"Mark-er!" he called out mockingly. "Signal a miss, mark-er! Ding-dong! You'll get tired of it before we do, Gully! You'd better give up the ghost, man!"

His grim sarcasm failing to draw further fire from his desperate opponent, the senior constable reloaded wearily and settled down to what promised to be a long, danger-fraught vigil.



CHAPTER XIV

He "went out," poor Gus, at the break o' day—- Oh!—his kindly ways, and his cheery face! But . . . the Lord gave, and hath taken away, Hark! sounds "The Last Post," Requiescat in Pace! "THE LAST POST"

Slowly the night dragged through for the two grim, haggard sentinels. Thrice during their vigil had their desperate quarry exercised his marksmanship upon them with his deadly Luger. Seemingly only by a miracle did they escape each time. The sergeant had his hat perforated in similar fashion to his companions. Yorke had a shoulder-strap torn from his stable-jacket. Adroitly shifting their positions each time he fired, they greeted his shots with such withering blasts of carbine fire that they finally silenced their enemy's battery. Throughout he had remained as mute as a trapped wolf. Only an occasional cough indicated that so far, apparently, he was unharmed and, like them, still grimly on the alert.

Relief came to the two besiegers with the first streaks of dawn. Dr. Cox, with almost superhuman efforts, had somehow managed to reach Lanky Jones and the buckboard with the wounded Redmond. Swiftly conveying the latter back to the detachment, the physician had immediately got in touch with the night-operator at the station, and also MacDavid.

And now, guided by that old pioneer, Inspector Kilbride arrived upon the scene with an armed party from the Post. They had been rushed up by a special train, which had been flagged by MacDavid at the nearest objective point to Gully's ranch.

Swiftly and warily they skirmished towards their objective. Half of the party, under a sergeant, crept along below the sheltering river bank where they soon joined the wearied, but still vigilant, Yorke. The rest, under the inspector, making a wide detour of the ranch, gained the brush on its eastern side. Among this last party were Hardy, McSporran and McCullough. In extended order they glided through the thick scrub and, reaching its fringe, flung themselves prone with their carbines held in readiness.

The inspector gradually wormed himself up beside Slavin who, in a few tense whispers, acquainted his superior with all details of the situation. Full well, both men realized what a perilous spot it was, for all concerned, on the eastern front of the shack. Straining their eyes in the gray, ghostly gloom they could just discern an open casement. Apparently it was from this well-sheltered embrasure that Gully had previously attempted to pick off Slavin. With the coming of daylight their position would be absolutely untenable in the face of further fire from the enemy. On the other hand, if they retreated further into the scrub they would lose sight of their objective altogether.

So much Kilbride intimated to the sergeant as they held whispered consultation. Also, he imparted reassuring news anent Redmond. The latter's injury, though serious, was not a mortal hurt, according to a report from MacDavid, who had left the doctor watching his patient closely at the detachment.

Suddenly, a few paces to the right of where they lay, came the sound of one of the party stealthily clearing his throat. Poor fellow! his momentary lack of caution proved to be his death warrant.

Crack! A spurt of flame leapt from the velvety-black square of casement. The horrid, unforgetable cry of a man wounded unto death echoed the shot, and the startled besiegers could hear their comrade threshing around amongst the dead leaves in his agony.

"Steady, men! steady now! don't expose yourselves!" yelled the inspector. "Fire at that window, while I get to this man!—keep me covered!"

His commands were eagerly obeyed. Sheltered by the roaring burst of carbine fire he wriggled sideways in feverish haste and eventually gained the stricken man. The latter's convulsive threshing of limbs had ceased and an instant's examination convinced the inspector that Gully's random shot had been fatal.

For awhile the besiegers poured in brisk volleys upon the door and windows, until the inspector gave the command to "Cease Fire!" Suddenly—mockingly—hard upon the last shot, the echoes of which had barely died away, came again the vicious, whip-like crack of the Luger; this time from the southern end of the shack. The long-drawn, nerve-shattering scream of the first casualty was duplicated, and a carbine volley crashed from the river bank.

Then up from the attacking party swelled an exceeding bitter, angry cry; the grim, deadly exasperation of men goaded to the point of recklessly attempting ruthless reprisal upon their hidden enemy. With a total disregard of personal safety many of them sprang up out of cover, as if to charge upon their hated objective.

"As you were! Back, men! back!" rang out the deep, imperious voice of Kilbride. The stern command checked the onrush of maddened men. "D'you hear me?" he thundered, "Take cover again immediately—everyone. . . . I'll give the word when to rush him, and that's not yet."

It said much for the discipline of the Force that his commands were obeyed, albeit in somewhat mutinous fashion. The inspector turned to Slavin with fell eyes. "Christ!" he said, "there's two men gone! I won't chance any more lives in this fashion! I'll give him ten minutes to surrender and if he don't give up the ghost then . . . . I'll do what an emergency like this calls for—what I came prepared to do, if necessary. Sergeant! take charge of this side until further orders; I'm going down the bank to the other party awhile."

He stole away through the brush and presently they all heard his stentorian tones ring out from the river bank. "Gully! oh, Gully! It's Inspector Kilbride speaking. I'll give you ten minutes to come out and give yourself up. If you don't—well! . . . I've got a charge of dynamite here . . . and a fuse, and I'll blow you and your shack to hell, my man. It's up to you—now!"

There was no response to the inspector's ultimatum. Amidst dead silence the prescribed time slowly passed. Fifteen minutes—then, a gasping murmur of excitement arose from those on the eastern front, as in the rapidly whitening dawn they saw Kilbride suddenly reappear around the northern and blank end of the building. For some few moments they watched his actions in awe-struck, breathless silence as, with bent back, he busied himself with his dangerous task.

Presently he straightened up. "Now! Look out, everybody!" he bawled. He struck a match and applied it to something that immediately began to splutter, and then he retreated a safe distance northward. All eyes were glued, as if fascinated, to the deadly, sputtering fuse. Soon came the dull, muffled roar of an explosion. The walls of the building sagged outwards, the roof caved in, and the whole structure seemed to collapse like a pack of cards, amid a cloud of dust.

For some few seconds the party gazed fearfully at the work of destruction; then a loud cheer went up, and with one accord all dashed forward, filled with eager, morbid curiosity as to what they might find buried beneath the ruins.

Suddenly, midway between the brush and their objective they checked their onrush and halted, staring in speechless amazement. Pushing his way up, apparently from some hole beneath a pile of debris, appeared the figure of a huge man.

