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                       THE GASPARDS OF PINE CROFT

                              RALPH CONNOR

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            By RALPH CONNOR

                   The Gaspards of Pine Croft
                   To Him That Hath
                   The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land
                   The Major
                   The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail
                   Corporal Cameron
                   The Foreigner
                   Black Rock
                   The Sky Pilot
                   The Prospector
                   The Doctor
                   The Man from Glengarry
                   Glengarry School Days

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                       THE GASPARDS OF PINE CROFT

                      A ROMANCE OF THE WINDERMERE

                                   by

                              RALPH CONNOR

                                NEW YORK
                        GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            COPYRIGHT, 1923,
                       BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
                      THE GASPARDS OF PINE CROFT.
                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                       THE GASPARDS OF PINE CROFT




                               CHAPTER I


Of all British Columbia valleys none has a finer sweep than the spacious
Windermere. The valley rolls itself on both sides of the Columbia River
in wide stretches of grass lands, varied with great reaches of red pine
forest, here of open park-like appearance, there thick with underbrush
of spruce and cedar. The valley lies between the two ranges of the
Selkirks, which in places crowd hard upon the river and again lie up
against a far horizon across a stretch of tumbling foothills. With the
autumn sun on its rich and varied wealth of color, the valley lies like
one great genial smile across the face of British Columbia from Golden
Pass to the Crow’s Nest, warm, kindly, restful.

It was upon a glorious autumn day that Hugh Gaspard’s eyes first rested
upon the valley, and from that first impression he could never escape.
For, though by training and profession Gaspard was an engineer, and with
a mastery of his craft, by native gifts of imagination and temperament
and sense of colour, that rarest of Heaven’s bestowments, drawn from his
mingled Highland Scot and Gallic blood strain, he was an artist.

Gaspard was enormously proud of this mingled blood of his. He was never
quite sure which strain brought him greater pride. It depended entirely
upon his environment. In Glasgow, where his father’s engineering works
were situated and where he spent his boyhood, he was never tired
vaunting the “Gaspard” in his blood. In Paris, where in early youth he
spent his holidays and where later his hard-headed and practical father
declared he “wasted two valuable years of his life fiddlin’ wi’ pents
and idle loons and lassies,” he was vehemently Highland, a cousin,
indeed, to the Lochiel himself. From both strains he drew his fiery,
passionate, imaginative temperament, his incapacity, too, for the hard
grind in life.

After graduating from the Glasgow University as an engineer, his father
reluctantly granted him a period of travel, upon condition that he
should visit Canada and study the engineering achievements in the
construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky
Mountains. His experiences in the construction of that great continental
railroad, together with his holiday excursions among the mountains and
valleys of British Columbia, determined for him his course in life. The
prospect of life in an office in Glasgow, no matter how high the
position, nor how rich in financial possibilities, became for him
utterly impossible.

“Let me work among the machines and the men—I’ve learned to handle men a
bit in Canada—and I’ll make a stab at it,” he had said to his father.
But his father was at the end of his forbearance with him.

“Ye’ve ta’en ye’re ain gait,” the old autocrat had flung at him,
dropping into wrathful Doric, “these many years. Now ye’ll go whaur
ye’re bid in my business or ye’ll go oot.”

So “oot” the young man had gone, and in the Construction Department of
the Canadian Pacific Railway had found a billet at once remunerative and
promising of distinction in his profession. After a couple of years of
really strenuous work, for he had found himself brigaded with a group of
keen youngsters ambitious of distinction and voracious of hard work,
with whom his pride would not suffer him to break step, he returned
home, loaded down with trophies of his hunting trips and with his
portfolio full of incomplete sketches of marvellous mountain scenery.
But he had with him also equally marvellous photographic reproductions
of the achievements of the Canadian Pacific Engineers, and a bank book
showing a very creditable balance in the Vancouver Branch of the Bank of
Montreal. The really fine display of heads of Rocky Mountain sheep and
goats and the quite creditable productions of his sketch book had but
the slightest influence with his father; but the photographs, in
themselves wonderful examples of artistic work, the engineering triumphs
they pictured, and, it must be confessed, the showing of the bank book
most of all, produced a profound impression upon the shrewd old Scot.

The glories of the Windermere Valley, its vast agricultural and grazing
resources, its immense water powers, its unknown mineral resources, its
unequalled climate, and the unique opportunity offering at the very
moment for the purchase of a five thousand acre tract of land from the
Government at a quite ridiculous price, lost nothing in their setting
forth by the descriptive powers of his son, backed up as they were by
gorgeously coloured literature issued by the Immigration Department of
British Columbia. Only one result could follow. His father, swept
completely beyond the moorings of his life-long shrewd and calculating
“canniness” by his son’s glowing presentation of the opportunity not
only of winning for himself a very substantial fortune but also of
becoming that thing dear to every British heart, a great landed
proprietor, frankly surrendered, and, having surrendered, proceeded to
follow up his surrender in a thoroughgoing business-like manner. If a
ranch were to be started in British Columbia, let it be started in such
style as to insure success. None knew better than the old Scot how
easily possible it is to kill a thoroughly sound enterprise by early
starvation. Hence, there was placed in the Bank of Montreal, Vancouver,
a sufficient sum, not only to purchase the land, but also to adequately,
even generously, equip and stock the ranch.

The two years spent in building, equipping and stocking operations in
connection with the establishing of the Pine Croft Ranch constituted for
many years the high-water mark for princely expenditure in British
Columbia, which is saying a good deal. For many months the Golden-Crow’s
Nest trail was periodically choked with caravans of pack ponies and
freight wagons piled high with a weird assortment of building material
and equipment and household furnishing, later enlivened with lines of
thoroughbred Holsteins and Percherons. The Windermere Valley was
thrilled with the magnificence of the whole enterprise. The Vancouver
_Free Press_ chronicled the event in laudatory terms:

“The establishing of the Pine Croft Ranch upon such an assured
foundation is at once a testimony to the far-sighted policy of our
enterprising and gifted fellow-citizen, Hugh Gaspard, Esq., and an
evidence that a new era has dawned for our Province. The capitalists of
the homeland have hitherto been blind to the unrivalled agricultural and
ranching possibilities of our wide-sweeping British Columbia valleys.
Mr. Gaspard is very shrewdly anticipating the advent of an almost
limitless market for the products of his ranch by the construction of
another great railroad through the mountains, with lateral colonisation
lines to the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It is also no
small tribute to the engineering genius of Mr. Gaspard that he has
foreseen the vast resources of the Windermere Valley in water power for
mining operations which are sure to follow the railway development of
that part of the Province. Altogether, it is not too much to say that
the establishing of the Pine Croft Ranch inaugurates a new era in the
development of our Province.”

The Pine Croft Ranch was situated about halfway down the Windermere
Valley, between Golden and the Crow’s Nest Pass, in one of the mighty
loops of the Columbia River, and comprised within its bounds mountain
and valley, lake and stream, grass lands and park-like forests, a
wonderland of picturesque and varied beauty.

For the site of his ranch bungalow, Gaspard chose one of the park-like
forest benches of the Columbia, set out with tall red pines with
polished boles running up one hundred and fifty feet to spreading green
tufts. It was built of red pine logs, with low roof and wide verandahs,
and flanked on one side with gardens, riotous with flowers of all kinds
and colours, some gathered from their native wilds near by and others
transplanted from their native haunts in Scottish glens and moors. On
the other side of the bungalow ran a little river, tumbling noisily and
joyously from the upper branches of the Columbia River below. It offered
to the eye a satisfying picture of homely beauty, kindly, cosy,
welcoming. Beyond the riot of flowers a grass paddock of some five acres
reached to the corals and stables.

Within the bungalow everything in furnishing and adornment suggested
comfort and refinement. In the living room the walls of polished pine
logs were hung with old tapestries, the rich red brown of the logs
relieved by the gleam of old silver from diamond-paned cupboards and
bits of old china and Oriental jade, with a rare collection of ancient
pewters disposed here and there. The note of easy comfort in the room
was emphasised by the Persian and Assyrian rugs, with the skins of
grizzly and cinnamon bear upon the floor, together with the solid,
deep-seated chairs and sofas upholstered in leather. Altogether, it was
a wholly livable room, in which everything in the way of furnishing and
adornment spoke of sound and educated taste. Opposite the main door, a
stone built fireplace of generous size gave promise of cheer throughout
long winter evenings. On each side of the fireplace a door led to dining
room and kitchen respectively, while through a curtained archway on the
left a corridor ran, flanked on either side with bedrooms. On the
remaining side of the living room, folding doors opened upon a sunny
room looking toward the north and west, enclosed on three sides with
panelled glass. This room, from its appointments and furnishings,
obviously did double duty as studio and work room.

To this home in the British Columbia wilds, far from the homeland and
friends of the homeland, remote from the great world and its
allurements, he brought as his wife the daughter of a West Country
laird. A young girl she was, fresh from her English school, the first
fine bloom of her girlhood still upon her, the sweet purity of her soul
unspoiled by the defiling touch of our modern society, her high spirit
unbroken, her faith in man and in God as yet unshaken.

The manner of his coming upon her was of a piece with the romantic
passion within which his spirit enshrined her. Upon one of his tramps
along the West Coast he found himself on an evening in a driving fog,
hopelessly lost and with the prospect of a dreary night in some
cheerless wind-swept cave. Out of the mist, sprite-like, she came, her
blue eyes looking in upon his soul from an aureole of misty golden
curls, and led him, her captive on the moment and forever after, to her
home. That evening was the beginning and the end for them both. He
talked and she listened. She sang and he played. Of the Windermere and
its wonders he told her, drawing the very soul out of her till, by the
sweet pain in her heart, she knew that when he said the word she would
follow him to the world’s end. And to the Windermere he brought her,
proud of her beauty and her grace, wondering at her love of him and
praising God for his good fortune.

Ten years they lived there together, ten happy years untouched by grief,
but for the day when they laid up on the hillside under the pines her
little girl, her very replica in exquisiteness of beauty. Then shadows
came. Her strength began to fail and though her high courage kept the
truth from her husband the knowledge of it grew in the hearts of them
both and shadowed their lives with a nameless fear of what might be.




                               CHAPTER II


“And what’s ‘fore-ornained,’ Mother?” The hazel grey eyes searched the
face, pale and luminous as if with an inner light, leaning toward him.
“What’s ‘fore-ornained?’”

“‘Fore-ordained,’ darling? Why, it means—well, let me see—why, well—it’s
a little hard to explain, darling.”

“I’m glad it is, Mother, because I don’t want to be stupid. I’m glad you
don’t know either.”

“Oh, well, I don’t quite say that, Paul, but it is a little difficult.
You see it is difficult to explain about God.”

“Oh, no! Not difficult about God. Why! I know God just as well
as—anything.”

“Do you, dear?”

“Yes, and I often see Him——”

“See Him, darling?” The mother’s voice was a little shocked. “What _do_
you mean? When do you see Him?”

“Oh, lots of times. But mostly when I lie down on my back under the big
pine trees away up on the hill here, Mother, and look away up between
the big tops into the clouds—no, I mean behind the clouds—way up through
the little blue holes—I see Him looking down at me, quiet, quiet, oh,
awful quiet—just like He was watching and thinking—you know, just like
you sometimes when you look far, far away over the river and away far
behind the mountains, at something you don’t see. That’s the way He
looks down through the clouds and between the trees, and He sees me too
but He never says anything out loud—just looks and looks, and
whispers—just like little winds.”

“And what does He look like, darling? I mean what—who does He make you
think of?” asked the mother.

“Oh, I don’t know azackly. Oh, yes, a’course—why, I never thought
before, Mother—it’s you, a’course. Only He’s a man an’ bigger—oh, much
bigger, and stronger.” The little boy paused a moment or two, then said
shyly, “An’ I like Him, Mother, awful well.”

“Do you, darling? And why?”

“Oh, I dunno. He’s always nice and pleased looking. An’ I think He likes
me. But, Mother, you didn’t answer me about that word ‘fore-ornained.’”

“‘Fore-ordained?’ Well, let me see—what does it say? ‘The decrees of God
are His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby
for His own glory He hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass.’ Well,
that just means, Paul, that God has arranged beforehand everything that
happens in the world.”

“Everything? To everybody? Every single thing?”

“Yes. Yes, dear. Now, we’ll go on.”

“But everything, Mother? To Blazes too?” insisted the boy, his eye upon
the nondescript mongrel stretched at ease on the grass in the shade of
the verandah.

“To Blazes? Why—I suppose so—yes.”

“Are you sure, Mother, about Blazes?” said the boy, with a child’s
passion for absolutism.

“Yes, of course—but now let us get on.” The mother, from long
experience, feared a pitfall.

“God didn’t arrange about Blazes’ ear. It was the big wildcat did that
when Blazes sailed into ’im. Daddy said so,” said the boy triumphantly
marshalling his secondary causes in the great line of causation. “I
guess God doesn’t arrange for dogs, does He, Mother?”

“Why—yes, dear.”

“But are you sure, Mother, certain sure? Sure as death?” insisted the
boy.

“‘Sure as death?’ Where did you get that, Paul?”

“Oh, that’s what Jinny says, only she says, ‘sheer as deeth,’” said the
little lad, proud of the superiority of his diction over that of his old
Scottish nurse. “Are you sure, Mother, about Blazes?” he persisted.

“Yes, dear, I am sure. You see, Blazes had to learn that it’s dangerous
to ‘sail into’ wolves—or a wildcat, was it?—and so——”

“And so God arranged the wildcat for to teach him. My, that was awful
clever of God. And God arranged for the wildcat to be shot, Mother,
didn’t He? I guess He doesn’t like wildcats, does He? But—” the vivid
face clouded over—“but, Mother, did God arrange—” the deepening note of
anxiety was painfully present—“God didn’t arrange for the Bunn boys to
drown in the river.” The delicate face had gone white, the lips were
drawn, the grey hazel eyes staring, the voice fallen to a tremulous,
passionate undertone. His little soul was passing into an eclipse of
faith. “Whatsoever comes to pass.” Against the age-long creed of a God
Whose Will runs as the supreme law throughout the universe of men and
things, across the wreckage of empires, through seas of blood and tears,
working out with serene, unswerving purpose the glory of God, this
tender, loving, sensitive heart hurled itself in passionate protest.

“He did not, Mother!” cried the boy, his fists clenched, his eyes
ablaze, his voice vibrating in vehement and indignant rage. “He did not
arrange them to go. They just went themselves, and their father told
them not to. They went themselves. He did not arrange! He did not
arrange!” The voice broke in its passionate championing of his God Whom
he had seen up next the blue, looking down between the tree tops, with
kindly face, the God Whom “he liked awful well” and Who “liked him.”

Startled, acutely distressed, the mother sat gazing at the defiantly
passionate face: startled to find how intense was her sympathy with that
passionate protest of her little lad, distressed that she found no word
wherewith to make answer.

“Hello! old chap, what’s the row? What’s up here?”

A tall man came round the corner of the house, a photographer’s tripod
and camera over his shoulder. The boy hesitated a perceptible moment. He
stood somewhat in awe of his father, but his passion swept away his
fear.

“God did not arrange for the Bunn boys to be drowned in the river, did
He, Daddy? They just went themselves, and their father told them not to.
God did not arrange it. They did it themselves.”

With a swift glance the father took in the salient features of the
scene, the pale face of the boy with its trembling lips and burning
eyes, the startled, perplexed and distressed face of his mother.

“Certainly, they went themselves,” said the father heartily. “They were
told not to go, they knew that the high water was dangerous and that the
old dugout wasn’t safe, but they _would_ go. Poor chaps, it was awfully
hard lines, but they wouldn’t take advice.”

“I knew it, I knew it, Daddy!” cried the boy, breaking into a storm of
tears. “I knew He wouldn’t do anything bad. I just knew He wouldn’t hurt
anybody——”

The mother caught him in her arms and held him fast.

“Of course He wouldn’t, darling. You didn’t understand—we none of us
understand, but we know He won’t do anything unkind, or to hurt us. We
are sure of that, we are sure of that.” Her own tears were flowing as
she rocked the boy in her arms. “But,” she added, more to herself than
to the boy in her arms, “it is hard to understand”—her eyes wandered up
the hillside at the back of the bungalow to a little mound enclosed in a
white paling—“no, we can’t understand. We will just have to wait, and
wait, and be sure He doesn’t do anything unkind.”

“O’ course, I knew He couldn’t,” said little Paul, snuggling down into
her arms.

“I would suggest a more elementary course of theology for a boy of
eight—or nine, is he?—dear,” said her husband, grinning at her.

“Perhaps we had better stop it,” sighed the mother, “at least, for a
while. But I did want to go through with it.”

“But, my dear, what earthly use is that stuff? I don’t say,” he hastened
to add, reading her face, “it isn’t the very finest system of
iron-bound, steel-clad theology ever given to mortal mind to chew upon.
But, after all, can you reasonably expect the infant there to take in
propositions upon which the world’s thinkers have been arranged in
opposing camps from the great Socrates down to your great little self?”

“And yet, after all, a child is no more puzzled about these
mysteries—free will, determinism and all that—than are the best and
wisest of men today. So why not give him the formulæ? I think we will go
on.”

“Well, you know I don’t agree. And you know you belong to the ancient
pedagogic school in this,” chaffed her husband.

“Yes, I know we don’t agree,” she smiled, “but I would like to go
through the Catechism. After all, it is a wonderful little book, you
know.”

