Raw Gold | Page 5

trail-boss for the whitest man in the South, likewise engaged
to the finest girl in any man's country; and it's a far cry from punching
cows in Texas to wearing the Queen's colors and keeping peace along
the border-line. I knew, though, that he'd tell me the how and why of it

in his own good time, if he meant that I should know.
One or two of the buffalo-hunters exchanged words with us while Mac
was building his cigarette and lighting it. Old Piegan stretched himself
in the grass, and in a few moments was snoring energetically, his
grizzled face bared to the cloudless sky. The camp grew still, except for
the rough and ready cook pottering about the fire, boiling buffalo-meat
and mixing biscuit-dough. The fire crackled around the Dutch ovens,
and the odor of coffee came floating by. Then Mac hunched himself
against a wagon-wheel and began to talk.
"I suppose it looks odd to you, Sarge, to see me in this rig?" he asked
whimsically. "It beats punching cows, though--that is, when a fellow
discovers that he isn't a successful cowpuncher."
"Does it?" I returned dryly. "You were making good in the cow
business last time I saw you. What did you see in the Mounted Police
that took your fancy?"
He shrugged his shoulders philosophically. "They're making history in
this neck of the woods," he said, "and I joined for lack of something
better to do. You'll find us a cosmopolitan lot, and not bad specimens
as men go. It's a tolerably satisfying life--once you get out of the
ranks."
"How about that?" I queried; and as I asked the question I noticed for
the first time the gilt bars on his coat sleeve. "You've got past the buck
trooper stage then? How long have you been in the force?"
"Joined the year they took over the Territory," he replied. "Yes, I've
prospered in the service. Got to be a sergeant; I'm in charge of a
line-post on Milk River--Pend d' Oreille. You'd better come on over
and stay with me a day or two, Sarge."
"I was heading in that direction," I answered, "only I expected to cross
the river farther up. But, man, I never thought to see you up here. I
thought you'd settled down for keeps; supposed you were playing
major-domo for the Double R down on the Canadian River, and the

father of a family by this time. How we do get switched around in this
old world."
"Don't we, though," he said reflectively. "It's a great game. You never
know when nor where your trail is liable to fork and lead you to new
countries and new faces, or maybe plumb over the big divide. Oh, well,
it'll be all the same a hundred years from now, as Bill Frayne used to
say."
"You've turned cynic," I told him, and he smiled.
"No," he declared, "I rather think I'd be classed as a philosopher; if you
could call a man a philosopher who can enjoy hammering over this
bald country, chasing up whisky-runners and hazing non-treaty Indians
onto reservations, and raising hell generally in the name of the law.
Still, I don't take life as seriously as I used to. What's the use? We eat
and drink and sleep and work and fight because it's the nature of us
two-legged brutes; but there's no use getting excited about it, because
things never turn out exactly the way you expect them to, anyhow."
"If that's your philosophy of life," I bantered, "you ought to make a
rattling good policeman. I can see where a calm, dispassionate front
would save a man a heap of trouble, at this sort of thing."
"Josh all you like," MacRae laughed, "but I tell you a man does save
himself a heap of trouble when he doesn't get too anxious whether
things come out just as he wants them to or not. Six or seven years ago
I couldn't have done this sort of work. I've changed, I reckon. There
was a time when I'd have felt that there was only one way to settle a
row like I just had. And the chances are that I would have wound up by
putting that old boy's light out. Which wouldn't have helped matters
any for me, and certainly would have been tough on old Piegan
Smith--who happens to be a pretty fair sort; only playing the opposite
side of the game."
As if the low-spoken sound of his name had reached his ears and
electrified him, Piegan sat up very suddenly, and at the same instant the
cook sounded the long call. So we broke off our chat, and getting a tin

plate and cup and a set of eating-implements, we helped ourselves from
the Dutch ovens and