第109章

In a few minutes Inspector Dickson returned, followed by a constable leading a young Indian, handcuffed. With these entered Jerry, the famous half-breed interpreter, and last of all the father of the prisoner, old Crowfoot, tall, straight, stately. One swift searching glance the old Chief flung round the room, and then, acknowledging the Commissioner's salute with a slight wave of the hand and a grunt, and declining the seat offered him, he stood back against the wall and there viewed the proceedings with an air of haughty defiance.

The Commissioner lost no time in preliminaries. The charge was read and explained to the prisoner. The constable made his statement. The young Indian had got into an altercation with a citizen of Macleod, and on being hard pressed had pulled the pistol which was laid upon the desk. There was no defense. The interpreter, however, explained, after conversation with the prisoner, that drink was the cause. At this point the old Chief's face swiftly changed. Defiance gave place to disgust, grief, and rage.

The Commissioner, after carefully eliciting all the facts, gave the prisoner an opportunity to make a statement. This being declined, the Commissioner proceeded gravely to point out the serious nature of the offense, to emphasize the sacredness of human life and declare the determination of the government to protect all Her Majesty's subjects, no matter what their race or the colour of their skin. He then went on to point out the serious danger which the young man had so narrowly escaped.

"Why, man," exclaimed the Commissioner, "you might have committed murder."

Here the young fellow said something to the interpreter. There was a flicker of a smile on the half-breed's face.

"He say dat pistol he no good. He can't shoot. He not loaded."

The Commissioner's face never changed a line. He gravely turned the pistol over in his hand, and truly enough the rusty weapon appeared to be quite innocuous except to the shooter.

"This is an extremely dangerous weapon. Why, it might have killed yourself--if it had been loaded. We cannot allow this sort of thing. However, since it was not loaded we shall make the sentence light. I sentence you to one month's confinement."

The interpreter explained the sentence to the young Indian, who received the explanation without the movement of a muscle or the flicker of an eyelid. The constable touched him on the shoulder and said, "Come!"

Before he could move old Crowfoot with two strides stood before the constable, and waving him aside with a gesture of indescribable dignity, took his son in his arms and kissed him on either cheek.

Then, stepping back, he addressed him in a voice grave, solemn, and vibrant with emotion. Jerry interpreted to the Court.

"I have observed the big Chief. This is good medicine. It is good that wrong should suffer. All good men are against wickedness. My son, you have done foolishly. You have darkened my eyes. You have covered my face before my people. They will ask--where is your son? My voice will be silent. My face will be covered with shame.

I shall be like a dog kicked from the lodge. My son, I told you to go only to the store. I warned you against bad men and bad places.

Your ears were closed, you were wiser than your father. Now we both must suffer, you here shut up from the light of the sky, I in my darkened lodge. But," he continued, turning swiftly upon the Commissioner, "I ask my father why these bad men who sell whiskey to the poor Indian are not shut up with my son. My son is young.

He is like the hare in the woods. He falls easily into the trap.

Why are not these bad men removed?" The old Chief's face trembled with indignant appeal.

"They shall be!" said the Commissioner, smiting the desk with his fist. "This very day!"

"It is good!" continued the old Chief with great dignity. Then, turning again to his son, he said, and his voice was full of grave tenderness:

"Now, go to your punishment. The hours will be none too long if they bring you wisdom." Again he kissed his son on both cheeks and, without a look at any other, stalked haughtily from the room.

"Inspector Dickson," sharply commanded the Commissioner, "find out the man that sold that whiskey and arrest him at once!"

Cameron was profoundly impressed with the whole scene. He began to realise as never before the tremendous responsibilities that lay upon those charged with the administration of justice in this country. He began to understand, too, the secret of the extraordinary hold that the Police had upon the Indian tribes and how it came that so small a force could maintain the "Pax Britannica" over three hundred thousand square miles of unsettled country, the home of hundreds of wild adventurers and of thousands of savage Indians, utterly strange to any rule or law except that of their own sweet will.

"This police business is a big affair," he ventured to say to the Commissioner when the court room was cleared. "You practically run the country."

"Well," said the Commissioner modestly, "we do something to keep the country from going to the devil. We see that every man gets a fair show."

"It is great work!" exclaimed Cameron.

"Yes, I suppose it is," replied the Commissioner. "We don't talk about it, of course. Indeed, we don't think of it. But," he continued, "that blue book there could tell a story that would make the old Empire not too ashamed of the men who 'ride the line' and patrol the ranges in this far outpost." He opened the big canvas-bound book as he spoke and turned the pages over. "Look at that for a page," he said, and Cameron glanced over the entries. What a tale they told!

"Fire-fighting!"

"Yes," said the Commissioner, "that saved a settler's wife and child--a prairie fire. The house was lost, but the constable pulled them out and got rather badly burned in the business."

Cameron's finger ran down the page.

"Sick man transported to Post."

"That," commented the Superintendent, "was a journey of over two hundred miles by dog sleighs in winter. Saved the man's life."