The Luck of the Mounted by Ralph S. Kendall

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Figuratively, they licked each other's wounds awhile. Yorke had grown
very silent. Chin in hands and rocking very slightly to and fro, all
huddled up in his fur coat, he gazed unseeingly into the beyond. His
face was clouded with such hopeless, bitter, brooding misery that it
worried Redmond. He guessed it to be something far deeper than the
memory of their recent conflict. He strove to arouse the other.

"Talk about game cocks!" he began lightly. "Ten years ago, say! you must
have been a corker--regular 'Terry McGovern'."

"Eh?" Yorke's far-away eyes stared at him vaguely. "I was in India
then. Army light-weight champion in my day. Slavin wasn't joshing much
at breakfast, by gum! . . . Now we're here! . . . We're a bright pair!"
He made as though to cast snow upon his head, "Ichabod! Ichabod! our
glory has departed!"

He lifted up his tenor voice, chanting the while he rocked--

"_Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!_"

Redmond flinched and raised a weakly protesting hand. "Don't, old man!"
he implored miserably, "don't! what's the--"

"Eh!" queried Yorke brutally--rocking--"does hurt?"

"_If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we--_"

"No! no! no! Yorkey!" George's voice rose to a cry, "not that! . . .
quit it, old man! . . . that's one of the most terrible things Kipling
ever wrote--terrible because it's so absolutely, utterly hopeless. . . ."

"Well, then!" said Yorke slowly--

"_Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?_"

"It wasn't beer," muttered Redmond absently, "it was whiskey. Slavic and
I drank it." With an effort he strove to arouse himself out of the
despondency that he himself had fallen into.

"Listen! . . . Oh! quit that d----d rocking, Yorkey! . . . Listen now!
we've put up a mighty good scrap against each other--we'll call that a
draw--let's put up another against our--well! we'll call it our rotten
luck . . . D----n it all, old man, we're not 'down an' outs' doing duty
in this outfit--the best military police corps in the world! . . . Let's
both of us quit squalling this eternal 'nobody loves me' stuff! This
isn't any slobbery brotherly love or New Jerusalem business, or anything
like that, either. I'm not a bloomin' missionary!" He qualified that
assertion unnecessarily to prove it. "But let's stick together and back
each other up--just us two and old man Slavin--make it a sort of 'rule of
three.' We can have a deuce of a good time on this detachment
then! . . ."

He spoke hotly, eagerly, with boyish fervour, his soul in his eyes.

Yorke remained silent, with averted eyes. That imploring, wistful,
bruised young countenance was almost more than he could stand. George,
dropping on one knee beside him put a tremulous hand on the senior
constable's shoulder. "What's wrong, Yorkey?" he queried. He shook the
bowed shoulder gently. "What's made you consistently knock every third
buck that's been sent here? 'till they got fed up, and transferred? . . .
They tried to put the wind up me about it at the Post. What's bitin'
you? I don't seem to get your angle at all!"

"Oh, I don't know!" Yorke coughed and spat drearily. "Kind of rum
reason, you'll think. Long story--too long--dates back. Listen then!
Ten years back, in the pride of my giddy youth, I held a Junior Sub's
commission in the ---- Lancers--in India. This is just a synopsis of
my case, mind! . . . Well! the regiment was lying at Rawal Pindi, and--I
guess I kind of ran amuck there--got myself into a rotten
_esclandre_--entirely my own fault I'll admit:

_Man is fire, and Woman is tow,
And the Devil, he comes and begins to blow--_

the same old miserable business the world's fed up with. Since then
seems I've kind of made a mess of things. Burke Slavin's about
right--his estimate of me." He sighed with bitter, gloomy retrospection.
"I've always had a queer, intolerant sort of temperament. If I'd lived
in the days of the Indian Mutiny I guess I'd have been in 'Hodson's
Horse'." (Redmond started, remembering his curious dream.) "He was a
man after my own heart," Yorke continued slowly, "resourceful, slashing
sort of beggar . . . he ruffled it with a high hand. Bold and game as
Sherman, or Paul Jones, but as ruthless as Graham of Claverhouse. He put
the ever-lasting fear into the rebels of Oude--something like Cromwell
did in Ireland. My old Governor served through the Mutiny--he's told me
stories of him. My God!"