“Wonderful! I should say! Nothing like it has ever been put forth by the
human mind. But——”

“Oh, I know all you would say, but I would like to go on——”

“So would I, Mother. And I’m going to go right through, just like you
did when you were a little girl. I’m over to ‘the sinfulness o’ that
mistake wherein a man fell’ and I’ll be at ‘the misery o’ that mistake’
next week.”

His father shouted.

“Never mind, dear,” said the mother, with difficulty controlling her
face. “Your father forgets he was a little boy himself once. Indeed, I
don’t believe he could say the question himself.”

“What’ll you bet?” said the father. “I learned the thing from cover to
cover when I was a kid—got ten bob for saying it before the whole school
in a contest.”

“Make him say it, Mother,” cried the boy, springing to his feet. “Make
him say ‘the sinfulness o’ that mistake’ and ‘the misery o’ that
mistake’ too.”

Violently protesting, but all in vain, the father was made to repeat not
only “the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell” but “the misery
of that estate” as well, which he did only after some considerable
prompting by the delighted boy and his mother.

“So you’re going through with it, are you, laddie?” said his father,
when he had emerged, somewhat chastened in spirit, from his ordeal.

“Right through to the very end, Daddy, same as Mother did.”

“And me too. Don’t forget your father’s early triumphs. And a lot of
good it has done me, eh, Mother?”

“You never know, dear, what good it has done you.”

“Or what harm. Luckily I never tried to understand it, like this young
philosopher.”

“What’s a philofisser, Mother?”

“A person who is very fond of knowing things, dear.”

“All right, I’m one, Mother. And I’m going to know everything in the
Cakism——”

“Catechism, dear.”

“Yes, the Catism—all about God and what He does and what He doesn’t do
too, Mother. ’Specially the things He doesn’t do. I don’t like those
things. Who does arrange the bad things, Mother?”

“Here, youngster, you’ll have us all frogging in deep water in another
jiffy and shouting for help,” said the father. “That’ll do. Take your
mother up the hill for a walk. It is getting cool enough for a walk, eh,
what?”

“I believe I am a little too tired,” said the mother, wistfully looking
up the hill.

“Oh, go on, Mother. Take it easy. A little walk will do you good.”

“Come on, Mother. I’ll take care of you,” said the boy stoutly.

“Come along then, laddie.”

The man stood looking after them as they toiled uphill among the pines,
the mother pausing now and again, ostensibly to pick a red lily or to
admire some newly opening vista through the aisled forest.

“My God!” he said, through his teeth. “She is getting weaker. She is!
She is! We must get her out of this to some one who knows. Must raise
the money somehow.”

He swore a deep oath, and, passing into the bungalow, sat down to drink
his heartache numb in Scotch whiskey.




                              CHAPTER III


Young Paul Gaspard was eager to be gone for a run up the mountain at the
back of the bungalow. Had he known how very nearly the eager light in
his grey eyes and the eager emotion quivering in his angel-like face—for
so his foolish mother saw it—was to breaking down the resolution that
was hardening his mother’s voice, he would have turned the full
batteries of eyes and face upon her and won.

“No, dear, duty first; pleasure afterwards. Remember Nelson, you know.”

“Yes, I know, but Nelson was on a jolly big ship and going into a big
fight, Mother. I hate practising—at least,” catching the look of
surprise and pain which his mother just managed to substitute in time
for that of tender pride—“at least, sometimes—and ’specially this
morning. It’s a perfeckly ’dorable morning.”

“The harder the duty, the better the discipline, you know. That’s what
makes good soldiers, my boy. Come along, get it over. Quick! March!
Besides, you know you would just love to get that little _rondo_
right—tum te-ta-te-tum di. Let me hear you,” said his mother guilefully.

“No, that’s wrong, Mother. It’s tum-te-ta te tum-di.” He ran to the
piano and played the phrase.

“Well, what did I say? Oh, yes, I see, the phrasing was wrong. How does
it go?”

In a minute the boy was absorbed in his _rondo_. His mother sat in the
sunlit window listening to the practising. Her face was worn and lined
with pain. But as she listened, watching the long clever fingers
flitting so surely and smoothly over the keys, the lines of pain and
weariness seemed to be filled in with warm waves of light. She lay back
in her easy chair, knowing herself to be unobserved, and gave herself
over to a luxurious hour of loving pride in her son. He had a true
feeling for what was fine and sound in music and a gift of
interpretation extraordinary for one of his age. It was his heritage
from his father who in his youth had discovered to his instructors a
musical ability amounting almost to genius. Had he possessed that
element in genius which is a capacity for taking pains he undoubtedly
would have made a great artist on the piano.

“If your father had been made to practise he would have been a great
player,” his mother would say to Paul, on occasions when, thrilled to
the heart, they sat drinking the weird and mystic beauty of the
“Moonlight” flowing from his fingers.

“Yes, boy,” the father would reply, “if I only had had a stern and
relentless taskmistress for a mother, such as you have, eh?” And then
the boy and his mother would look at each other and smile.

Now the mother was listening and watching while her son did one of
Mozart’s Sonatinas with fine touch and expression.

“You do that quite well, dear,” she said when the Sonatina was over.
“That will do now. You will run to the top of the hill, to the big pine
root and then we shall do our lessons——”

“Let me do this Minuet first, Mother. I just feel like it now.”

“No, dear, you’ve had enough—indeed more than enough. A little fresh
air, and then your lessons for an hour, then out.”

“Just this Minuet, Mother, dear.”

“Duty first, boy, you know.”

“Why, Mother, that’s what you said when you sent me to the piano; now
it’s the same thing when you want me to quit!”

“Yes, dear, duty first always—the thing to be done at the time it ought
to be done and in the way it ought to be done.”

“My, it’s awful hard, Mother. Can’t I ever do just as I like?”

“Why, yes, dear.”

“When? When I grow big like you?”

“Oh, before that, I hope. When you want to do the things you ought to
do. But now, out you go for your run, up to the pine root and back
again. I’ll time you.” She pulled out her watch. The little lad, every
muscle taut, set himself.

“All set!” she cried. “Ready! Go!”

As if released from a spring the lithe little body shot forward and
disappeared through the underbrush. She waited for him, watch in hand,
waited, thinking, then forgot him. The minutes went on unheeded, so too
her mind. Down the years it went, following that lithe figure, that
eager shining face gallantly fronting the unknown, unafraid and alone.
She could not see herself with him. She knew, she had faced the
knowledge steadily till she could face it calmly, she knew her vision of
that gallant and lonely figure would soon, too soon, be realised. His
father—somehow she could not see them together. They were not made for
the same path. Hugh, her dear, splendid, happy hearted, easy-going man,
was made for the smooth ways through the low lands, but her boy she
always saw with face lifted up to the heights. He would never be content
with the levels. The hills, yes, and the mountains were for him. And
hence he must go alone. As for her, she was tired, unfit, nearly done.
No heights for her, but rest, deep, still and comforting. Well, she knew
she would find it; of that she had no fear. And the deep heart-break of
leaving all this light and warmth and love, that had made life to her,
she had surmounted. She had allowed her eyes to follow her son’s and
through the clouds next the blue she had seen a face that seemed kind
and she had grown content. An infinite comfort had stolen over her
aching heart that Sunday not so long ago as she thought over her little
boy’s quaint words, “And I like Him, Mother, and I think He likes me.”
Alone she might be, and alone her little boy might be, but never quite
alone after all would either be, no matter where the path might lead.
With a start she came back to the present hour. She looked at her watch.
The boy had been gone thirty minutes, instead of ten at the most. She
was not alarmed. The woods were safe, and she knew her boy. Young as he
was, she knew he was without fear and could be depended upon to do the
wise thing. But where was he? She set off slowly toward the big pine
root. The April sun was kindly in its warmth, the pine needles dry under
foot, and the air was rich with the aroma of the pines. She moved
quietly through the brush, saving her strength, as she had need, with
her ear alert for a sound of her little lad. In a few minutes she heard
his joyous shout. He had caught sight of her through an opening in the
bush, and came tearing through toward her.

“Mother! Mother,” he shouted, “the baby is choking, Mother! dying! Come!
oh, come quick! Mother.”

“What are you talking about, Paul? Don’t shout, speak quietly.” She held
him firmly, speaking calmly. “What baby, and where is it?”

“Oh, Mother, it’s——”

“Stop, Paul! Now, quietly——”

The boy took hold of himself and began in a quiet voice. “Yes, Mother.
The baby is up in the woods by the big root. It is an Indian baby, and
it is choking.”

“Show me the way.”

With all the speed she could make she followed the boy, and in a few
minutes came upon a pathetic little group, a young Indian woman,
exquisitely beautiful in face and form, a mere girl she seemed, kneeling
before a child of four, lying on a blanket, with face deeply cyanosed
and distorted, looking like death.

“What is the matter?” she cried, kneeling beside the girl. “Has the
child swallowed anything?”

“No, no,” said the mother, speaking perfect English in the soft, low
musical Indian voice. “It is croup, I think. He has had a bad cold, he
has been bad all night. He will die.” Her words came with the
passionless calm of despair.

“No, he must not die,” said Mrs. Gaspard. “Paul, now listen carefully. I
depend on you.”

“Yes, Mother,” said her son, standing looking at her, quiet, alert,
tense.

“Run to Jinny, tell her to fill the bath half full with hot water.”

Like a bird in flight he was off through the woods.

“Come! Bring your baby!” she said to the Indian girl.

Swiftly, without a word, the mother caught up the child and followed
Mrs. Gaspard to the house. For an hour they fought with death, and won.
Exhausted by the struggle, Mrs. Gaspard retired to her own room to rest.
Paul she sent off on his pony for a scamper. Beside her child, now
quietly sleeping, the Indian woman sat, staring out of the window,
motionless, passionless, as if she were a carved image, heedless to all
about her.

Thus the morning hours passed, till at the approach of noon the voices
of Paul and his father were heard from the paddock near the house. At
the first sound of the man’s voice the Indian girl leaped to the window,
flung one swift glance at the man’s face, stood one moment, trembling,
uncertain, then with quick resolve gathered up her sleeping boy in his
blanket and with the fleet and silent movements of the wild things of
the forest she slipped from the room out of the house and disappeared
into the brushwood at the rear.

Full of excited chatter, Paul conducted his father into the house, and,
subduing his voice, led him into the kitchen where he had left the
Indian woman and her child.

“Where is she?” he exclaimed. He ran out into the summer kitchen where
Jinny was at work over the wash tub. “Where are they gone—the Indian
woman?”

“Are they no there?” said Jinny, coming into the kitchen, wiping her
dripping arms. “They’ll be ben the hoose. Hush, now, y’re mither is
resting,” she added, passing into the living room, followed by Paul.

“They’re gone,” said Paul aghast, “and with that sick baby.”

“Aye,” said Jinny grimly, “and I hope there was no need for hurry.”

“What do you mean, Jinny?” asked Mr. Gaspard. “Oh, I see. Well, you need
not fear. Indians do not steal.”

“Steal?” said Paul, his face aflame with indignation. “I think it is
just mean to appose she would steal. She is a good woman, and she just
kissed and kissed Mother’s hands for curing her baby.”

“Aw, weel, I’d lippen till nane o’ them.”

“Steady, Paul,” interposed his father. “Jinny doesn’t know them as we
do. We will investigate a bit. Where did you find her?”

“I’ll show you, Daddy,” said Paul, hurling a blighting look upon Jinny,
who returned undisturbed to her tub.

Together they hurried up the path toward the big pine root. Arrived
there, the cry of a child lured them farther up the hill. Paul was off
like a hound on the trail. In a very few moments his voice came back
through the bushes in remonstrance.

“Why are you going away? Your baby will be sick again. Mother wants you
to stay. Daddy’s here. Wait! Wait! Here, Daddy! Here she is!”

Dashing back through the bushes, he seized his father and dragged him
hurriedly to where the Indian woman stood. She had flung her bundle of
camp impedimenta to the ground and, with her child rolled up in the
blanket, she stood like a wild animal fiercely at bay.

“Onawata!” gasped the man, and stood gazing at her, speechless, for some
seconds. Then with a quick glance at the boy he spoke rapidly in Indian.
Fiercely she replied. Again the man spoke, pointing to the child. For
reply she flung toward him an accusing finger. As if she had struck him
in the face, the man stood, white, aghast, rooted in his tracks.

“Paul,” he said in a voice harsh and shaken, “go back to the house and
tell Mother——”

“Is the baby dead?” said the boy in an awed voice.

“Dead? Dead?” said his father. “Would to God——No! Nonsense! Dead? No
fear!” he added with a harsh laugh.

“Let me see,” said the boy, springing forward and pulling the blanket
from the face of the child. “No, he’s all right. See, Daddy! Isn’t he
lovely?”

The man glanced at the child, shuddered, then with an obvious effort
pulled himself together.

“He’s quite all right, Paul. Run back now and tell Mother I am—I have
gone to see them safe to their camp.” He spoke a few words to the woman.
“Yes, about a mile down the valley. All right, old chap! I’ll be right
back,” he added kindly. “Off you go now. Cut away!”

“Come,” he said to the woman, picking up her bundle, as Paul reluctantly
turned away homeward. For some minutes Gaspard strode in silence along
the trail, followed by the woman, then flinging down the bundle he faced
her.

“Why have you come here?” he said sternly in Indian.

“Why did you not tell me you had a woman, a wife?” replied the woman,
her voice low, soft, but firm as his own.

“You speak good English,” he answered, astonished. “Where did you
learn?”

“I spent two years at the mission school. I worked hard, very hard. I
wanted to——” She hesitated, and then added in a bitter tone. “I made a
mistake. I thought you were a good man. I did not know you.”

For a few minutes the man stood voiceless before her. He was not a bad
man, much less a heartless man. Five years ago, on a hunting trip in the
far north land, as the result of an accident he had made a long stay
with a band of Chippewayan Indians, the lords of the Athabasca country.
Cared for and nursed back to strength in the wigwam of the chief, he had
played the villain as many another white man had, without thought of
consequence. Today he stood convicted, appalled in the presence, not of
a squaw who could be easily appeased with gifts and who would think
herself very well off were the gifts sufficiently generous, but of a
woman, beautiful, proud, speaking his own tongue with ease and, in her
soft Indian intonation, even with charm. In her arms was his child, a
fact stubborn, insistent of recognition, with possibility of
overwhelming disaster.

For in his mind the one thought obliterating all others was that of his
wife. Should this terrible and shameful fact come to her knowledge, what
would be the result? He pictured the reaction in her, of horror,
loathing, repulsion. For well he knew her lofty sense of right, her
Puritan holiness of spirit. She would despise him beyond hope of
restoring. She could never bear to look upon him, much less allow him to
touch her. She would pity him, but never more could she regard him with
that adoring love which had been to him the supreme joy and satisfaction
of his life. Without her love, life for him would be over. His mind,
with one swift, comprehending glance, scanned the future years, and from
the desolation his soul shrank back in fear. No! If she came to know,
there was only one way out for him—the coward’s way, but he would take
it. He could meet hell, but life without her love and with her pity and
loathing would be worse than any hell he could imagine.

There was one thing to do and that quickly. He must get this woman away
out of this country, back to her own. Once buried there, he could draw
the breath of freedom again. Of her fate and the fate of the child he
took no heed. In his horror and terror of the impending calamity of
discovery he could have killed them both where they stood and buried
them in that remote valley. Swiftly his mind played with that
possibility. It could be done. His eye fell upon the handle of the
hatchet sticking out of her bundle. One blow, two, and all cause of fear
would be forever gone from his life. He took a step toward the hatchet.
Aghast, he came to himself. “My God, what has come to me?” he cried
aloud, stepping back as if from the very mouth of the bottomless pit.
“Not that! The other perhaps, but not that!” He cast his eyes about him.
This was still his world, with all its familiar sights. The sun was
shining, far down there swept the valley of the Windermere, the hills,
the pines. In what strange, God-cursed country had his soul been
wandering? To him it seemed that years had passed. He had been
companying with devils. What had come upon him? What sort of man had he
become? And what might he not yet be driven to? He had read of such
transformations in good, well-meaning, decent, kindly men. Would he
become so demonised? Demonised! Now he understood, now he instantly
believed in the possibility of demon possession. The man with the legion
of devils was no myth, but a terrible reality. Trembling throughout his
powerful frame, he stood fighting for self-recovery.

A wailing cry struck upon his senses like the crash of a thunder peal.
He sprang forward, caught the child from the mother’s arms, rolled it in
its blanket, seized the bundle, and with the single word “Come!” set off
through the woods at a terrific pace, the Indian woman following. For an
hour without a word from either he smashed his way through the
underbrush, down valleys, over rocky ledges, one thought only driving
him as the furies Orestes—to get away from his wife. He had a vague,
blind notion that he would make the Athabasca before he halted. He would
have gone on thus, blindly, madly, had not a cry again arrested him. The
child in his arms began to squirm, struggle, fight for liberty,
screaming lustily the while. The mother caught his arm.

“Give me my boy,” she said breathlessly.

Whirling upon her he gave the child into her arms, flung down the bundle
and stood facing her.

“Where is your camp?” he asked abruptly.

“Down on the river, at the big rapid,” she said quietly, busying herself
with the child.

“Who are there?”

“My father and two of his men.”

He continued gazing at her as if she were a stranger to him. He was wet
to the skin. His hair was plastered in curls about his forehead.

“You must go home,” he said, his voice grating harshly. “Why did you
come here?”

She continued her task of caring for the child. She too was trembling,
but not with her mad chase after him. The hour’s strenuous exertion had
hardly quickened her breathing. All day marches, carrying her bundle and
her child, were to her nothing unusual. It was the passion in her that
shook her like a palsy.

