till I taste a sweeter."

He was about to ill.u.s.trate his meaning when Barney's voice was heard, discreetly inquiring of the landscape for "himself."

Affecting, for the first time, to perceive his superior, "Och, are ye there, sorr?" saluting, he inquired.

"Here or there, I'm beside myself with joy," remarked Scarlett _sotto voce_. "Well, Barney, what's that you bring?"

"If appearances are not desayving, sorr, I'm thinking 'tis a letther.