The Luck of the Mounted Part 3

"Jerry what?"

An uneasy wriggle and a moment's hesitation then--"Jeremiah!" came a small--rather sulky--voice.

Breathing audibly in her intense eagerness the little girl now came to the rescue.

"Please, policeman?" she stopped and gulped excitedly--"please, policeman?--he doesn't like to be called that. . . . It isn't _his_ fault. He always throws stones at the bad boys when they call him that.

Call him just 'Jerry.'"

That gamin, turning from a minute examination of Redmond's spurred moccasins, began to swing his chubby legs and bounce up and down upon the cus.h.i.+oned seat.

"Her name's Alice," he volunteered, with a sidelong fling of his carrot-tinted head. "Yes! she's my sister"--he made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the pup whose speedy demise was threatened, from blood to the head--"don't hold Porkey that way, Alice! his eyes'll drop out."

But his juvenile confrere shrugged away from his clutch. "Stupid!" she retorted, with fine scorn, "no they won't . . . . it's on'y guinea pigs that do that!--when you hold them up by their tails." Nevertheless she promptly reversed that long-suffering canine, which immediately demonstrated its grat.i.tude by licking her face effusively.

The all-important question of the hobo was next commended to his attention, with a tremendous amount of chattering rivalry, and, with intense gravity he was cogitating how to render a satisfactory finding to both factions when steps, and the unmistakable rustle of skirts, sounded in his immediate rear. Then a lady's voice said, "Oh, there you are, children! . . . I was wondering where you'd got to."

The two heads bobbed up simultaneously, with a joyful "Here's Mother!"

and George, turning, glanced with innate, well-bred curiosity at a stout, pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman who stood beside them.

"I hope these young imps haven't been bothering you?" she said. "We were in that car behind, but I was reading and they've been having a great time romping all over the place. Oh, well! I suppose it's too much to expect children to keep still on a train."

With a fond motherly caress she patted the two small flaming heads that now snuggled boisterously against her on either side.

"Come now! Messrs. Bubble and Squeak!" she urged teasingly, "march!--back to our car again!"

"Bubble and Squeak" seemed appropriate enough just then, to judge by the many fractious objections immediately voiced by those two small mutineers. They were loth to part with their latest acquaintance and weren't above advertising that fact with unnecessary vehemence. Even the puppy raised a snuffling whine.

"Boo-hoo!" wailed Jerry, "don't want to go in the other car--me an' Alice want to stay here--the policeman's goin' to tell us all about hoboes--he--"

"Oh, dear!" came a despairing little sigh, "whatever--"

Their eyes met and, at the droll perplexity he read in hers, George laughed outright. An explosive frank boyish laugh. He rose with a courteous gesture. "I'm afraid it's a case of 'if the mountain won't come to Mahomet,'" he began, with gay sententiousness. "Won't you sit down?"

The matron's kindly eyes appraised the bold, manly young face a moment, then, with a certain leisurely grace, she stepped in between the seats and, seating herself, lugged her two small charges down beside her.

"I suppose, under the circ.u.mstances, an old woman like me can discard the conventionalities?" she remarked smilingly.

Jerry and Alice leered triumphantly at their victim. "Now!" Jerry shrilled exactingly "tell us all about hoboes!"

"They do carry empty tomato-cans, don't they?" pleaded Alice.

It was now their guardian's turn to laugh at his dismay. "You see what you've let yourself in for now?" she remarked.

"Seems I am up against it," he admitted, with a rueful grin, "well! must make good somehow, I suppose?"

With an infinitely boyish gesture he tipped his fur cap to the back of his head and leaned forward with finger-tips compressed in approved story-telling fas.h.i.+on.

"Once upon a time!--" a breathless "Yes-s"--those two small faces reminded him much of terriers watching a rat-hole--"there was a hobo."

