SCARLETT of the MOUNTED

BY

MARGUERITE MERINGTON

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1906

Copyright, 1906, by MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY New York

Published, August, 1906

J. F. TAPLEY CO. PRINTERS AND BINDERS NEW YORK

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[11]

I

LOST SHOE CREEK

Parson MacLane came running along the rough trail, his dogs, Telegraph and Wrangel, named after former mission charges, following. As he paused at the crest of a hill to take breath and wipe the grime from his face he smiled, for over the thicket of scrub willow that lay between him and Lost Shoe Creek rose the voices of the "boys" he had traveled far to reach. Then he sighed, because the jest and song, as he heard them, were ribald; the laughter thick with drink. Finally, reflecting that in no human heart had he ever found evil so strong but that the good was stronger, he smiled again, and stooping to pluck from a low-growing bush the deep crimson wild rose of the north, he set this in his buttonhole, and squaring his shoulders for a fresh bout with his old adversary of horns and cloven hoof, trotted cheerily down the steep incline.

With an expiring wheeze the concertina[12] dropped from the singer's hand. One of the group playing Black Jack, looked up. "Go on, Bill! Thar's other verses—an' each more decorative than the last!"

Lighting a pipe, Bill shook his head. "Grand opera sore throat! Left my music at home—and home," he added, under his ragged mustache, "is so cursed far away!"

Mops' remonstrance was cut short by a disparaging comment on his methods of card-playing from a raw-boned Scotchman who had lost an inconsiderable amount. "You accuse me o' cheatin'?"

"Aweel!" Sandy scratched his head. "While it's na' to say cheating it's na' to say fair playing neither!"

"You liar!" kicking over the barrel that served for a table, with a volley of oaths Mops sprang at him, and a free fight would have ensued but for the intervention of the more cautious, who, pointing to a squalid bundle from which lusty snores were issuing, reminded the belligerents that if Bully Nick were roused from his innocent slumbers some indiscriminate gun-play might be looked for, transmuting every mother's son into cold meat. This argument prevailed; peace was restored and celebrated in the dire wassail of the district, served in the open by Ikey, bartender of the dilapidated[13] refreshment-tent nearby, and by general consent charged to the protesting but helpless Sandy.

It was at this auspicious moment that, followed by his dogs, rose in buttonhole, and with smiling countenance, Parson Maclane made his entrance into the camp on Lost Shoe Creek.

Hailing the newcomer as dude and tenderfoot, with winks and nudges among themselves the men prepared to "have fun" with him. Raising their glasses in derisive welcome, "Hello, stranger!" they chorused. "'Drink your health!"

"Thanks, friends, but I fear you are not drinking your own!"

"By gum," cried Mops, delightedly, "if he ain't a blamed teetotaller!"

"The Laird kens we hae need o' sic," hiccoughed Sandy. "Hoots, but we're a sinfu' crew! Ikey, lad, mair whuskey!"

While glasses were being refilled, this time at Mops' expense, Maclane went toward the tent, over whose entrance hung the sign KLONDIKE DELMONICO'S. GUMBOOT ANNIE. Addressing the plump female in jersey and culottes, who lolled beneath, picking her teeth skilfully: "Good day, madam," he began, baring his head. "I should like to speak with the proprietor."[14]

Gumboot Annie took time to spit before replying, "I am the lady."

"I want to hold a prayer-meeting. Will you lend me your tent?"

"Lend! Me lend anything! Now wouldn't that pa'alyze yer!" she demanded of the listening prospectors. "I ain't up here fer me health," she then explained to Maclane, "but I'll sell or rent anything in sight. Twenty dollars is the price for a Gospel show!"

"Agreed!"

"Thar's a bar in thar, y'know!"

"Oh, the bar's no hindrance!" The minister already was unstrapping his pack of hymnals. "But I warn you I shall preach against the evils of drink."

"That's all right. The boys ull be jest as thirsty! Say, fer five dollars you kin convert Ikey. He's useter it. He gives his experiences real cute. Water is two bits a bucket, but fer a baptism attraction I'll throw it in!"

Refusing with a gesture, the minister seized the dinner-bell from its nail and rang it vigorously. "Prayer-meeting and service of song. All are cordially welcome!"

"Wouldn't it be slick ter dump him in the creek," suggested one.

"No, no! Lay low till Bully Nick wakes[15] up! Nick ull fix him," said Mops, to which the rest agreed, "Betcherlife!"

"Come, boys," urged Maclane, "who'll lead the way?"

After a chilly silence, "Don't all speak at once," jeered Mops. "Don't crowd the mourners," echoed Bill.

"You have mothers, sweethearts, wives, who never cease to pray for you. Won't you spare a few minutes from Black Jack to put up a prayer for them?"

