The devil's playground : a story of the wild Northwest

Contents

PAGE.

“THE HUSKS THAT THE SWINE

DID EAT . . .7

Chapter I. “ The Husks That The Swine Did Eat”

** The greatest mistake a man can make/* philosophized the Sage, is to fall in love with a married woman. Of course I never did anything of the sort myself ; but Tve watched fellows get that way and reckoned they were to be pitied. I call it a mistake ; because I don't believe that any one in his sober senses, when he first feels himself attracted by his neighbor’s wife, dreams of allowing such a suicidal condition of things to get the upper hand of him. But what he does not want to do, and what he eventually does, are only separated by a matter of sentiment to begin with, and amount to the same thing in the end. If he is one of the unfortunate ones — all heart and no head — he drifts into it like a man who has been fooling about in a small boat above Niagara Falls, and whose fate is a foregone conclusion. The first step in this direction generally begins with a mere mutual attraction ; the next, some fancied affinity. Then comes the inevitable ' something

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stronger ’ until the last state of that man is worse than the first, and the finish up is either a most unpleasant racket, or — at least something that is equally unsatisfactory. It is one of those things in human affairs that a fellow can’t take philosophically.”

The speaker was a fresh-faced youth, as yet with only the callowest kind of down upon his upper lip. There was the unmistakable stamp of gentle birth upon his jface, and the tell-tale one upon his personal attire, that plainly spoke of having “ come through the mill.” In fact, so far as the outward appearance of both himself and his companion were concerned, no one could have told them from a couple of ordinary laborers on the tramp. Their clothes were of the commonest description ; and to tell the truth, there lurked a suspicion about their linen of an absence of soap and water. The elder of the two was a tall, spare man of perhaps a trifle over thirty years of age or so, who, despite his commonplace and not too well cared for attire, would have attracted attention anywhere. He was dark, self-possessed, and alert-looking ; and there was that touch of devilmay-care good nature upon his not unpleasant face, that stamped him as one of the rolling-stone species. One who by some accident or other, had fallen or drifted from a better state of things into an easily borne condition of hard-upness. One who had missed his vocation in life, but whose talents were versatile. One

(Tbe *l)U 6 b 9 that tbe Swine bib 9 without any particular aim or object in view ; for whom poverty had no particular terrors, or riches power to stimulate ; and who could shoulder a pick, or drive a pen across paper with equal equanimity. Such a man was the exclusive and patient audience that the younger one commanded.

They sat with their backs against a log upon the banks of a creek, and lazily smoked their pipes. Either the keen, dry air of the Canadian Northwest had exercised a somniferous effect (to which prairie air is conducive) upon the elder of the two ; or perhaps it was the sage remarks that fell from the lips of his youthful but experienced companion, for several times his head drooped forwards, then was jerked as suddenly backwards. Perhaps after this, for another twenty seconds or so, he would catch the drift of his companion s remarks, and would listen with some vague consciousness of being amused. Dick Travers was evidently a good listener ; he seldom interrupted, and the Sage proceeded —

“ I remember a case where a Platonic, milkand-water sort of chap became spooney on a married woman ; but his platonics took the inevitable turn. He dangled after her for years ; took to writing poetry and all that sort of thing : neglected his business in consequence, and finally went to the dogs. And the best, or worst, of it was that the woman didn't care a rap for him after all ! ”

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At this point of the narrative the elder, who had a minute before nearly jerked his head off, caught the drift of the Sage’s remarks and queried —

Petrarch ? ”

“ Oh, Petrarch be hanged ! ” shortly contended the Sage, with an uncomfortable sensation that his senior was chaffing him. “ I told you I knew the man.”

Ah ! poor old chap ; I didn’t drop to it at first. How old are you now ? ” asked the other with an irritating air of sympathy.

Twenty-one in November,” began the Sage unsuspectingly, and stopped abruptly. “ But hang it, man. I’m not the fellow any more than Petrarch was ! ”

Then, becoming conscious of something incongruous in the association, he laughed in a silent, irritated sort of way to himself, and for a few minutes relapsed into a discreet silence. But the Sage was no fool, and despite his weakness for airing his views upon life and things in general, often hit upon some subtle truths which might have been evolved from a more colossal experience than his could possibly have ever been.

