As soon as Beresford and Morse had disposed of their prisoner and shaken off their exuberant friends, they reported to the Inspector. He sat at a desk and listened dryly to their story. Not till they had finished did he make any comment.
"You'll have a week's furlough to recuperate, Constable Beresford. After that report to the Writing-on-Stone detachment for orders. Here's a voucher for your pay, Special Constable Morse. I'll say to you both that it was a difficult job well done." He hesitated a moment, then proceeded to free his mind. "As for this Roman triumph business—victory procession with prisoners chained to your chariot wheels—quite unnecessary, I call it."
Beresford explained, smilingly. "We really couldn't help it, sir. They were bound to make a Roman holiday out of us whether we wanted to or not. You know how excitable the French are. Had to have their little frolic out of it."
"Not the way the Mounted does business. You know that, Beresford. We don't want any fuss and feathers—any fol-de-rol—this mironton-ton-ton stuff. Damn it, sir, you liked it. I could see you eat it up. D'you s'pose I haven't eyes in my head?"
The veneer of sobriety Beresford imposed on his countenance refused to stay put.
MacLean fumed on. "Hmp! Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, eh? Very pretty. Very romantic, no doubt. But damned sentimental tommyrot, just the same."
"Yes, sir," agreed the constable, barking into a cough just in time to cut off a laugh.
"Get out!" ordered the Inspector, and there was the glimmer of a friendly smile in his own eyes. "And I'll expect you both to dine with me to-night. Six o'clock sharp. I'll hear that wonderful story in more detail. And take care of yourself, Beresford. You don't look strong yet. I'll make that week two or three if necessary."
"Thank you, sir."
"Hmp! Don't thank me. Earned it, didn't you? What are you hanging around for? Get out!"
Constable Beresford had his revenge. As he passed the window, Inspector MacLean heard him singing. The words that drifted to the commissioned office! were familiar.
"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre,
Mironton-ton-ton, mirontaine."
MacLean smiled at the irrepressible youngster. Like most people, he responded to the charm of Winthrop Beresford. He could forgive him a touch of debonair impudence if necessary.
It happened that his heart was just now very warm toward both these young fellows. They had come through hell and had upheld the best traditions of the Force. Between the lines of the story they had told he gathered that they had shaved the edge of disaster a dozen times. But they had stuck to their guns like soldiers. They had fought it out week after week, hanging to their man with bulldog pluck. And when at last they were found almost starving in camp, they were dividing their last rabbit with the fellow they were bringing out to be hanged.
The Inspector walked to the window and looked down the street after them. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. The rhythmic motion of them might have suggested, if there had been anybody present to observe, that his mind was running on the old river song.
"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre,
Mironton-ton-ton, mirontaine."
CHAPTER XLI
SENSE AND NONSENSE
Beresford speaking, to an audience of one, who listened with soft dark eyes aglow and sparkling.
"He's the best scout ever came over the border, Jessie. Trusty as steel, stands the gaff without whining, backs his friends to the limit, and plays the game out till the last card's dealt and the last trick lost. Tom Morse is a man in fifty thousand."
"I know another," she murmured. "Every word you've said is true for him too."
"He's a wonder, that other." admitted the soldier dryly. "But we're talking about Tom now. I tell you that iron man dragged West and me out of the Barrens by the scruff of our necks. Wouldn't give up. Wouldn't quit. The yellow in West came out half a dozen times. When the ten-day blizzard caught us, he lay down and yelped like a cur. I wouldn't have given a plugged six-pence for our chances. But Tom went out into it, during a little lull, and brought back with him a timber wolf. How he found it, how he killed it, Heaven alone knows. He was coated with ice from head to foot. That wolf kept us and the dogs alive for a week. Each day, when the howling of the blizzard died down a bit, Tom made West go down with him to the creek and get wood. It must have been a terrible hour. They'd come back so done up, so frozen, they could hardly stagger in with their jags of pine for the fire. I never heard the man complain—not once. He stood up to it the way Tom Sayers used to."
The girl felt a warm current of life prickling swiftly through her. "I love to hear you talk so generously of him."
"Of my rival?" he said, smiling. "How else can I talk? The scoundrel has been heaping on me those coals of fire we read about. I haven't told you half of it—how he nursed me like a woman and looked after me so that I wouldn't take cold, how he used to tuck me up in the sled with a hot stone at my feet and make short days' runs in order not to wear out my strength. By Jove, it was a deucedly unfair advantage he took of me."
"Is he your rival?" she asked.
"Isn't he?"
"In business?"
"How demure Miss McRae is," he commented. "Observe those long eyelashes flutter down to the soft cheeks."
"In what book did you read that?" she wanted to know.
"In that book of suffering known as experience," he sighed, eyes dancing.
"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 i
nto 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 y
ou 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."
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