He thought hard. "He was a very dirty old hobo--he never used to wash his face. He was walking along the road one day when he heard a little wee voice call out 'Hey!'. He looked down and he saw an empty tomato-can on a rubbish heap. Tomato-cans used to be able to talk in those days and the hoboes were very good to them--always used to drink out of them and carry them to save them from walking. This can had a picture of its big red face on the outside. 'Give us a lift?' said the can. 'Where to?'

said the old hobo. 'Back to California, where I came from,' said the can. 'All right!' said the old hobo, 'I'm goin' there, too.' And he picked the can up and hung it round his neck and kept on walking till they came to a house. The window of the house was open and they could see a big fat bottle on a little table. 'Ah!' said the old hobo 'here's an old friend of mine!--he's comin' with us, too,' And he shoved his arm through the window and put the bottle in his pocket. By and by they came to a river--'Hey!' said the can, again--'What's up?' said the old hobo--'I'm dry,' said the can--'So am I,' said the hobo; and he dipped the can in the water and gave it a very little drink. 'Hey!' said the can, 'give us a drop more!'--'Wait a bit!' said the old hobo, and he pulled the cork out of the bottle. 'Don't you pour any of that feller into me!' said the can, 'he'll burn my inside out--an' yours--if you pour him into me I'll open my mouth where I'm soldered and let him run out, and you won't be able to drink out of me any more. Chuck him into the river!--he's no good.'

"'You shut your mouth!' said the old hobo, 'or I'll chuck you into the river!' And he poured some of the stuff out of the bottle into the can--"

At this exciting point poor George halted for breath and mopped his forehead. He felt fully as thirsty as the tomato-can. But the children were upon him, clutching his scarlet tunic:

"What did he do then?" howled Jerry.

"Eh?" gasped the young policeman,--"oh, he opened his mouth where he was soldered and let the stuff run out. So the old hobo threw him into the river. That's why hoboes always pack a bottle with them now instead of a tomato-can."

He leaned back with a sigh and, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, smiled wanly at his vis-a-vis.

"There!" he said, with feeble triumph, "I've carried out the sentence."

And it did him good to drink in her mirthful, waggish laugh.

"Yes!" she conceded gaily, "you certainly did great execution, though you look more like a prisoner just reprieved."

Jerry, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his small snub nose leered triumphantly across her lap at Alice. "Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy!" he squeaked, "that man was a real hobo."

His grimace was returned with interest. Alice hugged her puppy awhile contentedly, murmuring in that canine's ear, "What a silly old thing that tomato-can must have been. If I'd been him I'd have kept my mouth shut."

"Cow Run!" intoned the brakeman monotonously, pa.s.sing through the coaches, "Cow Run next stop!" His eye fell on Redmond. "Wish I'd seen you before, Officer!" he remarked, "I'd have had a hobo for you. Beggar stole a ride on us from Glenbow, back there. The con's goin' to chuck him off here--do you want him?"

"No!" said Redmond shortly, "let the stiff go--I'm going on to Davidsburg--haven't got time to get messing around with 'vags' now."

The train began to slow down and presently stopped at a small station.

Mechanically the quartette gazed through the window at the few s.h.i.+vering platform loungers, and beyond them to the irregular, low-lying facade of snow-plastered buildings that comprised the dreary main street of the little town.

Suddenly the children uttered a shrill yelp.

"There he is!" cried Alice, darting a small finger at the window-pane.

"I saw him first!" bawled Jerry.

And, slouching past along the platform, all huddled-up with hands in pockets, George beheld a ragged nondescript of a man whose appearance confirmed Master Jerry's previous a.s.sertion beyond doubt.

The children drummed on the window excitedly. Glancing up at the two small peering faces the human derelict's red-nosed, stubble-coated visage contorted itself into a friendly grimace of recognition; at the same time, with an indescribably droll, swashbuckling swagger he doffed a shocking dunghill of a hat.

Suddenly though his jaw dropped and, replacing his battered headpiece, with double-handed indecent haste the knight of the road executed an incredibly nimble "right-about turn" and vanished behind the station-house. Just then came the engine's toot! toot!, the conductor's warning "All aboar-rd!" and the train started once more on its journey westward.

Smiling grimly to himself, the policeman settled back in his seat again and glanced across at the lady. She was shaking with convulsive laughter.

"Oh!" she giggled hysterically "he--he must have seen your red coat!"

another spasm of merriment, "it was as good as a pantomime," she murmured.

Evincing a keen interest in his soldierly vocation, for awhile she subjected him to an exacting and minute inquisition anent the duties and life of a Mounted Policeman. In this agreeable fas.h.i.+on the time pa.s.sed rapidly and it was with a feeling of regret that he heard the brakeman announce his destination and rose to take leave of his pleasant companion. The children insisted on bidding their late chum a cuddling, osculatory farewell--Alice tearfully holding up the snuffling Porkey for his share. The train drew up at the Davidsburg platform, there came a chorus of "Good-byes" and a few minutes later George was left alone with his kit-bags on the deserted platform.