“If you’re trying to tell me that you’re in love with some girl—”
“Haven’t I been trying to tell you for a year?”
Her eyes flashed a challenge at him. “Take care, sir. First thing you know you’ll be on thin ice. You might break through.”
“And if I did—”
“Of course I’d snap you up before you could bat an eye. Is there a girl living that wouldn’t? And I’m almost an old maid. Don’t forget that. I’m to gather rosebuds while I may, because time’s flying so fast, some poet says.”
“Time stands still for you, my dear,” he bowed, with a gay imitation of the grand manner.
“Thank you.” Her smile mocked him. She had flirted a good deal with this young man and understood him very well. He had no intention whatever of giving up the gay hazards of life for any adventure so enduring as matrimony. Moreover, he knew she knew it. “But let’s stick to the subject. While you’re proposing—”
“How you help a fellow along!” he laughed. “Am I proposing?”
“Of course you are. But I haven’t found out yet whether it’s for yourself or Mr. Morse.”
“A good suggestion—novel, too. For us both, let’s say. You take your choice.” He flung out a hand in a gay debonair gesture.
“You’ve told his merits, but I don’t think I ever heard yours mentioned,” she countered. “If you’d recite them, please.”
“It’s a subject I can do only slight justice.” He bowed again. “Sergeant Beresford, at your service, of the North-West Mounted.”
“Sergeant! Since when?”
“Since yesterday. Promoted for meritorious conduct in the line of duty. My pay is increased to one dollar and a quarter a day. In case happily your choice falls on me, don’t squander it on silks and satins, on trips to Paris and London—”
“If I choose you, it won’t be for your wealth,” she assured him.
“Reassured, fair lady. I proceed with the inventory of Sergeant Beresford’s equipment as a future husband. Fond, but, alas! fickle. A family black sheep, or if not black, at least striped. Likely not to plague you long, if he’s sent on many more jobs like the last. Said to be good-tempered, but not docile. Kind, as men go, but a ne’er-do-well, a prodigal, a waster. Something whispers in my ear that he’ll make a better friend than a husband.”
“A twin fairy is whispering the same in my ear,” the girl nodded. “At least a better friend to Jessie McRae. But I think he has a poor advocate in you. The description is not a flattering one. I don’t even recognize the portrait.”
“But Tom Morse—”
“Exactly, Tom Morse. Haven’t you rather taken the poor fellow for granted?” She felt an unexpected blush burn into her cheek. It stained the soft flesh to her throat. For she was discovering that the nonsense begun so lightly was embarrassing. She did not want to talk about the feelings of Tom Morse toward her. “It’s all very well to joke, but—”
“Shall I ask him?” he teased.
She flew into a mild near-panic. “If you dare, Win Beresford!” The flash in her eyes was no longer mirth. “We’ll talk about something else. I don’t think it’s very nice of us to—to—”
“Tom retired from conversational circulation,” he announced. “Shall we talk of cats or kings?”
“Tell me your plans, now you’ve been promoted.”
“Plans? Better men make ’em. I touch my hat, say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and help work ’em out. Coming back to Tom for a minute, have you heard that the Colonel has written him a letter of thanks for the distinguished service rendered by him to the Mounted and suggesting that a permanent place of importance can be found for him on the Force if he’ll take it?”
“No. Did he? Isn’t that just fine?” The soft glow had danced into her eyes again. “He won’t take it, will he?”
“What do you think?” His eyes challenged hers coolly. He was willing, if he could, to discover whether Jessie was in love with his friend.
“Oh, I don’t think he should,” she said quickly. “He has a good business. It’s getting better all the time. He’s a coming man. And of course he’d get hard jobs in the Mounted, the way you do.”
“That’s a compliment, if it’s true,” he grinned.
“I dare say, but that doesn’t make it any safer.”
“They couldn’t give him a harder one than you did when you sent him into the Barrens to bring back West.” His eyes, touched with humor and yet disconcertingly intent on information, were fixed steadily on hers.
