Scarlett of the Mounted Part 11

"In what capacity--officially, or as a guest?"

"Not as a mourner, that I swear."

"I may decide to elope."

"Impossible! In my bally those that want a marriage license have to come to me."

"I've always had a leaning toward the n.o.bility," remarked Evelyn, rather maliciously. "Are there no men of t.i.tle in the camp?"

"A handful or so of younger sons," Scarlett informed her, "and a pathetic lot in the main they are. 'Remittance Men,' we call them, because they are on allowance to stay away from home, avowedly that in a new country they may turn over a new leaf, but in reality that their families may be spared the shame of witnessing their final disintegration. Be good to such when ye come across them, Miss Durant, for the sake of what they ought to be, but don't marry them, for the whole lot of them together wouldn't make one decent man."

Evelyn laughed, but her face crimsoned. "Dear, dear! And suppose, after all, you disapprove my choice?"

"Faith, I'll exercise my official prerogative and take ye in charge myself! Meanwhile, I must turn my attention toward yonder suspect." He indicated a person with the deportment of a personage, who, dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, was strolling, tourist-wise, kodak in hand, down the village street.

"Why, who can that be?" Evelyn leaned forward with interest.

"That's my own question. He travels under the name of the Count St.

Hilaire."

"There's something very familiar about his appearance. I wonder if I mayn't have met him at Newport, or Was.h.i.+ngton. If so, bring him here that I may renew the acquaintance, Sergeant, please."

"I'll search his t.i.tle first." Scarlett ran down the veranda steps. "Now look out for trouble," he muttered to himself, seeing the stranger pause opposite a cottage in the Indian quarter, and level his camera at the totem-pole in front of it.

A crowd of angry Indians who had been squatting on mats in the suns.h.i.+ne, making moccasins and weaving baskets, instantly rose and swarmed about him, vehemently protesting in Chinook against this insult to their sacred emblems, Chilkat Jo acting as interpreter.

"Shame, shame, cursed shame to photoglaph the Laven and the Flog!" he cried, alluding to the totem's tribal device. "Velly G.o.dam Clistian shame!"

"Hold on!" cried Scarlett, impartially, interposing his tall form between the evidently frightened foreigner and the avenging group.

"Mais--ze Klondike barber-pole--I no steal him; je vous jure, gendarme!

I make ze photographie!"

"Yes, but unless you pay them for it to show your good will, the Indians think you are marking them for death," the Sergeant instructed him.

"All right, honest Injun," he in turn a.s.sured the crowd. "Only sun-picture. Big man pay you big money."

"Why," exclaimed Evelyn's astonished voice at Scarlett's elbow, "it is my courier, Alphonse--he has let his beard grow! That is the kodak he stole from me!"

"Sacre papier, ze mademoiselle!" shrieked the man, recognizing her; and off he set as fast as his trembling limbs could carry him, Scarlett, reinforced by the children of the Raven and the Frog, in hot pursuit.

"It's only what you might have expected, miss," remarked Sarah, consolingly, as in mortified silence Evelyn returned to the veranda.

"The French is a deceitful nation. They always have to talk in a foreign language so you can't understand 'em."

"It's all right!" Flushed and breathless, Scarlett came up. "He ran plump into Barney's arms. Here's your camera, Miss Durant. Later I'll get you to appear against the Count--just a formality, you know."

"I shall do nothing of the sort!" declared Evelyn loftily. "Instead, you can fine me any amount you please for contempt of court. You doubtless will enjoy doing it! As for the kodak, you can give it back to Alphonse.

I shall never touch it again!"

"Miss, you are ungrateful," Sarah reproved her, "and the young man wounded in the fracas!"

"Wounded!" cried Evelyn, in dismay.

"Oh," disclaimed Scarlett, who was shaking his fingers as if to cast a pain from them, "it's nothing. Only in protecting the Count's beauty from an irate populace I gave my wrist a twist."

"Oh, a sprained wrist is nothing to boast of," derided Miss Durant.

"That's why I wasn't boasting of it." Scarlett turned to go.

"Nevertheless"--Evelyn put a detaining hand lightly on his arm--"I took a course in First Aid to the Injured to fit myself for this life, and I know that a sprain ought to be treated with something, for fear something or other should set in. Sarah," she asked in a whisper, "what treatment does one give a sprain?"

"Fermentation," prompted the maid, sagaciously.

"That's it: fomentation! Please, Sarah, go fetch me--whatever one needs for fomentation."

"Believe me, it is not necessary." Scarlett gave his hand another shake.

"It soon will be all right."

"Sit here!" Evelyn motioned him, peremptorily, to a chair beside her.

"No, on this side. A soldier's first duty should be to obey."

"Ah, well, my arms are ever at your service, even in times of peace."

Scarlet leaned back, luxuriously, as she rolled up his sleeve.

"Of course, you understand I should do this for anybody," observed Evelyn, sponging his wrist with the warm water Sarah had provided.

"Of course, ye understand I should fight in defence of anybody's property," he matched her. "'Tis for that I draw my pay."

"Is it tender?" inquired Evelyn, pillowing his hand upon her lap and dabbing it softly with a towel.

"Tender's not half the word for it." The patient turned his face aside.

"It's the limit of tenderness, and has to be treated on the homeopathic principle."

"Miss, he makes light of it!" cried Sarah, who, under a harsh exterior, was, by nature, kind. "But his poor brow is simply wrung with anguish."

She mopped the beads of perspiration that stifled mirth had brought upon the Sergeant's comely forehead.

"Let us talk of other things to distract him," ordained Evelyn. "Come, Sergeant, tell us all about yourself. Begin at the very beginning."

"Faith, like most babies," he complied, "I began by being the child of my parents."

"Poor but honest folk, no doubt. Go on!"

"They died before my remembrance of them. I infer the honesty and inherit the poverty. I was brought up by an aunt and uncle, who didn't want me. One time when I came home from school for the holidays my aunt just looked up from her novel and remarked, 'Oh, Jerry, how dirty you are!' So I ran away to make my fortune."

"Which consists of something over a dollar a day and your keep."

"And the prospect of a pension for my widow."

"Your widow!" Evelyn dropped the hand she was engaged in bandaging. "I didn't know----"