The day was close and sultry : the valley in which they were shut out any breath of air which might be straying away above them on the higher lands. The creek had dried up to an almost imperceptible shadow of its former self, but still kept murmuring over the rocks and

**XLbc 1bU6ft0 that tbe Swine biD J6at/' n gravel in a subdued and expostulating sort of way. Up on the bench (as the plateaus are called in North America) it was little better ; in fact the air was if anything more suffocating than in the coullee. From the north and east there rose a range of hills, whose rugged sides were covered with timber. But to the south and west the prairie rolled away in a series of wave-like buttes and coulles ; only broken by an uncertain, thin, green streak of timber, which fringed and marked the course of the creek upon which they were camped. There was no sign of human habitation on that prairie. It seemed, in spite of its rich-looking pastures as desolate as any desert. Had it not been for a few straggling head of horses and cattle hard by — slowly making for the creek, as if they found the heat of the prairie unendurable, and could stand it no longer — it might have passed for a veritable No Man’s Land : a country in which nobody lived. But perhaps the predominant feature of the scene, and that which impressed the beholder more powerfully than any peculiarity of either earth or sky, was the silence of this land. It was a silence that made itself felt : it was portent with a sense of loneliness. Had it not been for the faint murmuring of the shadowy creek, the whole scene might have belonged to some lunar landscape — some dead world in which no note or sound ever broke the eternal silence of death.

‘‘I say, Dick,” the younger man suddenly

exclaimed, “ has it not struck you that we’re getting a little further from civilization than we bargained for ! They told us at Walsh that we were sure to strike a ranche of some sort out here, where they’d want hands for some coming ‘ round-up ’ or other. We’ve walked fifteen miles or more this morning already ; but if there are any ranches I think they must be gopher ones, or where they rear prairie-chickens.”

“ Well, yes, I suppose it has struck me,” answered the other unconcernedly, as if it were a matter of no particular importance. “ I rather imagined a couple of hours ago or so that we had taken the wrong trail ; but I didn’t think it worth while mentioning the fact. You see. Jack, to quote your own words, ‘ there’s nothing like taking things philosophically.’ I’ve been doing it these last four or five years; actual experience has only gone further to convince me that it’s the best way after all. Why don’t you practise what you preach ”

“ Oh, hang it all, you know, Dick ! ” answered the Sage, “ that’s expecting too much of a fellow to practise and preach both ! You surely don’t want me to be inconsistent ? One would think, to listen to you, that I was anything but practical. Now I would humbly venture to remark that I am eminently so ; and to prove it I will point out that though we’ve had a good meal — that’s to say, as good as we’re in the habit of having in this vagabond existence

Zbc 1 bu 0 ft 9 that tbe Swine DID iBdiV* 13 of ours — we have not got quite enough for another. A couple of sailor's biscuits — felicitously called ‘ hard tack ’ — and a quarter of a pound of cold bacon, is all we have left in the commissariat department. Moreover, ‘ the night cometh when no man can work,' and the shade of a cotton-wood tree is a poor apology for a blanket in a climate like this. By Jove, Dick, don’t you know, I often feel like the chap in the parable, who filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.”

Poor young Sage ! But you are not the first gently-nurtured youth who has felt the same thing, — Australia, Africa, Canada are teeming with such as you.

The Sage had broken off abruptly in his unwonted speech. To do him justice, he was not in the habit of allowing his surroundings to affect his spirits. But there are times, which come even to the most hardened, when the ‘ still, small voice ’ within us will not be stilled, and plays the part of an avenging Nemesis to our lives.

The Dick referred to glanced suddenly and sharply at his companion ; and something very like pity showed for an instant upon his face. Then, as if he had something disagreeable to say, he stared right ahead of him, and tried to infuse a certain amount of hardness into his voice as he said —

Now, Jack, you’re talking sense, and touch upon a point that’s been on my mind for some

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time back. I think you are wasting your time. You never did anything that in the Old Country you need be particularly ashamed of — neither did I for that matter, only that I was a cursed fool. You have got a good home to go to, and here you are playing the very deuce with your expectations ; and all for what ? Simply for the privilege of leading a vagabond existence like this ; of wandering from one place to an-, other, and having to submit to all sorts of hardships and discomforts. You were with me on the diggings at Shingle Springs, and you know what killing work that was. We harvested down in Wyoming; and you remember how you said that another month like that would make an old man of you. Now I don’t see that our prospects are likely to improve. You’ve had a row with your people because you wouldn’t stop at home and become a respectable member of society ; when all that was asked of you was to sit in an office for a few ^ hours every day. Take my advice, Jack, pocket your pride and go home ; write and tell them you’re coming, and follow the letter up— depend upon it, they will be glad to see you. I dare say I’ll miss you now and again, but fancy that after a bit I’ll find it rather a relief to be rid of you.”