“Why did you come?” repeated the man. “What do you want?”

She set down the child. Her trembling hands suddenly grew steady. Her
face settled into stern lines of calm. Her voice came in the quiet
strength of a deep flowing river. She was past all fear, past desire,
past hope. She was in full command of herself, of the situation, of him
too.

“Two months ago I left my country because I had here,” she laid her hand
on her breast, “a great pain to see your face again, to hear you speak,
to touch your hand. That is gone, all gone, gone like the snow of last
year from the mountains. Today my heart is dead. I have seen your woman.
I have seen your face. You have no thought, no love for the Indian girl.
To you she is like the dead leaves—nothing! nothing! You would kill her
and her child. I saw death in your eyes just now. I go away, back to the
Athabasca. You will never see my face again. But before I go I ask you
one thing. This boy, this little boy”—for an instant the even calm of
her voice was shaken—“he is my son, but first he is your son. What will
he be, Indian or white man? The Indian is like the buffalo and the deer.
The white man is hunting him from the plains and the woods. Soon he will
be like the mountain sheep, only in the lonely valleys or the far
mountain tops. What will your boy be? Where will he go? I wait for your
voice.”

The man stood listening, held as by a spell. The anger passed from his
face. In its place came in swift succession relief, surprise,
perplexity, shame, humiliation. Before her superb self-abnegation he
stood self-condemned, mean, contemptible. He could find no words. This
girl who had in those careless days so long ago worshipped him as a god
and given herself to him with never a care or question had changed into
a woman, his equal in truth of feeling, in sense of right. Here she was
asking his solution of a problem that was his before it was hers, and
his more than hers. The boy? The little chap standing up straight on
sturdy legs, gazing at him with piercing, solemn, appraising eyes—his
boy? His heart gave a queer little quiver. Indian or white man?
Condemned to be hunted back beyond the horizon of civilisation? Or
trained, fitted for a chance for life among men? Never in his life had
his thoughts raced through his mind as today in the presence of this
girl, this grave, controlled woman by whose very calmness he stood
accused and condemned as by a judge upon the bench. For his very life,
with those clear, calm eyes reading his soul, he could make no answer.
There was no answer in his mind. His first thought had been that the
Indian woman should simply disappear from his world and find a home with
her own people. But as he listened to her quiet and reasoned appeal in
her quaintly picturesque speech, the product of the mission school, and
as he looked upon her face, alight with clear-seeing intelligence, aglow
with the divine light of motherhood and distinguished with a beauty
beyond any he had ever known, the solution which first suggested itself
to his mind somehow failed to satisfy. Then, too, the boy, the little
boy—his little son—for whom he was responsible before God—yes, and, if
it were known to them, before all honourable men, and that meant in his
own sight. Was man ever so cornered by fate, nay, by his own doings?

“I will see you tomorrow, Onawata,” he said more gently. “I will come to
your camp tomorrow.” He laid his hand upon her shoulder. At his touch
and at the change in his voice, the woman was transformed, as if in a
single moment the world should pass from the cold beauty of winter to
the warm living glory of a midsummer day. Under the brown skin the red
blood surged, rich and full, lending warmth and color to the cold beauty
of her face. The rigid lines in her slim straight body suddenly seemed
to melt into soft curves of winsome grace. The dark steadfast eyes grew
soft as with a yearning tenderness. With a little shuddering sigh she
sank upon the pine needles, her hands fluttering up toward him.

“Ah, ah, Wa-ka-no-ka” (Hunter with the Golden Hair), she said, with a
long sobbing cry. “Do not speak so to me, do not touch me, or I cannot
go back. Ah, how can I leave you unless you hate me?”

She swayed forward toward him, flung her arms about his ankles and held
him fast, sobs deep drawn shaking her body.

Gaspard was not a hard man. Rather was he strongly, keenly susceptible
of appeal to the æsthetic and emotional elements in his artistic
nature. The sight of this woman, young—she was not more than
twenty-two—beautiful and pitifully, hopelessly, his slave as well as
his victim, moved him deeply. He leaned down over her, lifted her to
her feet and, with his arms thrown about her, sought to stay her
sobbing.

“Don’t, child,” he said. “Don’t cry like that. We will find some way out
of the mess, or, by God,” he added with sudden passion, “we’ll make
one.”

Still sobbing, she leaned against him. The absence of any suggestion of
passion in him revealed to her woman’s instinct that the dream that had
drawn her from her far north home was madness. She knew she was nothing
to him and could be nothing to him. Her very despair quieted her, and
she stood, limp and drooping, her eyes on the ground, her hands folded
before her.

“Come, I will take you to your camp, and tomorrow I will talk with you,”
said Gaspard, with a gentle kindness in his voice and manner.

The girl roused herself, glanced about to discover her child who was
busying himself among the bushes, then turning back to him said with a
simple and quiet dignity, “No, you must not come. I do not need you. I
must do without you. It is all past. Now you go back to your woman.
Tomorrow you will tell me about your boy.” She rolled the child up in
his blanket, slung him Indian fashion over her shoulder, picked up her
bundle and with never another look at the man and with never a word she
took her way.

“Tomorrow,” said Gaspard, “I shall see you. Good-bye.”

Unheeding, she passed on down the trail, and the underbrush hid her from
his sight.




                               CHAPTER IV


The burden upon the man’s soul grew heavier with every step homeward. He
was going to meet his wife, the woman he had wronged, the woman who was
to him the very centre of his being, the dearest of all he possessed in
life, without whose respect and love life would lose its meaning and
value. As to the Indian woman and her wrong, truth to tell, though he
pitied her, he felt no very acute concern. True enough, the astonishing
advance she had made during the past five years in the white man’s
civilisation and culture had given her a new place in his consideration.
She was no longer an ignorant squaw whose rights and wrongs could be
estimated in terms purely materialistic. She had developed a mind and a
soul. The memory of that appeal of hers for her son, for his son, calm,
dignified, pungent, still shook him. But his chief concern now was how
to bury this whole wretched business from the knowledge of his wife
beyond possibility of resurrection.

The picture of his wife’s face following the possible revelation of his
sin halted him in his stride and wrung from his soul’s depths a groan.

“My God! My God!” he cried aloud, lifting his hands heavenward. “Let
that never come! Let that never come!”

Sooner death to her, to him, and, as for the Indian and her child, to
them death a thousand times. He wiped the sweat from his face and stood
gazing about him. How changed the whole world was within a brief two
hours’ space! The same mountains, trees, river, sun and sky, yet to him
all seemed flooded with a new light, lurid and awesome. Yet it was not
his sin, but the dread terror of detection, of its consequences, that
had wrought this change in his world. He could not keep his wife’s face
out of his mind. Her dark blue reproachful eyes, sad and
horror-stricken, were holding him in relentless grip. He dreaded facing
her. His artistic and highly emotional temperament, his power of vivid
imagination, gave living reality to the picture. He flung his hands
again high above his head.

“God in Heaven, this is madness!” he exclaimed. “Madness, sheer, fool
madness! She will never know. How can she know?”

He shivered and stamped, as if smitten with mid-winter cold. He glanced
about him. A warm and sunny ledge of rock carpeted with moss and pine
needles invited him. He threw himself down upon it, pulled out his pipe,
deliberately filled it from his pouch and struck a match. The flame
shook in his fingers. He cursed himself for a fool. He was acting like a
frightened child. He raged at himself and his weak folly. He must take a
grip of himself. His pipe helped him to a more normal mood. The mere
performance of the familiar physical act of sucking in and exhaling the
smoke helped him. He held up his hand before him. The discovery that his
hand was no longer shaking helped him. He stretched himself at full
length upon the sunny ledge and let his eyes wander over the scene
spread out before him. Unconsciously, the wild, wide, lonely beauty of
the landscape reached his soul and quieted him. His artist’s eye began
to select, group, compose into a picture, the elements in this wonder
world before him. The very tensity of his nervous condition aided him.
His mind was working with swift constructive power.

“Lord! What a light! What colour!” he said, as his eye rested upon the
rich deep purple in the hollows of the hills on the far side of the
valley. He longed for his brushes. His fingers dived into the pocket of
his jacket for his sketch book, without which he never walked abroad. In
another moment he was deep in his work, sketching with swift, sure
fingers, filling in the outlines, noting the colours, the lights, the
shadows, the fall of foothills from the great mountain peaks, the
serried lines of the pines at the horizon, the broad silver ribbon of
the river, the tawny gold of the grassy levels. He had an hour of
absorbing delight in his work.

“There! Never did anything finer!” he exulted. He rapidly reviewed his
work, re-touching, emphasising, correcting.

“I’ll get that into colour at once,” he muttered, thrusting his book
into his pocket. The act recalled him to the grim reality of his
situation.

He was surprised to discover that most of its horror had somehow gone.
He was immensely relieved.

“What a baby I am!” he said, with a smile of complacent self-pity. “What
an emotional, imaginative ass!” But even as he spoke he felt the shadows
creeping again over the landscape of his soul.

“Here! Enough of this!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet. “I’m going
to face this thing like a man. I played the fool. I’ll do the right
thing by the girl—and her baby.”

Her baby? His mind was away on a new tack, like a ship caught by a
sudden shift of wind. His baby? His son? Indian or white? Or half-breed?
What! His son! Truly, he was in a devilish cleft. Well he knew, none
better, for he had lived with and worked with him, that, of all the
human beings roving the new country, the half-breed, in spite of many
splendid exceptions which he had met, was the most to be pitied, the
most despicable. Too often inheriting the weaknesses and vices of both
races, he was the derelict of the borderland of civilisation. Settled
down upon the land, as in the Red River Valley, he could climb to
strength and honour among the white race. Roving the plains and the
woods with the tribes, he frequently sank beneath their level, more
easily accessible to the vices of the white man, unable and unwilling to
attain to the splendid and unspoiled nobility of the red man in his
native wilds. Indian or white man? Again he could hear that calm,
passionless voice putting to him the alternative, clearly he visualised
those steady, relentless eyes holding his with unwavering grip. The
problem was his, not hers. Alone, she would,, she must find the only
solution possible; his son would be Indian—no, not even Indian, but
half-breed. He was conscious of a fearful shrinking from that
alternative. He had a very clear picture of the little chap, with his
straight back, his sturdy legs, his shy, dark, yet fearless eyes, the
curl to his hair. Ho! He would give the boy a chance! With a mother like
that he had a right to a chance. He would have him educated.
Trader—trapper—rancher—there were many possibilities open to him of
escape from the degradation of the roving half-breed, haunting the
Indian wigwam, slinking round the saloons of the frontier village. He
would give him a chance. He would keep a distant eye upon him. The
little chap should have his full opportunity, for manhood, for Canadian
citizenship. After all, it would be easy enough. The whole thing could
be arranged to do justice to every one involved.

He smiled at his recent terror. But again, even as he smiled, deep
within him there was an uneasy stirring that his terrors would come upon
him again when his mood had changed. For the present he had shaken from
him his fear. He would meet his wife with a quiet face and a steady eye.
He sprang to his feet. He must get home quickly. The lunch hour was long
since past, and explanations would be expected. Well, they were easy: he
had carried the woman’s bundle to her camp by the Big Rapid. He set off,
whistling bravely a merry lilt. A sudden memory killed the song at his
lips. There was his son Paul. He had witnessed the meeting with the
Indian woman. Just what had been said and done, he could not well
remember, the shock of the meeting had been so overpowering. The boy’s
powers of perception were uncanny and, too, he was free of speech,
terribly so. What had he noticed? What were the boy’s thoughts about
that meeting and conversation? That there had been previous acquaintance
had been made clear. Had he not called her by her Indian name? He was
almost sure he had. He could not deny acquaintance. Well! It was safest
not to deny too much. Of course, he had met her and her people in his
wanderings, had hunted with her tribe—very decent lot they were too,
they had done him a good turn and were great friends of his. There must
be no mystery about this. Yes, he would take Paul to visit their camp
some day, as doubtless the boy would demand. But he would take care that
the camp would be deserted on the day of the visit. It was all simple
enough. Why make such a fuss about it? The main consideration was to get
the Indian woman and her people out of the country with all speed, and
that he could accomplish without much difficulty. When he had arrived at
this satisfactory conclusion, however, he made the disturbing discovery
that that vast sense of relief, that scorn of himself and of his
childish terror, which had cheered him half an hour ago, had largely
evaporated from his spirit, and once more the haunting dread of
discovery was upon him. Once more he found himself visualising the
accusing face, the steady, disquieting eye of his wife. Again he cursed
himself for a fool.

“Imagination! My damned imagination!” he muttered, as he smashed his way
through the bushes. “Look here, this will not do,” he said aloud, coming
to a dead stop. “I must get hold of myself.”

Resolutely he slowed his pace. Suddenly with a sickening sinking of
heart, it came upon him that henceforth throughout his life he must
carry this haunting load of fear. He would never be without it. Be it
so! He would carry it as a man should. He would face the fear and fight
it. He would play the man for his own sake, but more for the sake of the
woman to whom he was now going with his lie and who stood to him for all
that was best in life. For his boy’s sake too. No shadow would lie
suffer to fall on them if lie had to go through hell itself for it. This
resolve steadied him, and with this resolve he arrived at his own back
door. His son’s shout welcomed him.

“Hello, Daddy! Where are they? Where is their camp? Will you take me to
see them?”

“Who? Oh, the Indians! Yes, they are safely at their camp. Long way off
though. I’ll take you some day. I say, I am hungry! Lunch over?”

“Yes, Daddy, we couldn’t wait any longer. Where is the camp? Do you know
them? Where did you meet them? Mother,” he shouted, as she came to the
door, “Daddy’s going to take me to the Indian camp.”

“Why did she run away like that, Hugh? That little boy needs care. He
will be having another attack. They should be under shelter.”

He glanced at her face. How worn and ill and worried she looked!

“Oh, don’t you worry about that little chap. You can’t kill those
Indians. They’re all right. Very decent lot they are,” he went on
nonchalantly, “better than most. Father’s quite a superior old boy.
Chippewayans they are. Met them some time ago. Did some hunting with
them. But here! I’m hungry as a hawk, starving, ravenous, dangerous.
Anything left to eat? Oh, by the way, got a fine picture this morning on
my way back. Wonderful thing—lights just right. Must get it down this
afternoon before I forget.”

“Come, Hugh, never mind your picture now. You must be famished. Come
along. I’ve kept your lunch hot for you. It is quite spoiled, of course,
but——” Her arms went about his neck. He could hardly repress a shudder
as he received her kisses.

“Never mind, Mother,” he said brusquely, “it will be the best ever. Let
me splash my face a bit. Run off, Paul, now. After lunch we will have a
walk.”

“Oh, splendid! To the camp, to see the Indians?” shouted the boy. “I
adore Indians. What——”

“Off you go, boy, and let me get through with my lunch. Vamoose! Clear
out! Do you hear?” he shouted at the boy with mock fierceness.

Thank God, the first meeting was safely over. He had carried it off
successfully. His spirits rose with a bound. He must get them thinking
of something else. Preoccupation was the idea. His new picture! He would
put some hard hours upon that. His wife would be interested and pleased.
She always was when he really worked at his easel, and more especially
when he carried the thing through to completion. He would put the
finishing touches to this picture. The scene began to come back to him.
He brought his sketch book to the lunch table with him.

“There is the making of a great picture, Marion,” he cried, opening out
the book for her.

Eagerly she came to his side, and stood with her hand on his shoulder.

“Show me, dear,” she said. Her tenderness was like a knife in him.

“See that line of mountains in the far distance, wonderful blue at the
sky line, and down the sides in the hollows and at the base purple. My
dear! Such purple—shot through with rose tints!” He grew enthusiastic.

“There, that will do, Hugh!” she said, taking away his sketch book from
him and patting his head as if he were a little boy. “Lunch just now,
and then you will get at your picture right after. You are starved. Your
lunch is spoiled, I fear, but it is the very best Jinny could do.”

All through lunch he talked eagerly, excitedly, about his picture. His
art work always excited him, and when a scene really gripped his
imagination he was mad to be at it. He hurried through his meal, seized
his sketch book, and in a minute was busy with his palette. An hour
later his wife came in to him and, sitting down in an easy chair,
watched him at his work. Back and forward, with quick step and with
eager, clever fingers, he touched and re-touched, spreading upon the
canvas the scene of the morning, with never a pause and never an
erasure. He had rarely worked so surely, rarely with such mastery in his
brush.

“Splendid! Hugh, wonderful!” said his wife. Something in her voice
arrested his swiftly moving brush. He faced about and glanced at her.
Her face was ashen. His heart sank with a terrible fear—did she suspect
anything?

“Marion, you are ill,” he cried, flinging down his brush and palette.
“What is it?”

“Nothing much, dear,” she said wearily. “I am tired a bit. The morning
has been a little trying.”

“What do you mean, darling?”

“The Indian woman,” she said faintly.

“The Indian woman?” he echoed, his voice as faint as her own. Had the
thing he dreaded come to pass? “What do you mean?”

Then she told him of her experience with the sick child and the fight
with death, in which she had played the chief rôle.

“It was a very serious case, Hugh,” she said. “It made me think of our
little Marie. The little fellow was just gone when I got him into the
tub. He must be a very, very strong child, stronger than——”

He was immensely relieved for the moment.

“But, my dear Marion, you have knocked yourself up. You are all in, I
say. And all for a little Indian brat——”

“Oh, Hugh! He was a perfect darling. I never saw a more lovely, a more
perfect little body—and so fair for an Indian.”