He drew his fur coat closer round him. "Well!"--Redmond watched the
sombre profile--"as I was saying . . . I 'muckered'. . . . Since then,
with the years, I guess I've been climbing down the ladder of illusions
till I'm right in the stoke-hole, and Old Nick seems to grin and whisper:
'As you were! my cashiered Sub.--As you were!' every time I chuck a brace
and try to climb up again. How's that for a bit of cheap cynicism?"--the
low, bitter laugh was not good to hear--"Man!"--the brooding eyes
narrowed--"I've sure plumbed the depths--knocking around, with the right
to live. Port Said, Buenos Aires, Shanghai. . . . I've certainly
travelled. Some day I'll throw the book at you. Now--substance and
ambition gone by the board long ago, and mighty little left of principle
I guess--I am--what I am--everything except a prodigal, or a
remittance-man--I never worried them at Home--that way. . . ."

He spoke with a sort of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more
than that individual cared to show. Redmond felt it was useless to offer
mere conventional sympathy in a case like this. He did the next best
thing possible--he remained silently attentive and let the other run on.

"You take three men now--stationed in the same detachment," resumed Yorke
wearily, "by gum! they're thrown together mighty close when you come to
think of it. It's different to the Post, where there's a crowd. Life's
too short to start in explaining minutely just what that difference is.
Fact remains! . . . to get along and pull together they've got to like
each other--have something in common--give and take. Otherwise the
situation becomes d----d trying, and trouble soon starts in the family."

"By what divine right I should consider myself qualified to--to--Oh! shut
up, you young idiot! . . ." Redmond, forehead pressed into the speaker's
shoulder, giggled hysterically in spite of himself--"Shut up! d'you hear?
or I'll knock your silly block off!"

The two bodies shook, with their convulsive merriment. "You can't do it!
old thing," came George's smothered rejoinder, "and you know darned well
you can't--now! . . . Go on, you bloomin' Hodson!--proceed!"

Yorke gave vent to a good-natured oath. "Hodson? . . . you do me proud,
my buck! . . . Well now!--this 'three men in a boat' business! . . .
I'll admit I 'rocked' it with Crampton. I virtually abolished him
because--oh! I couldn't stick the beggar at all. I simply couldn't make
a pal of him. He was fairly good at police work, but a proper cad, in my
opinion. Always swanking about the palatial residence he'd left behind
in the Old Country. He called it ''is 'ome' at that. Typical specimen
of the middle-class snob. Followed Taylor. Thick-headed, serious-minded
sort of fool. Had great veneration for 'his juty.' No real knowledge of
the Criminal Code, and minus common sense, yet begad! the silly beggar
tried to be more regimental that the blooming Force is itself. I
systematically put the wind up to him 'till he got cold feet and quit."

Redmond recalled the fact that Taylor had been his predecessor.
"Followed!" he echoed mockingly, looking up at his handiwork.

Yorke, with a twisted smile glanced down at the bruised, but debonair
young face. Benevolently he punched its owner in the back.
"Followed . . . a certain young fellow, yclept 'Nemesis'," he said, "I
sized you up for one of these smart Alecks--first crack out of the box,
and egad! I think I'm about right."

Said Redmond, "How about our respected sergeant? we seem to have
forgotten him."

"Slavin?" ejaculated the senior constable; and was silent awhile. There
was no levity in him now. Slowly he resumed, "I guess as much as it's
humanly possible for two men to know each other--down to the bedrock,
it's surely Burke Slavin and I. Should too, the years we've been
together. The good old beggar! . . . We slang each other, and all
that . . . but there's too much between us ever to resent anything for
long."

"I know," said Redmond simply, "he told me himself--last night."

"Eh?" queried Yorke sharply. "My God! . . . Tchkk!" he clucked, and
burying his hands in his face he gave vent to a fretful oath. "My God!"
he repeated miserably, "I'd forgotten--last night! . . . I sure must
have been 'lit' . . . to come that over old Burke. . . ."

"You sure were!" remarked Redmond brutally.

"Keats' 'St. Agnes' Eve'! . . . Oh, Lord!" . . . He drew in his breath
with a sibilant hiss, "There seems something--something devilish about--"

"I know! I know!" breathed Yorke tensely, "what . . . you mean." His
haggard eyes implored Redmond's. "No! no! never again . . . I swear
it. . . ."

