Читать книгу Benton of the Royal Mounted: A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police - Ralph S. Kendall - Страница 6

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Therefore, Christian men be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor,

Shall yourselves find blessing.

—Good King Wenceslas. (Old Carol)

Three weeks elapsed and Benton again showed up in the Post with the first fruits of his new scene of operations—two prisoners committed for trial on a charge of cattle stealing.

His had been a weary watch for many nights, but he had caught his men at last, slaughtering stolen beef cattle in an old deserted corral at three o’clock in the morning. He looked worn out and had a black eye, received in the rough-and-tumble arrest that had followed.

The Captain was secretly pleased, but to Ellis he evinced little sign of his satisfaction. “Praise men up—spoil ’em! Let ’em think it’s their ordinary course of duty,” was his customary maxim.

“Good man, that Benton,” he muttered to himself during one of his office pacings. “He’ll straighten that Cherry Creek district out before long.”

He gave the Sergeant three days’ rest, though, and spoke about transferring him a man if required, which offer Ellis declined, however. With his taciturn and secretive nature he preferred to follow alone, and in various disguises, the tortuous windings of stock cases, calmly relying on his own great strength, cunning, and ability with gun and fist, to effect any arrest.

The four-fifteen West-bound carried him as a passenger back to Sabbano, his nearest railway depot, the detachment being on the prairies forty miles away from the line. It was raining, and Ellis felt miserable as he gazed through the window and contemplated the wet, cheerless ride he would have in the morning.

He vaguely thought of “Johnny” waiting for him in Sergeant Churchill’s stable at Sabbano. Was he being properly looked after? Churchill was a “booze artist,” d—n him, and like as not he’d neglect him, like he did his own horse.

He was aroused from his gloomy abstraction by something tugging at his riding-crop and, turning his eyes he beheld a little curly-headed tot leaning over the back of the seat ahead of him. She was perhaps about three years old, and her blue eyes were sparkling with determination as she pulled at the leather thong with all her baby strength, in a desperate effort to possess herself of the desired treasure.

Benton’s moody face immediately softened with a friendly grin. He loved children and they instinctively came to him without fear.

“Hello, Sis,” he said. “You want it?” and he surrendered the coveted plaything, which she immediately started to flourish with great glee. The mother, a thin, shabbily dressed, careworn-looking young woman about thirty, looked on with a loving smile that glorified her poor, pinched face.

“Oh, Nellie, Nellie,” she said reprovingly; “you mustn’t—you’ll hit somebody” and she turned to Benton, saying, “I hope my little girl isn’t worrying you?”

“Not a bit—not a bit,” he returned cheerily. “Kids are welcome to tease me any old time.”

Scrambling down from her perch, the little one gazed at his uniform with lively interest and tentatively tapped his boots and the rowels of his spurs with the crop. “Toldier,” she lisped, and without more ado she climbed up beside him on the seat and, putting her little arms around his neck, gave him a genuine loving hug and kiss which fairly took him by storm and caused broad laughs of amusement to come from those sitting near.

The touch of those baby lips awoke a strange longing in the heart of the lonely man, and a dreamy, far-away look momentarily softened his hard face. To have a comfortable home to come back to every night, and not to be chased around here, there, and everywhere at the whims of the powers that be. To be happily married to a loving girl-wife, and have kiddies that would climb all over you, and run after you, and where you could lie on the sands, in the sun, by the sea, somewhere, and watch ’em playing—

A sudden exclamation from the mother awoke him sharply from his reverie.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. She seemed terribly agitated. “Oh!” she said; “I’ve lost my hand-bag, and my ticket was in it and some money!”

“Were you sitting here all the time since you got on the train?” he inquired.

“No,” she answered; “I was on that seat at the far end when I first came in this coach.”

He got up and, walking down the aisle, made a thorough search of the place that she indicated, but his efforts were fruitless. It was a little brown Morocco-leather bag, she informed him, with her name, “Elizabeth Wilson,” on it, under a celluloid panel.

