Scarlett of the Mounted Part 4

"She has invested in the most costly outfit," continued Walter. "She is traveling with a princely retinue. You see, she thinks you live in regal style--palaces and all that."

"And when----" Durant moistened his dry lips. "How soon----?"

Pierce shrugged his shoulders. "I fell in with her party to-day, though as I was stone broke and hoofing it I didn't care to make myself known to her. She was inquiring your whereabouts. She is coming by the stage.

She'll be here any minute now."

The tooting of a horn echoed through the hills, mingled with bursts of girlish laughter, as, with a crack of the driver's whip and the jingling of bells, in a cloud of dust the stage was seen approaching. With a groan Durant buried his face in his hands. "My G.o.d!" he muttered.

"Evelyn!"

IV

THE PICTURE GIRL

"Let your light so s.h.i.+ne----" At this cue the much-converted Ikey pa.s.sed Gumboot Annie's frying-pan about among the men. Instead of organ-voluntary, or tenor solo, such as obtains during the offertory in conventional places of wors.h.i.+p, the Bully, at his own request, rose to make a few appropriate remarks. "I ain't convarted," he frankly announced. "Heaven ain't in it with a hot old h.e.l.l of a whoop-up time in this here life, d'ye see? Even if ye hang fer it! But say, parson, you're all right. You're a sure square proposition! Boys, the collection goes, d'ye see?"

"You betcherlife!" with cordial emphasis acquiesced the boys, even as the orthodox respond Amen, while pouring gold-dust from their pokes into the frying-pan.

"Oh, I don't despair of you, Nicholas! I shall yet see you a pillar of the church!" The minister now was mingling with his congregation, shaking hands, hearty if not invariably spotless, right and left. "Thank you, lads, thank you! This will go toward the maintenance of a hospital, where you shall be cared for when disabled by accident, or laid up with a er--touch of--ahem!--scurvy."

"Booze," corrected Bully Nick, scorning the well-meant euphemism.

After a second, informal benediction from Maclane, Barney, considering that the execution of justice temporal had been waived quite long enough in favor of things pertaining to the soul, tapped Nick on the shoulder with cheerful authority. "Now, me man, put your best fut forward and step prattily to jail! The rest av yez"--he looked round on the group with impartial invitation--"can accompany us on giniral lack av principles!"

"Oh, but say--the stage is a-comin' in," remonstrated Bill, as the tooting of a distant horn echoed musically among the mountain pa.s.ses.

"There's like to be ladies aboard her. Can't we wait for to look upon the ladies?"

The suggestion obviously was popular, even to the extent of suggesting mutiny if not complied with, and Barney himself had some difficulty in delaying his consent in order to add value to it before permitting his mug to relax into a grin. "As a man in line av promotion to be nominated an officer and a gintleman, 'tis no less than me duty."

"Boys, boys!" Mops, who had been reconnoitering, ran back, breathless and excited. "There's gals aboard!"

"The h.e.l.l thar is!" exclaimed the boys, delighted, and meaning no disrespect.

"A hull outfit o' gals," expatiated Mops. "And one, perched up by the driver, jest the swellest, jim-dandiest little female proposition you ever seen in all your life! Say, I wisht I hadn't left my dress-suit in cold storage!"

"Any one lend me a comb?" Any one being unable to oblige him, Bill ran a corkscrew through his curly hair. "Well, anyway, my face is clean!"

"All ye can see av it, for the dhirt that's on it," Barney encouraged him.

The horn blew a gay fanfare; the driver's whip cracked with more than wonted smartness; the bells on its four horses jingled merrily as the c.u.mbersome old stage rattled into Lost Shoe Creek, and drew up before Gumboot Annie's hostelry to an enthusiastic ovation of hurrahs, cap-tossings, and gun-firings from the male populace.

A handsome girl, wearing her modish clothes with a too conscious effect of style, from her place on the box bowed pleased acknowledgments in all directions for the cheering, but at the volley of shots gave a little startled cry, which was taken up in louder note by her companions.

Doffing his hat, Parson Maclane came forward, with a rea.s.suring smile.

"Only a Klondike welcome, young ladies," he explained.

"That's what!" the men confirmed him. "A Klondike welcome!"

"How quite too utterly charming!" exclaimed the young lady. "Girls!

Sarah!" she appealed to the others of the party. "Aren't they too dear and picturesque for anything!" That "they" were human beings and not part of the brilliant panorama seemed hardly to occur to her.