There came a long, painful silence. "See here; look!" began Yorke
suddenly. He stopped and surveyed George, a trifle anxiously.
"Mind! . . . I'm not trying to justify myself but--get me right about
this now. Don't you ever start in making a mistake about Slavin--blarney
and all. No, Sir! I tell you when old Burke runs _amok_ in those
tantrums he's a holy fright. He'd kill a man. Might as well run up
against a gorilla."

A vision of the huge, sinister, crouching figure seemed to rise up in
Redmond's mind--the great, clutching, _simian_ hands.

"In India," continued Yorke, "we'd say he'd got a touch of the 'Dulalli
Tap.' The man doesn't know his own strength. I was taking an awful
chance--getting his goat like that last night. It's a wonder he didn't
kill me. He's man-handled me pretty badly at times. Oh, well! I guess
it's been coming to me all right. Neither of us has ever dreamt of going
squalling to the Orderly-room over our . . . differences. I don't think
Burke's ever taken the trouble to 'peg' a man in his life. Not his way.
'I must take shteps!' says he, and 'I will take shteps!' and when he
starts in softly rubbing those awful great grub-hooks he calls
hands--together! . . . well! you want to look out."

Lighting a cigarette he resumed reminiscently: "They were a tough crowd
to handle up in the Yukon. The devil himself 'd have been scared to butt
in to that 'Soapy Smith' gang; but, by gum! they were afraid of Slavin.
He doesn't drink much now, but he did then--mighty few that didn't--up
there--and I tell you, even our own fellows got a bit leery of him when
he used to start in 'trailing his coat.' They were glad when he 'came
outside.' That's one of the reasons why he's shoved out on a prairie
detachment. He wouldn't do at all for the Post. He never reports in
there more than he has to--dead scared of the old man, who's about the
only soul he is afraid of on earth. The O.C.'s awful sarcastic with him
at times, and that gets Burke's goat properly. He sure does hate getting
a choke-off from the old man."

He grinned guiltily. "That's why he prefers to wash the family linen
strictly at home--what little there is. But, sarcasm and all, the O.C.
gives him credit for being onto his job--and it's coming to him, too.
He's quick acting and he's got the Criminal Code well-nigh by heart.
Regular blood-hound when he starts in working up a case."

He yawned, and rising stiffly to his feet stretched his cramped limbs.
"We-ll! Reddy, my giddy young hopeful!--Now we've fallen on each other's
ruddy necks and kissed and wept and had a heart-to-heart talk we'll--"

"Aw, quit making game, Yorkey! Is it a go? You know what I said?"

Strangely compelling, Yorke found that bruised, eager, wistful young
face, with its earnest, honest eyes. "All right!" he agreed, with
languid bonhomie. "You've certainly earned the office of Dictator, and,
as I remarked--we really have quite a lot in common. Mind, though, you
don't repent of your bargain. One thing!" the curved, defiant nostrils
dilated faintly, "Seems the world always has use for us runagates in one
capacity. It's just the likes of us that compose the rank and file of
most of the Empire's military police forces. Who makes the best M.P.
man, executing duty, say, in a critical life-and-death hazard? The
cautious, upright, model young man, with a tender regard for a whole skin
and a Glorious Future? Or the poor devil who's lost all, and doesn't
care a d----n? We tackle the world's dangerous, dirty criminal work
and--swank and all--Society don't want to forget it."

He pointed to their horses who were playfully rearing and biting at each
other in equine sport. "Look at old Parson and Fox tryin' to warm
themselves? Bloomin' fine example we've set 'em. Well! _allons_! _mon
camarade_, let's up and beat it."

CHAPTER VI

_A deed accursed! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But this foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out._
THOMAS TAYLOR

Hastily dressing, the two policemen mounted and took the trail once more.
Side by side as they rode along, in each man's heart was an estimate of
the other vastly different from that with which they started out that
memorable morning.

Yorke, his spirits now fully recovered, became quite companionably
communicative, relating picturesque, racy stories of India, the Yukon,
and other countries he had known. George, in receptive mood, listened in
silent appreciation to one of the most fascinating _raconteurs_ he had
ever met in his young life. Incidentally he felt relieved as he noted
his comrade now tactfully avoiding morbid egotism--dwelling but lightly
upon the milestones that marked his chequered career.