In their excitement the attackers had overlooked the possibility of a cellar existing below the stone foundation of the dwelling. At this juncture the party from the river bank was rapidly approaching the ruins from its western side. The posse was in a dilemma. Neither party dare fire at its quarry between them for fear of hitting each other.

Gully apparently either did not realize the situation or did not care. With face convulsed with passion, beyond all semblance to a human being, he crouched and rushed the party on the eastern side of his wrecked home, firing as he came. Badly hit, several of his assailants were speedily hor de combat, among them, Hardy and McCullough. The whole incident happened in quicker time than it takes to relate.

Then, from out the startled crowd there sprang a man. It was Slavin. His hour had come. There was something appalling in the spectacle of the two gigantic men rushing thus upon each other. Suddenly, Gully tripped over a log and fell headlong, his deadly gun flying from his grasp. With a sort of uncanny, cat-like agility he scrambled to his feet and strove to recover his weapon. He was a fraction of a second too late. A kick from Slavin sent it whirling several yards away, and the next moment the opponents were upon each other.

At the first onslaught the issue of the combat seemed doubtful. The ex-sheriff was no wrestler like Slavin, but he speedily demonstrated that he was a boxer, as well as a gun-man. Cleverly eluding the grasp of his powerful assailant for the moment, twice he rocked Slavin's head back with fearful left and right swings to the jaw. With a bestial rumbling in his throat, the sergeant countered with a pile-driving punch to the other's heart; then, ducking his head to avoid further punishment, he grappled with the murderer. Roaring inarticulately in their Berserker rage, the pair bore a closer resemblance to a bear and a gorilla than men.

Once in that terrible grip, however, Gully, big and powerful man though he was, had not the slightest chance with a wrestler of Slavin's ability. Shifting rapidly from one cruel hold to another the huge Irishman presently whirled his antagonist up over his hip and sent him crashing to the ground, face downwards. Then, kneeling upon the neck of his struggling and blaspheming victim, he held him down until handcuffs finally imprisoned the enormous wrists, and leg-irons the ankles.

The grim, long-protracted duel was over at last. But at lamentable cost. Two men killed outright, and five badly wounded had been the deadly toll exacted by Gully in his last, desperate stand.

The rays of the early morning shone upon a strange and solemn scene. Gully, guarded by two constables, was seated upon the stone foundation that marked the site of his wrecked dwelling. Head in hands, sunk in a sort of stupor, his attitude portrayed that of a man from whom all earthly hope had fled. Some distance away lay the wounded men, being roughly, but sympathetically attended to by their comrades. All were awaiting now the arrival of the coroner, and also the means of transportation which the inspector had ordered MacDavid to requisition for them.

Presently came those who reverently bore the dead upon hastily-constructed stretchers. Silently Inspector Kilbride indicated a spot near the fringe of brush; and there, side by side, they laid them down, covering the bodies with a blanket dragged from the debris of the shattered dwelling.

Bare-headed, the rest of the party gathered around their officer. Long and sadly Kilbride gazed down upon the still forms outlined under their covering. Twice he essayed to speak, but each time his voice failed him.

"Men!" he said at last huskily, as if to himself. "Men! is this what I have brought you into? . . . Is this—"

He choked, and was silent awhile; then; "Oh!" cried he suddenly, "God knows! . . . under the circumstances I used the best judgment I—"

But Slavin broke in and laid a tremulous hand on his superior's shoulder. "No! no! Sorr! . . . hush! for th' love av Christ! . . . Ye must not—" the soft Hibernian brogue sank to a gentle hush—"niver fear . . . for thim that's died doin' their juty! . . . 'Tis th' Peace, Sorr—th' Peace everlastin' . . . for Hornsby an' Wade. They were good men. . . ."

Yorke bent down and, drawing back a fold of the blanket, exposed two still white faces. In the centre of Hornsby's forehead all beheld Gully's terrible sign-manual. Wade had been shot through the throat.

"Hornsby!" gasped Yorke brokenly, "poor old Gus Hornsby!" . . . He turned a tired, drawn face up to Slavin's. "He was with us in the Yukon, Burke. Remember how we used to rag him when he first came to us as a cheechaco buck? But the poor beggar never used to get sore over it . . . always seemed sort of . . . patient . . . and happy . . . no matter how we joshed him. . . ."

Gently he replaced the blanket, stared stupidly a moment at the grim, haggard face of his sergeant, then he burst out crying and wandered away from the sad scene.



CHAPTER XV

That very night, while gentle sleep The people's eyelids kiss'd, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walk'd between, With gyves upon his wrist. "THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM"

Slowly the memorable June day had drawn to a close, and now darkness had set in and the moon shone brightly down upon the old detachment of Davidsburg. It had been a strenuous day for Inspector Kilbride and his subordinates, as many details of the eventful case had to be arranged ere they could leave with their prisoner on the night's train for the Post.

The inspector's first care, naturally, had been the slow and careful conveyance of the wounded men (Redmond included)—and the dead—down to the special train which still awaited them on the Davidsburg siding. The bulk of the party departed with them, the officer retaining Slavin, Yorke, and McSporran. A coroner's inquest, held that afternoon upon the remains of the unfortunate hobo, Drinkwater, had resulted in a verdict of "wilful murder" being returned against Ruthven Gully. Two days later, at the Post, similar verdicts were rendered in the cases of poor Hornsby and Wade.

Throughout the day Gully had remained in a sort of sullen, brooding stupor. But now, with the coming of night, he seemed to grow restless—pacing within the narrow confines of his cell like unto a trapped wolf, his leg-shackles clanking at every turn. Seated outside the barred door, McSporran maintained a close and vigilant guard. It wanted four hours yet until train time and inside the living-room the inspector, Slavin, and Yorke were beguiling the interval in low-voiced conversation.

"Strange thing, Sergeant," remarked Kilbride musingly, "I can't place him now, but I'll swear I've seen this man, Gully, before; somewhere back of beyond, I guess. I've been in some queer holes and corners on this globe in my time—long before I ever took on the Force. Seems he has, too, from what you and Yorke have told me. D——d strange! . . . I've got a fairly good memory for faces but—"

He broke off and looked enquiringly at McSporran, who had silently entered just then. "What is it, McSporran?"

"Gully, Sirr!" responded the constable, saluting. "He wad wish tu speak wi' ye, Sirr."

The inspector's face hardened, and his steely eyes glittered strangely as he heard the news. For a brief space he remained, chin in hand, in deep thought; then rising, he sauntered slowly over to the prisoner's cell.

"What is it you want, Gully?" he said quietly.