“Who was sitting by you?” he asked. “D’you think you could recognize the person again?”

She shook her head despondently. “Oh, I don’t remember,” she wailed. “My girlie was crying, and in trying to quiet her I guess I didn’t notice anybody in particular.”

“How much money was in your bag?” he asked.

“Twenty-five dollars,” she said brokenly. “I am going to Vancouver to look for a position, and it’s all I have in the world. Oh, what shall we do, my baby and I?”

Ellis eyed the forlorn face a moment or two in silent commiseration; then, seeking out the conductor, whom he knew well, explained the situation.

“Yes, I mind ’em getting on at Calgary,” said that official; “and she had a ticket through to Vancouver, all right.”

“Say, Bob,” the Sergeant persuaded, “that bag’s been pinched off her without a doubt; but as she’s no suspicion of anybody I can’t very well search every one on the bloomin’ train, and I’m getting off in a minute at Sabbano—be a good fellow and pass her on to Vancouver.... She’s dead up against it.”

The kind-hearted conductor agreed, and with an easier mind Ellis went back to the woman and told her.

The train began to slow down—“Sabbano—Sabbano!” called out the brakeman, passing through the coaches. The Sergeant reached into his pocket and, drawing out a roll of bills, pressed them into her hand.

“There,” he said gently. “That’ll keep you going in Vancouver for a time, and I hope you’ll soon strike something.”

Speechless with gratitude at the man’s impulsive generosity, she gazed at him dumbly, with dim eyes. Her mouth worked but somehow the words would not come. She choked, and hiding her face in her hands, sank down on the seat, the poor, thin shoulders under the cheap blouse shaking with her convulsive sobbing.

The child, still clutching the crop, which Ellis had not the heart to retrieve, set up a shrill wail in sympathy and clung to his leg. More moved than he cared to show, but utterly indifferent to the slightly ludicrous side of the situation, the policeman strove to quiet her.

“Oh, come now, Sis,” he pleaded coaxingly. “Mustn’t cry.... Let go of me for a minute.... I’m coming back!... Here,” and producing a pen-knife, he sliced off one of the lower buttons of his pea-jacket.... “There, give me a kiss.”

The whimpers slowly ceased, and her little face brightened as she clutched the shining treasure and, drawing his face down to hers, she pressed her little rosebud of a mouth to his.

Disengaging the tiny arms gently, with a whispered “Good-by,” he ran to the end of the coach and dropped off as the train moved out.

It was only characteristic of the man’s strange, impulsive, complex nature that he should have done this thing, but how much money was there in that roll of bills? Ellis himself, offhand, could hardly have told you.

As in the rain he wended his way along the wet platform, the station agent came up to him, “Here’s the key of the detachment, Sergeant,” he said; “Churchill’s gone West on that train to Parson’s Lake. He’s coming back on Number Two in the morning and he asked me to give it to you—didn’t you see him?”

“No,” said Ellis shortly. “I wasn’t able to get off till it was on the move.... Guess Churchill got on another coach.”

Not particularly sorry at the other’s absence, he walked on to the end of the little town where the detachment was situated. The place smelled musty and stale as he entered. Papers, old letters, and torn novels lay littered about the local sergeant’s desk. The bed was not made up and various items of kit were strewn around. Everything seemed covered with a thick accumulation of dust.

“Nasty, lazy, slovenly devil,” he growled. “Lord, what a pig-pen! Inspector Purvis’ll happen along down here, unexpected, one of these days. Then there’ll be something doing.”

He passed on through the back door to the stable, where a joyous whinny from “Johnny” greeted him. He led the horse out along with the Sergeant’s and watered them, their greedy thirst drawing a savage curse from him. “Takes d—d good care never to go dry himself,” he muttered.

