Roger Pocock

“ As we slowed down to climb the Prince Albert hill, I looked back at that red splendor which had been Fort Carlton. Across the meadow, on snow that glowed like blood, some one was running, a woman who lugged a bundle and brandished an umbrella while her big bustle wagged from side to side. The sleigh was stopped and Mrs. Sarde climbed in.
So the long night retreat began, and as we gained the rim of the plains, we saw the first vedettes of the astounded rebels commence their swoop for plunder on what was left of Carlton. ”

“ Because we worship our Father up there above, because we obey Him, because we are what He made us, each man-child of the skies must protect his women from outrage, must fend for the weak and helpless, must guard the life he holds because it belongs to those who love and trust him, must hate betrayers, must despise a liar. That is the law above all other laws, above all chiefs, councils and tribes of men, which you must obey, big chief up there on the high seat, and you two warriors on guard, and you men who sit waiting to send me to death or slavery. ”

“ The chiefs formed my mounted escort as we rode through the camp, then past the Medicine Lodge, and that small booth where little Rain sat praying. The big empty meadow was before us now, and here on our right were all the people massed upon a hillside, the women and children like great beds of flowers, the men in clusters, mounted, their war-plumes at large upon the breeze. On our left, a solemn grove of trees in autumn gold curved with the blue lake into a haze of purple against the mighty cliffs and snow-fields of Mount Rising Wolf poised like a cloud in the windswept blue of heaven. ”

“ The Indian's holy ideal is to be, to learn from nature the upward way toward God.
The Indian sees the white man self-made, self-conscious, self-centered, self-sufficient, self-opinionated—all and entirely self. For this poor prisoner within the bars of self the windows of the soul have all been darkened, so that he can not see, or hear, or scent, or taste, or feel the world he lives in, Heaven's fairest province. Blinded and deafened, dulled, a groping creature, he is a specter haunting Paradise, waiting for death to reveal the glories which life has offered. ”

“ Why were the chiefs yelling as they closed round me? Like a hurricane, the Piegan warriors, thousands strong, came charging at me, firing at me, swirling round me with uproar, like tumbling waters—distant waters—the rush of some far-away rapids—or rain at night When my head cleared, the head chief, in a blaze of passion, was roaring at the mob: "Silence! Fall back! Who fights my son, fights me!
"Silence! Silence! Hear me! That liar defamed his woman, fouled his own lodge, slandered the holy servant of the Sun, insulted God—and died! ”

“ At midnight Poggles and Rich Mixed, who were to remain in charge at Slide-out, awakened us for tea and ah—refreshments. By one o'clock A.M., Buckie and I helped hoist the ponderous detective on to his roomy chargah. On through that starry night we slung long miles behind us, then shivering in the dawn chill, let our horses graze until there was light enough for reading tracks. We seemed to breathe the pale fine gold of the East like some divine draught which gives perpetual youth, to stand upon a floor of living gold as wide as heaven, to wait for the sun as though God were about to rise. ”

“ It is an axiom that ignorance of the law excuseth no man; but, gentlemen, an axiom, like a diamond, may be hard, impure and flawed. How can we expect this savage to comprehend our statutes, obey our ordinances and enjoy our liberties? And yet, apart altogether from the customs of our people expressed in common law, deep down at the foundation of all human life, is that instinctive universal wisdom which proclaims that for the common good the slayer should be slain. Even the plea of native red Indian custom condemns this man, surrendered by his tribesmen to our justice. ”

“ The woman might be Sarde's wife, or Sarde's discarded mistress, for all I cared, but not the Marchioness of the Alpuxarras to tarnish the old and lovely memories of my house. Rank is a responsibility, at times a burden, a thing we try to forget in our private life, not to be soiled in the filthy conversation of camp or barrack, not to be tarnished by a woman of doubtful character. Unless I could pass my knighthood on to the sons of a gentlewoman, the succession would go to my brother. ”