“But it nearly killed you.” His recent scare and his anxiety for his
wife’s condition made him savage. “You should not have done it. You know
well you cannot stand excitement.”

“Dear Hugh,” she said, drawing his head down to her breast, “I love you
when you are in a rage like this. But, darling boy,” she paused a few
moments, “I am going to tell you something, and promise me you will be
very, very brave. Indeed, you must be brave, for I am such a coward. I
fear there is something wrong, terribly wrong with me. I have had such a
strange, heavy pain here for so long.” She laid her hand upon her
stomach. “I am afraid, Hugh, afraid.” Her voice died away in a whisper.

He was about to break forth into indignant, scornful protest against
such nonsense, but when he looked into her face his words died at his
lips, his heart grew cold and he could only continue gazing at her.

“Don’t, Hugh!” she cried. “You must not look like that, or I cannot bear
it.”

For answer he groaned like a man who has been stricken with a death
wound, put his arms round her and held her in a shuddering embrace. For
a moment or two his world had gone black, but only for a moment or two.

“No, Marion,” he said, with resolute voice, “we shall not yield to our
fears. You gave me an awful shock. There may be something quite
seriously wrong. It would be foolish to say anything else. I have seen
you failing in strength for a few months past. But we are not going to
give up. There are wonderful doctors in the world today. We are going to
fight and fight with all we’ve got to fight with.”

“Thank you, dear Hugh. You are a brave man.” Then she added brightly, “I
want you to do something for me today.”

“Anything! Today or any day,” he said fervently. “I only hope it is hard
enough. What is it, dear?”

“Finish that picture. You know your failing, dear. It is going to be
wonderful.”

He looked at her aghast. “You have surely asked a hard one,” he
murmured.

“I know, dear, but I want to sit here and watch that picture grow under
your hands till it is quite perfect. Come, Hugh, I am feeling better. I
have been feeling much better the last few weeks. It was the sudden
excitement and the heavy work this morning. The little chap is quite a
weight, you know. I shall be better tomorrow. Now, get to work, dear
boy. See, that light over the left background is too high, I think.”

Dully his eyes followed her finger, as she pointed out defects and
excellencies in the picture. Suddenly he picked up his brush.

“I’ll do it! I’ll finish it for your sake! I haven’t often done it, but
I’ll finish this before I do a stroke of anything else.”

There was still abundance of light throughout the long spring afternoon,
while hour after hour he wrought at his canvas under the inspiration of
a great scene, listening to his wife’s approving or critical comments,
discussing with her lights and shadows, distance, composition, balance,
giving her the while a simple and perfect joy. As the best of the light
failed she drew him away from his easel and, after tea, out into the
soft spring evening.

There was something very tender in their love for each other that
evening. It was an hour that Gaspard never forgot for all the following
years of his life. In his wife there was an almost unreal buoyancy of
spirit in reaction from her depression of the morning, a subtle
sweetness of charm, a delicate tenderness that brought back to him the
early days of their betrothal when just to hear her speak, to watch the
color come into her cheek, to catch the mystic, meaningful look in her
eye, which he knew was for him alone, had been wont to work in him a joy
beyond words to express, an exaltation of imaginative ecstasy which had
power to turn Glasgow’s muddy streets and solidly dull tenements into
“pathways of silver and palaces of gold.” Slowly they walked down the
driveway, under the tall red pines which now were standing like rigid
sentinels in the windless silence of the soft spring air. Far across the
valley stood the distant mountains, now showing dark blue in clean-cut
outline against a sky of wonderful, quivering liquid gold, and between
the mountains and the bench of foothills on which stood their home lay
the broad valley still deep in soft yellow sunshine reflected from the
sky overhead, except where the shadows from the mountain peaks fell in
long dark lances and where the masses of the pine tops showed a deep
blue black. A hushed stillness had fallen upon the world, except for the
exquisite notes of the meadow lark which now and then fell upon the
silent air, liquid and golden, as from no other living bird in any known
land. As they walked thus beneath the pines, holding each other’s hand
like children, the sweet sad beauty of the dying day, the mystic silence
of the wide valley at their feet, the deep shadow of the pines splashed
with wide pools of gold, the liquid bell-like note of the bird, like a
voice from another world, all together brought a great ease to strained
nerves and tortured hearts.

“It is a good world, Hugh, a dear, good world,” said his wife as they
stood together drinking in with all their senses the beauty, the glory,
the soft tender silence of the falling evening.

“The best ever,” replied her husband, “if only——”

“Oh, let’s have no ‘if’ today. I’ve had a wonderful afternoon. You’ve
given me a wonderful afternoon, Hugh. I won’t forget it ever.”

“Forget what?”

“How good you are to me, Hugh,” she said.

“Good to you? Good Lord! But I mean to be! I want to be! You can bank on
that.” His voice grew uncertain.

“I do, I do. I know it well,” she said.

“And you will always believe that?” he asked with a strange intensity.
“Always? No matter what comes?” He threw his arm about her.

“Hugh, I believe you are making love to me.” She laughed happily.

“God knows I am,” he said with emphasis. “And God knows that never will
I do anything else than make love to you, so long as I live. I am really
only beginning to love you.”

“What? You dare to tell me that you have been deceiving me all these
dozen years?”

“Of course I imagined I loved you. But I was only a boy and I was only
beginning to know you. Indeed, I am only beginning to know you now.”

Again she laughed, a happy laugh, the laugh of a carefree light-hearted
girl.

“How serious you are, Hugh, old boy! Let us be happy.”

They returned to the verandah and there, while the night came up from
behind the distant hills, they sat watching in almost complete silence,
needing no words for perfect fellowship, till old Jinny brought in a
dirty and very weary boy to say good-night.




                               CHAPTER V


Hugh Gaspard rose next morning with his mind set upon the accomplishment
of his tasks. First he must finish his picture, and then he must get
that Indian woman away from the country. Both of these things must be
done and done today. Before all else he must finish the picture, because
it had gripped him and he could not escape from it, but chiefly because
he was somehow conscious of an overmastering eagerness to do what he
knew would bring to his wife’s face that look of joy and pride in him
which during the last twenty-four hours had become intensely desirable.
It was as if he had a foreboding that for him that look might never
appear again.

The morning hours his wife spent in bed, hearing Paul’s lessons. Through
the open doors of her bedroom and his studio he could hear their voices,
the high, clear, eager, questioning voice of the boy and the gentle
tones of the mother in reply. Coming into the living room for a fresh
supply of tobacco, he heard the boy reciting the Catechism which was
always the first lesson in the morning.

“Every sin _a_serveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life and that
which is _a_come——”

“_To_ come, dear,” corrected the mother.

“To come,” repeated Paul. “Does that mean in hell, Mother?” the clear,
high voice demanded cheerfully.

There was a pause, then, “Yes, dear. Now say it again, ‘What does every
sin deserve?’” The answer was given with fair correctness.

“But God doesn’t ever send any one to hell, Mother, does He? Asa Sleeman
says it’s a fire worse’n the lime kiln—an’ He wouldn’t do that, would
He? He couldn’t, you know.”

“What makes you think so, dear?” asked the mother anxiously. The man
listened, breathless.

“Because no one would ever sin more’n four hundred and ninety times a
day, would he? An’ that means in half a day, because he sleeps almost
half a day, and that would be four hundred and ninety times in half a
day.”

“What in the world do you mean, Paul? Four hundred and ninety times?”

“Why, Mother, don’t you remember what Jesus said to the _a_sciples?”
Paul had difficulty with his dental and other initial consonants.

“What was that? I forget,” replied the bewildered mother.

“Oh, Mother, I didn’t _a_ppose you would forget that—our very last
lesson.”

“Read it to me, Paul,” said the gentle voice.

“Here it is, Mother,” cried the boy. The father could hear him turning
the leaves of the big Bible. “Then came Peter and said to Him, Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven
times? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but,
Until seventy times seven.’ There, Mother—‘Seventy times seven,’ four
hundred and ninety times,” cried the boy triumphantly. “And everybody is
sorry some time for his sins, isn’t he? Anyway, He said four hundred and
ninety times, so that’s all right. Four hundred and ninety times in one
day; that’s from seven to seven, _a_cause he couldn’t sin in his sleep,
Mother. So I guess He’d just forgive the very worstest man in the whole
world, wouldn’t He, Mother?”

“Yes, dear, I believe he would.” There was a note of joyous relief in
her voice. She had escaped once more from another of those terrible
theological dilemmas into which her eager young son was so frequently
forcing her.

“I know He would _a_cause you would me. Mother, would you, four hundred
and ninety times in one day?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Five hundred times?”

“Yes, dear.”

“A thousand million times?”

“Yes, dear, you know I would.”

“An’ God’s just as good as you, Mother, isn’t He?”

“Oh, my dear, don’t say that. I am not good.”

“You are, Mother,” shouted the boy indignantly. “You’re just as good as
God.”

“Hush, dear, hush! Don’t speak like that. God is perfect, you know. No!
No! Don’t say that again.”

“All right, Mother, but I know all the same. Anyway, seventy times seven
is four hundred and ninety.”

“Yes, my boy, always remember that as long as you live. And whatever you
do or whatever happens, remember that.”

“Sure thing! Certainly, I mean, Mother,” cried the boy, hastily
correcting his form of speech at the look in his mother’s face. “Seventy
times seven is four hundred and ninety, anyway.”

The man in the living room picked up the tobacco pouch and retreated
softly to his studio. “Seventy times seven—sure thing.” The words rang
like a bell in his soul. Even if she did come to know, perhaps she too
would forgive. He found himself passionately agreeing with the boy.
“You’re just as good as God,” in spite of the blasphemy of it. He went
at his work again, closing the door behind him. Somehow the colours were
brighter, the light effects more striking, though well he knew that in
the background of his mind, as in his picture, there were those deep
shadows that no light could pierce. He knew there was hell. He had had a
look into its lurid depths within the last twenty-four hours, and he was
haunted by the terror that he might know something more of it before
long. But “four hundred and ninety times! Seventy times seven! A
thousand million times!” Yes, for her innocent little boy. But for him?
Still, seventy times seven was four hundred and ninety. He must finish
that picture today, and at his work he went with furious zeal. He had
never done such good work, and he had come to the finishing touches. He
heard Paul planning with his mother for a ride down the valley, perhaps
the following day. His heart rose in new hope. She would be well again.
But at the very earliest moment he would take her away to the best
doctor at Home that money could command. Could she bear the long
journey—nearly four thousand miles by land and three thousand by sea?
There was that very clever Old Country surgeon in Vancouver everybody
was speaking of. Why had he never thought of him? His mind had always
gone to the great surgeons of the homeland. But that young McPhail! Why
not consult him? He would take her to Vancouver at once. Hour after hour
he spent, re-touching the canvas here and there, prancing back and
forward with light, eager steps. In his absorption he forgot all but the
wonderful scene before him. The door opened softly and his wife entered.
He heard nothing.

“Oh, Hugh! how wonderful!” she breathed in ecstasy.

He flung down his brush. “It is finished!” he muttered in an undertone.
“And it is good. My best!” He sat looking at it with a detached and
critical eye. “Yes, it really is not half bad.”

“Half bad!” returned his wife, with indignant scorn. “It ought to be in
the Academy!”

“I’ve seen a lot worse there too,” said her husband.

“Of course you have, and few better.”

“My dear, you have a wonderful eye! Two of them indeed!” He turned
toward her, smiling quizzically.

“Oh, you may smile! But I know pictures a little,” she exclaimed
defiantly.

“God forbid I should deny it! If you were only on the hanging committee!
But, heigh, oh!” he yawned, stretching mightily. “I am fair done. I
think I shall take a gun down the valley right after lunch.”

“You must be, and you have earned a real holiday. And, Hugh, darling,”
she came to him with hands lifted, “I know you finished this just for
me.” Her face was shining with an inner light, as she locked her hands
about his neck.

He stood a moment, looking into her eyes, then gathered her gently into
his arms and carried her to a chair, holding her to him.

“Well, I did,” he said, his voice a little uncertain. “And,” he added,
kissing her, “it was worth while.”

She settled down into his arms with a little sigh.

“We are very happy, Hugh. I am afraid sometimes we are too happy.”

“Too happy? I can ‘thole’ a lot o’ yon,” he answered cheerily. “But,” he
added suddenly, letting into his voice a deeper tone, “as for you, you
jolly well deserve all there is going. Now a little rest before lunch,
while I get out my gun.” He laid her on a lounge, covered her with a
wrap and left her, with a smile of pride and ineffable joy illuminating
the beauty of her face.

After a hasty lunch Gaspard looked in upon her, found her sleeping
quietly and with the adumbration of that same smile still lingering
about her, then taking his gun set forth to the completion of the other
task he had set himself for the day. A disturbing factor in his day’s
problem he had learned from old Jinny. Paul had gone off with the
Sleeman children, Asa and Adelina, on their ponies for the day, and the
boy had spoken of a visit to the Indian camp. Of course, he could send
the children off on some chase, but none the less it was a complication
which added to the difficulty of a situation sufficiently complex
already. He did not, however, anticipate much trouble with Onawata. Her
love for him and her native Indian pride would work together to further
his purpose. As to the old chief, he was an uncertain and possibly
refractory element. A Chippewayan chief of ancient lineage, proud of his
race and rank, he had kept his tribe aloof from the life and manners of
the white man. He had seen the degradation of other tribes through
contact with white civilisation and, following the tradition of his
ancestors, he had built up in his people a fear of the white man’s power
and a contempt for his vices. On the plains of the far north land his
people could meet with the white man on equal terms without fear, and at
the trading post he could hold his own in shrewd bargaining for the
products of trap and gun. He permitted no mingling of blood strains in
his tribe, no half-breed could find a home in his wigwams. Next to his
passion for his people, his love for his daughter held place with him.
Her mother, an Athabascan princess of great beauty and intelligence,
trained in one of the out-post Anglican mission schools, had captured
his youthful fancy and had held his heart in loyal allegiance for twenty
years, until her death twenty-two years ago in giving birth to her only
child, Onawata, who, growing up into beautiful girlhood, took her
mother’s place in her father’s heart and became the very light of his
eyes, the joy of his heart.

He had not sent her to the mission school. He wanted her kept pure
Indian. But he had cleverly cajoled the missionary into setting up among
his tribe a kind of extension branch of his school, the principal pupil
of which was the chief’s daughter. Her extraordinary intelligence,
stimulated by her father’s ambition for her, enabled her to overcome
with remarkable ease and rapidity the initial difficulty of language in
acquiring knowledge. She learned to read, to write, to do simple sums,
and, not only so, but succeeded in bullying her father into the same
knowledge. So that at seventeen she was a sweet, clean, well educated
Indian maid of rare intelligence and rarer beauty, the pride of the
tribe which she ruled like a queen and the centre and delight of her
father’s life.

Frankly, Gaspard was afraid to meet the old chief. He relied upon
Onawata’s influence with him, but it was with very considerable
trepidation that he strode into the Indian camp.

A strange scene spread itself before his eyes. On a grassy bench, a
little removed from the river bank, were pitched two tents before which
were grouped two Indians and at a little distance the chief with his
daughter, all intent upon the doings of a group of children and their
ponies upon the grass plot before them. The children were dismounted,
and their ponies standing, held by their trailing reins, all but Paul,
who with the little four-year old Indian child in his arms was galloping
up and down the sward to the shrieking delight of the children standing
by.

“The Sleeman youngsters and Peg Pelham,” he said to himself, as he stood
watching. “By Jove! That boy is a rider,” he added as his eyes followed
the galloping pony with its double load, careering up and down. Almost
as he spoke the pony reached the turn, turned on its hind legs and was
swinging back on its return trip, when the Sleeman boy sprang forward
with a shout, waving his hat. With a quick side jump the pony’s feet
struck the overhanging cut-bank, broke through, plunged wildly and
disappeared, crashing into the underbrush some ten feet below.

Swift as a flash of light, the old chief sprang for the bank, but before
him was Gaspard who, clearing the bank with a single leap, was at the
head of the struggling pony and, with one hand holding it quiet, grasped
with the other the Indian child and, sheltering it with his own body
from the kicks of the struggling pony, pulled it clear of danger. It was
bravely and cleverly done.

“Paul,” he shouted, peering among the underbrush for his son, “where are
you?”

“Huh,” grunted the chief, whose quick eye had caught sight of the boy
farther down the bank, lying motionless at the root of an old birch
stump. With one leap the chief was over the pony and at the boy’s side.
Swiftly he lifted the boy, carried him down to the river’s edge and laid
him gently down. Then reaching down he scooped up a double handful of
water and dashed it into the still, white face. A gasping sob, a shudder
of the limbs, and the eyes opened upon the chief’s face, then quietly
closed again.

“Huh, Kawin! Good!” grunted the chief, whose hands were swiftly moving
over the boy’s legs and arms. “Good,” said the chief again, giving place
to the boy’s father who had handed over the Indian child to its mother.

“Hello, old boy!” said Gaspard. “All right?”

“All r-i-i-ght,” said the boy with a deep sigh. “I’m a-w-f-u-l sle-epy.”
Gaspard reached down to gather him up in his arms.

“No!” said the chief, placing his hand on Gaspard’s arm. “No! Lie
down—good. Better soon—five minutes.” And Gaspard, kneeling there,
waited with white, anxious face. The chief spoke a few words to his
daughter who was standing near with her child in her arms. She hurried
away and came back in a few moments with a tin cup. The chief took it
from her.

“Good,” he said with a grunt. “Good. Drink.” Gaspard looked at the stuff
doubtfully, then at the girl.