The girl’s cheeks flew color signals. “Why do you say that? I didn’t ask him to go. He volunteered.”
“Wasn’t it because you wanted him to?”
“I should think you’d be the last man to say that,” she protested indignantly. “He was your friend, and he didn’t want you to run so great a risk alone.”
“Then you didn’t want him to go?”
“If I did, it was for you. Maybe he blames me for it, but I don’t see how you can. You’ve just finished telling me he saved your life a dozen times.”
“Did I say I was blaming you?” His warm, affectionate smile begged pardon if he had given offense. “I was just trying to get it straight. You wanted him to go that time, but you wouldn’t want him to go again. Is that it?”
“I wouldn’t want either of you to go again. What are you driving at, Win Beresford?”
“Oh, nothing!” He laughed. “But if you think Tom’s too good to waste on the Mounted, you’d better tell him so while there’s still time. He’ll make up his mind within a day or two.”
“I don’t see him. He never comes here.”
“I wonder why.”
Jessie sometimes wondered why herself.
CHAPTER XLII
THE IMPERATIVE URGE
The reason why Tom did not go to see Jessie was that he longed to do so in every fiber of his being. His mind was never freed for a moment from the routine of the day’s work that it did not automatically turn toward her. If he saw a woman coming down the street with the free light step only one person in Faraway possessed, his heart would begin to beat faster. In short, he suffered that torment known as being in love.
He dared not go to see her for fear she might discover it. She was the sweetheart of his friend. It was as natural as the light of day that she turn to Win Beresford with the gift of her love. Nobody like him had ever come into her life. His gay courage, his debonair grace, the good manners of that outer world such a girl must crave, the affectionate touch of friendliness in his smile: how could any woman on this forsaken edge of the Arctic resist them?
She could not, of course, let alone one so full of the passionate longing for life as Jessie McRae.
If Tom could have looked on her unmoved, if he could have subdued or concealed the ardent fire inside him, he would have gone to call occasionally as though casually. But he could not trust himself. He was like a volcano ready for eruption. Already he was arranging with his uncle to put a subordinate here and let him return to Benton. Until that could be accomplished, he tried to see her as little as possible.
But Jessie was a child of the imperative urge. She told herself fifty times that it was none of her business if he did accept the offer of a place in the North-West Mounted. He could do as he pleased. Why should she interfere? And yet—and yet—
She found a shadow of excuse for herself in the fact that it had been through her that he had offered himself as a special constable. He might think she wanted him to enlist permanently. So many girls were foolish about the red coats of soldiers. She had noticed that among her school-girl friends at Winnipeg. If she had any influence with him at all, she did not want it thrown on that side of the scale.
But of course he probably did not care what she thought. Very likely it was her vanity that whispered to her he had gone North with Win Beresford partly to please her. Still, since she was his friend, ought she not to just drop an offhand hint that he was a more useful citizen where he was than in the Mounted? He
couldn’t very well resent that, could he? Or think her officious? Or forward?
She contrived little plans to meet him when he would be alone and she could talk with him, but she rejected these because she was afraid he would see through them. It had become of first importance to her that Tom Morse should not think she had any but a superficial interest in him.
When at last she did meet him, it was by pure chance. Dusk was falling. She was passing the yard where his storehouse was. He wheeled out and came on her plumply face to face. Both were taken by surprise completely. Out of it neither could emerge instantly with casual words of greeting.
Jessie felt her pulses throb. A queer consternation paralyzed the faculties that ought to have come alertly to her rescue. She stood, awkwardly silent, in a shy panic to her pulsing finger-tips. Later she would flog herself scornfully for her folly, but this did not help in the least now.
“I—I was just going to Mr. Whaley’s with a little dress Mother made for the baby,” she said at last.
“It’s a nice baby,” was the best he could do.
“Yes. It’s funny. You know Mr. Whaley didn’t care anything about it before—while it was very little. But now he thinks it’s wonderful. I’m so glad he does.”