“ Sarde's—into temptation. Worse than that, the presence of Rams profaned a landscape ineffably pure and sacred in its wild beauty. The hot air quivered with perfume under the fir trees of that open forest, the birds rang out ecstatic little songs, canaries flaunted their topaz from tree to tree, and humming-birds, each like an emerald in a mist, hovered among the flowers.
We Spaniards make an art of living, quick in every fiber to live, to love, to worship, to sin, to suffer; but, alas, so many are religious, monks and nuns mewed up in convents instead of breeding children. ”

“ If an Indian attacks a white woman, you kill him. That is good. If a white man attacks my wife, I kill him. Is that wrong? When I heard her calling to me for help, should I leave her to her fate and fetch a policeman? Would you? The bears and cougars, the wolves and dogs know better than that. Are you lower than the common curs of the camp—you who dare to blame a man for his manhood? Shame on you, your court, your laws which defend the filthy beast I killed, and condemn me for being a man!
"I killed this beast with an ax, too late to save my wife. ”

“ Not innocent, not a coward, but one who has earned a great death. If I were innocent, I should deserve hanging, or slavery in a prison. I do not plead to women or children but surely to men, brave with the natural valor which comes to us from Heaven, careful of honor. So I pray you take me out into the sunshine, and pay me the death I earned, the death you owe me, with rifles.
"See"—his voice was a mere whisper now—"the rain has stopped, the shadow of the rain has passed, the Sun God lights the rain-drops, even the dirty little rain-drops along the window-frame. ”

“ Then, looking back, I saw the Rocky Mountains, angels of clear flame, kneel on a wall of tenderest violet. No poet's dream brings me so near to Heaven as the plains at daybreak.
We had been waiting on a ripple of the prairie for light enough to read a little winding trail. Before the sun rose, we saw. Two shod horses, attended by a pack pony shod only on the fore, traveling swiftly, by night, and blundering through sage-brush, had passed on the way to Beauclerc's. We followed, rolling our tails for Hand Creek which we made by half past ten. The ranch was empty. ”

“ He told me that Rain was always at his side, that she would stroke his hair and give delicious mimicry of my voice and manner. "I begin to see," he said, "through veils which grow thin toward the light.
"You know, Buckie, that when a gun is fired, or lightning flashes miles and miles away, you wait and count the seconds until you hear the crash. There's not really an instant between flash and bang, but we have an illusion which we call time. It does not exist. Time's only a thing we imagine: the pause between flash and bang." ”

“ Buckie proved right in all that he had told me. Within the week we marched, some sixteen men, mostly green recruits, each driving a one-horse sled known as a jumper, laden with forage, bedding, kit, camp gear, grub and even fire-wood. As on a sea voyage, there was nothing to be had by the wayside, so our jumpers were laden like so many little ships, as our flotilla drove on the great snows. The mercury was frozen, and at the Salt Plains, it was sixty degrees below zero, rough travel for Mrs. Sarde in her sleigh-tent, not comfortable for us. ”

“ If you want war, don't be surprised at the killing. Hear the low thunder rolling, see the air quiver with white light: the flash and roar of storms come out of clouds, the passion and death of men come from injustice. Deal justly with men and there will be no slaying.
"Was I not driven to fight, and goaded like a bear until I turned at bay, hunted by day and night through four moons, until I did not care if I fought a mere hundred men or a tribe, or the whole world? ”

“ Had they come to me, I should have tied them together and watched the fun, but they ignored my presence at the "Tough Nut," and went on to lay their demands for justice before the sergeant in charge at Windermere.
The sky was clearing then, and the moon rose on silver waves of Alps and deep blue troughs between, along the stormy ranges which crown the continent.
And there the woman, who had no further use for Loco or any hope from Rams, was left among black ruins on the mountainside, abandoned. When a selfish soul has nothing left but self, then loneliness is tragic. ”