A score of pairs of rough but willing hands stretched up to help the speaker from her high throne, but the honor fell to Scarlett, or rather was appropriated by that masterful young man as, putting the other aspirants aside, he lifted her over the wheel and swung her lightly to the ground. Without waiting for her thanks he returned to his wood-chopping with a sense of one of life's minor miracles upon him. "By St. Bridget!" he was thinking, "but that's my picture-girl!"

When all the pa.s.sengers had alighted safely the boys pushed their leader to the front. "Speech! Speech! Bully Nick!" they insisted. "Speech!"

"Take my hat off fer me," in an undertone commanded the champion shot and orator. When one of his lieutenants had hastened to comply, the Bully stood forth and cleared his throat. "Ladies, in the name of the district--and never mind jest at these presents what name the district bears--I regret I can't give ye the glad hand, through bein' a-wearin'

of th' Government bracelets."

"The Government bracelets," repeated the beautiful young lady, puzzled, under cover of the guffaws with which his followers received Nick's initial witticism.

"Mary, love----" She appealed to the tallest of the girls who stood about her. "You are up in political economy?"

"I think he must mean some official decoration," glibly prompted Mary.

"That's it," corroborated Nick, unashamed, amid the shame-faced laughter of his followers. "Official decoration fer proficiency in gun-play!" He held up his handcuffed hands.

"Oh!" The girl and her companions recoiled instinctively.

"My dears!" The minister stepped into the breach. "I a.s.sure you, Nicholas here has the warmest heart, though at times he is a trifle--er--impulsive."

"Aye!" Nick nodded. "Impulsive, under the influence of bad liquor. Shot a chap recent when drunk, me and him alike. Not but what he desarved it all right, though the blamed Government won't see it in that light. But never mind them little personal details. Let me present the boys. Step up, lads. This here is Mops, our masher. Only hez ter look at a mess of pertatoes to rejuce 'em. Tuk a prize once at a beauty show, there bein'

no other contestants, and the judge havin' been struck blind."

"Oh, stop yer jos.h.i.+n'!" growled Mops, as, with a red face, he nearly lost his balance in a bow.

"And Bill. Bill's our dude," explained the Bully. "Won't use nothin' but fas.h.i.+on-plates ter patch his breeches. Now, Bill, don't turn yer back on the ladies, else they'll see that what I say is true. And this here solemn guy is Sandy, who keeps everything that comes his way, except the Commandments, and takes whatever he can lay hands on, except a joke." A few more introductions having been achieved in the same style, "Well, well, I guess we're a rough, tough lot," concluded Nick.

"Nature's n.o.blemen, my dear," interpolated the minister. "The dearest souls, except for an occasional regrettable--ahem----"

"Spree!" shouted the Bully. "But that, take it all in all, is a good sign. When bedrock's too smooth you won't find gold. Gawd knows we're tough--but when women comes among us--good women----" He broke off to pa.s.s a ragged sleeve across his eyes and gulp. "They're welcome as pay-dirt, and honored as queens."

"That's what! You betcherlife!" emphatically a.s.sented the throng.

"Thank you! thank you!" replied the beautiful young lady. "I must introduce myself. I come from New York. My name is Evelyn Durant----"

"'Rah, 'rah, for Evelyn!" shouted Mops, to his own surprise and the general admiration.

"And these young friends of mine"--Miss Durant indicated the six plainly dressed little maids who were drinking in these wonderful happenings, like children in a fairy dream--"their names are Mary, Ruth, Ethel, Kate, Effie and Gertrude, They have come with me for a holiday from the inst.i.tution where they live. They are orphans."

A round of cheers was thereupon called for, for Mary, Ruth, Ethel, Kate, Effie and Gertrude, and clinched with Barney's flattering a.s.sertion, "An' sure this is the idayal asoilum for thim, and may they prosper and multiply galeor, for divvle a family in the disthrict can brag av an orphan of its own at all, more shame to us!"

"And this," Evelyn tapped a stout, middle-aged woman kindly on the shoulder, "is my faithful maid, Sarah."

Sarah having been duly cheered, "Sarah is nae bonny, but she micht be sonsy and of a savin' disposeetion," commended Sandy, cautiously, for which encomium, however, he was only rewarded by an angry shake of Sarah's stout umbrella, with a counsel to keep his cheek to himself or she'd know the reason why.