“Yes, it is good. The Indians know it is good,” she said quietly.
Gaspard took the cup and waited till Paul opened his eyes again.

“Here, old chap, drink this,” he said, lifting the boy’s head.

“My! Daddy, that’s awful _a_gusting stuff,” he said, screwing up his
face.

“Good,” said the chief with emphasis. “Drink. Make all better.”

“Shall I, Daddy?” said the boy.

“The chief says so, Paul, and he knows.”

The boy’s eyes went round the circle of faces till they came to the
Indian girl’s, then rested there. She smiled at him, and took the cup
from his father’s hand.

“Drink it,” she said in a quiet voice. “My little boy drinks it. It will
do you good.” He drank it up at once.

“Where’s Joseph?” he asked suddenly when he had lain some minutes
quietly. “He went over too, didn’t he?” Joseph was the name of his pinto
pony, so called in Scriptural reminiscence of the earliest recorded
Joseph, with his coat of many colours.

“He’s perfectly all right—clumsy little beggar,” said his father.

“And the baby?” said Paul, sitting bolt upright and wide awake.

“He is here and safe,” replied the mother. “Your father saved him,” she
added in a voice that somehow carried a thrilling tone.

“Did you, Daddy? That was fine.”

“Pshaw! I just jerked the baby free from Joseph’s feet,” answered his
father almost gruffly.

“Good man! Smart man!” said the chief. “Jump like deer!”

“I guess the angels were smarter’n you, Daddy,” observed the boy
dreamily.

“Angels? What do you——? Oh, I see,” laughed the father.

“Yes, Mother says they just sweep down and keep us from bumping too
hard. They do, don’t they, Daddy?” enquired the boy, seeking assurance
in his father’s eyes.

“Why—ah—certainly they do. They got a wing in the way of that old stump
sure enough. But are you all right now, old man? Any headache? Arms all
right?’ Legs? Back? All sound, eh?” Paul, moving his various limbs in
response to his father’s questioning, found them all entire, without
bruise or fracture.

They all climbed to the grassy plot above, Paul refusing to be carried,
and found waiting them only one little girl, her face showing dead white
against the aureole of her bronze-gold hair.

“Hello, Peg,” grinned Paul. “Where’s Asa and Adelina?”

The little girl, looking very tiny in her riding breeches, gulped very
hard once or twice, then rushing at Paul flung herself upon him in a
storm of tears.

“Oh, Paul, they said you were dead,” she sobbed, clinging to him. “But
you’re not! You’re not!”

“Oh, rot, Peg.” Paul cast sheepish eye round the group as he
disentangled himself from the clinging arms. “Don’t be a silly. What’s a
fling from a horse? Lots of chaps get that.”

The little girl drew away from him, hurt and ashamed, and went slowly
toward her pony.

“Where are you going, Peg?” said Paul.

“None of your business,” she flung at him, leading her pony toward a
convenient stump.

“Peggy!” called Gaspard. Slowly she turned her face toward him. “Peggy,
will you do something for me?” He walked over toward her. “Peggy, I want
you to take Paul home for me. He is quite all right, I think, but I
would feel safer if you were with him. Will you?”

“Yes, Uncle Hugh,” said the little girl, her self-respect much restored.

“And, Paul—sure you feel all right?” enquired his father.

“Sure thing. Perfeckly all right, Daddy,” replied the boy stoutly.

“Well, then, ride slowly home together. Don’t race. And don’t tell
Mother anything about the accident, about what’s happened, till I
return. I don’t want her frightened. You understand, Paul, don’t you? I
can trust you, eh?”

“Yes, Daddy, you can trust me.” And, sitting his pony very straight and
gripping tight with his knees, he set off, crying out, “Good-bye, all!
Come along, Peg.”

“Good-bye, Uncle Hugh. Good-bye, little baby. Good-bye, all,” cried Peg,
putting her horse to a gallop to overtake Paul who was just disappearing
round a turn in the trail.




                               CHAPTER VI


When Gaspard turned from waving his son good-bye he found himself facing
the chief and his daughter.

“Chief, I want to speak to you about—about—that baby there.” He pointed
to the child in the girl’s arms.

The chief motioned the girl away.

“No, Father, it is my child. I will hear what is said.”

“Let her stay,” said Gaspard.

The chief grunted acquiescence. Then Gaspard spoke.

“I want to have the boy educated like a white man. I will pay for all.
But I want him to live in the North Country with his mother. That is the
best place for him just now.”

A gleam shot across the haughty face of the old chief.

“Listen!” he said in his own speech, his voice clear and vibrant with
passion. “You come to my wigwam, wounded, dying. Our people take you in,
bring you back from the land of the Great Spirit. For many moons you
live with me, my son, her brother. When you grow strong again you become
a wolf, you tear my heart; a thief, you rob my cache of the food on
which I live, you take away my treasure, my pride, my honour, my name.
On my knees”—he fell on his knees, his face distorted with passion—“I
make a prayer to the Great Spirit that some day He will show me your
face. That day will wipe out my shame in blood.” He rose from his knees.
His face once more took on its accustomed look of haughty self-command.
“Last night my daughter told me how your woman saved the child from
death. Today you too gave your blood for him. I am content. My knife
remains in its sheath. I have heard your word. It is not good. The boy
is my daughter’s son, he is my son. He will be chief after me. He will
be Indian. He will learn all that his mother has learned, and more. But
he will be Indian. Tomorrow we go to our own land. Never again will we
look upon your face, never again will you come to our land. The day you
come to our land you will die.”

“You will let me pay for the boy’s education and—and all that?” Gaspard
pleaded in a shaking voice.

“No! No thief shall pay money for the son of Wah-na-ta-hi-ta. Go! dog!”

The tall spare form drawn up to its full height, the out-flung command,
the dark eagle-like face, the fiercely blazing eye, the haughty mien,
the ringing trumpet tone, all this, with an acute and damnatory
consciousness of baseness and all too fully deserved rebuke, combined to
produce upon Gaspard’s sensitive, artistic soul a truly appalling and
overwhelming effect. His whole being shrivelled within him like a
growing tree before the blast of a scorching flame. An abasing
degradation swept his soul bare of any and every sense of manhood. For
some moments he stood utterly deprived of speech or movement. An
intolerable agony of humiliation paralysed his mental processes. His
mind was blank. He sought for a word but no word seemed adequate. Nor
could he move from the spot. Fascinated by that superb, terrible, living
embodiment of vengeful judgment, he was held rooted to earth. That final
utterance of blighting contempt, “Go! dog!” inhibited thought or motion.
Suddenly there flamed up against the blank wall of his imagination, as
if in a fiery scroll, the words of ancient doom, “Depart from me, ye
cursed.” He was conscious at once of an agonising desire to be gone and
of an utter powerlessness to lift his feet from their place.

A soft cry and a rush of feet released him. It was Onawata. Swiftly she
came to him, flung her arms round his neck, laid her head against his
breast, and there rested for a few moments. Then, with her one arm still
resting on his shoulder, she faced the old chief and poured forth a
passionate defence of the man against whom he had pronounced his bitter
and contemptuous indictment. The blame for her wrong was hers as much as
his. She had come to him, she had loved him, she loved him still though
he had forgotten her. Today he had saved her child from death, and
yesterday his woman had done the same. Tomorrow she would depart to her
own land, never more would she see his face, but not in humiliation and
shame would he leave her now. He would carry with him her heart, her
love, her life. While she spoke Gaspard felt a warm tide of gratitude
well up within his heart, restoring his manhood, freeing him from the
awful sense of abasing degradation which had overwhelmed him the moment
before. He passed his arm round the girl and drew her toward him. But
even as he did so the Indian girl tore herself free and sprang from him,
her eyes staring in horror over his shoulder. Following her eyes,
Gaspard turned and there beheld his wife, standing beside her pony,
white, silent, bewildered. Slowly she moved toward them.

“Where is Paul?” she asked of her husband. “Is he dead?”

“Dead? Nonsense! He has just gone galloping home with Peg. Who told you
about him? He was knocked out a bit, but he is perfectly all right.” His
words came in a hurried flood, as if he dreaded further questioning.

Standing there, her eyes closed for a moment. “Thank God!” she murmured
to herself. Then, opening her eyes as if waking suddenly from sleep, she
turned them steadily first on the girl, then on the child, then on her
husband and again on the child.

“Hugh, tell me,” her voice calm but terrible as the voice of doom,
“whose is that child? Remember God hears.”

“Mine!” The word leaped forth from the lips of the Indian girl in a
shrill cry. “Mine!” she repeated, springing before the man as if to
shelter him from attack.

“Hugh, in God’s name, tell me truly, whose is that child?”

The man, unnerved by the racking emotions of the last hour and reading
in her eyes that she already knew the truth which she dreaded to hear,
flung up his hands with a despairing cry.

“God help you, Marion! The child is mine!”

For five full seconds, to him they seemed hours, she stood, white-lipped
and staring. Then, turning, she walked with uncertain steps toward her
pony, adjusted the reins, attempted to mount, swayed as if to fall, but
clutched the mane and hung there.

Gaspard and the girl both sprang to her aid.

“Don’t—don’t—don’t touch me, Hugh!” she gasped, thrusting him from her.

“Marion,” he cried, his voice hurried and broken, “let me tell you.”

“No, no! Please go.” She stood a moment or two, shuddering, her hands
over her face as if to shut from her sight a terrible thing, with a
choking cry.

“My God, it has come.” Gaspard turned from his wife, plunged into the
underbrush and was lost to sight.

The Indian woman ran to the other and, clutching her skirt, fell upon
her knees crying, “Call him back, call him back quick. Let me call him
back. You will lose him forever.”

The white woman took her hands from her face, looked down upon the
Indian and said in a voice from which all hope had died, “Why call him
back? He is lost to me now.”

“No, no,” said the other, springing to her feet and seizing the white
woman’s arm. “He is yours, he is yours, only yours. Me! I am nothing to
him. It was my fault, my mistake. I knew nothing. I went to him. But to
him now I am nothing, nothing. Oh, let me call him back quick.” In her
vehemence she shook the white woman violently. But to her violence there
was no reaction. The wife slowly drew away from the grasp of the Indian
woman, climbed somehow on to her pony, and, with the face of one
stricken with her death wound, she set off slowly down the homeward
trail.

For a single moment the Indian woman followed her with scornful eyes.
This supreme, this mad folly in a woman who would turn away from a man
who so obviously and so passionately was hers, she could not understand.
It was the madness of the white race. White women did not know how to
love. She caught up her boy, ran with him to the chief.

“Take him. Keep him till I return,” she said fiercely.

“Where do you go?” said the chief sternly.

“I go to save the man I love,” she breathed.

“But who loves you not.” The chief’s tones were eloquent of scorn.

“What matters that? Not for myself I go, but for him. To bring him
back—to—her.”

“Fool!” said the chief.

“Yes, fool, fool,” she answered passionately. “But he will be
safe—and—happy.” She hurried into her wigwam, snatched a few camp
necessities and, swift as a deer, sped on the white man’s trail.




                              CHAPTER VII


For three days the Pine Croft Ranch was plunged in gloom. In her room
the lady of the ranch lay, fighting back death till her man should
return. She was unwilling to pass out of the world in which together
they had shared so deeply of its joys, without another word beyond that
last spoken between them.

On the third day Paul, with face pale, tense and worn, rode into the
Indian camp to interview the Chief. Straight up he stood, pale,
quivering under the nerve strain, but unafraid.

“Mother is very sick,” he said. “I’m awful afraid she will die. Father
is lost in the woods. She wants him awful bad.”

The chief listened, apparently unmoved.

“Mother kept the little baby from dying.”

The chief glanced sharply at the little lad. “Huh! I go find him,” he
said abruptly. He called his men. Together they consulted, apparently
canvassing the situation and planning the search. Then, with swift
expedition, they prepared for their tramp. In a very few minutes the
chief and one of his men stood ready for their journey, the other man
remaining in camp with the child. Before setting forth, the chief came
to the boy.

“You go mother,” he said. “Good woman! Two day father he come back.
Sure, two day. Tell mother. Good woman. Chief not forget baby.”

“Oh, thank you, Chief,” said the little boy, impulsively catching his
hand. “I’ll tell Mother. She will be awfully thankful to you. Good-bye.
Everything will be right now.”

“Huh!” grunted the chief, and with a wave of the hand he was gone.

“Hello, little one,” Paul called, catching sight of the Indian child
standing shyly within the tent door. “Come on over here. Come on and see
my pony.”

The child, with a fearlessness quite unusual among Indian children, came
trotting to him. Paul was delighted to find he was not forgotten.

“I say, little chap, tell me your name again,” he said, dropping on his
knees beside the youngster. The little chap gurgled a reply. “What is
it?” Again a gurgle. Paul gave an answering gurgle. “Is that it?”

The stolid face of the Indian standing near suddenly broke into a grin.

“Him name Peter,” he said, with a struggle.

“Peter,” shouted the boy, with a delighted laugh. “And I’m Paul. Oh,
isn’t that funny? Peter and Paul! Why, we are two Apostles.” He caught
up the little child and danced about with him in high glee, and the glee
of the little one was no less high. Then for half an hour the
grave-faced Indian looked upon a scene that more than once broke up his
gravity. For with all sorts of games and antics the white boy tumbled
the other about upon the grass, driving him into shrieks of delighted
laughter, such as in his rather sombre four years of life in the wigwam
with his stolid seniors he had never been known to utter. In the full
tide of his play Paul remembered his duty.

“Here, Peter, old chap, I must get away home,” he cried, rolling off
from his back the little Indian who had been using him as a pony.
“Good-bye. I’ll see you again soon.”

But a fierce howl of protest brought him back running. It was only after
he had emptied his pockets of his treasures, a top, a knife, some
peppermints, somewhat the worse for wear but none the less toothsome to
Peter, impervious to the microbe terror, that he was able to make his
escape in an atmosphere of smiling serenity.

“Two days!” The chief’s promise he knew would be kept. In two days his
father, whose mysterious absence had wrought such havoc in the life of
home, would be back again, and then the old serene and happy life would
be restored. In two days that dreadful fear which had been clutching at
his heart all yesterday and this morning and which the memory of his
mother’s face even now brought back to him would be gone. Two days! He
let his pony out to his full speed, eager to bring the great news to his
mother.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Two days later the chief appeared at the bungalow, supporting a
stumbling, ragged, half-starved man who fell sprawling at the steps and
lay there waiting for strength to make the ascent. The chief passed
quickly into the living room and finding no one went on into the
kitchen. There he found old Jinny, rocking in her arms a haggard,
grief-distracted boy who sobbed in his sleep. The old nurse, catching
sight of the chief, held up her hand for silence.

“Man come! Drink!” muttered the Indian, picking up a cup from the table
and going through the motion of drinking. Old Jinny, nodding
comprehension, rose with the boy in her arms, carried him to a sofa and
laying him gently down turned to the Indian with her finger on her lips,
then passing into the living room procured a glass of liquor and gave it
to the Indian.

“Come,” he ordered, and she followed promptly and without a word.
Together they lifted the exhausted Gaspard, gave him the drink, and
waited till his strength should come back.

“The Lord help the man, he maun dree his weird! It’s a sair warl for
him.” Then, turning to the chief who stood as if cut from stone, she
said:

“Gae awa’, you, tae Colonel Pelham,” she commanded him, “tae the big
white hoose doon the way yonder, and tell him the woman’s deid.” But her
speech was beyond the Indian till, baffled, she beckoned him into the
house.

“Come,” she said, and took him into the room where the dead woman lay.
At once the chief understood. Down the driveway she went with him and
pointed the way to the “big white house” of Colonel Pelham. Without a
word he was off on his errand, on the long swinging trot of the Indian,
while the old nurse returned to the man who still lay upon the steps,
too spent to move. She bent over him, shook him awake, and said, “Come,
man, get ye in till y’re bed. Ye’re no fit for onything.” He turned dull
eyes upon the house.

“Jinny,” he mumbled, “my—your—Marion—she is better?”

“Aye, she’s better,” said the old nurse calmly. “She’s beyond all ill.”
Jinny was entirely preoccupied with grief over the death of the woman
she had nursed as a babe and whose babes she had nursed as well.

The man staggered to his feet and held by the verandah post, struggling
for breath.

“Jinny,” he gasped. “No—no—you don’t—mean—she’s——” He could get no
further.

“Aye, she’s deid. Gude save us a’, my sweet lassie is deid.” The old
woman threw her apron over her head and burst into wailing. “Aye, the
puir lassie, the puir lassie! Ma bonnie wee lamb! She’s awa’, she’s
awa’.”

The man stared stupidly upon the rocking, wailing figure at his feet.

“Dead! Dead!” he said in a harsh voice. “It’s a lie. It’s a lie! She
wouldn’t die that way. She wouldn’t die without a word to me.”

“Aye, she left ye a word as she was bleedin’ ta deith. A pail full o’
bluid she pit up. Wae’s me! But she didna forget ye.” Old Jinny’s voice
took a grudging note. “She left ye a word.” She went into the house,
returning in a minute with a torn piece of paper. Gaspard took it with a
shaking hand, dropped it with a cry.

“What’s that on it?” he gasped pointing at a stain upon the white paper.
“What’s that? You old—fool—don’t tell me it’s——” His voice became a
shriek. “My God—my God! It’s blood! Her blood!” He pointed at the
stained paper a finger that wavered and shook, his face white, his eyes
fierce and glaring like those of a mad man.