"Kilbride—Inspector!" came the great rumbling bass through the bars. "If you keep me cooped up in this pen much longer . . . I tell you! . . . you'll have me slinging loose in the head—altogether!" He uttered a mirthless, wolf-like bark of a laugh. "My ears are keener than your memory—I heard you speaking just now. Listen!—" a curiously wistful note crept into his deep tones, for the inspector had made an angry, impatient gesture—"Listen, Kilbride! . . . I'm gone up—I know it—therefore, if I sing my 'swan song' now or later, it can matter little one way or the other; and I would rather sing it to you and Slavin and Yorke there than to anyone else. Before I am through, you all may—shall we say—p'raps judge me a trifle less harshly than you do now. Regard this as . . . practically the last request of a man who is as good as dying . . . that—I be allowed to sit amongst you once more . . . and talk, and talk, and ta—"

His voice broke, and he left the sentence unfinished. For some few seconds the inspector remained motionless, with bent head, just looking—and looking—in deep, reflective silence at the doomed man who importuned him.

"Am I to understand that you wish to make a statement, Gully?" he said, in even, passionless tones. "Remember!—you've been charged and warned, man—whatever you say'll be used in evidence against you at your trial."

The other, hesitating a moment, swallowed nervously in his agitation.

"Yes," he said huskily, "I know—but that's all right! . . . As I said before—it can make little or no difference . . . in my case. . . ."

Turning, Kilbride silently motioned to McSporran to unlock the cell-door.

The huge manacled prisoner emerged, and shuffled awkwardly towards the inner room, closely attended by his armed escort.

Slavin and Yorke, seated together at one end of the table, arose as Gully entered. Standing curiously still, as if carved in stone, their bitter eyes alone betraying their emotions, silently they gazed at the huge, gaunt, unkempt figure that came shambling towards them.

Gully halted and stared long and fixedly at the relentless faces of the two men whose grim, dogged vigilance had led to his undoing. Over his blood-streaked, haggard face there swept the peculiar ruthless smile which they knew so well; and he raised his manacled hands in a semblance of a salute.

"Morituri te salufant!" he muttered in his harsh, growling bass—the speech nevertheless of an educated man.

"Eh, fwhat?" queried Slavin vaguely. The classical allusion was lost on him, but Kilbride and Yorke exchanged a grim, meaning smile as they recalled the ancient formula of the Roman arena. McSporran pushed forward a chair, into which Gully dropped heavily. Chin cupped in hands, and elbows resting on knees he remained for a space in an attitude of profound thought. The inspector, resuming his chair at the table, motioned his subordinates to be seated, and reached forward for some writing materials.

"All right, now, Gully!" he began, in a hard, metallic tone. "What is it you wish to say?" All waited expectantly.

Apparently with an effort Gully roused himself out of the deep reverie into which be had sunk, and for a space he gazed with blood-shot eyes into the calm, stern face of his questioner. Then, with a sort of dreamy sighing ejaculation, he roused himself and, leaning back in his chair, began the following remarkable story. He spoke in a recklessly earnest manner and with a sort of deadly composure that startled and impressed his hearers in no little degree.

"Listen, Inspector," he said. "A good deal of the story I'm going to tell you has no bearing on the—the—the—case in hand. There's no use in you taking all this down. I understand procedure"—he smiled wanly—"therefore, with your permission I'll go ahead, and you can construct a brief statement on your own lines afterwards, which I will sign."

Kilbride bowed his head in assent to the other's request.

"The name I bear now," began the prisoner,—"'Ruthven Gully'—is my real name, though knocking around the world like I've been since I was a kid of sixteen, and the many queer propositions I've been up against in my time, why—I've found it expedient to use various aliases.

"For instance"—he eyed the inspector keenly—"I wasn't known as 'Gully' that time Cronje nailed us all at Doornkop, Kilbride, in 'ninety-six. . . ."

Kilbride uttered a startled oath. Shaken out of his habitual stern composure he stared at the man before him in sheer amazement. "Good God!" he cried, "The 'Jameson Raid!' . . . Now I know you, man!—you're—you're—wait a bit! I've got it on the tip of my tongue—Mor—Mor—Mordaunt, by gad! . . . that's what you called yourself then. Ever since I sat with you on that case I've been turning it over in my head where in ever I'd fore-gathered with you before. It was your moustache which fooled me—you were clean-shaven then. . . Well, Well! . . ."

He was silent awhile, overcome by the discovery. "Aye!" he resumed in an altered voice, "I've got good cause to remember you, Mor—Gully, I mean. You certainly saved my life that day . . . when we were lying in that donga together. I was hit pretty bad, and you stood 'em off. You were a wonderful shot, I recollect. I saw you flop out six Doppers—one after the other."

He turned to Slavin. "Sergeant!" he said quietly, "You'd better leave the leg-irons on, but remove his handcuffs—for the time-being, anyway. . . ." He addressed himself to the prisoner with a sort of sad sternness. "It's little I can do for you now, Gully . . . but I can do that, at least. . . ."

Slavin complied with his officer's request. Gully's huge chest heaved once, and he bowed his head in silent acknowledgment of Kilbride's act of leniency.

"All right! go ahead, Gully!" said the latter.

The prisoner took up his tale anew. "As I was saying—I left the Old Country when I was sixteen. No need to drag in family troubles, but . . . that's why. . . . Well! I hit for the States. Montana for a start off, and it sure was a tough state in 'seventy-four, I can tell you. That's where I first learned to handle a gun. I knocked around between there and Wyoming and Arizona for about nine years, and during that time I guess I tackled nearly every kind of job under the sun, but I punched and rode for range outfits mostly.

"Then I was struck with a fancy to see the South, and I drifted to Virginia. I'd been there about two years, working as an overseer on a tobacco plantation, when I got a letter from our family's solicitor recalling me home. My eldest brother had died, and the estate had passed on to me. Where, Inspector?—why, it was at Castle Brompton, a quiet little country town in Worcestershire.

"Well! I'd had a pretty rough training—living the life of a roustabout for so many years, and I guess I kind of ran amuck when I struck home. I played ducks and drakes with the estate, and the end of it was . . . I got heavily involved in debt. There seemed nothing for it but to up-anchor, and to sea again in my shirt. So, my fancy next took me to Shanghai, where I obtained a poorly-paid Civil Service job—in the Customs. I stuck that for about a year, and then I pulled out—disgusted. The next place I landed up in was, if anything, worse—the Gold Coast. From there I drifted to the Belgian Congo. I was there for nearly two years doing—well! perhaps it's best for me not to enter into details—we'll call it 'rubber.' It's a cruel country that—one that a man doesn't exactly stay in for his health, anyway; for a bad dose of fever nearly fixed me. It made me fed up with the climate and—the life. So I pulled out of it and went down country to the Transvaal. That's how I came to get mixed up in 'The Raid,' Inspector. I was in Jo'burg at the time it was framed up, so I threw in my lot with the rest of you.

"Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to go back to the States and the range life again. I was properly fed up with Africa. So—back I went there—to Montana again. I punched for one or two cow-outfits awhile, and then came a time when a deputation of citizens came and put it up to me if I'd take on the office of Deputy-Sheriff for —— County, where I happened to be working. I suppose the fact of my being a little more handy with a gun than most had impressed some of them. Things were running wild there just then, and for awhile I tell you, I was up against a rather dirty proposition. I and my guns certainly worked overtime for a stretch, till I got matters more or less ship-shape. I had the backing of the best people in the community luckily, and eventually I won out.

"Then—when the inevitable reaction set in with the peaceable times that followed, somehow I managed to get in bad with some of them. They had no more use for me or my guns. I was like a fish out of water. I decided to pull out, for a strange hankering to see England and my old home again came over me. So I resigned my office and headed back to the Old Country. . . ."

At this point in his narrative, Gully dropped his head in his hands and rocked wearily awhile ere continuing haltingly: "It was the mistake of my life—ever going back—to a civilized country. For a time I strove to conduct myself as a law-abiding British citizen—to conform to the new order of things, but—I had been amongst the rough stuff too long. I was out of my sphere entirely.

"One day, in a hotel at Leeds, I got into a violent quarrel with a man—fellow of the name of Hammond. It was over a woman. He insulted me—in front of a crowd of men at that—and finally he struck me. Hitherto I'd taken no back-down from any man living, and I guess I forgot myself then and kind of ran amuck—fancied I was back in Montana again. Consequence was—I threw down on him in front of this crowd and shot him dead.

"Of course I was arrested and charged with murder in the first degree; but as it was adduced at my trial that I'd received a certain amount of provocation, I was sent down for fifteen years. I'd done little over six months of my time in Barmsworth Prison when I and two of my fellow convicts framed up a scheme to escape. It takes too long to go into details how we worked it. I made my get-away, though I had to abolish a poor devil of a warder in doing so. The other two lost out. One got shot and the other was caught some days later—as I read in the papers.

"Well! I managed to reach the States again, and eventually came over this side of the line. As I had been convicted and sentenced under the alias which I had adopted while in England—my real name never coming out—I resumed my name of Gully again when I settled down here. My relatives, what few I possess, have never known of my conviction and imprisonment. All the time I was in England on my second trip I was clean-shaven, but on returning to the States I let my moustache grow once more. As you said, Kilbride—it is a very effectual disguise. Will one of you give me a drink, please? My mouth's pretty dry with all this talking."

Yorke got up and brought him a glass of water, and he drank it down with a murmur of thanks.

"Now!" he said, continuing his narrative: "I'm coming to the worst part of all. You'll all wonder I've not gone mad—brooding; but I've got to go through with it. When I settled down here I honestly did struggle hard to live down my past and start afresh with a clean sheet. I borrowed some money from an old ex-sheriff friend of mine in Montana—which loan, by the way, I have paid all back—every cent—and bought"—he gazed gloomily at Kilbride—"what was my home. But somehow . . . Fate seems to have dogged me and tripped me up in the end. Until last January everything was going well with me. As Slavin and Yorke here can testify . . . I was conducting myself fairly and squarely with all men.

"Then—one day Yorke brought that Blake and Moran case up in front of me. Both of these men I'd met before, but they didn't recognize me again—not absolutely. I usually contrived to keep pretty clear of them for reasons which will appear obvious later. I'm coming to that. Moran I recognised as a former Montana tough who used to hang around Havre—bronco-buster, cow-puncher, and tin-horn by turns. Many a time I've caught him sizing me up, in Cow Run and elsewhere—mighty hard, too, but he never seemed to be sure of me. Once he did chance a feeler, but I just twirled my moustache, a la Lord Tomnoddy, and bluffed him to a finish.

"Larry Blake"—a ruthless gleam flickered momentarily in Gully's deep-set, shadowy eyes—"Larry Blake, I recognized as the son of the Governor of Barmsworth Prison—old Gavin Blake. Sometimes this young fellow used to come around with his father, when the old gentleman was making his daily tour of inspection. I well remember the first time I saw him—young Larry. I was chipping stone in the quarry, amongst a gang, with a ball and chain on. I'd been in about two months then. The Governor was showing some visitors around, and his son was with him. They were staring at us like people do at wild animals in a show. I was pointed out to them, and my recent crime mentioned. I remember young Blake eying me with especial interest. He came out to Canada and hit these parts about two years after I'd located here.

"Well! now and again when we'd run across each other I'd find him looking at me in a queer, vague fashion, too; but I felt safe enough with him; like I did with Moran—until this case came up. After it was over, he and I happened to be alone, and, in a round-about way, he began asking me questions. He did it so clumsily, though, that my suspicions were aroused at once. Of course I bluffed him—or thought I had—easily for the moment, but one day I happened to be in the Post Office getting my mail when, amongst a bunch of letters on the counter I saw one addressed to 'Gavin Blake, Esq., Governor of Barmsworth Prison, England.' Old Kelly, the postmaster, having his back to me at the time, fumbling around the pigeon-holes, I promptly annexed this letter and slipped it into my pocket.

"When I opened it up my suspicions were verified. Young Blake wrote to his father that he'd come across a man whom he could almost swear to as being one of the three convicts who'd broken out of Barmsworth some years back. He asked what steps he'd better take in the case—if the original warrant issued for me could be forwarded to the Mounted Police, and so on. He said his intentions were to try and gain further evidence, and in the meantime to confide in no one about his suspicions until he received definite instructions what steps to take.

"I guess the devil must have got a good grip on me again after I'd read that letter. It seemed no use trying to redeem the past with outsiders like young Blake making it their business to butt in and lay one by the heels. Anyway, like Satan at prayers, I didn't feel like being coolly sacrificed when my years of honest effort were drawing near their reward in the shape of a fairly prosperous ranch—just at the whim of a lazy, profligate young busy-body.

"From that hour Larry Blake was practically—'gone up.' I'd deliberately made up my mind to put him out of business on the first convenient opportunity that presented itself. That opportunity came on the night he was fighting with Moran in the hotel. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. I'll admit it was a devilish idea, but I was desperate. Of course things didn't shape out as I'd planned—Moran's alibi for instance, or that hobo, Drinkwater.