A pause followed, during which Bill swallowed a lump in his throat and tried not to think of the mother in Montreal, whose last letter he had been carrying about for eleven months, unanswered. Mops sent Ikey for more drinks.

"'Twull be a saving i' the lang run!" Foreseeing that he might again be called upon to pay, Sandy stumbled toward the tent, falling over rows of jocosely outstretched feet. "I misdoot my gait is na sae steady as it micht be! A touch o' scurvy!"

"Oh, we're all liable to trip!" Maclane helped him up. "Who'll be next?"

"Count me in, Dominie!" An elderly man, gaunt and ill-clad, gold-pan under his arm, climbed the banks of the creek and entered the tent.[16]

"Old Lucky's down on his luck, but he gen'lly knows whar the gold is!" A boyish-looking prospector, who had been wanting an excuse, joined him.

Several followed the example, till at last only Nick and his bodyguard remained outside. When a rousing chorus of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," pealed forth from the tent, Mops chuckled joyously. "Look out fer fireworks! Nick's waking!"

After preliminary grunts and stretchings the Bully sat up in his ugliest mood. "Wot th' hell—— Is this Jedgment Day?"

"Naw! Only some blasted holy windmill come for to save our souls," Bill informed him.

"The cursed stiff!" Nick sprang toward the tent. "I'll teach him ter meddle with my anatomy!" He cocked his pistol. "One, two——"

"Bully Nick! He never misses the bull's-eye!" shouted his delighted followers.

At this juncture a fresh-skinned young giant in blouse and overalls, who had been chopping kindlings by Gumboot Annie's woodpile, dropped his hatchet and strolled up with a casual air wholly at variance with the keen, hawk-like glance of his gray-blue eyes. As Nick told off the last minutes of Parson Maclane's earthly span, the newcomer[17] pinioned him in a grasp of iron from behind. "Not this time, Bully Nick!"

"Eh? Who the mischief are ye to stop me?" is the polite, free rendering of Nick's impolite free speech. "I don't think I hev the pleasure of your acquaintance, my lad!"

"I've been wanting for some time to make yours!" The young man seemed quite unconcerned that the toughest gang in the district had forcibly detached him from their chief and were holding him prisoner.

"It's just a looney Irishman that's been hanging 'round all day! Ain't worth a bullet, Nick!" At heart, Bill disliked human targets for sport.

"Powerful strong! His muscles ud be wuth more ter ye than his darned hide, Nick," supplemented Mops, who, while without prejudices as to bloodshed, sometimes was called on to exert himself unduly.

"I'll assay him," decreed the Bully. "Fust he shall drink my health! Mops, you hold the booze ter the stiff's mouth! Bill, you got a ticker; you keep time. Now, sonny, I give yer jest two minutes fer mamma's little baby boy ter say his prayers in, or ter git good an' drunk, like me. See?"

The young man yawned, with a bored expression. "Excuse my not putting my hand before my mouth, gentlemen!"[18]

"One minute gone, pard!" admonished Bill.

"Phew!" The prisoner spat out the liquid Mops forced between his lips. "That filthy stuff! I only drink the best! Besides, 'tis smuggled, and, living or dead, I should incur a fine with contraband goods on, or in, my person!"

"You all-fired nateral, do yer want ter be a angel?" growled the Bully.

"Faith, I wasn't aspiring to such promotion," admitted the stranger. "But I'd look prettier that way than making myself a drunken beast like you, Nick!"

The insult had its effect; the Bully's pistol hand quavered, and he was lost. "Say, young feller, you got grit! You're game! Boys, the Irishman goes, see!"

"Sorry I can't return the favor, Nick! You go—but to gaol!" With an adroit movement the young man had whisked out a pair of handcuffs and was fitting them to the astonished Bully's wrists. "Best take it quietly, men. As they say in story-books, reinforcements are at hand! And till they come, get in there, all of you, and say your own prayers!" He lifted the tent flap. "Fall into line. Um, left. Left!—Left! March!"

"Who in blazes air ye?" gasped Nick, as he obeyed.[19]

The answer came in awe-stricken tones from Mops, who, beneath the stranger's rough externals had suddenly suspected the insignia of a dreaded authority. "The hell! It's Scarlett of the Mounted!"

[20]

II

THE WOMENKIND OF LOST SHOE CREEK

Dandy Raish swaggered up to the tent where he had an appointment with old Blenksoe, relating to a little matter of holding up the stage, but finding services in progress, he scattered a few flowers of profanity, and turned on his heel.

Scarlett, pacing to and fro while awaiting aid, caught sight of him. "Now, that's a gentleman whose company I'd fancy most in his absence, I'm thinking!" To escape the other's observation while making his own, he returned to his kindlings.