“ Dick,” said the other, staring in a deliberate fashion at the opposite bank, '‘I believe you do want to get rid of me. I believe there are lots of billets you would have taken if I had not been saddled to you ! ”

^be 1bu0b6 that tbe Swtne DID 15

“ Stop that d d silly talk ! ” said Travers,

rather inconsistently, considering what he had just said a minute before.

“ Well then, Dick,” said the younger man, taking no notice of his companion s seeming display of temper, and proceeding as if he had suddenly caught a glimpse of sunshine through a fog, “ why don’t you practice what you preach, and go home too ? ”

“ Because, lad,” was the reply, in a tone that showed he did not exactly relish the subject, but with an assumed jauntiness in his speech, “ I could not better myself by so doing. Besides, to play the role of the prodigal son, argues a home to go to, and a father or mother, as the case may be, who is willing to let bygones be bygones. Now there is no haven like that for me. If I did arrive in the Mersey to-morrow, and wanted to telegraph ahead the orthodox ‘ fatted calf for one,’ there is no one I could address it to. No, lad, the old sod could awaken nothing but vain regrets. I’ve made my bed and must lie on it.”

And here, as if offering an involuntary protest to his jaunty form of speech, he sprang to his feet and paced uneasily up and down for a few minutes, with his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets.

The Sage, otherwise known as Jack Holmes, eyed him strangely.

“ I’ve stirred him up again,” he muttered to himself. “ Poor old Dick ! he has been i6 Zbc 'BcviVe iPla^QrounD*

pretty badly hit at some time or other, and now he must walk it off/’ Then aloud he said, “ I say, Dick, don’t you think we’d better get under weigh ? It must be three o’clock at least ; let’s take the trail going up the creek. I fancy we are bound to strike that Englishman’s ranche they were talking about, and we can get shelter for the night anyhow, if we can’t get work. By Jove ! I believe we’re going to have a thunder storm — do you see that big, black cloud ? What ! you’d rather not go to any Englishman’s? Well, as I’m a sinner, you’re a queer one ! ” — Travers had, with a preoccupied air, dissented from his companion’s proposition. — “ Phew ! how stifling and sultry it has got all of a sudden. Let’s march.”

They picked up their belongings, which, like the enterprising prodigal’s in the parable, could not have been of any particular inconvenience to the carrier, and, turning their faces up the creek, trudged on their way.

Chapter II. ‘‘coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before.”

It was a large, roomy, two-storied loghouse, with a wing at the back, and weatherboarded on the outside. In Ontario, or any other part of the world, it would have been considered only a very ordinary place of abode. But up here in the Cypress Hills, where you might travel for twenty miles and not see a house, it seemed a veritable palace. It had actually a French window looking to the south, which suggested a higher civilization than one would have expected to meet with, in such an out-of-the-way part of the world. But perhaps it was the peculiar situation of this house, that was its particular charm. It nestled at the foot of a steep, savage-looking, pine-crested crag, which here and there was streaked with warm dashes of pink — the work of Mother Nature ; a fringe of tall, dark pines behind and on one side of it, and a lawn-like stretch of softest prairie in front, which sloped gradually down to a little lake. Away to the south rolled a vast, billowy ocean of prairie of a dun color, i8 ^be 2)evir0 plasQtounb^

which in the far distance became so undefined and spectre-like, that it was hard to determine the horizon line : so gradual was the change from earth to sky, and such an air of dreamy unreality seemed to pervade it.

It was a spot for a house that none but an artist could have chosen, and the one who had chosen it was an artist and a woman. Her husband, Tom Tredennis, was an easy-going specimen of the sport-loving Briton. He had reached the mature age of seven-and-thirty without ever having known what it was to earn a day’s bread, being well endowed with the world’s goods, when one fine morning, several months before this notice of him, through the death of a younger brother, he discovered that he was the possessor of a cattle ranche in the Northwest Territories of Canada. This younger brother— whose existence had nearly escaped his recollection— had been an anomaly in the family— a worker. He had by a certain amount of natural ability and perseverance, built up a ranche and a herd of cattle, the brand of which was known far and wide. Tom was long-headed enough to know, that unless he himself took a journey across the Atlantic to look after the property, he would be the loser by the omission. He suddenly recollected that in one of his very rare letters home, his brother had spoken about the bears that came down from the mountains in the spring and killed his calves. He also remembered having heard

'' Coming jBvcntB Caet SbaDowa/" 19 from some other “ rolling-stone who had been out there, of the bands of antelope and blacktail that roamed over these hills, and that settled the matter. He suddenly came to the conclusion that poor Hector’s affairs must be wound up by him alone, were it only out of respect for that poor brother he had seen and thought so little about. A good excuse for a prolonged sporting tour was what he had long wanted ; he had one now. And then another difficulty suddenly confronted him. He somehow was not remarkable for forethought. There was a contingency he had not provided against, and that was his wife.

