Part 34 (1/2)

”Engaged,” said Billy in triumph.

”Dew tell!”

”Yes, to Madame Scotson's nurse over in England.”

”Does she patch your socks?”

”Now, mother,” Pete interrupted, ”when you was courting me did you patch my socks?”

”Wall, I--”

”Come to think,” said the cargador, ”I didn't have them, being then in the Confederate army. But, mother, you did sure scratch my face!”

”Wall, that's no dream,” said mother, bridling.

Once after his Sat.u.r.day's tramp up the great hill, Pete returned looking very old. ”I axed Bolt,” he explained, ”about this yere partners.h.i.+p.”

”Well?” asked mother sharply. ”Well?”

”Bolt says thar's pigs with pink bows to their tails, just stretchin'

and stretchin' around his sty.”

The old woman turned her back, for Pete was crying.

In April there came a rush of warmth out of the west, licking up all the snow, save only on that high plateau where the Hundred and Spite House seemed to wait and wait in the white silence.

The spring storms came, the rains changed to snow, the snow changed to rain, with hail-storms, and thunder rolling over snow. The cheeky little b.u.t.tercups peeped up through the tails of the snowdrift, and far away, below Jesse's ranch in the Fraser canon, the Star brand mules wors.h.i.+ped their old bell mare among the marigolds. The ground was bare now about Pete's cabin, all sodden pine chips to the edge of the rain-drenched bush, and the willow buds were bursting.

Pete sat under a roof of cedar shakes which he had built to shelter the new ”riggings.” Around him in a horseshoe stood fifty complete _aparejos_, each with coiled lash and sling rope underneath, breeching and crupper, _sovran helmo_ and _cinchas_, sweat pad, blanket, and _corona_, while the head-ropes strapped the _mantas_ over all. He was riveting the last of sixty hackamores, as he dreamed of the great north trail, of open meadows by the Hagwilgaet, of the heaven-piercing spire of Tsegeordinlth at the Forks of Skeena.

”Mother,” he said, ”I'm no slouch of a cargador. Them red gin cases is still to rig for kitchen boxes, and it's all complete. The mules is fattening good, I hear, and the men's the same as last summer, all worth their feed, too.”

But mother, grim and fierce in the throes of her spring cleaning, had not come to admire. ”Pete,” she shrilled, ”two more buckets of water, and yew jest git a move on. And how long hev yew bin promisin' to whittle me them clothes-pins? Now jest yew hustle, Pete, or I'll get right ugly.”

Pete only cut from the plug into his palm, and rolled the tobacco small for his corn-cob pipe. His winter servitude was ended, and he was master, the cargador before whom all men bow in the dread northlands.

Mother went off content to carry her own water, and Pete, with something of a flourish, lighted his pipe.

”Mother!” Pete let out a sharp call, and forgetting her business, mother came quite humbly, as though to heel. ”Yes, Pete?”

He pointed with his pipe at a distant horseman rounding the flank of the hill.

”Brooke?” she whispered, both gnarled rheumatic hands clutched at her heart.

”I reckon,” said Pete cheerfully. ”Thinks he's a circus procession. That sorrel's clattering a loose near-hind shoe, and her mouth just bleeding as he saws with that spade bit. He's a sure polecat. Trots down-hill, too, and suffers in his tail. Incompetent, mother. Look at his feet!

He's bad as a stale salmon, rotten to the bones. Been drinking, too.”

Brooke drew up and dismounted, leaving his rein on the horse's neck, instead of dropping it to the ground. When Brooke moved to sit on an _aparejo_, Pete ordered him to one of the kitchen boxes. ”Not Bolt hisself may sit on _my_ riggings,” said the old gray cargador.