"I know to you it will only appear sheer nonsense on my part ever to start in attempting to justify my—my abolishment of him. But this—what I am going to tell you—is the absolute truth of what happened. In the first place—when he spotted me bringing Moran's horse into the stable that night—although I was mad and man-handled the poor devil at the time—I felt fairly easy in my mind later, thinking he would drift out of town next day, after the manner of his kind. But when he was brought up in front of me afterwards, I realized the serious predicament I was in."

He turned to Slavin. "Sergeant!" he went on: "I'll admit I was feeling pretty queer when you were examining that man—especially about the smelling of drink business. I'd slipped him a snort of whiskey after you'd gone down to Doctor Cox's to get those papers signed. I told him to keep his mouth shut if he was questioned about any horse or man—and that I'd get him off if he obeyed my instructions. Of course he didn't know what all this was for. He had no opportunity of knowing—never did know, though I fancy he thought it was a case of horse-stealing. Anyway, my promises and the drink made him my ally at once. Only human nature for him to side with me against the Police. As you know, Sergeant, you can get more definite results from that class of man by a drink bribe than by all the threats and promises in the world.

"My original intention in taking him out to my place was to slip him twenty dollars or so, and head him adrift westward, and so out of things. But after we got home and I put the proposition up to him, the beggar began to assert himself and get bold and saucy—tried to blackmail me for an unheard of amount—threatening he'd go and tell you everything if I didn't come across, and all that. Finally I lost my temper with him and gave him a good slap across the face. He happened to be outside the house bucking wood at the time, and, when I hit him, he came for me with the axe. I only jumped back just in time, as he struck. I threw down on him and put him out of business right-away then, realizing I was up against it."

Gully halted for a space and leaned his head in his hands. "God!" he muttered presently, "what nights I've had! I've killed many men in my time, but those two—I hated framing up all that business on you fellows next day—those tracks and the bill-folder, and all that useless chasing for a week, but it seemed to me to be the only plausible bluff I could run on you, under the circumstances. Now, are there any more things you don't understand? Any questions you'd like to ask me?"

"Yes!" queried Slavin. "How did you get to Calgary that night—after you'd missed the nine-thirty eastbound. Jump a freight, or what? You were seen to get on the train. . . ."

"I know that," said Gully slowly, "I did it for a blind. I walked through the coaches and slipped out again at the far end of the platform—in the dark. No! I didn't jump a freight, Sergeant. I was tempted to; but on second thoughts the idea made me feel kind of uneasy. Perhaps you'll be dubious of this, but, as a fact, I took a 'tie-pass'—walked it all the way to Calgary on the track. I was about done when I made Shagnappi Point, beating my passage through all that snow. I bought a new pair of cow-puncher's boots while I was in town. You remember I was wearing them when I returned. I had the overshoes wrapped up as a parcel and packed them back to the ranch and burnt them—and Drinkwater's boots."

"How about that Savage automatic?" said Yorke, "the one you shot those dogs with yesterday? We've got your Luger, but where's the Savage gun?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Gully wearily, "of course I had two guns. I never used to pack the Luger around—afterwards, well! . . . for obvious reasons. You'll probably find the Savage in the cellar at my place—that's if it isn't buried, like I nearly was."

There was a long silence, broken only by the scratch, scratch, of the inspector's pen, as he rapidly indited a formal statement for the prisoner to sign. Once during its composition he halted for a brief space and, leaning back in his chair, gazed long with a sort of dreary sternness at the huge, unkempt figure before him.

"Gully," he said slowly, "whatever in God's name put it into your head to stand off the Police in the way you did? Shooting those two poor chaps and nearly putting the kibosh on five others! Whatever did you hope to gain by it? You must have known it was absolutely impossible for you to make your get-away from us. Why, man! we had you cornered like a wolf in a trap. It was worse than silly and useless and cruel for you to act in the way you did!"

"Oh, my God! I don't know!" moaned Gully, rocking despondently with his head in his hands. "I must have gone clean mad for the time being. . . ." He gazed gloomily at Slavin and Yorke, muttering half to himself: "What little things do trip a man up in the end! The best laid schemes o' mice and men! But for my shooting those cursed dogs yesterday you'd never, never have suspected me. The whole thing would just have been filed and forgotten in time—would just have remained one of those unfathomable mysteries. Directly after I'd thrown down on those curs I realized what a d——d bad break I'd made—what my momentary loss of temper was going to cost me. I could tell by the way you all looked at me what was in your minds. . . ."

"Yes, but how about that fishing expedition of ours, Gully?" said Yorke. "You seem to have forgotten that." And he related the story of Redmond's dive.

"Ah!" retorted Gully, bitterly. "And yet you might have got snagged a hundred times there and only just cursed and snapped your line and reeled in, thinking it was a log or something. . . . Well, as I was saying, I realized the jig was up after that dog business, and directly I got home I began making preparations for my get-away last night. If you'd all only have come half an hour later than you did—That's what made me so mad—just another half hour later, mind you, and I would have been away—en route for the Coast by the night train."

Presently Kilbride threw aside his pen and straightened up. "Now, listen, Gully!" he said. And he read out the confession that he had composed from the main facts of the prisoner's remarkable statement.

"Yes!" muttered Gully thoughtfully, as the inspector finished. "Yes, that will do, Kilbride. Give me the pen, please, and I will sign it. . . ."

He proceeded to affix his signature, continuing with a sort of deadly composure: "I have endorsed and executed many death-warrants in my time—in my capacity of Deputy-Sheriff—I little thought that some day I might be called upon to sign my own . . . which this document virtually is. . . ."

He reared himself up to his huge, gaunt height, and with a sweeping glance at his captors added: "Nothing remains for me now I imagine, but to shake hands with—Radcliffe.[1] . . ."

And his dreadful voice died away like a single grim note of a great, deep-toned bell, tolled perchance in some prison-yard.

"Eshcorrt! Get ready!" boomed out Sergeant Slavin's harsh command. The party was on the station platform. Yorke and McSporran fell in briskly on either side of their heavily-manacled prisoner, and stood watching the distant lights of the oncoming east-bound train as it rounded the Davidsburg bend.

One last despairing glance Gully cast about him at the all familiar surroundings, then he raised his fettered hands on high and lifted up his great voice:

"I have striven! I have striven!—and now!—Oh! there is no God! Bear witness there is no God! No God! . . ." he cried to the heavens.

The wild, harsh, dreadful blasphemy rang far and wide out into the night, floating over the nearby river and finally dying away a ghastly murmur up among the timber-lined spurs of Crag Canon.

And a huge, gaunt lobo wolf, lying at the crest of the draw, flung up his gray head and howled back his awful note—seemingly in echo: "There is no God! no God!"