A few years before he had been the most exemplary of lovers ; he had an easy-going self-assurance about him, that carried him triumphantly through love, as it generally did through all other things. He had fancied himself genuinely in love with the girl whom he afterwards made his wife, and who was at least twelve years his junior. When he married her out of that house where she lived — being an orphan — with a straight-laced uncle and aunt who had a large family of their own, he fancied he had done a rather sensible thing, and something that he would never regret. Perhaps he had never regretted it ; but it had sometimes suggested itself to him, that his wife had not been quite as much in love with him, as he had been with her. In fact, when on that momentous occasion he had (with only a little less of his self-assurance

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than usual) asked her to be his wife, she had told him as much.

And then he had made a little speech which is as old as the hills, and which is unlike most speeches made in the pages of fiction, in that it frequently finds utterance in actual life.

I can hardly expect,” he had said, that one like you, can fancy all at once an ordinary sort of fellow like me. But this I think, that if you like me just a very little, you will come to care for me through time, just as much as if you had allowed your heart to run away with your head.”

And the high-spirited girl consented to be his wife, not that by so doing she would escape from a home where she was anything but happy, to one of luxury and ease, but partly because she had a genuine admiration for the man who did not insult her by holding out these advantages before her, and who, if anything, rather underestimated any redeeming qualities he was possessed of. It was about this time that the irrepressible Mrs. Grundy hinted, that the real reason of her casting in her lot with one whose tastes were so dissimilar to hers, arose from pure motives of pique ; an old lover who had gone abroad was about to marry some one else. But there was, perhaps, just as much truth in this as in any of Mrs. Grundy’s other statements — at least so far as Mrs. Grundy’s actual knowlledge extended.

For some time after his marriage, Tom Tre-

Coming Bventa Cast Shadows/' 21 dennis was perhaps not without a curious vein of speculation as to why his wife should be possessed with such a feverish desire for change, and seemed to dread anything like the dulness of provincial life. Without having any particular tastes in common, they pulled together as well as most newly-married couples do. For a while he denied himself many of his accustomed pursuits, to bring her nearer to him than he felt she was; but gradually and imperceptibly he lapsed back into his old bachelor ways, and they drifted apart. But still, they never positively clashed. He thought as much of her as ever, but it was not in his undemonstrative nature to show it. As for her, she at least admired him for the many sterling qualities that made up an honest if not exactly a congenial spirit. However, much to Tom’s surprise and greatly to his relief, when he told her of the business that would take him away from England to Canada for several months, and asked her whether she would prefer to rough it with him for that time in the Northwest, or amuse herself the best way she could in England while he was away, she jumped at the first alternative, and betrayed an eagerness to be off that puzzled him not a little.

“ I am sick of England,” she had said, “ and have been pining for a change like this ever so long.”

And, considering that she had enjoyed more of her share of change, as enjoyed by the

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average British matron of the moneyed class, it dawned upon him that he was as far from understanding her as ever. But he suddenly recollected that he would require an “ Express rifle or two, and here his speculations promptly ceased.

They came out in the spring, and both were charmed with the fresh and peculiar features of the Cypress Hills and prairie country — she from an artistic and picturesque point of view, — she was an artist of no mean promise, — and he from a sportsman’s who had found a mine of wealth in fresh fields. In short, instead of selling the ranche, he determined to keep it on. There was a good Scotch foreman on the place, and it would pay him handsomely to do so. They could come over and live a month or two on it every year. His wife chose the site for a new house, some distance removed from the old log one, the corral, and other buildings. In a month or so the new house was run up ; and as she had brought her maid with her, and easily procured from a town bearing the picturesque name of Medicine-Hat ” all the help she wanted, and, with what was of more importance, plenty of money, she soon had a house that looked to a certain degree home-like.