She was beginning to get hold of herself, to emerge from the emotional crisis into which this meeting had plunged her. It had come to her consciousness that he was as perturbed as she, and a discovery of this nature always brings a woman composure.
“He treats his wife a lot better too.”
“There was room for it,” he said dryly.
“She’s a nice little thing.”
“Yes.”
Conversation, which had been momentarily brisk, threatened to die out for lack of fuel. Anything was better than significant silences in which she could almost hear the hammering of her heart.
“Win Beresford told me about the offer you had to go into the Mounted,” she said, plunging.
“Yes?”
“Will you accept?”
He looked at her, surprised. “Didn’t Win tell you? I said right away I couldn’t accept. He knew that.”
“Oh! I don’t believe he did tell me. Perhaps you hadn’t decided then.” Privately she was determining to settle some day with Winthrop Beresford for leading her into this. He had purposely kept silent, she knew now, in the hope that she would talk to Tom Morse about it. “But I’m glad you’ve decided against going in.”
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous, and I don’t think it has much future.”
“Win likes it.”
“Yes, Win does. He’ll get a commission one of these days.”
“He deserves one. I—I hope you’ll both be very happy.”
He was walking beside her. Quickly her glance flashed up at him. Was that the reason he had held himself so aloof from her?
“I think we shall, very likely, if you mean Win and I. He’s always happy, isn’t he? And I try to be. I’m sorry he’s leaving this part of the country. Writing-on-Stone is a long way from here. He may never get back. I’ll miss him a good deal. Of course you will too.”
This was plain enough, but Tom could not accept it at face value. Perhaps she meant that she would miss him until Win got ready to send for her. An idea lodged firmly in the mind cannot be ejected at an instant’s notice.
“Yes, I’ll miss him. He’s a splendid fellow. I’ve never met one like him, so staunch and cheerful and game. Sometime I’d like to tell you about that trip we took. You’d be proud of him.”
“I’m sure all his friends are,” she said, smiling a queer little smile that was lost in the darkness.
“He was a very sick man, in a great deal of pain, and we had a rather dreadful time of it. Of course it hit him far harder than it did either West or me. But never a whimper out of him from first to last. Always cheerful, always hopeful, with a little joke or a snatch of a song, even when it looked as though we couldn’t go on another day. He’s one out of ten thousand.”
“I heard him say that about another man—only I think he said one in fifty thousand,” she made comment, almost in a murmur.
“Any girl would be lucky to have such a man for a husband,” he added fatuously.
“Yes. I hope he’ll find some nice one who will appreciate him.”
This left no room for misunderstanding. Tom’s brain whirled. “You—you and he haven’t had any—quarrel?”
“No. What made you think so?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I’m an idiot. But I thought—”
He stopped. She took up his unfinished sentence.
“You thought wrong.”
1 In the vernacular of the Northwest Indians were “nitchies.” (W.M.R.)
2 The half-breeds were known as “métis.” The word means, of course, mongrel. (W.M.R.)
3 The Red River cart was a primitive two-wheeled affair, made entirely of wood, without nails or metal tires. It was usually drawn by an ox. (W.M.R.)
4 These flintlock muskets were inaccurate. They would not carry far. Their owners were in constant danger of having fingers or a hand blown off in explosions. The price paid for these cheap firearms was based on the length of them. The butt was put on the floor and the gun held upright. Skins laid flat were piled beside it till they reached the muzzle. The trader exchanged the rifle for the furs. (W.M.R.)
5 A split robe was one cut down the middle and sewn together with sinews. The ones skinned from the animal in a single piece were much more valuable, but the native women usually prepared the hides the other way because of the weight in handling. One of the reasons the Indians gave the missionaries in favor of polygamy was that one wife could not dress a buffalo robe without assistance. The braves themselves did not condescend to menial labor of this kind. (W.M.R.)