[1] Note by Author—Canada's official executioner at this period.



CHAPTER XVI

"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try—" "Never say that," said the Surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh: "Chuck a brace, for it won't do, man, for a soldier to say die!" "What you say don't make no diffrunce, Doctor, an'—you wouldn't lie. . . ." "THE OLD SERGEANT"

"Git there! Come a-Haw-r-r, then! Whoa!" With a flourish, Constable Miles Sloan, the Regimental Teamster, swung the leaders of his splendid four-in-hand and pulled up at the front entrance of the Holy Cross Hospital. Slewing around on his high box-seat he addressed himself to the drag's occupants, Slavin and Yorke.

"I don't know whether they will let you see him, or not," he remarked doubtfully, "he's a pretty sick man."

"We will chance ut, anyway," mumbled Slavin, as he and Yorke climbed out of the rig. "Ye'd best wait awhile, Miles! We shan't be long."

Quietly—very quietly, Sister Marthe opened the door of room Number Fifty-six, and with list-slippered noiselessness stepped out into the corridor.

"Oh, Mon Dieu!" she ejaculated, startled at the sudden apparition of two scarlet-coated figures standing motionless outside the door, "Oh, m'sieurs, 'ow you fright me!" and the expressive eyes under the white coif and the shoulders and supple hands of the French-Canadian Nursing-Sister made great play.

Yorke saluted her with grave courtesy. "Sister," he said anxiously, "how is Constable Redmond doing? Can we see him?"

She glanced irresolutely a moment at the handsome, imploring countenance of the speaker, and then her gaze flickered to his huge companion. The silent, wistful appeal she read in the latter's grim, cadaverous face decided her.

"Eheu!" she said softly, "'e is a ver' seeck man . . . but come then, m'sieurs, if you wish it!"

Cautiously they tip-toed into the room behind her.

Yes! They decided, he was a "seeck" man all right! So sick that he could not raise his flushed, hollow-cheeked young face from the pillow to salute his comrades with his customary impious bonhomie. Now, gabbling away to himself in the throes of delirium, ever his feverish eyes stared beyond the hospital-walls westwards to Davidsburg.

With his brow contracted with an expression of vague worry, he was living over and over again the memorable night in which he had gotten his wound.

"Slavin!—Yorkey!" he kept repeating, in tones of such yearning entreaty that moved those individuals more than they cared to show. Yes, they were both of them there, standing by the side of his cot; but the poor sufferer's unseeing eyes betrayed no recognition.

The deep sorrow that oppressed Slavin and Yorke just then those worthies rarely—if ever—alluded to afterwards. Passing the love of women is the unspoken, indefinable spirit of true comradeship that exists between some men.

For one brief, soul-baring moment the comrades stared at each other, their self-conscious faces reflecting mutually their inmost feelings; then Yorke turned to Sister Marthe.

"What does the Doctor say?" he whispered anxiously.

The nurse was about to make answer when the door was softly opened and that gentleman entered the room, accompanied by Captain Bargrave and Inspector Kilbride.

Involuntarily, from long habit of discipline, Slavin and Yorke, stiffened to "attention" in the presence of their superiors, until, with a kindly, yet withal slightly imperious gesture, the O.C. mutely signified them to relax their formal attitude. The Regimental Surgeon, Dr. Sampson, a tall, gray-moustached, pleasant-faced man, nodded to them familiarly and proceeded to make minute examination of his patient's wound. From time to time he questioned and issued low-voiced instructions to Sister Marthe. Perfectly motionless, the grave-eyed quartette of policemen stood grouped around the cot, silently awaiting the physician's verdict.

Throughout, poor Redmond had continued to toss and rave incessantly. Much of his babbling was incoherent and fragmentary—breaking off short in the middle of a sentence or dying away in a mumbling, indistinct murmur. At intervals though, his voice rang out with startling clearness.

"Ah-a-a! Here he is!" he cried out suddenly, "Gully!"—all eyes were centred on the flushed, unquiet face and restless hands. There seemed a curious, morbid fascination in watching the workings of that sub-conscious mind. "No use, Gully! You can't make it from there!"—the twitching hands made a motion as of levelling a carbine—"No use, man! I've got you covered. . . . You' better give in! . . ."

He paused for a space, panting feverishly, then his eyes became wilder and his speech more rapid.

"No! no! Gully!" he gasped out imploringly, "it's Yorkey, I tell you—oh, don't pick off Yorkey! . . . Drink? . . ."—the unnaturally bright eyes stared unseeingly at the motionless figure of the O.C., standing at the foot of the cot—"Not so much—now—since—looking after him. . . . Not a bad chap. . . . We fought once. . . . Yes, Sir! . . . had—hell of a fight! . . . Pax? . . . sure!—bless you!—buried ruddy hatchet—auld lang syne—Slavin. . . . St. Agnes' Eve! . . . How he sings—! Oh, shut up, Yorkey!—Sings, I tell you—! Hark! . . . that's him singin' now—Listen! . . . What? . . . it's Stevenson's 'Requiem'. . . . Burke! Burke! . . . the ——'s always singin' that . . . goes—"

And the weak, fretful voice shrilled up in a quavering falsetto—

"Under the wide—and—starry sky Dig—the grave, and—let me—lie; Glad did I—live, and—gladly die, And I laid—me down with—a w——"

The shaky, pitiful tones died away in vague, incoherent mumblings.

Yorke uttered a queer choking sound in his throat, and turned his face away from the little group. Slavin, in silent comprehending sympathy, laid a huge hand on the other's shoulder to steady him. In customary British fashion, the O.C. and the Inspector strove to mask their emotions under an exaggerated grimness of mien, only their eyes betraying their feelings. The former, toying with his sweeping, fair moustache in agitated fashion, gazed drearily around the sick-room till his stern, yet kindly old eyes finally came to rest upon a framed scriptural quotation which was hanging on the wall above the head of the cot.

In corpulent, garish, black, red and gold German text the inscription ran:

At even, when the sun was set, The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay; Oh in what divers pains they met! Oh in what joy they went away!

Abstractedly, the old soldier read and re-read the verse till his eyes ached, and he was forced to lower them and meet the tell-tale ones of Kilbride.

The Doctor, with a final satisfied scrutiny of his patient's wound, which he had laid bare, bade the nurse dress it afresh, then, beckoning to the others, he withdrew from the room, followed by the O.C. and his subordinates. The Doctor's first words reassured them in no little degree.