Developments came soon, first in the person of a woman wrapped in a red cloak, young and comely, but at the moment repulsive from the effects of a debauch. Reeling from the shelter of a ruined cabin, "Gumboot Annie!" she cried, "Gumboot Annie, for the love of heaven, trust me with the price of a drink!"[21]

Finding the source of refreshments temporarily inaccessible, she threw herself on a bench, cursing religion, even as Raish had done.

"Furs for sale; snow-shoes, moccasins, furs, velly damn fine!" An Indian trader coming by recognized the girl, and accosted her. "Hello, Gelly! Shake!"

The girl complied good-naturedly. "Hello, Chilkat Jo!"

"Gelly, I love you!" stated Jo, in unimpassioned monotone. "Love you like hell-you-betyerlife! Say, Gelly, you mally me?"

"Say, Jo, that's a proposal, even if you ain't nothin' but a Siwash!"

"Me no Siwash!" Chilkat Jo drew himself up. "Me chew, swear, gamble, dlink like hell, plenty wives, all same as Clistian white man!"

"My, but you do give us a character," laughed the girl, "and I guess we've earned it all right, all right! But, no, Jo! I ain't sunk so low I'd marry you without I cared fer yer! Thar's only one man in the world fer me!" With a sigh she looked over at Dandy Raish, who, leaning against a Douglas spruce, was dressing his waxed mustache by the aid of a pocket looking-glass.

The Indian took his rejection with outward[22] stoicism. "That's all light. Some day I kill him, cally you off, beat you, smash yer face, make you goddam' bad husband, all same as Clistian white man!" Then off he stalked, crying: "Furs for sale. Moccasins. Hair dye! Sacled images! Velly dam good sacled images!"

Gelly rose and timidly approached the object of her affections. "Raish! Dear Dandy, won't you speak to me?"

"Gelly!" The man turned on her with an oath. "Taggin' on as usual!"

"Raish, pop's turned me out, along of you, and I don't know whar ter go!"

"Such as you needn't look far! There, there, Gelly, don't get mad! I'm sorry for you; indeed I am!"

"Then marry me!"

"Me marry you! With my social gifts! Ha, ha! You're crazy! But I'll tell you what I will do: I'll help you out of this place; I'll get you a berth in a swell saloon at Skagway, with a big rake-off on every bottle that's uncorked and every bird that's plucked through you!"

"And me tryin' to be decent! Curse it all, I will be decent! You shall marry me!"

"I'll strangle you first!"

"Take your hands off that woman!"

Turning, Raish confronted a young giant,[23] and being a coward he obeyed. "I can't spoil her!" he sneered.

"What is the trouble?" Scarlett asked of Gelly.

"None of your business," she replied, with feminine ingratitude.

"Is this your husband?"

"Sure!" At Raish's threatening gesture she modified the assertion. "In a sort of way!"

"The only sort of way he ever will be, you bet your boots," Raish flung back as, hands in pockets, he swaggered off.

"What is your name?" Scarlett asked the girl.

"Gelly!"

"Your full name? Gelly what?"

"Ah, now you're gettin' too familiar!" Sidling closer she remarked, approvingly: "Say, you're an awful pretty boy!"

"Stand off!" As the girl shrank back, cowering, he added more gently: "Go home to your parents!"

"My home! My parents! Aw, that's a good un! Ma sloped with a faro dealer from 'Frisco, and pop's turned me out!"

"Poor child! You must get away from this district! I will send you down to a mission, where good women will care for you!"[24]

"A mission? No, sirree! Too slow fer me!" Gelly moved away, humming a ditty popular in low-class music-halls of the locality.

"Stop!" Scarlett sharply reprimanded. "Sing if you will! Sing all you can! The world has need of singing—but sing decent songs!" As a stirring hymn, accompanied by Bill's concertina, just then sounded from the tent, he went on: "Go in and help them! They need a woman's voice."

"What!" Gelly was genuinely astonished. "Such as me—in church!"

"My poor girl, churches are for such as you."

Gelly looked in, uncertainly, then hurriedly drew back. "I can't, mister. Pop's in thar—and pop has sworn ter kill me on sight! Pop's the bully of the district," she added, proudly.

"Hm!" Scarlett considered a moment, then felt in his pocket. "Here's needle and thread. Go mend your clothes!"

Gelly stared at him as she took the proffered housewife. "Say, you're a real white man. I never before——" Breaking into sudden sobbing, she went back to her cabin.

