Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police Part 64

The Commissioner's face never changed a line. He gravely turned the pistol over in his hand, and truly enough the rusty weapon appeared to be quite innocuous except to the shooter.

"This is an extremely dangerous weapon. Why, it might have killed yourself--if it had been loaded. We cannot allow this sort of thing.

However, since it was not loaded we shall make the sentence light. I sentence you to one month's confinement."

The interpreter explained the sentence to the young Indian, who received the explanation without the movement of a muscle or the flicker of an eyelid. The constable touched him on the shoulder and said, "Come!"

Before he could move old Crowfoot with two strides stood before the constable, and waving him aside with a gesture of indescribable dignity, took his son in his arms and kissed him on either cheek. Then, stepping back, he addressed him in a voice grave, solemn, and vibrant with emotion. Jerry interpreted to the Court.

"I have observed the big Chief. This is good medicine. It is good that wrong should suffer. All good men are against wickedness. My son, you have done foolishly. You have darkened my eyes. You have covered my face before my people. They will ask--where is your son? My voice will be silent. My face will be covered with shame. I shall be like a dog kicked from the lodge. My son, I told you to go only to the store. I warned you against bad men and bad places. Your ears were closed, you were wiser than your father. Now we both must suffer, you here shut up from the light of the sky, I in my darkened lodge. But," he continued, turning swiftly upon the Commissioner, "I ask my father why these bad men who sell whiskey to the poor Indian are not shut up with my son. My son is young. He is like the hare in the woods. He falls easily into the trap.

Why are not these bad men removed?" The old Chief's face trembled with indignant appeal.

"They shall be!" said the Commissioner, smiting the desk with his fist.

"This very day!"

"It is good!" continued the old Chief with great dignity. Then, turning again to his son, he said, and his voice was full of grave tenderness:

"Now, go to your punishment. The hours will be none too long if they bring you wisdom." Again he kissed his son on both cheeks and, without a look at any other, stalked haughtily from the room.

"Inspector d.i.c.kson," sharply commanded the Commissioner, "find out the man that sold that whiskey and arrest him at once!"

Cameron was profoundly impressed with the whole scene. He began to realise as never before the tremendous responsibilities that lay upon those charged with the administration of justice in this country. He began to understand, too, the secret of the extraordinary hold that the Police had upon the Indian tribes and how it came that so small a force could maintain the "Pax Britannica" over three hundred thousand square miles of unsettled country, the home of hundreds of wild adventurers and of thousands of savage Indians, utterly strange to any rule or law except that of their own sweet will.

"This police business is a big affair," he ventured to say to the Commissioner when the court room was cleared. "You practically run the country."

"Well," said the Commissioner modestly, "we do something to keep the country from going to the devil. We see that every man gets a fair show."

"It is great work!" exclaimed Cameron.

"Yes, I suppose it is," replied the Commissioner. "We don't talk about it, of course. Indeed, we don't think of it. But," he continued, "that blue book there could tell a story that would make the old Empire not too ashamed of the men who 'ride the line' and patrol the ranges in this far outpost." He opened the big canvas-bound book as he spoke and turned the pages over. "Look at that for a page," he said, and Cameron glanced over the entries. What a tale they told!

"Fire-fighting!"

"Yes," said the Commissioner, "that saved a settler's wife and child--a prairie fire. The house was lost, but the constable pulled them out and got rather badly burned in the business."

Cameron's finger ran down the page.

"Sick man transported to Post."

"That," commented the Superintendent, "was a journey of over two hundred miles by dog sleighs in winter. Saved the man's life."

And so the record ran. "Cattle thieves arrested." "Whiskey smugglers captured." "Stolen horses recovered." "Insane man brought to Post."

"That was rather a tough case," said the Commissioner. "Meant a journey of some eight hundred miles with a man, a powerful man too, raving mad."

"How many of your men on that journey?" enquired Cameron.

"Oh, just one. The fellow got away twice, but was recaptured and finally landed. Got better too. But the constable was all broken up for weeks afterwards."

"Man, that was great!" exclaimed Cameron. "What a pity it should not be known."

"Oh," said the Commissioner lightly, "it's all in the day's duty."

The words thrilled Cameron to the heart. "All in the day's duty!" The sheer heroism of it, the dauntless facing of Nature's grimmest terrors, the steady patience, the uncalculated sacrifice, the thought of all that lay behind these simple words held him silent for many minutes as he kept turning over the leaves.

As he sat thus turning the leaves and allowing his eye to fall upon those simple but eloquent entries, a loud and strident voice was heard outside.

"Waal, I tell yuh, I want to see him right naow. I ain't come two hundred miles for nawthin'. I mean business, I do."

The orderly's voice was heard in reply.

"I ain't got no time to wait. I want to see yer Chief of Police right naow."

Again the orderly's voice could be distinguished.

"In court, is he? Waal, you hurry up and tell him J. B. Cadwaller of Lone Pine, Montana, an American citizen, wants to see him right smart."

The orderly came in and saluted.

"A man to see you, Sir," he said. "An American."

"What business?"

"Horse-stealing case, Sir."

"Show him in!"

In a moment the orderly returned, followed by, not one, but three American citizens.

"Good-day, Jedge! My name's J. B. Cadwaller, Lone Pine, Montana. I--"

"Take your hat off in the court!" said the orderly sharply.

Mr. Cadwaller slowly surveyed the orderly with an expression of interested curiosity in his eyes, removing his hat as he did so.

"Say, you're pretty swift, ain't yuh? You might give a feller a show to git in his interductions," said Mr. Cadwaller. "I was jes goin' to interdooce to you, Jedge, these gentlemen from my own State, District Attorney Hiram S. Sligh and Mr. Rufus Raimes, rancher."

The Commissioner duly acknowledged the introduction, standing to receive the strangers with due courtesy.

"Now, Jedge, I want to see yer Chief of Police. I've got a case for him."

"I have the honor to be the Commissioner. What can I do for you?"

"Waal, Jedge, we don't want to waste no time, neither yours nor ours.

The fact is some of yer blank blank Indians have been rustlin' hosses from us fer some time back. We don't mind a cayuse now and then, but when it comes to a hull bunch of vallable hosses there's where we kick and we ain't goin' to stand fer it. And we want them hosses re-stored.

And what's more, we want them blank blank copper snakes strung up."

"How many horses have you lost?"