"Oh, I've good hopes of him," he said. "He seems to be doing all right. He'll pull around—that is, unless any unforeseen complications set in. It's that journey down here yesterday that's upset him. Absolutely necessary under the circumstances, of course, but—terribly hard on a man in his condition. I think it'll be best for nobody to visit him—for awhile anyway . . . must be kept as quiet as possible. Well! let's have a look at the others!"

The remaining wounded men occupied a large, semi-private ward lower down the corridor. Of these last Hardy's case was by far the most serious. He had been shot through the body; the high-pressure Luger bullet luckily missing any vital organ. McCullough had been drilled through the calf of his left leg, Davis through the arm, and Belt had had the knuckles stripped from his right hand. All of them were resting quietly, though weak from loss of blood and the train journey,

The O.C. and Kilbride remained for a short time in the ward, manifesting much kindly sympathy for the injured men, then, deeming that perhaps the party was retarding the nurses' ministrations, the O.C. withdrew, beckoning his subordinates to follow him.

Slavin and Yorke walked slowly down the hospital steps and climbed into the Police drag again. Sloan gathered up his lines and swung around on his high seat.

"Hullo!" he remarked sleepily. "Here you are again, eh? Begun to think you were both in there for keeps! Well, did you see him?"

"Yes!" answered Yorke tonelessly, avoiding the teamster's eyes, "We've seen him. Home, James!"

Firm, measured footsteps sounded in the hospital corridor and halted with a jingle of spurs outside the door of room Number Fifty-six.

"Come aboard!" came the clear, boyish voice of its occupant, in response to a knuckle-tattoo on the panel, and the visitors, Slavin and Yorke, entered.

Redmond, sitting up in bed, comfortably propped with pillows, threw aside the magazine he had been reading and greeted the new-comers jovially and with a light in his eyes which did the hearts of those worthies good to see.

A month's careful nursing and absolute quiet had transformed their wounded comrade into a somewhat different being from the delirious patient they had beheld when last they stood in that room. Allowing for a slight emaciation and the inevitable hospital pallor, he appeared to be well on the road to convalescence.

"Sit at ease!" he said, with a fair semblance of his old grin. "Smoke up if you want to, they don't kick about it here. I've tried it but it tastes rotten as yet. Well! What's doin' in L?" (He referred to the Division.)

"Hell, yu' mane," corrected Slavin grimly, as he and Yorke proceeded to divest themselves of their side-arms and unbutton their tunics. "Not much doin' now, but—later, p'raps. . . ."

"Just got back from Supreme Court," explained Yorke. "Gully! . . . He's to be 'bumped off' this day-month. . . ."

There came a long, tense silence.

"G—-d!" broke out Yorke suddenly, arousing Redmond out of the deep reverie into which he had sunk on receipt of the news—"the look on that Eugene Aram face of his when the jury filed in and threw the book at him! I can't forget it somehow."

"Well! yeh want tu thin!" remarked Slavin bluntly. "Quit ut! . . . d'ju hear? . . . 'Tis no sort av talk, that, for a sick room. . . ."

And hereafter they all avoided the sinister subject.

Presently McCullough came limping in on his crutches, and ere long that wily individual succeeded with his customary ingenuity in inveigling the company into a facetious barrack-room argument. Later they commenced relating racy stories.

Slavin's deep-set eyes began to twinkle and glow, as he unburdened himself of a lengthy narrative concerning a furlough he had spent in his native land many years back, in which Ballymeen Races, a disreputable "welshing" bookmaker, himself, a jug of whiskey and a blackthorn stick were all hopelessly mixed in one grand Hibernian tangle.

"Beat ut, he did, over hedge an' bog an' ditch, wid all our money, th' dhirrty dog. But I cud run tu, in thim days, an' whin I caught up I shure did play a tchune on th' nob av um!" concluded the sergeant thoughtfully. In pursuance of his daily round of the wards, Dr. Sampson presently came swinging in amongst them and saluted the party with his usual breezy bonhomie. A universal favourite with the members of the Force his entry was acclaimed with delight. They promptly bade him sit down and contribute—a la Boccaccio—to their impromptu Decameron, which request he (sad to relate) complied with.

Amid the roar of laughter that greeted the Doctor's last bon mot, that gentleman looked ruefully at his watch and prepared to depart.

"Twenty past twelve!" he ejaculated, "and I've got four more patients to see yet. . . ! Behold the retarding influences of bad company!"

"Say, Doctor," enquired Yorke, "how's Hardy doing? Is he bucking up at all? He was pretty down in the mouth last time I saw him."

The Doctor's genial countenance clouded slightly. "Well, no!" he said, gravely, "he's not doing well at all. I've been rather worried over him lately. The man's relapsed into a curious state of inertia—seems incapable of being roused. Organically he's nothing to fear now; I'll stake my professional reputation on that. But when a man gets down like he is now, why, the mind often reacts on the body with serious results. If he was in a tropical climate he'd snuff out like a candle. That's all that's retarding his otherwise certain recovery now—if we could only——"

Here, McCullough, who had been an interested listener broke in. "Rouse him, Doctor?" he queried, "you say he wants rousing? . . . Is that all? . . . All right then! . . . I know him better than you do—I'll bet you I'll rouse him!" he concluded a trifle brutally.

And he swung off on his crutches and presently levered himself into the ward where Hardy lay.

In actual bodily recovery the latter's physical condition fully equalled Redmond's, but the brooding, listless demeanor of the patient confirmed only too well the Doctor's diagnosis. Now, sunk in the coma of utter dejection, Hardy was lying back on his pillows like a man weary of life.

Sometime earlier, in response to his earnest solicitations, he had been allowed to have his beloved parrot in hospital with him. All day long the disreputable-looking bird gabbled away contentedly as it climbed around in its cage, which had been placed on a small table alongside the cot.

McCullough's first move was to resort to the never-failing expedient of arousing the parrot's ire by puffing tobacco-smoke into its cage. Mechanically the outraged bird responded with a shocking blast of invective, winking rapidly its white parchment-lidded eyes and swinging excitedly to and fro on its perch.

Hardy admonished the joker—lethargically, but with a certain degree of malevolence in his weary tones.

"Aw, chack it, Mac!" he drawled. "W'y carn't yer let th' bleedin' bird alone? Yer know 'e don't like that bein' done t'im. Jes' 'awk t'im tellin' yer as much!"

McCullough turned on his crutches and leered awhile upon the speaker with a sort of mournful triumph, than he lifted up his voice in a very fair imitation of Hardy's own unmusical wail——

"Old soldiers never die, never die, never die, Old soldiers never die—they simply fade aw-ay."

