Sergeant Dick of the Royal Mounted Police A thrilling story of the Canadian woods

leisurely, the last-mentioned feeling his wound very slightly now, to his great satisfaction and surprise. As they went, his eye traveled up and down Muriel Arnold’s trim, graceful figure with increasing interest and approval, and finally rested with evident admiration upon her sunny brown hair, drawn back in many a clustering curl and knotted so charmingly in the nape of her lovely white neck. Her simple blue print dress, belted at the waist with a broad leathern cincture, supporting a pistol holster, became her well, as did the exceedingly small and dapper Wellington boots which were shown almost to their tops beneath the rather short dress, and the great broad-brimmed, flapping “wide-awake” hat, set so rakishly upon her head and ornamented with a single upright eagle’s feather. About her shoulders and her neat little waist was wound a long flimsy white veil or muslin wrap. Her cousin’s costume was very much the same, save that there was no feather in the hat, and this was not set at a rakish angle, but as squarely as that of the inmate of an orphanage, while the print dress was a pale, washed-out pink. “Gee!” muttered Sergeant John Dick. “She’s almost as lovely a creature as the novelist, Fenimore Cooper, described Judith Hutter to be in his story, ‘The Deerslayer.’” Of course he referred to Muriel, not to poor, uncomely, dowdyish Jenny, whose Wellington boots were squaretoed instead of round-toed like her cousin’s and fully twice as large in the feet. “What a curious chain of coincidences or circumstances,” Dick went on musing; “here we have almost exactly what the American author, Cooper, imagined; two girls--one quite a beauty and the other half-witted and otherwise rather poorly favored, certainly not as pretty--living in a wonderful lake-dwelling, built to resist a siege. I wonder what sort of a man the uncle and father of the girls, this ‘Floating Tom Hutter,’ of real life, will be. He ought to prove a rather interesting old fellow.” And then, with sparkling eyes, his thoughts ran again on the girl in front of him; and he nodded and murmured: “Yes, she’s the sort of girl I’d like. She’s not tall, but she strikes me as being just the right height a girl should be, and she’s just as plump, too, as I like them. I owe them both a debt of gratitude. It was plucky of them and no error, to come to my help as they did, and not turn and bolt as most girls would have done.” They reached the little spit of land for which the scow or “ark” was making; and, while they stood waiting for it to come in, Muriel drew Dick’s attention to the scenery around them--the lovely wooded shores of the lake. She asked him, with enthusiastic eyes, if he had ever seen finer views. He had to admit that he had not. The sun was throwing a golden, glittering track now across the waters of the lake, which were gradually subsiding into their usual peaceful serenity as the gale dropped to mere fitful, ragged gusts. It was about a mile across the lake where they stood, but both higher up and lower down, that is to northward and southward of them, the water was much broader, then narrowed again, and curved round prettily out of sight. All around, the trees grew close to the water--in some places they overhung it and dipped their branches in it--and on the farther shore the woods, rising steeply to the crests of the low but gently rounded hills behind, were faithfully mirrored in the stiller pools and backwaters. Sergeant Dick and Muriel were still pointing out the more charming prospects to one another when the ark drew within hail, and its occupant called out: “What’s that policeman doing with you, Muriel--Jenny? Anything wrong?” “No, Aunt Kate, there’s nothing wrong,” Muriel answered, with her hand held trumpet-wise beside her mouth. “Nothing, that is, so far as we are concerned. But the sergeant was wounded in the head, as you may see, in a fight with the White Hood Gang, who held up the stage-coach in Crooked Gulch. As his horse was lamed, and he must get to the Indian Reservation on the island at the south end of the lake as quickly as possible, we brought him along. Jenny and I have promised to take him to Paquita Island in the ark.” “Oh, indeed!” her aunt responded, in a rather ungracious tone. “Allow me to tell you, Muriel Arnold, that it is not for you, or Jenny either, to make use of the ark without first consulting _my_ wishes, or those of your uncle and Jenny’s father. However, as you are a police officer, sir, I don’t suppose my husband ’ill object to the girls taking you down to the Reservation, and I’m sure I shan’t. But you must first come to the ‘castle,’ and get your wound dressed properly. Reckon, too, you could do with something to buck you up.” “You had better do as mother says,” whispered Jenny, the half-witted girl, “that is, come to the ‘castle’ first, and take something and have your wound redressed. She doesn’t like any one not to do as she says, and, asides, you might just as well humor her.” Dick looked at Muriel and capitulated. “I’m rather pressed for time,” he said, “but still, I don’t suppose just visiting your home for a few minutes will delay me much; and I never believe in crossing old ladies if it can be avoided--or anybody else for that matter, I may add.” The ark came sailing in, and softly grounded her forefoot on the spit. As her square bow projected fully five feet over the bank, Muriel was able to leap on board dryshod. She swiftly cast free a wide, sliding gangway in the bow, and thrust it out, so that, as it dropped outboard, it formed a gentle gradient, up which her cousin at once led the two horses in the buggy. Behind the sliding gangway, and covered by it when it was inboard, was another gentle, boarded slope; and the space between it and the cabin or “house” was sufficiently long, as well as broad to accommodate the vehicle and the two horses abreast. CHAPTER IV--INSIDE “WATER CASTLE” As Sergeant John Dick followed the buggy aboard the ark, a big, powerful woman of middle-age and rather unprepossessing looks came hurrying out of the door of the fore-cabin. “Are you badly hurt, sergeant?” she asked, in a voice like a ship’s siren, but not in an unkindly tone. Dick answered in the negative, and said that he was ashamed that his injury had even been mentioned. Aunt Kate gave him a swift, searching glance, then, evidently satisfied by her scrutiny, emitted a non-committal grunt and turned to help her niece to draw the gangboard in again and hook it in place. Sergeant Dick would have helped them, but Muriel smilingly waved him back, and the operation was easily and quickly performed. Mrs. Arnold then pushed the scow off the spit with a boat hook, and, sending her daughter to the sweep astern, turned the sail again to the wind, and they swung round and headed for the “castle.” As they slipped along towards it, she eagerly and curiously questioned her niece as to what had actually transpired in Crooked Gulch. “This White Hood Gang of road-agents and rustlers is fast creating a panic in these parts, sergeant,” she said, when Muriel had finished her recital. “You may consider yourself lucky that you have come through your meeting with ’em as well as you have. I guess you’ve been sent down here to try and round ’em up. But are the Government mad, to send you by yourself--to only send one man?” “Oh, it was more with regard to the trouble with the Indians of the Paquita Island Reservation than anything else I was sent along. But you may take it from me, Mrs. Arnold, that this last exploit of the gang’s will be about their last. Government is bound to send a strong force to put ’em down after this.” Mrs. Arnold said that the sooner that happened the better, and then she turned to the stores in the carrier of the buggy, and was speedily discussing with her niece what the latter and Jenny had paid for the things--and should have paid in her estimation. This discussion lasted until they were almost at “Water Castle,” which Sergeant Dick surveyed, as they approached, with the greatest interest. A shoal existed or had been contrived at the spot, and into this Alfred Arnold, Jenny’s father, aided by his four grown sons--all big, powerful men like himself, as Dick was subsequently to learn--had driven stout piles, upon which they had erected their dwelling. It was square in shape, and built of tree-trunks, each two feet thick, and squared on three sides, so that they made a smooth inner wall and rested solidly on one another without any chinks between them. In each of the four exterior walls were six windows, set equidistant apart; and before the front door, which was plated with iron an inch thick, inside and out--to make it as strong as the walls--was a platform or verandah, seven or eight feet wide, running the whole length of that side of the building, and covered by the projecting roof. The roof itself was a flattened cone, that is, with very little rise in it, and consisted of strips of corrugated iron, bolted down securely, to resist high winds, upon an inner roof of timber, almost as thick as the walls. Surmounting it was an iron stove-pipe, and a skylight was set in each of the four gentle slopes. All around the house were set palisades--stout trunks of trees driven firmly into the shoal, like the piles supporting the building itself. These palisades completely ringed the “castle” round, and were not more than nine inches apart anywhere, while they all stood about three feet above the water. Consequently they formed an outer rampart or stockade, which would prevent possible assailants in canoes or rafts getting in under the windows. There was a wide gateway, fastened by a strong padlock and chain, in these palisades, just in front of the platform or landing stage, and the space within the enclosure was large enough to admit of the ark being kept inside. All the piles under the edges of the house, moreover, were strengthened, as well as made into an inner ring of defense, by braces and cross-timbering closing up the spaces between them. Thus a boat could not pass under the house except through another, smaller gateway contrived in them, and also secured by a padlock. Mrs. Arnold had, of course, on this occasion left the outer gateway--that in the palisades--merely hooked to; and, freeing it with a pole, she and her niece and daughter, amid Sergeant Dick’s loudly expressed admiration, deftly maneuvered the ark within, and ran its bow up to a short wooden ladder hanging from the verandah. Muriel sprang nimbly up the hanging ladder on to the verandah of the house, and the sergeant mounted quickly after her. Then Mrs. Arnold pushed the scow backwards with so vigorous and dexterous a push with her pole, that the stern of the craft was carried well out again through the gateway in the palisades. She and Jenny meant to convey the horses and buggy to the islet, and stable them there. “I knew you would be keenly interested in our lake home,” said Muriel, as she lifted the latch of the door of the building, and ushered her companion into the living-room. “Now if you will sit down in that easy chair of Uncle Alf’s, I will soon get you something to put new life into you, and then re-dress your wound.” “No, no, there is no need, I assure you. My hurt is so slight it will do very well dressed as it is, until I reach the Indian Reservation, and can have it attended to at my leisure. And as for alcoholic refreshment I never take anything of that nature. A glass of cold water or a cup of milk will be all sufficient, thank you. I am really more curious to be shown over your wonderful lake-home, than I am thirsty or exhausted.”