6 Most of the dogs of the North were trained by trappers who talked French and gave commands in that language. Hence even the Anglo-Saxon drivers used in driving a good many words of that language. (W.M.R.)
7 Rabbit is about the poorest meat in the North. It is lean and stringy, furnishes very little nourishment and not much fat, and is not a muscle-builder. In a country where, oil and grease are essentials, such food is not desirable. The Indians ate great quantities of them. (W.M.R.)
COLUMBIA AND THE COWBOY, by Alice MacGowan
“When the circus come to town,
Mighty me! Mighty me!
Jest one wink from that ol’ clown,
When he’s struttin’ up an’ down
To the music Bim—bam—bee!
Oh, sich sights, sich sights to see,
When the circus come to town!”
Blowout was on a boom.
The railroad from above was coming through, and Blowout was to be a city with that mysterious and rather disconcerting abruptness with which tiny Western villages do become cities in these circumstances.
It had been hoped that the railroad would be through by the Fourth of July, when the less important celebration of the nation’s birthday might be combined with the proper marking of that event. But though tales came down to Blowout of how the contractors were working night and day shifts, and shipping men from the East in order to have the road through in time, though the Wagon-Tire House had entertained many squads of engineers and even occasional parties of the contractors’ men, the railroad was not through on the Fourth.
Something much more important was arranged by Providence, however—at least, more important in the eyes of the children of the Wagon-Tire House. Frosty La Rue’s grand aggregation of talent was to be in Blowout for a week, and the human performers were stopping at Huldah Sarvice’s hotel.
If one can go far enough back to remember the awe and mystery surrounding a circus, and then imagine a circus coming bodily to lodge in one’s own dwelling, to eat with the knives and forks at one’s table—a circus which could swallow fire and swords, and things of that sort, just eating off plates in the ordinary manner, with Sissy waiting on the table behind its chairs—if one c
an get back to this happy time, it will be possible to comprehend some of the rapture the twins, Gess and Tell, experienced while Frosty La Rue’s show abode at the Wagon-Tire House.
They lorded it over every other child in Blowout, shining with reflected splendor. They were the most sought after of any of the boys in school, for Romey was too young to afford information. La Rue himself looked upon them and said that they were “likely little fellers,” and that he “wouldn’t mind having them to train.” Think of that! To train!
Aunt Huldah, with bat-like blindness to their best advantages, had stated to Mr. La Rue that their father was in—well—in Kansas, and had only left them with her, as it were, “on demand.”
For one dreadful moment the twins envied Aunt Huldah’s real orphans. Then, realizing that Aunt Huldah would no more give up Sissy or Ally than she would give up them, they reflected that the ambition of boys is apt, in this cold, unsympathetic world, to be thwarted by their elders, and settled down to the more active and thorough enjoyment of what they might have.
The company consisted of old La Rue; his second wife, who figured upon the bill as Signorina Ippolita di Castelli, an ex-circus rider of very mature years; Frosty’s factotum, a Mexican by the name of José Romero; little Roy, the Aerial Wonder, son of Frosty and the Signorina; and last and most important of all, Minnie La Rue.
The show was well known in the Texas cattle country, and well loved. Frosty’s daughter—she was only sixteen when he was last at Blowout, more than a year ago—was a pretty little thing, and her father had trained her to be a graceful tight-rope performer. He himself did some shooting from horseback, which most of the cowboys who applauded it could have beaten.
Frosty La Rue drank hard, and he was very surly when he was drinking. Even Aunt Huldah’s boundless charity found it difficult to speak well of his treatment of Minnie. The Signorina could take care of herself—and of the Aerial Wonder as well. But the heft of her father’s temper, and sometimes the weight of his hand also, fell on the young girl when things went amiss.
And things had gone amiss, more particularly in regard to her, during the last six months. Up to that time she had looked like a child, small for her age, silent, with big, wistful eyes, deft, clever fingers, and a voice and manner that charmed every audience—in short, the most valuable piece of property in La Rue’s outfit.
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