"I don't think!" he concluded sotto voce to Davis, as that individual, sitting down on the next cot began preparing his wounded arm for the ministrations of Sister Marthe who had just entered the ward.

"No use!" McCullough rambled on. "I tell yu' th' man's as good as 'gone up.' Harry. . . . Well! I'll have old Kissiwasti when he pegs out anyway. I won't half smoke-dry th' old beggar then! I'll teach him to swear. . . !"

"Eh! . . . 'Ere, wot abaht it?"

The cockney's voice held no trace of lethargy now. The sharply-uttered, vindictive query was matched by the blazing eyes which were regarding the farrier-corporal with undisguised hostility.

"Wot abaht wot?" mimicked McCullough, though his heart smote him for the cold-blooded evasion.

"Wot abaht wot you sed abaht me. . . ?"

"Well, wot abaht it. . . ?"

Speechless with rage, for a moment Hardy gazed into the other's nonchalant mask-like visage, then, with a gesture of maniacal impotence, he raised his clenched fists high above his head.

Sister Marthe now judged it high time to intervene. During the enactment of this little tableau she had stood looking on in mute bewilderment. Despite her imperfect knowledge of English, and especially the vernacular, she had a shrewd intuition of what had passed between the two men.

Seizing McCullough by the arm, despite his protestations of injured innocence, she gently, but firmly, escorted him out of the ward.

"Vas! vas!—Now you go, M'sieu McCullough! . . . out of ze ward right-away! . . . Vat you say—vat you do—I do not know, but you 'ave excite 'im 'orrible! . . . Oh, pardonnez-moi, Docteur!" she ejaculated, as she bumped into that gentleman in the corridor.

"Hullo!" said the latter inquiringly, as he remarked the little nurse's flushed, angry face. "What's up, Sister Marthe?"

For answer, that irate lady pointed accusingly to McCullough. That worthy, his questionable experiment accomplished, was retreating up the corridor as fast as his crutches could carry him.

"First, Docteur," began the nurse indignantly, "'e blow smoke in ze eye of ze parrot, then 'e turn roun' to pauvre M'sieu 'Ardy an' 'e sing—oh, I 'ave not ze English, but 'e blague 'im so—

"Vieux soldats ne meurent! jamais! jamais! jamais! Vieux soldats ne meurent jamais!—ils simplement passent!"

"An' M'sieu 'Ardy 'e say: 'Vat about?' an' then 'e raise 'is two 'ands e Ciel—so! an' 'e tell Le Bon Dieu all about it. Oh, 'ow 'e pray! Ecoutez! Docteur! you can 'ear 'im now! . . ."

And awhile Doctor Sampson listened, a grim smile lurking around the corners of his firm mouth, as he leaned against the open door of the ward.

"Praying, Sister?" he ejaculated. "It's the queerest kind of praying I've ever heard. But is it him—or is it the parrot?"

Two days later he remarked to the O.C. and Kilbride: "I'm glad to be able to report a decided improvement in that man Hardy's condition. His pulse is stronger, his appetite is increasing and—he's beginning to grouse. That old ruffian of a farrier-corporal, McCullough, was right, begad!—he knew the man better than I did. As a general rule I'm inclined to be rather sceptical of such drastic experiments, but in certain cases, er—"

"Something of the sort might be beneficial if applied to young Redmond, too," remarked the O.C., testily. "He's down in the dumps now; though to give him his due . . . he tries hard not to show it whenever I happen to be in the hospital. Dudley, my Orderly-room sergeant, is leaving next month—time-expired—so I thought I was conferring a great favour on the boy by promising him the step-up—good staff appointment—give him a chance to recuperate thoroughly. But no!—my young gentleman courteously declines my munificent offer. Nothing must serve him but he must go back to me Irish 'ginthleman' and that d——d dissipated scamp of a Yorke."

"It's the spirit of comradeship," remarked Kilbride quietly. "If I might suggest, Sir, . . . I think it would be better if you do decide to let him go back there. They pull well together and do good work, those three."

"'Ullo, Reddy!" called out Constable Hardy, as he directed his wobbly steps towards the bench on the hospital balcony where George was seated, "'ow long 'ave you bin up 'ere? Th' O.C. an' Kilbride was round jes' now. You didn't see 'em, eh?"

"No," answered Redmond listlessly. And thereupon he relapsed into moody silence.

"Wy, wot's up?" enquired Hardy presently, scanning the other's downcast countenance. "Wot's th' matter wiv you, son? . . . you don't look 'appy! . . ."

"You bet I'm not, either!" burst out George suddenly. "The Old Man's offered me Dudley's job, but I don't want a staff job. I want to go back to Davidsburg. Who cares to be stuck around the Post?"

"Me for one!" retorted the old soldier grinning, "Jes' now, anyway. Listen, son! Th' Old Man 'e sez to me: ''Ardy!' 'e sez, 'you've bin 'it pretty bad and I find you deserve a softer class of dewty than goin' back t' prisoner's escort. I think I'll recommend you for Provo'-Sorjint, in charge o' th' Guard-room, w'en you're able t' return t' dewty,' 'e sez."

With an effort Redmond roused himself to the point of congratulating the Cockney upon his prospective promotion. He had no desire to act as a wet blanket on such an auspicious occasion as this, his own troubles notwithstanding.

"That ain't all," continued Hardy, with a gloating chuckle. "Th' Old Man, 'e sez 'Belt's bein' invalided, McCullough's gettin' 'is third stripe, an' Dyvis is goin' dahn t' th' Corp'ril's Class at Regina, but that there young Redmond worries me! I don't know wot t' do abaht 'im,' 'e sez—jes' like that—sorter kind-like—not a bit like th' O.C. o' a Division torkin' t' a buck private.

"'Beg yer pardon, Sir!' I sez, 'but if you let 'im go back t' Dyvidsburg I fink 'e'll be quite contented. Seems like 'e wants t' be wiv Sorjint Slavin an' Constable Yorke agin.'

"'Fink so?' sez 'e, pullin' 'is oweld moustache, 'I sure do, Sir,' I sez. 'So be it, then!' 'e sez, turnin' t' Kilbride, but th' Inspector 'e sez nothin':—'e on'y larfs. An' then they went away."

Redmond, giving vent to a delighted oath, came out of his sulks on the instant.

"Hardy!" he cried, "you're a gentleman! . . ."

"Nay!" was the other's disclaimer. "A dranken oweld soweljer, son . . . that's all."

But Redmond heard him not. With elbows resting upon the balcony-rail he was looking beyond the Elbow Bridge, beyond Shagnappi Point—westwards to Davidsburg, his face registering the supreme content of a man who had just attained his heart's desire.

THE END