The bodily stiffness and soreness, consequent upon their recent bout, was
now well-nigh forgotten, though occasionally they laughingly rallied each
other as the sharp air stung their bruised faces. They were just
surmounting the summit of a long, steep grade in the trail.

Said Redmond dubiously: "See here; look! I'm darned if I like getting
the freedom of the City of Cow Run sportin' such a pretty mug as this!
How many more miles to this giddy burg, old thing?"

Yorke grinned unfeelingly. "Hard on nine miles to go yet. We're about
half way. _Isch ga bibble_! . . . open your ditty-box and sing! you
blooming whip-poor-will."

"A werry heart goes all the way,
But a sad one tires in a mile a';
A--"

The old lilt died on his lips. With a startled oath he reined in sharply
and, shielding his eyes from the sun-glare, remained staring straight in
front of him. They had just topped the crest of the rise. The eastward
slope showed a low-lying, undulating stretch of snow-bound country,
sparsely dotted with clumps of poplar and alder growth, through which the
trail wound snake-like into the fainter distance. Southwards, below the
rolling, shelving benches, lay the river, a steaming black line, twisting
interminably between frosty, bush-fringed banks.

No less startled than his companion, Redmond pulled up also and stared
with him. Not far distant on the trail ahead of them they beheld a dark,
ominous-looking mass, vividly conspicuous against the snow. Suddenly the
object moved and resolved itself unmistakably into a horse struggling to
rise. For an instant they saw the head and the fore-part of the body
lift, and then flop prone again. Close against it lay another dark
object.

"Horse down!" snapped Yorke tersely. "Hell!" he added, "looks like a man
there, too! come on quick!"

Responding to a shake of the lines and a fierce thrust of the spurs,
their horses leapt forward and they raced towards their objective.

"Steady! steady!" hissed Yorke, checking his mount as they drew near the
fallen animal and its rider, "pull Fox a bit, Red! Mustn't scare the
horse!"

Slackening into a walk, they flung out of saddle, dropped their lines,
crouched, and crept warily forward. The horse, a big, splendid
seal-brown animal, had fallen on its right side, with its off fore-leg
plunged deep in a snow-filled badger-hole. The body of the man lay also
on the off-side with one leg under his mount. The stiffened form was a
ghastly object to behold, being literally encased in an armour-like shell
of frozen, claret-coloured snow.

At the approach of the would-be rescuers the poor brute whinnied
pitifully and made another ineffectual attempt to rise. Yorke flung
himself onto the head and held it down, while George dived frantically
for the man's body, and tugged until he had got the leg from under.

"Hung up! by God!" gasped the former, "his foot's well-nigh through the
stirrup!"

Redmond, ex-medical student, made swift examination. "Dead!" he
pronounced with finality, "Good God! dead as a herring! The man's been
dragged and kicked to death!" He made a futile effort to release the
imprisoned foot.

"No! no!" cried Yorke sharply, "no use doing that if he's dead.
Coroner's got to view things as they are."

The horse began to struggle again painfully. Peering down the
badger-hole they could see the broken bone of its leg protruding bloodily
through the skin. Yorke released one hand and reached for his gun.

"Poor old chap!" he said, "we'll fix you. Quick Red! pull the body as
far back as the stirrup-legadeiro'll go! That'll do! There, old
boy! . . ."

And with practised hand he sent a merciful bullet crashing through brain
and spinal cord. The hind legs threshed awhile, but presently, with a
muscular quiver they stiffened and all was still. Yorke, releasing his
hold struggled to his feet, and the two men stared pityingly at what lay
before them. What those merciless, steel-shod hoofs had left of the head
and the youthful body indicated a man somewhere in his twenties. His
ice-bound outer clothing consisted of black Angora goatskin chaps and a
short sheepskin coat.

"Can't place him--like this," muttered Yorke, after prolonged scrutiny,
"but I seem to know the horse."

Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation--something between a groan and a
cry. Redmond, startled at a new horror apparent on the other's ghastly
face, clutched him by the arm.

"What's up?" he queried tensely.

Yorke struggled to speak. "Fox!" he gasped presently--"this
morning. . . . I never told you. My God!--You might have got hung up
like this, too."