“Aye, it’s her bluid. The blessed lamb!” said Jinny picking up the
paper. “She pit her dyin’ lips till it—the bluid——”

“Stop! Stop! For Heaven’s sake, stop! Do you want to kill me?” cried the
man, his voice shrill, strident, broken.

“Oh, Daddy, Daddy! You’re here! Oh, I’m glad you’re here!” The child’s
voice rang out in a cry of wild joy. In the doorway he paused, looking
from one to the other, then flung himself at his father.

Gaspard made as if to thrust him off, but on a second impulse he
gathered the boy in his arms and sank down, moaning, on the steps.

“She’s gone, she’s gone! Oh, God, let me go! Let me go too! She’s left
us, boy! She’s left us!”

“Yes, Daddy,” said the boy quietly, his hand reaching up to his father’s
cheek. “And she said you would go and me too, Daddy. I want to go with
you, Daddy.”

His father only groaned.

“And she made me promise to tell you about my very last lesson.” Still
the father was silent, heedless of the boy’s talk. “My Bible lesson, you
know, Daddy. She made me promise to tell you about it. Are you
listening, Daddy?”

“What! Oh, yes, yes, go on boy. What was it you were saying?” His father
roused himself to listen.

“She made me promise to tell you my lesson.”

“Yes! Go on!”

“About the seventy times seven, you remember.”

“Seventy times seven?” The man was broad awake.

“Yes, you know, seventy times seven in one day. That’s four hundred and
ninety times in one day we must forgive. And she said, ‘Be sure, be very
sure to tell Daddy that.’ She said you would be awful glad to hear that.
Why, Daddy? And she said it was the lesson she loved best in all the
Bible. I don’t think so, do you Daddy?”

“Seventy times seven! She said that. Oh, my God, my God! Seventy times
seven! Seventy times seven!” Convulsive, mighty sobs shook his great
body. The boy was terrified, too terrified to speak. His father’s eyes
fell upon the stained bit of paper, lying where it had fallen from his
fingers. Shuddering, he picked it up. There in poor wandering letters he
read:

“My dear, dear love—I want you so—oh—I want you so. I want to ask you to
forgive—to tell you—oh, I want you—with me—now—dear heart——” Then one
desperate trailing scrawl as if death were clutching at her fingers.
“Remember—70 X 7——” Then a poor faltering “X” and the marks of blood.
“She pit her dyin’ lips till it,” old Jinny had said.

With an agonising cry he put the boy from him, scrambled up the steps,
staggered through the living room, felt his way blindly into the bedroom
where she lay. One glance he gave at the white still face touched with
the calm dignity of death. Then with a bitter cry he fell on his knees
at the bedside, gathered the quiet form in his arms, and there drank
slowly, drop by drop, to the last dregs, the cup of his Gethsemane.

Terrified, petrified with his terror, his little son stood behind him,
his limbs shaking under him, impotent of motion, desperately longing but
unable to escape from the room, till at length, overcome by the
tumultuous tide of his emotions, with a sobbing cry, “Oh, Daddy, I’m
afraid,” he flung himself on his knees at his father’s side and there
clung to him.

In that position the wife of Colonel Pelham found them half an hour
later.

“Paul, dear, come with me,” she said, trying to lift him up.

“I want Daddy,” whispered the boy, still clinging to his father.

“Mr. Gaspard,” she said sharply, “this boy must be put to bed at once.
He will be ill.”

The man raised his face, ghastly, unshaven, horrible.

“What do you say?” he asked dully.

“The boy, the boy,” she said, pointing to him. “He ought to be in bed.
He will be ill.”

“Yes, yes,” he said stupidly. “Certainly, he must go to bed. Come,
Paul.” He rose to his feet, and with the boy in his arms staggered into
the living room, stood there, swaying drunkenly, and would have fallen
had not Colonel Pelham caught him and steadied him to a couch where he
lay moaning, “Gone, gone, gone! Oh, my God! Gone forever!” till from
sheer weakness, due to starvation and emotional exhaustion, he sank into
deathlike sleep.

The boy crept in beside him, stroking his cheek and whispering, “Poor
Daddy! Poor Daddy!” till he too fell asleep.




                              CHAPTER VIII


The “big white house” was overflowing with music, or, rather, with
musical acrobatics. Scales, major and minor, octaves, arpeggios, and all
other musical combinations were madly chasing each other up and down the
keyboard.

“Come on, Paul.” A girl’s black head appeared at the window. The player
merely glanced at her and went on with his fireworks. “Oh, come on, you
lummix! Shut up this row and come on. We’re going round the ranch and
then down the west trail to the river.”

The player’s sole answer was a wave of his left hand, his right still
careering madly up the chromatic scale.

“Aw, Paul, won’t you come?” A little girl whose face was screwed up in a
bewitching pout came to the door.

“Now, Peg, you know I don’t quit till I’m done, and I’ve got half an
hour yet. Come back for me then, Peg.”

She came close to him. “I don’t want to go with Asa and Adelina without
you. They—they—I don’t want to go.”

“Oh, go on, Peg, for a run as far as Pine Croft driveway and back again.
Go! See, the rain is all gone. It’s a lovely day. Run now, that’s a good
girl. I’ll come when I’m through my practice.”

“You’re a mean old thing. You don’t care a bit about me,” said Peg,
bouncing indignantly out of the room.

But the boy paid no heed. He was hard at his scales again with an
enthusiasm which amounted almost to a passion. All else, for the time
being, was as nothing to him. He was at double octaves now, his fingers
roaring up and down the keys. In the full tide of the uproar Colonel
Pelham appeared at the door of the dining room where his wife was
engaged in her domestic activities.

“What a row the chap makes!” he said. “You’d think it was a full grown
man at the thing.”

“He has wonderful fingers,” said his wife, pausing in her work. “Listen!
How, that is really quite unusual work.”

“Is it? You ought to know. It’s all fury and fuss to me. But I like the
way he sticks it. The other youngsters were trying to pull him away—I
saw them at it, but it was no go.”

“He loves his music. He’s quite mad about it,” replied his wife.

“He may be,” said the Colonel, “but it’s not that. It’s a point of
honour with him. He has a kind of feeling his mother would like it.”

“He’s a queer little chap, you know. He has queer ideas about things.”

“What do you mean exactly?” inquired the Colonel. “Queer in what sense?”

“Well,” said his wife thoughtfully, “he has queer ideas about God. He
says he sees Him. One day I found him with an intense look upon his
face, and his explanation was that he was listening for God.”

“‘Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth,’” quoted the Colonel to himself.

“But, my dear,” protested his wife, “you know that sort of thing was
quite all right for those times. But now-a-days, in British
Columbia—well, you know, it’s a little unusual.”

“‘If any man hear My voice and open the door,’” again quoted the Colonel
softly.

“Oh, come now, Edgar. You don’t think those things are to be taken
literally in these days—voices, and all that sort of thing. You’ll be
off into all sorts of Spiritualistic nonsense. He _is_ queer. As a
matter of fact, he is almost uncanny, unreal, unnatural.”

“Unnatural? Unreal? Well, he is a bit of a mystic, I confess. And he
came by that naturally enough; got it from his mother. And not a bad
thing, either, in these materialistic days, and in this country. But all
the same, he’s a real boy, a game sport. He can ride, swim, shoot, and
for a boy of twelve shows an extraordinary sense of responsibility.”

“Responsibility? He’s as mad as a March hare at times,” said the
Colonel’s wife. “Forgets food, drink, sleep. He has appalling powers of
absorption, of concentration. I know he leads Peg into all sorts of
scrapes.”

“Leads Peg!” exclaimed her husband. “Good Lord! Does any one lead Peg?
He’s a real boy, he gets into scrapes, but I still contend that he has
an extraordinary sense of responsibility. Do you realise that every day
of his life he has a certain routine of study, music, Catechism, Bible
lesson, and that sort of thing, that he has kept up since his father
left him? I believe it was his father—a queer thing too!—who put it up
to him and who made it a matter of loyalty to his mother.”

“He is certainly devoted to his mother’s memory. But there again he is
queer. He has an idea that his mother knows, hears, understands all that
he does.”

“Why not?” asked the Colonel.

“Oh, I don’t know. I have no use for these spooky things. But the boy is
queer, and he is unpractical.”

“Well, it is hardly to be wondered at. He has his father’s artistic
temperament and his mother’s mysticism. But, after all, is he
unpractical? Don’t you know that once a week, winter and summer, for the
last year and a half, with Indian Tom he has ridden the marches of the
ranch? The Lord knows he’s always reporting fences broken and cattle and
horses straying over to Sleeman’s herd,” added the Colonel ruefully.

“Sleeman’s herd! My opinion is that the chronic state of disrepair in
those fences can be easily accounted for. I observe that Sleeman’s
calves last year and this year too show a strong Saddle-back strain, and
as for his colts they are all Percheron. I don’t like the man Sleeman. I
don’t trust him.”

“Neither does Paul,” said the Colonel. “Of course, Paul has quite made
up his mind that Sleeman is going to hell, so he doesn’t let his various
iniquities worry him too much. Sleeman will receive a due reward for his
misdeeds. Paul has warmly adopted the Psalmist’s retribution point of
view.”

“What do you mean?” inquired his wife.

“‘Fret not thyself because of evil doers, for they shall soon be cut
down like the grass and wither as the green herb.’ The little beggar
brought me the quotation not long ago with great satisfaction. He thinks
that Asa too is heading toward the same untimely end.”

“Why!” said his wife, “I thought that Paul held a most liberal doctrine
of forgiveness, which practically wiped out hell.”

“Don’t imagine any such thing,” asserted her husband. “I know his
‘seventy times seven’ theory, but he is careful to insist that this is
only for the man who turns and repents. He would be terribly
disappointed, I imagine, if Sleeman should ever show any signs of
repentance. Of course, he doesn’t expect this. Oh, he’s a relentless
little devil in his hatred and his theories of judgment. And with a
fighting strain in him, too.”

“What do you mean?” asked his wife. “Fighting?”

“Why, you remember last autumn when he came to me with the calm request
that I teach him to fight. He had evidently had some trouble with Asa.
When I asked him why he wanted to learn to fight, his answer was
characteristic enough, ‘I don’t want to fight exactly,’ he said, ‘but I
don’t want to feel afraid to fight.’ Rather a fine distinction, I think.
And every week since that time the little beggar insists upon his
‘fighting’ lesson.”

“Well,” said his wife with a slight smile, “he couldn’t have come to a
better master of the art, I fancy, if college rumours mean anything.
Wasn’t it light-weight championship you held for a year at Oxford?”

“Three years, my dear,” modestly corrected the Colonel.

“There is one thing I do like in the boy,” continued Mrs. Pelham, “and
that is his devotion to old Jinny. Of course, Jinny worships the ground
he walks on. She has all that fine old Scotch spirit of devotion and
loyalty to the family that this age and this country know nothing about.
She is an old dear, and immensely helpful about the house. But I do like
Paul’s way with her. I always say that there is no truer sign of
breeding than the way people treat their servants, and Paul certainly
has that fine touch.”

In a pause of the conversation weird sounds were heard coming from the
music room. The musical acrobatics had ceased. Both sat listening for
some moments.

“Now what is he on?” the Colonel inquired. “I don’t know that thing.”

“Nor I, and I’ve looked over all his father’s things which he is
continually trying. Listen! Sounds like a Chopin Nocturne. But, no!
That’s not Chopin. He must be improvising. He told me one day he was
playing all the things out of doors, a kind of Nature Symphony, the Pine
Croft out of doors, as it were—the stream tumbling down beside the
bungalow, the pines and the poplars and the flowers and the clouds. He
told me he was playing the great yellow splashes of sunlight on the
valley. He kept me an hour that day, fascinated, playing the different
colours in the landscape—blue of the sky, light, sweet, smooth-flowing,
a Handel sort of thing; reds and yellows were set forth in dashing,
smashing chords and runs, a Liszt or Tschaikowsky effect; then, for
sunset gold and saffron he used a kind of Mozart thing, rich, full,
sweet. It was quite marvellous. He is queer, undoubtedly queer. Why! Do
you know he had the audacity to even play ‘God’ to me that day. He was
like an inspired thing. Played ‘God smiling at him from the clouds.’ He
protests he sees God, you know, and hears Him. Oh, he’s quite spooky!”

“Spooky? Nonsense! That’s not the word. There are artistic and mystic
strains in him, that’s all. But all the same, I wonder when his father
is coming back, or if he is coming back at all. That Pine Croft Ranch is
going bad. I simply can’t keep it on.”

“Of course you can’t. You were mad to take it on at first.”

“My dear Augusta, what could I do? The man was distracted, broken. I was
actually afraid for his brain. I really was. You remember those days.
Well—then came his request and the formal will—by Jove! Now I think of
it, it was you who offered to take the boy.”

“The boy? Yes, I did. But the ranch was a different thing. And that
Sleeman sniffing round, I simply can’t bear him.”

“Sleeman? I don’t much care for him myself. He may be honest enough, but
he’s sharp. Says he holds I O U’s for loans and such like from Gaspard.
True enough, Gaspard was hard up. You know the Bank had closed down on
him. He could get no more extensions. Frankly, I am worried. The stock
is running wild, as you say.”

“Edgar, I forbid you to worry. It’s not worth it. We’ll look after the
boy. The bungalow is closed up, everything all right there; old Tom
looks after it. The ranch and stock must simply take care of
themselves.”

At this point a louder crash than usual on the piano arrested their
attention. A wild whoop followed, and Paul stood in the doorway.

“Oh, Uncle Colonel, where are they? Did you see them go?” he burst
forth.

“Come, Paul,” said the Colonel’s lady severely. “It’s not customary to
rush in upon people like that.” The boy flushed to his hair roots.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Augusta. Awfully sorry, Uncle Colonel. But did you see
them go, sir?”

“Yes, they went up toward Pine Croft Ranch. But you ought to be able to
track them easily, for the rain has softened the trail.”

“Oh, splendid! I’ll do it. I’ll just get Joseph and find them.”

“By the way, what were you playing last, Paul?” asked the Colonel. The
boy flushed.

“Oh, just some nonsense, Uncle Colonel. I was through with my lesson,”
he said apologetically, “and I was just fooling a bit—like Daddy used to
do sometimes—” he paused, “for Mother and me, you know.” He stood
quietly, looking out the door, his eyes on the far mountains.

“All right, boy. Off you go,” said the Colonel.

“Lunch at one, Paul, remember,” said Mrs. Pelham.

“I’ll try, Aunt Augusta. But it’s awfully hard to remember sometimes.”

“I want Peg at one,” said Mrs. Pelham firmly. “We have something on
after lunch. I depend upon you, Paul.”

“Oh, all right, then, I’ll have to remember.” He stuck his hand in his
pocket and extracted something which he began to wind around his finger.

“What’s that, old chap? String, eh?”

“A ’lastic band—to remember me about one o’clock. I hate having to
remember,” he added impatiently.

“Hey day!” exclaimed Mrs. Pelham. “What sort of a boy would you be if
you couldn’t remember?”

“All right, Aunt Augusta, but I hate it all the same.”

“He’ll remember,” said the Colonel. “He feels he’s on his honour.”

“Yes, he’ll remember. He’s a reliable little beggar.”

In a surprisingly short time the lad appeared on his pony, a beautiful
pinto, bred from an Arabian sire out of an Indian pony, a strain of
which his father was inordinately proud and in the breeding of which he
had been unusually successful. The boy went flashing past the window,
riding cowboy fashion, straight leg and with lines held loosely in his
left hand, his cap high in his right, making right for the bars at the
end of the drive.

“What the—— By Jove, he’s done it! Must be quite four feet.”

With never a halt the pony had taken the bars in his stride, and was off
down the road, head down and at racing speed.

“Superb, Augusta! Couldn’t have done it better yourself, what?”

“He can ride,” said his wife. Her eyes were upon the flying figure. “He
is quite without fear and has the true rider’s instinct for what his
mount can do. Wonderful pony of his that. There’s a mate to it in
Gaspard’s bunch I’d like for Peg.”

“Oh, thanks, my dear; Peggy is quite sufficiently well mounted. Tubby
does her quite well. I have no desire to see my daughter tearing like a
mad thing after that race horse.”

“Poor old Tubby! She does her best, but I fear she is a continual source
of humiliation and heartache to her rider when out with the pinto.
Perhaps next year, eh? She will be quite ready to ride with me by that
time.”

“With you? The Lord forbid! You know quite well, my dear, when once you
are astride a horse you are conscious only of one consuming passion.”

“Well, I like to hear you talk!” And it must be confessed there was
ground for her scorn. For in cross-country work in the Homeland there
was just one place in the hunt that gave any real satisfaction to the
little Colonel, as daring a hunter as ever rode to hounds.