Sergeant Scarlett gave a comprehensive glance at the scenery, nature's magnificent setting for this squalid drama.[25]

"This district has the name of being the hottest proposition this side of Hades," he reflected. "It contains an unsurveyed number of square miles and crooked inhabitants. And it needs just three things to clean it out. First, godliness, which only gets this way for a flying visit once a year. Next—and it's only modesty prevented my putting it first—law, which is just myself; and last, but foremost, women! And all the womenkind we can muster are a travesty of the name—sketches the Lord seems to have blotted in the making and thrown away." With tender impatience he touched a cluster of wild roses with the toe of his military boot. "Oh, why can't ye stop running to flowers and blossom girls instead! Hello! Is this an answer to prayer, or a deceiving dream?" Sure enough, among the crimson petals a girl's face laughed, sparkling back at him. "By the St. Colmcille, a young lady at me feet! Permit me to reverse the positions, miss!" Picking up the miniature, he scanned the features closely. "Young? Yes, the right age, just; still in her teens,

but not too teeny! Pretty? Verdict unanimous, without leaving the jury-box; guilty of wholesale manslaughter wherever those eyes set foot! Good? As good as virgin gold! Perhaps a trifle too well pleased with[26] herself. Here, young lady, give an account of yourself! What are you doing in my district? Are you visiting father, brother, sweetheart, or do you intend to stake a claim on some poor wretch's unprospected heart? Oh, here's a bit of writing on the back. 'For dear daddy, from Evelyn,' Evelyn. A pretty name. Sounds like Eve with a little flounce on. Daddy. I'm glad it's a mere father ye belong to. Now since ye've dropped like manna from heaven to the wilderness, will ye think it a liberty if I——" He approached the picture to his lips, then put it resolutely aside. "No! I'm not the coward to kiss a girl anyway but to her face!" In his absorption he had failed to observe a uniformed rider coming at full gallop along the trail, and he had barely time to conceal the miniature in his breast as Barney, his assistant and devoted personal follower, dismounted a few paces from him.

Instead of greeting his chief with the proper military salute, Barney pushed him arrogantly aside.

"Out av the shadow av your supariors, ye hulking son av a tiligraph pole!"

"Back into your own skin, you jackass, you!" Scarlett returned the push with interest.[27]

Recognizing the other through his disguise, "Bejabers," exclaimed Barney, "'tis Himself!"

"You're late in coming up to time," remarked Scarlett, absently, his thoughts still on the portrait.

"Sure, sorr, an' 'twas the word from yourself I've been delaying for! Ivery moment av the last four-an'-twenty hours I've slept at attintion with me boots on and nary a wink on me! As me own flesh is livin' witness, I've never moved me hindquarters from the saddle!"

"I wish you'd learn to keep your headquarters in the saddle," returned Scarlett. "Didn't I instruct ye if ye hadn't heard from me by the day appointed to start the day before?"

Barney scratched a puzzled head. He could interpret his own Irish bulls readily enough, defending them, if needful, with his fists to a jury of his peers, but those of his chief often passed him. Tactfully, he changed the conversation. "The mail arrived, Sergeant, and was distributed impartially. Only this remains unclaimed; a registhry package, with duty to pay on it."

Sergeant Scarlett examined the address on the parcel. "From E. Durant, New York City, to Matthew Durant, owner of the[28] Rainbow Mine—— Where under the shining heavens is the Rainbow Mine, Barney?" he broke off to ask.

"In the clouds, for aught I know, sorr. I searched the books, but in all the disthrict there's not even a claim recorded by the name, far less a mine."

"H'm! Well, the man, if not his mine, may be sojourning in our bally. Step inside the tent, Barney, and when the parson pauses for breath, whisper to him to inquire for one Matthew Durant!"

When Barney had gone on his errand, Scarlett performed the official act of unfastening the dainty package to appraise its contents. "White neckties, doubtless," he soliloquized. "That is what folk on the outside are by way of sending their kin to pull them through a Klondike winter. No, but almost as bad: an embroidered cigar-case, with jeweled clasp. Now I'm wondering if the fellow it's intended for can always muster up a pipeful of tobacco! Well, Barney, what success?"

"Just at this present, sorr, the howly man has got his teeth well into the Evil Wan, but he tipped me the wink he'd find our man the moment he darst let go. Oh, by the way—I hate to decompose ye, Sergeant—but here's a letther for yourself!"[29]

"A letter for me, is it? Now, who the mischief would be writing to me?"

"The mischief it is, indade, sorr! 'Tis a lawyer!"

"A lawyer!" Scarlett scrutinized the name of the Dublin firm on the missive Barney handed him. "Now I'd give something to know what that means! I've always lived within the law, and without a lawyer!"

"Sure, that's your offence, Sergeant. Depind on ut, that's phwat they're afther charging ye for!"

"'Tis their inflated cheek, then!" Resentfully, Scarlett tore open the envelope. "If 'tis a bill they're sending me they can go to the divvle!"

"Faith, sorr, that's exactly where they'll have ye! That's phwat they're afther counting on!"