"No! no! Yorkey!" Redmond almost shouted the disclaimer, "Slavin wised
me up to that trick of his yesterday. I forgot. It was my own fault I
got piled like that. Forget it, old man! I say forget it!"

He shook the other's arm with a sort of savage gentleness.

A look of vague relief dawned on Yorke's haggard face. "Ay, so!" he
murmured, and paused with brooding indecision. "That's absolved my
conscience some, but not altogether."

They remained silent awhile after this. Presently Yorke pulled
himself together and spoke briskly and decisively. "Well, now! we'll
have to get busy. Blair's place is only about three miles from
here--nor'east--they're on the long-distance 'phone. Doctor Cox of Cow
Run's the coroner for this district. If I can get hold of him I'll get
him to come out right-away--and I'll notify Slavin."

Catching up his horse he swung into the saddle. "I'll be back here on
the jump. You stick around, and say, Reddy, you might as well have a
dekko at the lay of things while you're waiting. Where he came off the
perch, how far he's been dragged, and all that. Be careful though, keep
well to the side and don't foul up the tracks. And don't get too far
away, either!"

He galloped off and soon disappeared over a distant rise. Left to
himself George mounted Fox and set to work to follow out the senior
constable's instructions.

"Well?" queried Yorke, swinging wearily out of his saddle an hour or so
later, "How'd you make out? Find the place where he flopped? Rum sort
of perch you've got there--you look like Patience on a monument!"

George, seated upon the rump of the dead horse, nodded and grunted
laconic response: "Sure. 'Bout two miles down the trail there. How'd
you get along, Yorkey? Did you raise Slavin and the coroner?"

"Got Slavin all hunkadory," said the senior constable briefly, "he should
be here soon, now. Dr. Cox'd just left for Wilson's, two miles this side
of Cow Run. They're on the 'phone, too; so I left word there for him to
come on here right away." He seated himself alongside the other.

Awhile they carried on a desultory, more or less speculative conversation
anent the fatality, until they grew morbidly weary of contemplating the
poor broken body. Yorke slid off the dead horse suddenly.

"Wish Slavin were here!" he said, "let's take a dekko from the top of the
rise, Reddy, see'f we can see him coming. I'm getting cold sitting here."

Redmond, nothing loath, complied. Mounting, they turned back to the
summit of the ridge. Reaching it, the jingle of bells smote their ears,
and they espied the Police cutter approaching them at a rapid pace.

"Like unto Jehu, the son of Nimshi!" murmured Yorke, "he's sure springing
old T and B up the grade."

Sergeant Slavin pulled up his smoking team along-side his two mounted
subordinates. "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?"

Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details. At one point in his
narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?"
And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey."

The sergeant listened, but absently. To them it did not seem exactly to
be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an
exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward
mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.

"Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu--th' pair av yez," he
remarked casually.

Remembrance smote the two culprits. They exchanged guilty glances and
swallowed the home-thrust in silence.

Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he.

Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter
following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them
to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering
unholy delight.

Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--"

"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . .
_Isch ga bibble_, anyway!"

"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over
again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!" "'Tis so they name each other--now!
Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av
thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have
given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply.

They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the
cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the
gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.

"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the
frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut
happened?"

Redmond made affirmative response.

"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.

"Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!
Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"

He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of
leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular
patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick,
seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. Enlightenment
came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder.

"D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere! It's
'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse. Tchkk! this must be him. My God!"

"Shure!" snapped Slavin testily. "Wake up! Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man?
One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!" He tenderly pocketed the
clippers. "Yes! ye shud know him!"--dryly--"lukked troo th' bottom av a
glass wid him often enough."

"Let's see'f he's got any letters or anything in his pockets--to make
sure!" began Redmond eagerly. Suiting the action to the word he bent
down to investigate. But Slavin intruded a huge arm. "Hould on, bhoy!"
he said, with all an old policeman's fussiness over rightful procedure.
"Du not touch! That is th' coroner's bizness. Did they not dhrill that
inta yeh at Regina?"

He stared thoughtfully at the corpse. "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah!
dhrink an' th' divil!"--sadly. "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye
come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . .
shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man." Austerely he
glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this same dhrink!"

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