Meantime the pinto and his rider had tracked the others up to the Pine
Croft bungalow, along the upper trail, and down again toward the big
rapid. To Paul, who for the past two years had been trained in sign
reading by Indian Tom, his father’s ancient factotum, the trail lay
plain as the open road. After the first wild gallop he was in no hurry
to catch up. The glory of the early June day filled his world, right up
to the blue sky. With his eyes open to the unending variety of colour
and form in the growing things about him, he cantered slowly along, his
lithe form swaying in unison with every motion of his pony. He had the
make of a rider and his style was a curious mixture of his father’s and
Indian Tom’s. His hands were his father’s; the easy yielding sway of his
body he had from Indian Tom. But, whatever its source, every movement of
every part of his body was smooth, easy, graceful. As the pinto carried
him along in swallow-like movement, his mind following his eye went
first to the pictures that kept composing and dissolving themselves on
either side, and from them to those pictures which from his earliest
years he had watched his father call into being in his studio. Where was
his father now? For three years there had been silence, from that
dreadful day when his father, gaunt, broken, his great frame heaving
with deep-drawn sobs, had ridden down the Golden trail, followed by
Indian Tom, leaving him with Colonel Pelham. Two words only had his
father spoken, two unforgettable words. “Paul, your mother has gone to
God. Let every morning bring back to you her words.” And the other,
“Some day I will come back to you—point of honour,” using a phrase
common to those three when the word was pledged. Those two words he
carried in his heart. With every opening dawn his first thoughts went to
his mother. He was dismayed to find how few were his mother’s words that
came to him as he sat down deliberately to recall them. To his delight
he stumbled upon a plan. When struggling with his Catechism—it was a
point of honour that he should complete the task his mother had not seen
completed—he found upon reviewing the questions he had discussed with
her that floods of memories were let loose upon his mind. With painful
care, for, though he had his father’s fingers and was clever with them,
he had made no very great progress with his penmanship, he undertook to
set down, in one of his father’s sketch books, all her sayings that came
back to him. The words associated with the Bible stories were much
easier to recall. The chirography and orthography would have quite
paralysed the intelligence of learned experts, but to himself the record
was perfectly intelligible, and with its increasing volume became an
increasingly precious possession. This record he kept hidden from mortal
eyes, but somehow he had the conviction both God and his mother knew all
about it. The two were very really and vitally associated in his
thought. Indeed, God had come nearer since his mother had passed out of
his sight. His mother, he knew, was intimately involved in his life,
sharing his thoughts, his imaginations, his dreams. And since she had
gone to God, naturally it followed that God must be somehow, somewhere,
quite close at hand. He no longer saw God’s face up in the blue between
the clouds. He was deeply grieved that he never could visualise that
kindly face looking down, so quiet and so kind, “as if He liked him.” It
seemed as if God had moved much nearer to him, so near that he seemed to
be aware of Him, and by intently “listening with his ears inside,” as he
explained to Indian Tom who seemed to quite understand, he could “hear
God thinking.” “And so,” as he confidently asserted to the gravely
sympathetic Indian, “I always know what He wants me to know.” Life was a
very simple proceeding with Paul. He had only to listen carefully and,
having heard, to give heed.

But where was his father, and when would he come back? The little
Colonel was quite silent upon that question, and upon that question the
boy was equally reserved with the Colonel. With a maturity ripened by
responsibility, the boy had fallen into the habit of keeping an eye upon
the ranch matters. His own observation was quickened by the rare but
penetrating comments of Indian Tom who, though deficient in initiative
and inclined when not impelled to activity by necessity to a _laissez
faire_ attitude towards life, was nevertheless, when once set upon a
trail, tenacious of his quest as a bloodhound on the scent. It was a
remark of Indian Tom’s that gave the Colonel’s lady the clue as to
Sleeman’s Saddle-backs and Percherons. It was a grunt of Indian Tom’s
that had set Paul off one day on a tour round the ranch, and that first
tour with Indian Tom proved so fascinating that once a week for a year
and a half, through rain or shine, cold or heat, Paul had ridden round
the line of fences of the ranch. He had come to know that things were
not going well, and this knowledge intensified in him the longing for
his father’s return.

The sound of shouting broke the current of his thoughts. He pulled up
his pony and stood listening. “They’re away beyond the big rapid,” he
said to himself. “Must be down by the creek.” Again the shouting came to
him, and in an instant he was off at a gallop. A short run brought him
to the edge of a rapidly flowing stream along which a cow path ran.
Following this path he came upon an open grassy meadow through which the
stream had cut its way between overhanging banks. At a little distance
he saw his friends, and as he drew near learned the cause of the
shouting. The stream had cut a channel about eight feet wide, through
which the water ran, deep and swift, to a pool some thirty yards farther
down, from which it tumbled over jagged rocks to a bench below. Across
this flowing stream Asa and his sister were jumping their horses in high
glee, and taunting Peg to attempt the same exploit.

“Hurrah! Out of the way there!” shouted Paul, heading his pony toward
the jump. With his ears pricked forward the pinto approached the stream
on an easy lope. “Up there, old chap,” cried Paul, lifting his pony with
the reins. With never a pause, the pony gathered himself in two or three
quick strides and went sailing over the stream like a bird.

“That’s nothing,” cried Asa, a stocky youth of fourteen, mounted on a
fine rangy cow pony. “Watch old Kicker do it.” He took his broncho back
a few yards and at racing speed cleared the stream with ease.

“That’s the way we do it, eh?” he shouted back at the others.

“Aw, pshaw! Who couldn’t do that?” cried Paul scornfully.

“_She_ can’t! She’s afraid!” jeered Asa, pointing to Peg, who, sitting
quietly on the fat and placid Tubby, was looking gloomily upon the
swift-flowing water.

“Come on Peg,” called Asa, “if old Tubby can’t jump she kin float
acrost.”

“Of course she can jump it if she wants to,” said Paul, who had taken in
the whole situation. “But Peg needn’t do it if she doesn’t want to.” As
he spoke he circled round on the pinto and once more cleared the stream.

“She daren’t. She’s afraid.” Asa’s laugh made Peg wince.

“I’m not afraid to jump, but I don’t think Tubby wants to try,” she said
to Paul. Asa shouted.

“I came acrost as easy as anything,” said Adelina sweetly. “An’ I kin do
it again.”

“O’ course you did. An’ yeh kin do it again any ole time yeh want to,”
said her brother.

Paul’s glance wandered from one girl to the other. Peg’s face was pale
and set. She was the youngest of the party, tall for her age, but slight
in body and of a highly nervous and sensitive temperament. Asa’s
taunting jeers disturbed her but little, but Adelina’s smooth superior
tone stung her like the lash of a whip. Her pale face flushed a bright
red.

“I’m _not_ afraid, and I can do it if I want to,” she said with quick
defiance.

“Go it then! Let’s see you!” cried Asa.

“Don’t you do it, Peg, if you don’t want to,” said Paul quietly. “Never
mind him!”

“Here, young feller, you keep y’re mouth shut,” said Asa truculently,
rushing his broncho at Paul.

“I’m going to do it,” said Peg, as Paul swerved his pinto out of Asa’s
way.

“Don’t try it, Peg,” said Adelina’s smooth voice. “You know old Tubby’s
pretty slow, an’ she might fall in.” The insult was more than Peg could
bear, to whom Tubby was a friend greatly beloved.

“I’m going, Paul,” said Peg, between her shut teeth.

“All right, Peg, I’ll go with you. Come on, we’ll take it together.” As
he spoke they took their ponies back and went at the jump full gallop.

“Hai-yai!” yelled Asa, as, thundering down on them from behind, he put
his broncho between the ponies. Whether it was the sudden yell that
caused poor old Tubby to lose her stride, or whether it was the sudden
rush of the broncho’s feet behind her that made Peg lose her nerve, as
Tubby rose for the leap Peg pulled hard and next instant Tubby was
floundering in the swift running water and Peg floating down toward the
pool.

“Swim, Peg,” shouted Asa, rather alarmed at the event, springing from
his broncho and running toward the bank. But poor Peggy’s swimming
powers, at best of the smallest, were more than neutralised by the shock
and terror of her sudden plunge, and it was all she could do to keep
afloat while she was being swept down toward the pool and the rocks
below. The roar and splash of the rapids struck terror to her heart.

“Oh, Paul, save me!” she shrieked, beginning to splash wildly.

“All right, Peg, I’ll get you,” cried Paul. Like a flash he swung his
pony on its heels, dashed down the stream and plunged into the pool. As
the water came up over the saddle he slipped off, holding to the
stirrup. “Here you are, Peg,” he shouted, as the pony headed off the
floating girl from the rapid. Reaching out, he seized her dress and held
firm, while Joseph gallantly made for the farther bank and clambered up
to safety, Tubby meantime managing to scramble out of danger.

“All right, Peg, eh?” gasped Paul, holding the child close to him.

“Oh, Paul,” cried Peg, crying and choking. “It wasn’t—Tubby’s—fault. I
pulled her.”

“No! It wasn’t Tubby’s fault, nor your fault. It was that—that—that—damn
beast, Asa,” pointing across the stream to the bigger boy who stood,
white and shaken, beside his sister. “I don’t care, I’ve said it and I
mean it and I say it again. He’s a damn, damn, damn beast! So he is!”

The boy was beside himself with fury. “And I don’t care either. I won’t
repent. It’s true! And God doesn’t want me not to tell the truth, and he
is a beast and a damn beast, and he will go to hell, I know. And he just
deserves to go. And I’ll ask God to send him there.”

“Oh, Paul!” gasped Peg in sobbing delight. “I think you’re just lovely.”

“Here!” said the boy in a gruff voice, pulling off his coat and wringing
it dry. “Put this on and let us get home. It must be nearly one, and I
promised.”

Meekly Peg put on the coat. The warm June sun soon had their soaked
garments steaming. Paul caught Tubby, helped Peg to mount, swung himself
on Joseph and with never a glance at the others across the stream rode
off at a gallop to keep his one o’clock appointment. For a full half
mile he let the pinto have his head, to the great and audible distress
of old Tubby, heroically resolved not to be distanced. Suddenly he
pulled up and waited for Tubby to draw level.

“Your mother will be awful mad,” he growled.

“I don’t care,” said Peg serenely. Already she was revelling in the
thrills which would follow her tale. “Oh, Paul, you were awful mad,
weren’t you?” said Peg with a delighted shiver at the memory of Paul’s
terrible outburst. Never had he used such dreadful words in all his
life, no matter what the provocation. Indeed, she had often heard him
gloatingly predict Asa’s post mortem state because of his indulgence in
that very same sort of language.

“Oh, shut up!” said Paul rudely. “It was all your fault.”

“I know it was, Paul,” replied Peg sweetly. She understood quite well
what Paul meant, and she was not a little pleased that she had been the
occasion of Paul’s moral downfall, the depth of which was but the
measure of his regard for her. She was never quite sure of her standing
with Paul when Adelina was about. Adelina was so much stronger and
braver and could do so many more things that boys could do. Too often
had she endured silent agonies of jealousy and humiliation over Paul’s
evident admiration of Adelina’s many masculine virtues. Today she was
quite sure that Paul would never have flung himself headlong from his
pinnacle of moral rectitude for Adelina’s sake. Her mother might be “mad
at her,” might indeed punish her. In her present mood of exaltation she
felt she would enjoy punishment. Paul glanced at her face, puzzled not a
little at her pleased serenity, and all the more deeply enraged because
of that serenity.

“It was your fault,” he repeated, “and I just know I’ll have to
repent—or go to hell. And I don’t want to repent. I just hate to.”

“Oh, never mind, Paul,” comforted Peg. “I don’t think God will care
about Asa. He’s just a horrid boy, and he’s going to hell anyway, you
know.”

But this view of the matter brought Paul little cheer. Not but that he
was quite clear in his mind as to Asa’s destiny, but he was equally
clear that he could not keep up his feeling of righteous indignation
against him, that in very truth before he went to sleep that night he
would have to repent, a thought most distasteful to him. He turned
wrathfully upon his companion.

“Much you know about it,” he said scornfully, and, disdaining further
conversation with her, he set off again at a gallop, lest he should fail
of keeping his “point of honour” engagement.

The meeting with Aunt Augusta, if a matter of no great concern to Peg,
was fraught to Paul with a certain amount of anxiety. It was an accepted
if tacit understanding that on these excursions Peg was under his charge
and for her he must assume responsibility, by no means an insignificant
burden, as he had discovered on more occasions than one. He had no
notion of seeking to escape trouble. There was no escaping Aunt
Augusta’s penetration, and to do him justice it never occurred to Paul
to attempt to do so. He was fully prepared to accept the full
consequences of the escapade. A greater burden, however, weighed down
his spirits, the burden of his moral delinquency. For the ordinary sins
of his daily life, the way to forgiveness and to consequent restoration
of his peace and of his self-respect was quite plain. The removal of
this sin, however, by the simple method of repentance and forgiveness
was complicated by new and perplexing elements. It was a grave
complication, for instance, that repentance was an antecedent condition
to forgiveness. He was at present conscious of no regret for his
language. Back in the shadows of his mind he knew there lurked a secret
and distinctly pleasurable satisfaction in recalling the phrase in which
he had described the boy who had undoubtedly acted in a thoroughly
beastly fashion. The phrase he had used continued, even while violating
his sense of rectitude, to give him a thrill of unholy joy. How could he
repent of that phrase which he felt to be at once true and wholly
adequate? Then, too, the pathway to pardon was hedged by the condition
of his forgiving Asa. In his mood that was hopelessly impossible.

Before he had reached a solution of these moral and theological
problems, they had arrived at Peg’s home. At the door they were welcomed
by Peg’s mother.

“Why, Peggy!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean by wearing Paul’s coat a
hot day like this?”

“Oh, Mamma,” cried Peg, her voice vibrant with excitement, “Paul put it
on me to keep me from taking cold.”

“Taking cold, child? Why should you take cold? Here, let me see you.”
She pulled the coat off the little girl and discovered her soaked
condition. “Why, good heavens! What has happened to you? Where have you
been? What does this mean, Paul?” she added severely, turning to Paul.

“She fell into the creek, Aunt Augusta. We were jumping our horses
across, and Tubby slipped and fell in.”

“Oh, Mamma—” began Peg in high excitement.

“It was our fault, Aunt Augusta,” cut in Paul, meantime scowling heavily
at Peg, hoping to check the exuberance of her recital. “Asa and I were
jumping our horses across the stream, and Peggy tried and Tubby fell
in.”

“Well, you ought to have known better, Paul. I trust Peggy to you, and
you ought to take better care of her.”

“I know, Aunt Augusta, and—and—and I’m awfully sorry.”

“You have a right to be sorry,” said Aunt Augusta indignantly. “Well,
get your horses away and come in to lunch. And take off those wet
things. Come away, Peg. You are a foolish little thing.”

When Paul returned to the house after rubbing down the ponies and
turning them loose in the paddock, he found Aunt Augusta’s mood quite
changed, and he knew that Peggy must have told the whole story. Whether
her recital had covered the story of his moral collapse remained an
anxious uncertainty in his mind. He could only await developments.

“Come here, boy,” said the Colonel, as Paul entered the room. “You are a
plucky little chap, and I want to tell you that I shan’t forget what you
did for Peg today.” The little Colonel’s voice grew suddenly husky. He
shook Paul warmly by the hand and turned away, leaving Paul standing
overwhelmed with embarrassment and filled with rage at Peggy. But an
even more trying experience awaited the unhappy Paul, when Aunt Augusta
came to him and, putting her arms around him, drew him close and kissed
him, a most unusual proceeding with her.

“Paul,” she said, “I am sorry I spoke to you as I did. And I am glad it
was not your fault. I know I can trust Peggy with you always. Now, come
away to lunch.”

Paul found himself gulping and fighting hard to keep back the tears,
tears caused partly by Aunt Augusta’s unusual demonstration of affection
and partly by his furious indignation at Peg, that she should have given
him away. It did not help matters much that Peg insisted during the
lunch hour of reiterating her various thrilling experiences, her
emotions of fear and despair and relief and joy, her admiration of
Paul’s heroic courage, her gratitude, and all the rest of it. Paul was
grateful, however, that apparently up to this point Peg had so far
observed the decencies as to make no reference to his lamentable “fall
from grace.”

Immediately after lunch, with the timely assistance of Aunt Augusta, who
seized upon Peg and promptly put her to bed, Paul was able to effect his
escape from the household, and betook himself to the solitude of Pine
Croft Ranch. There, under the pines on the hill at the back of the
bungalow, which had become to him a holy place, a very temple of God,
where he was wont to hold his secret communions with his own spirit and
with the world unseen, he entered upon the soul conflict which had to be
fought out before he could sleep in peace.

How it came he could not tell, but somehow, before the pines at the far
horizon across the river had cast their long lance-shaped shadows upon
the plain below, he had found his way to peace. As he lay upon his back,
looking up through the waving tops of the great pine trees into the blue
of the sky above, the surging tides of furious rage against Asa and his
sense of ill-desert which had deepened within him throughout the early
afternoon faded, in some mysterious way, from his soul, as the mists
before the rising sun. There, beneath the pines, he became aware of a
mighty Presence, comforting, cleansing, healing, that made all else seem
insignificant. He was his own man again, and once more in tune with
those vast infinities in the midst of which he moved and had his being.
Chastened and at peace with himself and all his world, he returned to
the big white house, ready to meet with a serene heart whatever life
might bring to him.

It was well that it was so, for the morrow had in store for him
experiences that should test to the uttermost the quality of that serene
peace.




                               CHAPTER IX


Three years of neglect had left their mark upon the Pine Croft bungalow.
The stables, the corral, the paddock for the thoroughbred riding horses
were in woeful disrepair. The garden was riotous with a tangled mass of
weeds and flowers. The water main from the little lake in the hills
above, an engineering triumph of Gaspard and the joy of his wife, was
broken and the water running in a flood over the lawn.

“What a shame! What a ghastly shame! And the whole place used to be so
wonderful! So perfect! It is a cruel shame!” The Colonel’s wife was
quite petulant over it. “And so unnecessary! Why didn’t he pull himself
together and play the man?”

“Why? Don’t you know? I wonder if you can understand?” The little
Colonel’s voice was slightly wistful.

“What do you mean?” his wife asked impatiently.

“Oh, dash it all, Augusta! Don’t you see? Can’t you see? The man’s life
was broken off short. Why should he—how could he care to carry on?”