After grooming Johnny down he went into the kitchen and rummaged around until he found two or three pieces of lump sugar, at the sight of which the horse began to nicker softly and raised its nigh forefoot, bending the limb back for a piece to be inserted into the fetlock-joint, where it was promptly licked out.

He was a superb, powerfully-built black, with white hind fetlocks, standing fully sixteen hands, well ribbed up, with the short back, strong, flat-boned legs, and good, sloping shoulders of the ideal saddle-horse. Benton had had him for over three years and was passionately attached to the animal.

He petted Johnny awhile then, fixing both horses up for the night, he went down to the only restaurant the little town boasted—a Chinese establishment—and got some supper. This despatched, he retraced his steps and mooned around the dirty detachment, where he tried to read; but his thoughts, ever and anon, kept reverting to the little cherubic face of the child on the train, with her hollow-cheeked mother, and he found himself vaguely wondering how far away they were by now.

He looked at his watch. It was about twenty minutes to ten and, feeling inclined for a drink, he strolled down town again and, entering the bar of the Golden West Hotel, ordered a glass of beer.

There were about half a dozen men in the bar who, after gazing awhile at his uniformed figure and seeing he was not the convivial Churchill, eyed him with sullen distrust. His gaze flickered over them casually, but knowing nobody there but the bartender, he kept aloof.

Suddenly, amid the babel of talk, a drunken, nasal voice made itself heard:

“Oh, you Harry! Say, wha’s dat dere wit de yaller laigs?”

Glancing sharply towards the end of the bar, he became aware of two flashily dressed, undesirable-looking individuals of the type that usually makes an easy living preying upon the unfortunate denizens of the underworld, sizing him up.

The one accosted as “Harry,” a big, heavily-built man about thirty, with a sneer on his evilly handsome, sinister face, answered slowly:

“Oh, him. I guess he must be one of them Mounted Police ginks you hear tell of over our side of the Line. Kind of ‘prairie cop,’” he added contemptuously, and spat.

The epithet of “cop” was one held in peculiar detestation by members of the Force and, coupled with the fellow’s offensive manner, became a gratuitous insult that was almost more than the Sergeant could stand, for a slight titter followed, and all the faces—with the exception of the bartender’s-wore a sardonic grin at the policeman’s discomfiture.

Choking with silent fury, he glowered warily with swift calculation around him.

“No, it wouldn’t do,” he reflected. There would be too many witnesses, like in that last business at Elbow Vale; and fearful of his own ungovernable temper, lest any ensuing altercation should precipitate the inevitable right then and there, he held his peace.

Lowering his voice, his elbows on the bar, he spoke quietly to the bartender:

“Who’s them two fellers at the end there, Pete—strangers?”

“Yes. I dunno who they are,” said that worthy in the same low tone, busy polishing glasses the while. “They blew in off’n the West-bound. Jest stiffs, I guess, Sergeant. They was laughin’ fit to split ’bout somethin’ when they first come in.”

Benton finished his beer and, turning, pushed through the swing door, a vindictive purpose seething in his mind. Crossing over to the dark side of the street, he patiently waited.

“I’ll ‘vag’ the two of them,” he muttered savagely.

The rain had ceased and a few stars began to appear. It was nearly closing time and his watch was of short duration.

At the appointed time, with much bad language and noisy argument, the bar slowly emptied, the last to leave being “Harry” and his companion; the latter quarrelsomely drunk, and expostulating with the bartender, who was escorting him to the door.

“Gimme another drink!” he demanded.

“No chance,” came the answer. “You’ve got enough below. Beat it!”

The speech was accompanied with a sudden shove, and the door banged to.

Still the Sergeant waited.

“Aw, come on, yer crazy mutt!” he heard the soberer voice of Harry say, and saw him walk slowly on down the street, his bibulous comrade unsteadily following.

Keeping in the shade, Ellis noiselessly paralleled their direction, until they were well beyond the last false-fronted store and amongst some vacant lots, not far from the isolated detachment. He stopped for a moment and listened intently. Except for the tipsy arguing of Harry’s companion, who was still in the rear, all was quiet.

