The Luck of the Mounted: A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Ralph S. Kendall
they all sprang to an attitude of alert attention. Rarely did Tom Belcher have to speak twice around Barracks.
"There's the S.M.!" muttered George. Aloud he responded "Coming, Sergeant-Major!" And he swung downstairs where a powerfully-built man in a snow and ice-incrusted fur coat awaited him.
"The O.C.'s orders, Redmond!—get your kit packed and hold yourself in readiness to pull out on the eleven o'clock West-bound to-morrow. You're transferred to the Davidsburg detachment. I'll give you your transport-requisition later."
The storm doors banged behind him, and then, Redmond, not without design, forced himself to saunter slowly—very slowly—upstairs again, whistling nonchalantly the while.
Expectant faces greeted him. "What's up?" they chorused. With a fine assumption of indifference he briefly informed them. McSporran received the news with his customary stolidity, only his gray eyes twinkled and he chuntered something that was totally unintelligible to anyone save himself. But its effect upon McCullough and Hardy was peculiar, not to say, startling in the extreme. With brush and burnisher clutched in their respective hands they both turned and gaped upon him fish-eyed for the moment. Then, as their eyes met, those two worthies seemed to experience a difficulty of articulation.
Dumfounded himself, George looked from one to the other, "What the devil's wrong with you fools?" he queried irritably.
Thereupon, McCullough, still holding the eyes of the Cockney, gasped out one magical word—"Yorkey!"
The spell was broken. "W'y, gorblimey!" said Hardy, "Ain't that queer?—that's jes' wot I wos a-thinkin' … Well, Gawd 'elp Sorjint Slavin now!" With which cryptic utterance he resumed his eternal polishing.
"Amen!" responded the farrier piously, "Reddy, here, an' Yorkey on th' same detachment. … What th' one don't know t'other'll teach him. … You'd better let 'em have th' parrot, too."
McSporran, back on his cot with hands clasped behind his head, gobbled an owlish "Hoot, mon! th' twa o' them thegither! … Losh! but that beats a' … but, hoo lang, O Lard? hoo lang?"
From various sources George had picked up the broken ends of many strange rumours relating to the personality and escapades of one Constable Yorke, of the Davidsburg detachment, whom he had never seen as yet. A hint here, a whisper there, a shrug and a low-voiced jest between the sergeant-major and the quartermaster, overheard one day in the Matter's store. To Redmond it seemed as if a veil of mystery had always enveloped the person and doings of this man, Yorke. The glamour of it now aroused all his latent curiosity.
"Why, what sort of a chap is this Yorke?" he inquired casually.
McCullough, busily burnishing a bit, shrugged deprecatingly and laughed.
Hardy, putting the last touches to his revolver-holster, made answer,
George thought, with peculiar reticence.
"Wot, Yorkey? … oh, 'e's a 'oly terror 'e is. … You arst Crampton," he mumbled—"arst Taylor—they wos at Davidsburg wiv 'im. Slavin's orl right but Yorkey!" … He looked unutterable things. "Proper broken down Old Country torff 'e is, too. 'E's right there wiv th' goods at police work, they s'y, but 'e's sure a bad un to 'ave to live wiv. Free weeks on'y, Crampton stuck it afore 'e applied for a transfer—Taylor, 'e on'y stuck it free d'ys."
Redmond made a gesture of exasperation. "Ah-h! come off the perch!" he snarled pettishly, "what sort of old 'batman's' gaff are you trying to 'get my goat' with?"
His display of irritation drew an explosive, misthievous cachinnation from the trio.
"Old 'batman's' gaff?" echoed the Cockney grinning, "orl right, my fresh cove—this time next week you'll be tellin' us wevver it's old 'batman's' gaff, or not."
Outside, the blizzard still moaned and beat upon the windows, packing the wind-driven snow in huge drifts about the big main building. Inside, the canteen roared—
"Then—I—say, boys! who's for a drink with me? Rum, tum! tiddledy-um! we'll have a fair old spree!"
McSporran slid off his cot with surprising alacrity. "Here's ane!" he announced blithely. Hardy, carefully hanging up his spotless, glossy equipment at the head of his cot, turned to the farrier who was likewise engaged in arranging a bridle and a pipe-clayed headrope.
"Wot abaht it, Mac?" he queried briskly.
McCullough, in turn looked at Redmond. "All right!" responded that young gentleman with a boyish shrug and grin, "come on then, you bloomin' old sponges! let's wet my transfer. I'll have time to pack my kit to-morrow, before the West-bound pulls out."
Upon their departing ears, grown wearily familiar to its monotonous repetition, fell the parrot's customary adieu, as that disreputable-looking bird swung rhythmically to and fro on its perch.
"Goo' bye!" it gabbled, "A soldier's farewell' to yeh! goo' bye! goo' bye!"
CHAPTER II
Homeless, ragged and tanned, Under the changeful sky; Who so free in the land? Who so contented as I?. THE VAGABOND
The long-drawn-out, sweet notes of "Reveille" rang out in the frosty dawn. Reg. No. ——Const George Redmond, engaged at that moment in pulling on his "fatigue-slacks" hummed the trumpet-call's time-honoured vocal parody—
"I sold a cow, I sold a cow, an' bought a donk-ee—' Oh—what—a silly old sot you were!"
The room buzzed like a drowsy hive with hastily dressing men. Breathing hotly on the frosted window-pane next his cot, George rubbed a clear patch and glued his eye to it. The blizzard had died out during the night leaving the snow-drifted landscape frosty, still and clear. A rapidly widening strip of blended rose and pale turquoise on the eastern horizon gave promise of a fine day.
He turned away with a contented sigh and, descending the stairs, fell in with the rest of the fur-coated, moccasined men on "Morning Stable Parade."
Three hours later, breakfast despatched, blankets rolled and kit and dunnage bags packed, he received a curt summons from the sergeant-major to attend the Orderly-room. To the brisk word of command he was "quick-marched" "left-wheeled," and "halted" at "attention" before the desk of the Officer Commanding L. Division.
"Constable Redmond, Sir!" announced the deep-throated, rumbling bass of the sergeant-major; and for some seconds George gazed at the silvery hair and wide bowed shoulders of the seated figure in front of him, who continued his perusal of some type-written sheets of foolscap, as if unaware of any interruption. Elsewhere have the kindly personality and eccentricities of Captain Richard Bargrave been described; "but that," as Kipling says, "is another story."
Presently the papers were cast aside, the bowed shoulders in the splendidly-cut blue-serge uniform squared back in the chair, and Redmond found himself being scrutinized intently by the all-familiar bronzed old aristocratic countenance, with its sweeping fair moustache. Involuntarily he stiffened, though his eyes, momentarily overpowered by the intensity of that keen gaze, strayed to the level of his superior's breast and focussed themselves upon two campaign ribbons there, "North-West Rebellion" and "Ashantee" decorations.
Suddenly the thin, high, cultured voice addressed him—whimsically—sarcastic but not altogether unkindly:
"The Sergeant-Major"—the gold-rimmed pince-nez were swung to an elevation indicating that individual and the fair moustache was twirled pensively—"the Sergeant-Major reports that—er—for the past six months you have been conducting yourself around the Post with fair average"—the suave tones hardened—"that you have wisely refrained from indulging your youthful fancies in any more such—er—dam-fool antics, Sir, as characterized your merry but brief career at the Gleichen detachment, so—er—I have decided to give you another chance. I have here"—he fumbled through some papers—"a request from Sergeant Slavin