And now on the day spoken of in the first chapter of this series of events, when the two peripatetic philosophers were plodding wearily along the trail in the direction of this particular

'' Coming iBvcnte Cast SbaDovva/' 23 ranche, Mrs. Tredennis sat looking out upon the dun-colored prairie. A short time before, the heated waves of air had been distorting it into all sorts of fantastic shapes. But a huge bank of clouds had rolled up, and there was an ominous stillness in the air.

That she had a striking style of beauty her greatest detractors could not but admit. She could not have been much over twenty-three years of age or so. She was only an ordinary sized woman, but her physique was perfect, and spoke of health and training which gave a more queenly grace to the charm of her well-poised head. A transparent freshness of complexion was hers, and a wondrous harmony of feature. But these attributes alone could not have distinguished her from the general run of women. It was the expression and character in her face that so many of her admirers had vainly tried to analyze. Her lustrous and large eyes were pregnant with a light that betokened no ordinary mind. It would have been hard to determine of what color these eyes were ; they might have been blue, or grey, or hazel ; they seemed to change with every mood that possessed the mind of the owner for the time being. But, after all, there were those who said that the expression in them was not always a happy one.

And just then, perhaps, they would have been justified in saying so. But she was roused from her reverie by a prosaic interruption.

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“ 1 want you to catch on here, Chrissie," said Tom Tredennis, her husband, dressed in a rough tweed suit, with a gun barrel in his hand, and a cleaning rod projecting a foot or so from the same, as he entered the room. You see I wrapped too much tow round this confounded cleaning rod, and it has got jammed fast. As next to myself you’re the strongest individual in the house at present, I thought I’d ask you to pull against me.”

He stopped opposite her and regarded her smilingly, as if it were only the most matter of fact thing in the world he asked her to do. He was a good-looking fellow enough, sunburnt, bearded, and with a frank, honest expression on his face, but with no marked expression or feature that would have distinguished him from the average good-looking and healthy, wellborn, sport-loving Briton.

She turned from the window. “ Then you must let me get my back to the wall, Tom. You’re such a giant — for if it should give all of a sudden ”

She smiled pleasantly as she poised herself and caught the cleaning-rod in a business-like fashion.

Now, then, twist to the right, and I’ll twist to the left,” she said.

A short, sharp tug-of-war, and in another second the refractory rod was safely extracted.

“ Well done ! ” he exclaimed, looking at her admiringly; but whether in admiration of her

Coming Evento Caat SbaDowo/' 25 fair young English face, or at the workmanlike way in which she had helped him, it would have been difficult to speculate upon.

“ ril give you a kiss for that one of these days ^if you behave yourself," he added, playfully.

‘‘ Why not now, Tom ? ’’ she rejoined, looking at him with a sudden, shy light on her face that would have settled the matter with most men. “ The mood does not strike you quite so often as it used to, and you know delays are dangerous."

She had never spoken to him like this before.

“ Well," he answered, laughing, and examining the choke of one of the barrels which he held in his hand critically, '' you might give me credit, you know, and I'll give you liberal interest when I pay you."

He might have only wanted to tease her, after the fashion of some men, who have farseeing views in regard to the policy of not making themselves too cheap. But he kissed his hand to her, which, for an undemonstrative man like him, was a remarkable concession, and left the room.

He could not see her face as the light left her eyes, and that inscrutable look come into them — that look which someone has painted as ever haunting the sad eyes, and resting upon the sweet face of the Egyptian queen — fateful and weary, as if from some hope long deferred.

She sat looking out upon the little lake, and away over the billow-like expanse of rolling

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prairie. It was growing remarkably dark, and the stifling heat had given place to a sudden cold rush of air. Then a far-off, muffled roar was borne upon it. It gathered strength, and changed into startling, portentous peals as it traveled nearer and nearer. Then a thunderclap right overhead, that rattled and echoed away among the crags and wooded heights, like a feu-de-joie from a battery of artillery. She sat immovable through it all, when suddenly her husband entered the room.

Why, Chrissie, what a queer girl you are, to be sure — you've got the window open, and you’re not scared a bit, as nine women out of ten would be.” And he hastily closed the window.

It did not enter into his calculations that she might be the tenth woman.

As if roused from a spell, and conscious that she must have seemed strange to him, she appeared anxious to talk, and he sat down opposite her.

“ Tom, talking of painting, do you think that sulphurous coloring in that great cloud over there would be difficult to catch } If one could only convey the idea of its being instinct with some coming evil ! You see, one must suggest more than what is merely physical nowadays.”