“ I hoped that, with the advent of our son Ernesto, the woman would find her soul. For the soul has no life in itself, can not be born except in love for others, or can not live save in self-sacrifice.
For the first two years, I think, I was half-dead with pain, for I could not see the wilderness in which I rode, or feel the glamour of the sky-line, or taste the freshness of the air, or scent the perfume of the plains or mountains. ”

“ Next, we have to consider an appeal to something in us all more potent than our reason, a trait of man not human but divine, our sense of pity. You have, no doubt, been moved, as I was, swayed out of all reason, by the prisoner's fine sincerity, his perfect manliness, his unusual argument, the purity of his thought, the rare beauty of its expression. This man is not, as the Crown pleads, brutal or depraved, but, as our hearts claim, noble. We have to deal, not with a common felon convicted of mere outrage, but with a man, moved by barbaric warrior motives to acts of war against us. ”

“ As for me, I flatly declined to listen to Buckie's worries because Black Prince had been grabbed by a mere officer. Black Prince was quite the most famous horse who ever served in the outfit. In those far distant times of 1886 he was a rookie, claiming—quite untruthfully—to be a four-year-old, a bouncing infant made of whalebone and rubber, shying at clouds rather than shy at nothing, full of loving-kindness, light-hearted innocence and baby fun. Range horses are never black, but his spring coat was brown, deepening to brown-black, until in autumn one almost caught a blue glint on his flank. ”

“ In excruciating raptures, Got-Wet promised a supper after dark. Meanwhile, she stayed for a gossip, advising Rain in the art of pitching camp, with now and again a peep at the sham Indian, followed by great pantomime of fright. As for me, I was too proud to be routed out of camp by a girl's impudence, too hungry to search for my brother, too shy to interview the trader and buy food. How could I, with Rain's last streak of yellow face-paint across my lordly nose, confront a white man? ”

“ We swung in haughty silence past the F Troop camp where my late comrades mourned their fate in old brown overalls. And C Troop came ramping in from their great journey, lean, hard, tanned, their eyes aflash, grinning disdainfully at our troop of patients. They had scarcely a trace of uniform among them, but rode in buckskin shirts and cowboy shaps, attended by their herd of looted ponies.
The meeting of the three troops, in perfect silence, the dusty, windy, sunny splendor of that frontier pageant, makes my heart ache as I remember now. The delight of the eyes and the pride of life are gone. ”

“ We saw the Canadian Pacific rails run clear from sea to sea, we heard the Canadian colonies awaken to find themselves a nation, we watched history casting her long shadows into the future.
We riders of the plains were as God made us, and oftentimes even worse. For a regiment is a thousand times more human than a man in childhood and in growth, in overstrain of war, and maladies of reaction, in pride of strength and languor of decay. ”

“ If you were in love with a Blackfoot squaw, would you turn squaw-man, Buckie? Or would you play with a respectable white pussie without any morals or manners, and try to forget about love? And what's the use of being good when it makes you a misery, eh, you poor chaffy corporal? If Christ were here to cast out devils, I'd have a last chance left, instead of getting drunk, and assaulting the guards as a pill to cure me of memory. Now, go call your roll and report me present and correct as usual. You can't steer a ship which has no rudder, Buckie. ”

“ I fancied myself as an Indian warrior, and expected Rain to admire me in the part. Play up? Of course I did. Had I been rigid English, forcing the world to fit me, too proud to make a fool of myself, too austere to see the fun, but I am not. I am human, Spaniard with a touch of Irish, fluid to fit my surroundings. I riotously overplayed so wild a burlesque redskin that Rain would laugh, ache, sob and have hysterics. ”

“ Then came a sudden impassioned roar of warning from the people, the chiefs behind me stampeded to either side clear of the line of fire, and out of the gold haze swept a rolling globe of dust. Then there was silence, save that the dust globe scattered, revealing the earth-devouring rush of a charging horse.
When danger comes at full gallop, there is no time for fear. The brain works at lightning speed, the exalted senses live an hour within each flying second. To shoot from the saddle? But would this horse I rode stand fire! To gallop for position broadside to that glare? ”