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To his surprise came Slavin's soft brogue echoing the last lines of the old Shakespearian sonnet, with a sort of dreamy, gentle bitterness: "As binifits forghot forghot! as binifits forghot! . . . . Luk tu that now! eyah! 'tis th' trute, lad! . . . . for here unless I am mistuk, comes me bould Yorkey an' dhrunk as 'a fiddler's again. Tchkk! an' me on'y just afther warnin' um. . . ."
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.
"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke. "Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules! Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!" He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder.
We found thim frozen. . . . A blizzard had shprung up, but we shtrapped th' stiffs on th' sled an' mushed ut oursilves tu save th' dogs. "I am a big man, an' shtrong . . . . but Yorkey was th' betther man av us tu that night havin less weight tu pack. I was all in dhrowsy, an' wanted tu give up th' ghost an' shleep an' shleep. . . . Nigh unto death I was. . . ." The murmuring voice died away.
"That's 'Jake," was Redmond's comment, a moment later, "no use trying fly-fishing to-day, though, Yorkey too bright. We'd better fish deep. Here, you get the rods all fixed up, and catch some grasshoppers, and I'll chase out in the pasture and run the horses in." Some half an hour later found them trudging down the long slope below the detachment that led to the nearest point of the Bow River.
Some three hours later, as they lay on their cots, came to them the faint, far-off toot! toot! of an engine, through the keen atmosphere. "That's Number Four from th' West," remarked Slavin drowsily, "Yorkey shud be along on ut. Well! a walk will not hurt th' man if " He chuntered something to himself. Half an hour elapsed slowly three quarters.
"Listen! . . . Oh! quit that d d rocking, Yorkey! . . . Listen now! we've put up a mighty good scrap against each other we'll call that a draw let's put up another against our well! we'll call it our rotten luck . . . D n it all, old man, we're not 'down an' outs' doing duty in this outfit the best military police corps in the world! . . . Let's both of us quit squalling this eternal 'nobody loves me' stuff!
They had reached the verge of the scrub and the front of the ranch-house faced them barely twenty yards distant. They could discern a faint light glimmering around the lower edge of one of the windows. "He is in!" whispered Slavin exultantly. "Blinds down though. 'Tis a quare custom av his. Come on thin, Yorkey, me bould second-in-command!
Slowly the gentle voice took up the tale anew: "We made ut, bhoy th' Post or nigh tu ut . . . in th' break av th' dawn. . . . For wan av th' dogs yapped an' they come out an' found us in th' snow. . . . Yorkey, wid his arrums round th' neck av me as if he wud shtill dhrag me on . . . . an' cryin' upon th' mother that bore um. . . . Tu men in damned bad shape tu shtiffs . . . . an' but three dogs lift out av th' six-team we'd shtarted wid. . . . So now ye know; lad! . . . Fwhat think ye? . . ."
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
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