“Well, you gimme half, anyway,” he heard him keep chanting.

Now was his chance. With two of them, he knew he must act quickly, and “acting quickly” was only a mild expression for some of the Sergeant’s little methods in his business which, though invariably attended with excellent results, did not, sad to relate, always strictly conform to the rules laid down in that worthy little Manual issued to all members of the Force for their regimental and legal guidance.

With fell intention, he crossed over swiftly to the drunk. It was no time for niceties in the manner of arrest, for the man might arouse the neighborhood, and the Sergeant had reasons for not being particularly desirous of an audience just then.

With the deadly calculation of an ex-pugilist, he carefully judged his distance in the dim light and swung a single terrific right uppercut to the point of the chin. The head snapped back and, with a choking gasp, the man fell heavily to the ground in an inert heap.

At the smack and the thud of the falling body, Harry halted in the dark ahead.

“What’s up?” he growled. “Are yer all in?”

Ellis shouldered roughly into him and, with an oath, the man reeled back.

“Why, what’s this?” he blustered and, as the shadowy outline of Benton’s Stetson hat in the uncertain light penetrated his vision, “why, it’s the ‘cop’!”

“Yes,” said the Sergeant through his set teeth and, with suppressed fury, “I’ve got you now where I want you! I’ll give you call me ‘cop,’ you G—d—d, dirty pimp!” and he smashed in a vicious left drive, flush on Harry’s nose.

It was a staggering blow, and the blood squirted, but somehow the man kept his feet and threw himself into a fighting posture, like one accustomed to using his hands.

He was by far the heavier of the two, but his movements were slow and muscle-bound and the tigerishly vicious attack of the Sergeant, with all its concentrated hate and science behind it, paralyzed him. He tried to cover up, but those terrible punches with the giver’s vindictive “Oof—oof,” accompanying each blow, seemed to reach his body and face at will.

It was all over inside of three minutes. Presently, ducking a savage swing from his weightier opponent, Ellis feinted for the jaw then, like lightning, drove two heavy, telling punches to that region termed in pugilistic parlance the “solar plexus.” The man, with a gasp, doubled up and sank down.

Breathing heavily after the exertion, Benton kneeled on him and, reaching to his hip pocket, dragged forth his handcuffs and snapped them on Harry’s wrists; then, slowly rising to his feet, he waited.

It was still quiet all round, and he felt a fierce exultation at accomplishing his purpose without undue disturbance. Stepping over to his first victim, he made a quick examination, and satisfied himself that the man was only knocked out. He would come to after a time, he decided, and was probably more drunk than hurt. Harry was the one who had incurred his animosity the most.

Presently that individual, with a groaning curse, sat up and was violently sick. Then for the first time he became conscious of his manacled wrists and began to raise his voice in filthy expressions at Ellis.

“Quit that talk,” said the Sergeant, in a tense, fierce undertone. “I don’t want any bother and have you waking everybody up at this time o’ night, I’m arresting both you fellers for vagrancy. Now, are you coming quiet or not?”

A torrent of blasphemy greeted the suggestion.

“Not you nor any other —— cop kin take me,” he foamed from the ground; then, suddenly kicking out, he caught Benton a nasty jar on the shin-bone.

The pain acted as the last straw to the exasperated Sergeant. With an oath, he drew from his pocket a small steel article known in police circles as a “come-along” and, clipping it on one of his prisoner’s wrists, he twisted viciously. The exquisite torture drew a shriek from the wretched man.

“Shut up,” whispered Ellis savagely. “If you start hollerin’ again and still refuse to walk I’ll”—and he gave another slight twist to the wrist—“I’ll break your arm! Now will you come, eh?”

“Oh, o-o-h. No, no; oh, don’t. Yes, yes, I’ll come,” came the agonized response.

