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Inspector MacLean was present in person when the two man-hunters of the North-West Mounted returned to Faraway. Their reception was in the nature of a pageant. Gayly dressed voyageurs and trappers, singing old river songs that had been handed down to them from their fathers, unharnessed the dogs and dragged the cariole into town. In it sat Beresford, still unfit for long and heavy mushing.
It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners' Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honour of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses.
Now the six maidens who had taken my horse unharnessed him as well as if they had been the best squires in the island of Britain. "Then behold they brought bowls of silver, wherein was water to wash and towels of linen, some green and some white; and I washed. And in a little while the man sat down at the table.
So I clapped my hat on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door behind her. "David, David, DAVID," she said. And it had gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of devastating monster of iniquity.
When she returned, the Judge was with her. He read the Mexican a brief but stern lecture on the law pertaining to the recovery of lost property, and closed the deal. Whereupon the wood-hauler unharnessed Pat, bestowed him smilingly upon Helen, and took himself off, evidently in quest of another horse, for he headed straight as a plumb-line for the city pound. Pat was home again.
They came at last to a large log house, the Pitt homestead, and had unharnessed the horses before Warren and Nancy came within sight. A tall woman, followed by a score of children of all sizes, came out to meet them. "They ain't all mine," said the old man. "Them as looks about fryin' size belongs to the folks over the creek.
Then, like a driver urging an unharnessed team forward, he swung the lash over the prisoners, but without touching them, and pointing to a column of smoke which rose behind a cliff at the right of the road, he exclaimed: "There are the smelting furnaces! We shall reach our destination at noon.
He struck his brow with his open hand, crying, "King of France! what title! People of France! what a heap of creatures! I have just returned to my Louvre; my horses, just unharnessed, are still smoking, and I have created interest enough to induce scarcely twenty persons to look at me as I passed. Twenty! what do I say? no; there were not twenty anxious to see the king of France.
But it is of no import. I thank God that no harm has come to any one. My thanks once more, and may pleasant dreams await ye. She sprang up the steps and was gone in an instant. Reuben and I unharnessed our horses and saw them cared for in silence. We then entered the house and ascended to our chambers, still without a word. Outside his room door my friend paused.
I pictured to myself that we should be like one of our labourers, who, having gone into town just before we started up west, lost his way coming out, unharnessed his horses and picketed them, and sat down quietly, waiting for daylight before he ventured on. It is marvellous that anyone finds their way on the prairie.
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