Three Outlaws
by
The missionary at Fort Anne of the H. B. C. was violently in earnest. Before he piously followed the latest and most amply endowed batch of settlers, who had in turn preceded the new railway to the Fort, the word scandal had no place in the vocabulary of the citizens. The H. B. C. had never imported it into the Chinook language, the common meeting-ground of all the tribes of the North; and the British men and native-born, who made the Fort their home, or place of sojourn, had never found need for its use. Justice was so quickly distributed, men were so open in their conduct, good and bad, that none looked askance, nor put their actions in ambush, nor studied innuendo. But this was not according to the new dispensation–that is, the dispensation which shrewdly followed the settlers, who as shrewdly preceded the railway. And, the dispensation and the missionary were known also as the Reverend Ezra Badgley, who, on his own declaration, in times past had “a call” to preach, and in the far East had served as local preacher, then probationer, then went on circuit, and now was missionary in a district of which the choice did credit to his astuteness, and gave room for his piety and for his holy rage against the Philistines. He loved a word for righteous mouthing, and in a moment of inspiration pagan and scandal came to him. Upon these two words he stamped, through them he perspired mightily, and with them he clenched his stubby fingers–such fingers as dug trenches, or snatched lewdly at soft flesh, in days of barbarian battle. To him all men were Pagans who loved not the sound of his voice, nor wrestled with him in prayer before the Lord, nor fed him with rich food, nor gave him much strong green tea to drink. But these men were of opaque stuff, and were not dismayed, and they called him St. Anthony, and with a prophetic and deadly patience waited. The time came when the missionary shook his denouncing finger mostly at Pretty Pierre, who carefully nursed his silent wrath until the occasion should arrive for a delicate revenge which hath its hour with every man, if, hating, he knows how to bide the will of Fate.
The hour came. A girl had been found dying on the roadside beyond the Fort by the drunken doctor of the place and Pierre. Pierre was with her when she died.
“An’ who’s to bury her, the poor colleen”? said Shon McGann afterwards.
Pierre musingly replied: “She is a Protestant. There is but one man.”
After many pertinent and vigorous remarks, Shon added, “A Pagan is it, he calls you, Pierre, you that’s had the holy water on y’r forehead, and the cross on the water, and that knows the book o’ the Mass like the cards in a pack? Sinner y’ are, and so are we all, God save us! say I; and weavin’ the stripes for our backs He may be, and little I’d think of Him failin’ in that: but Pagan–faith, it’s black should be the white of the eyes of that preachin’ sneak, and a rattle of teeth in his throat–divils go round me!”
The half-breed, still musing, replied: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth–is that it, Shon?” “Nivir a word truer by song or by book, and stand by the text, say I. For Papist I am, and Papist are you; and the imps from below in y’r fingers whip poker is the game; and outlaws as they call us both–you for what it doesn’t concern me, and I for a wild night in ould Donegal–but Pagan, wurra! whin shall it be, Pierre?”
“When shall it to be?”
“True for you. The teeth in his throat and a lump to his eye, and what more be the will o’ God. Fightin’ there’ll be, av coorse; but by you I’ll stand, and sorra inch will I give, if they’ll do it with sticks or with guns, and not with the blisterin’ tongue that’s lied of me and me frinds–for frind I call you, Pierre, that loved me little in days gone by. And proud I am not of you, nor you of me; but we’ve tasted the bitter of avil days together, and divils surround me, if I don’t go down with you or come up with you, whichever it be! For there’s dirt, as I say on their tongues, and over their shoulder they look at you, and not with an eye full front.”