“So,” said the Sergeant quietly, as he jerked the man to his feet. “I thought you would. Now don’t you start monkeyin’ no more. Step out!” And with his hand on the other’s collar, he guided him towards the detachment, which was only a short distance away.

On arriving there he unlocked the door and, ushering his captive into the office, at the back of which were two cells, he leisurely removed the handcuffs and proceeded to search him. What with blood, bruises, and dirt, the man’s face was a sight, and Benton, his anger now somewhat assuaged, felt slightly uneasy as he reflected on the prisoner’s appearance at the morrow’s court.

“Put your arms up!” he ordered, and mechanically dived into the coat pockets. His right hand encountered something square and soft, and he drew it out.

At the sight of the object his eyes dilated strangely. Well, well; it was only a woman’s little hand-bag with a name printed on it under a celluloid panel—

He read it at a quick glance and, ceasing his investigations, he grew curiously still. The prisoner, raising his head, met the Sergeant’s gaze. He shrank back, appalled, and a cry of fear burst from his mashed lips, for it seemed to him as if the devil himself were looking out of Benton’s ruthless eyes. With an indescribable bitterness of tone, the policeman suddenly spoke:

“You skunk,” he said; “you dirty, sneaking coyote. It was you, then, that robbed that poor thing with the little kiddie on the West-bound?”

He stopped and choked with his rage. Presently he burst out again: “Lord, Lord! but I’m glad I bashed you up like I did, and but for a probable charge of manslaughter I’d manhandle you properly. So that’s what you and your pal were laughin’ about when you went in to that bar? When you come to die—which event, may it please God to grant quickly—I hope that’ll be the very, very last thing in your memory—that you once robbed a helpless woman and her kid.”

He remained silent after this for a space, for a sudden disquieting thought had occurred to him.

“See here; look,” he began again. “If I put this charge of theft against you, it’ll mean having to locate and drag that woman back here all those weary miles, to identify her property and prove up the case against you.”

At his words a gleam of hope lit up the prisoner’s disfigured face.

“For God’s sake, policeman,” he mumbled out of his twisted mouth, “give us a chanct—just this once.”

The Sergeant pondered awhile. It was the easiest way out for himself, and for the woman, he reflected. Churchill was away and nobody would know anything about this business. He tipped the contents of the bag out. A bunch of keys, a woman’s handkerchief, some smelling-salts, a ticket to Vancouver, and various small odds and ends.

“Where’s that money?” he snapped out. “Here—let’s go through you!”

His search revealed a dollar’s worth of silver.

“Dig up the rest of that twenty-five dollars!” he demanded.

Slowly the other took off one of his boots, and from it produced two ten-dollar bills.

“We had some dough of our own when we come on the train,” he volunteered to Ellis’s silent look of interrogation, “but we got inter a poker game with some fellers and lost out, so we broke into the five-spot fer some supper and booze.”

Benton considered a bit longer, then suddenly made up his mind and opened the door.

“Voertsek, du verdomde schelm!”¹ he said sharply, jerking his head towards the aperture.

The man stared at him stupidly for a moment. “I don’t savvy you,” he muttered.

“Beat it, you d—d crook! D’you savvy that?” came the policeman’s harsh response. “Out of town by the first train that comes in—East or West—and take your pal with you.”

“We ain’t got the price,” was the somewhat aggrieved answer.

“Then take a ’tie pass,’ d—n you,” said the Sergeant grimly. “And mind—if I catch either of you fellers around this burg tomorrow morning, I’ll shove you both in the calaboose and put the boots to you as well as this charge. Now beat it, and go and pick up your pal!”

Harry waited for no further invitation, but vanished into the night.

Wearily Ellis gathered up the contents of the bag and, putting in the money along, closed it. He felt very tired and, lighting a cigarette, he sat down and tried to think.

“Guess I can get it through to her,” he muttered. “I’ll send a wire now that’ll catch her on the train somewhere, and she can send me her address.”

And going to the telephone he rang up the night-operator at the depot.