His wife glanced curiously at her husband. She felt at times that there
was in this loyal, gallant little man something more than the
commonplace and quietly controlled gentleman he appeared to be,
something she had failed to explore. “He had the place, and——”

“The place!” snorted the Colonel. “Pardon me, my dear. I mean, to one of
Gaspard’s temperament, you know—well——” The Colonel’s voice trailed off
into silence.

“But there was the boy,” said his wife, covertly watching his face.

“Yes! Yes! Of course, there was the boy,” the Colonel hurried to
acquiesce. “Certainly, there was the boy. He ought to have got himself
in hand. A shame it was, an inexcusable weakness.” His quick laugh
puzzled his wife.

“Well, I do wish he would return,” continued the Colonel, in a quick
change of voice. “The boy needs him, and will need him more and more.”

“At least, the boy is not suffering,” said his wife sharply.

“Of course, the little chap’s quite all right. He has everything he
needs. I don’t mean he hasn’t,” replied the Colonel quickly. “Don’t
imagine anything, Augusta. He’s a lucky beggar to tumble into such a
home as he has got. But there’s his future. He has parts, you
know—brilliant parts. And not much chance for development here.”

“He is a tremendous responsibility,” sighed his wife. “I frankly confess
he puzzles me more than a little.”

They were on the upper trail, a favourite ride of theirs. On the left
hand the wide valley in rich, varied, colourful beauty stretched far
across the gleaming river to the purple mountains at the horizon. On the
grassy levels could be seen the herds of Saddle-back Holsteins and
“bunches” of Percheron horses, mares with their colts at their sides,
with here and there a splendid stallion running wild where he had no
right to be. The trail climbed up over rough ledges sparsely timbered
with pines, then led down into thick brushwood of spruce, cedar and
birch, with here and there clumps of sumachs which later would splash
the landscape with vivid crimson. Slowly they picked their way in single
file along the winding trail, turning down from the high land to the
lower road. In the thick of the underbrush Augusta’s horse suddenly
threw its head into the air, snorted and stood still.

“What’s up?” asked the Colonel, drawing level with her.

“Some one coming. I hear horses, and a man’s voice,” replied his wife,
urging her horse forward through the brush into the clearing beyond.

“Good Heavens, Edgar! Come, look!” She sat, pointing with her riding
crop at a little cavalcade approaching, a man, a small boy and a woman
with a child in her arms.

“My word! It’s Gaspard! Gaspard back again!”

On the leading horse the man rode, his face covered with a heavy beard
tinged with grey, hollow-eyed, gaunt, his huge frame falling in, and
clothed in the ragged, coarse garb of a trapper. It was indeed Gaspard,
but how dreadfully changed from the Gaspard of three years ago! Behind
him, on an Indian pony, a boy, upright, handsome, with shy yet fearless
eyes, his son Peter. And last of all the Indian woman, with a baby in
her arms, Onawata, her face as calmly beautiful as ever, yet with lines
of suffering deep cut upon it.

“Hello, Gaspard,” shouted the Colonel heartily, when he had recovered
his breath. “Back again?”

“How do you do, Colonel?” replied the man. “How do you do, Mrs. Pelham?”
He bowed low over his horse, removing his slouch hat. “Yes, back again.
‘A bad penny,’ eh?” His laugh had in it an ugly note. He spoke a few
words to the Indian woman, who passed on before with her children,
receiving from Augusta as they passed a keen and appraising look.

“Where have you been all this time?” inquired the Colonel.

“Oh,” replied Gaspard, with an attempt at nonchalant bravado, “up in the
North country, up through the Athabasca, pottering about with the
Chippewayans, doing some sketching, hunting a bit, trapping, and the
like.” He set his hat on the back of his head and looked the Colonel
fair in the face, a challenging look, daring him to think and say his
worst.

“And—and—how are you feeling now?” The Colonel found it hard to get on,
and his wife, sitting her horse straight and stiff behind him, gave him
no assistance at all. “You don’t look any too well.”

“No, I’m not what you would say in the pink. Caught a bit of a cold, got
into my bronchial tubes—exposure, you know, hard living, and that sort
of thing. I do feel knocked up a bit, I must confess. I thought perhaps
a change to the old place might set me up again.” In spite of his
attempted bravado his eyes were hungry and wistful.

“Why, it certainly will,” said the Colonel heartily, turning to his wife
for support. “A few months here in the old place with some one to—that
is, with good food and—that sort of thing, you know, will set you up.
What do you say, Augusta? He needs to be fed up, that is all.”

“Yes, indeed he does,” said his wife. “I am sure that Mr. Gaspard will
soon recover his strength in these surroundings.”

“Well,” said the Colonel, “I’m fearfully glad to see you, old man. And
you’ll come along and put up with us until we get your bungalow in
order. Things are a bit run down there and in no shape to receive you.
We have plenty of room, and Paul—yes, Paul will be overjoyed to see you.
Eh, Augusta?”

“Yes, certainly, Mr. Gaspard. We shall be delighted to have you spend a
few days with us.” Augusta’s tone rather belied her words. “And I am
quite sure Paul will be delighted.”

“Paul?” replied Gaspard in a low voice, his face contracting as with a
sudden pain. “How is the boy?”

“How is he?” shouted the Colonel. “Fit! Splendidly fit! A splendid chap!
You will be proud of him. And he will be tremendously glad to see you.
He has longed for you.”

“Longed for me?” Gaspard repeated the words to himself. “My God!” He sat
with his eyes averted from the Colonel’s face, looking far across the
valley, between the mountains. “I say, Colonel, Mrs. Pelham,” he said,
with an obvious effort controlling his voice, “could you, would you mind
keeping him for a few days, a little while longer, until I get things
straightened away?”

“Surely! Surely!” said Augusta heartily. “We shall be more than glad to
keep him as long as you can spare him, as long indeed as he cares to
stay.”

“But come along with us now. You will dine with us and spend the night,”
urged the Colonel.

“Thank you,” said Gaspard, searching his face with his gaunt and wistful
gaze. “Thank you all the same, I know you mean it, but I shall camp
tonight”—he paused a moment or two as if gathering strength to
continue—“at the bungalow. You see,” he continued, hurrying over the
words, “I am a bit tired, I have a lot of things to do, I am in no shape
to appear anywhere, I must get cleaned up. I’m a perfect savage, Mrs.
Pelham. I have been living among savages, I have become dehumanised. I
must be alone tonight.” He raised his hat, bowed with his old grace, and
disappeared into the bush.

“God in Heaven!” breathed the Colonel. “What a wreck! Poor devil! Poor
devil! What a wreck!”

“Horrible!” echoed his wife. “Ghastly! Horrible! Disgusting!”

The Colonel caught her up quickly. “Disgusting? Well, that’s rather
hard, isn’t it, Augusta? Horrible, yes. Ghastly, too. Poor soul! My
heart aches for him.”

“You are really most trying, Edgar,” burst out his wife. “Have you no
eyes? Can you see nothing? Disgusting is the only word.”

“Why, my dear!” began the Colonel in astonishment.

“Oh, I have no patience with you,” replied his wife. “Can’t you see?
That—that woman! Those children! And to flaunt that all in our faces
here, who knew his wife! Horrible! Disgusting! And yet you asked him to
our house! You remember the rumours of three years ago? You were keen
then that we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, there is
doubt no longer.” Her laugh was hard and scornful.

“But, my dear Augusta, why imagine the worst? Why not give the man a
chance? It may be—there may be some satisfactory explanation.”

“Oh, you are quite impossible! Surely one look at that—that—_menage_ is
enough to sicken anybody.”

“What?” said the Colonel in a shocked voice. “Do you think that the
woman is not his wife?”

“Oh, Edgar, you are indeed impossible. Let us go home. I am quite ill.
Let us go home. Oh, why did he come back? How could he bear to come back
to this place, to his old friends, to his son? Why should he curse that
boy with his presence, and with all this ghastly shame of his?”

“My God! What will Paul do, Augusta?”

“Paul!” exclaimed his wife. “Good heavens, Edgar! Paul? What can he do?”

“He is only a boy,” replied the Colonel.

“A boy? He is twelve years old, nearly thirteen, and in many ways with a
man’s mind and a man’s heart. What will happen, the Lord only knows! The
whole thing is terrible beyond words. Edgar, we must think and think
quickly about this. And whatever happens one thing is quite certain,
that we must keep out of this mess. That is quite clear. No more of Pine
Croft for us!” His wife’s lips had assumed that thin line that the
Colonel had come to recognise as indicative of the ultimate and final
thing in decision.

“But, Augusta, we have got to be decent to the poor devil,” said her
husband.

“Edgar, in this you must allow me to judge. I am quite decided that
there shall be no nonsense about it. There must be no comings and goings
with the Pine Croft bungalow. Think of the horrid creature, with that
woman and his half-breed children! No! That is all over and done with.
Of course, he may come to the house; indeed, he must come once, and we
shall have him to dinner. And of course you need not cut him——”

“Cut him?” exclaimed the little Colonel, sitting very straight on his
horse. “Cut him? Not if I know myself! That sort of thing isn’t done,
Augusta, among decent men. We must know the facts at any rate. Besides,
he won’t trouble any one long. He is about done in. He’ll blow out
before long.”

“The sooner the better! It’s about the most decent thing he could do,
under the circumstances. Oh, you may look at me! I can’t, I simply can’t
work up any compassion for that man.”

For some time they rode on in silence, the Colonel’s wife setting a
rattling pace and refusing all conversation. As they drew near home,
however, she slowed down to a walk.

“Edgar, I want to speak to you quite seriously.” Her tone prepared the
Colonel for the fixed and inevitable. “We shall say nothing to Paul
tonight. I must have—we must have time to think. You may have thought me
harsh just now, but the thing is really most perplexing and demands the
most careful consideration. You can see that, Edgar?”

“Certainly, my dear. Most obvious, I am sure,” replied her husband,
fully convinced of impending evil.

“And you will have to make clear to that—to Mr. Gaspard that all
interchange of social amenities must of course cease.”

“But, my dear, I don’t——”

“He will at once see the propriety of the suggestion.”

“He would,” muttered the Colonel.

“For, after all, he is—he was a gentleman.”

“Ah, that is something,” said the Colonel bitterly.

“And you will have no difficulty in making clear to him that since he
has deliberately chosen to outrage all the decencies of civilised
society he cannot expect his friends to ignore the fact.”

“Exactly,” murmured the Colonel, deeply disturbed at the prospect before
him.

“As for Paul——”

“Yes, Paul! You can’t think——”

“Please don’t catch me up that way, Edgar. As I was saying, Paul must
just make his choice. He is quite old enough to understand—make his
choice between his father and—and the rest of us.”

“You can’t mean, Augusta, that the boy——”

“Allow me to finish. You _do_ interrupt so.”

“Beg pardon, I’m sure.”

“I am quite prepared to receive Paul as one of our family. He is a very
nice boy and will easily fit in. But there must be no coming and
going——”

“But, great Heaven! Augusta, you can’t mean that the boy must repudiate
his father——”

“Or us. I exactly do.” His wife’s voice carried the inexorable calm of
fate.

“It would kill him to leave his father and——”

“Pooh! Let us not indulge ourselves in heroics.”

“But the boy is not to blame. It is not his fault that——”

“No. It is his misfortune. But in that misfortune I do not propose that
our family is to be involved. Edgar, do listen to reason. If the boy
chooses Pine Croft and his father and—that—that whole _menage_, as I
have said, let him choose, but that must end all intercourse with us.”

“But why, Augusta? In the name of all that’s reasonable and sane, why? A
boy like that—I can’t see——”

“Oh, Edgar, you can be so tiresome. You can’t see? Can’t you see that
the boy is thirteen—and Peg nearly eleven, and adores him, and——”

The Colonel drew his horse to a standstill. “Peg!” he gasped. “Peggy!
Good Lord! Peggy! That infant! Is it that you have been driving at?
Well, I’m——” The Colonel’s laugh rang out long and loud. His wife, whose
horse was now facing his, gazed at him, with flushed face and glistening
eyes.

“My dear, you must forgive me,” said the Colonel hurriedly. “I apologise
most humbly. But, really, you know, the thing is so—so grotesque. Please
forgive me. I can’t see it otherwise, really, Augusta.”

“No, I hardly expected you to see it.”

“But those children, Augusta! I do hope you will forgive me.”

“Those children? Yes, those children!” His wife’s voice was vibrant with
emotion. “In two years the boy will be fifteen and the girl thirteen. In
this country a girl at thirteen is like a girl at fifteen or seventeen
at home. Look at that Pincher girl, married at sixteen! Edgar, I know
about this—I know!” Her voice broke suddenly. “No, let me speak,” she
demanded, recovering herself with a desperate struggle. “Let those
children grow up together for two, three years—till they are sixteen and
fourteen—and the thing will be past our handling. Edgar, you must give
me my way in this. Let the boy come to us. He will be happy—he
likes—us—he adores you. Or let him go from us. There is no middle way.
Oh, I know—” her voice rose in a cry, “I know, God knows I know!” She
turned her horse quickly and put him to a gallop, the Colonel following
in a maze of wonder, indignation and confused indecision. The mental
processes by which his wife had arrived at her present attitude of mind
were quite hidden from him. Her sudden display of emotion, so unusual
with her, paralysed all consecutive thinking for him. What had come to
her? What unknown, secret spring within her had swamped that cool, clear
head of hers?

He could not know that in one swift backward leap her mind had cleared
the intervening years, and that in vivid clarity there stood before her
a girl of fifteen, in pigtail and short dresses, wild, impulsive and mad
with a child’s passion for a youth, a young subaltern of the Guards,
glorious in his first uniform, who bullied her, teased her, kissed her
and went away, leaving in her soul a vision of entrancing splendour.
Returning two years later, a handsome, dashing wastrel, already deep in
the harvesting of his wild oats, he found it wise to accept a hint from
headquarters and resign his commission. But even so she was wild to go
with him to the world’s end. Instead, her mother, ignoring passionate
and tearful protestations, carried her off on the Grand Tour till the
youth had disappeared from his kind, and her world knew him no more. The
wound had healed, but the scar remained and in odd moments and in
certain weathers still ached. Yes, she knew. And her knowledge steeled
her resolve that her child should be spared a like experience, at what
cost so ever.

With face pale and set she rode, without further word, straight to her
door. As her husband assisted her to alight, she said quietly, “We shall
say nothing to Paul tonight.”

One glance at her face was enough for him. “No, no, my love. It shall be
as you say,” was his reply.

“And tomorrow you shall arrange matters with Mr. Gaspard.”

The little Colonel looked at her in piteous dismay, but his mind was not
working with sufficient celerity to furnish words for an answer.

No peaceful slumber visited the Colonel that night. The prospect of the
task laid upon him by his wife, of “arranging” matters with Gaspard, did
not invite reposeful emotions. He had sought more exact instructions
from his wife as to what proposals should be made to their neighbour and
in what terms. He received little aid and less sympathy. It was surely a
simple matter, after all. Gaspard had created a social situation for
himself which would outrage the whole community. They were still a
primitive country in many ways, but they had some regard for the
foundations of the social order. The old days when men’s passions and
desires determined their conduct, with utter disregard of the opinion of
decent society, had gone. None knew this better than Gaspard. And all
that would be necessary would be to suggest that he must accept the
social consequences. “You won’t need to rub it in.”

“Oh, not in the least. He will probably kick me out of the house,”
observed the Colonel cheerfully. “And I shall deserve it,” he added.

“Oh, nonsense!” replied his wife scornfully. “He is no fool. Of course,
I don’t mean you men can’t meet, and all that. You will do that sort of
thing anyway. And you can lay the blame, as you will, doubtless, upon
the inexplicable eccentricities of the women. It will only be another
burden laid upon our shoulders.”

“I wish you would undertake the job,” her husband pleaded, “since it
seems so simple to you.”

“Certainly, I shall if you feel like funking it. Have no doubt about
that. And I shall do it thoroughly,” said his wife promptly.

“Oh, Lord!” groaned the Colonel, as he swiftly visualised the interview.
“The poor devil has hell enough now.”

“Thank you, Edgar. It is a dainty compliment. But I would rather give
him hell, as you so delicately suggest——”

“Augusta!” protested the Colonel.

“Than allow him to bring hell to my house and family. But that’s my last
word. I’m going to sleep.” So saying she gave her back to her husband,
snuggled down under the covers and, with a little sigh of content as
with a good day’s work well done, settled herself to enjoy the slumber
of the just.

“And who will tell Paul?” The Colonel’s pitiful appeal broke the long
silence.

“Well! I must say, Edgar, you are most annoying, breaking in upon one’s
sleep that way! Who will tell Paul? I will. Now, go to sleep.”

“God help the boy!” muttered the Colonel to his pillow. Then, after a
few moments, he said sharply, “I’ll do it myself.”

“What?” asked his wife sleepily. Then, quite crossly, “Oh, go ahead and
do it, whatever it is.”

The Colonel’s monosyllabic reply was indistinct, but rich in emphasis.

But as is so frequently the case, the Colonel need not have lost his
sleep over the prospect of his unpleasant task, for the job fell into
other hands than his. For two days he postponed his visit to Pine Croft,
keeping Paul close with him under various pretexts. The third afternoon,
reading the weather signs in his wife’s face, he girded his loins and
addressed himself to the business assigned him. With a heart full of
compassion for the wretched creature he had last seen humped upon the
shaggy Indian pony making his hopeless way through the brushwood in the
train of what his wife described as “that horrible _menage_,” he rode up
to the bungalow in his best military style and whistling a cheerful
ditty. So he had ridden upon a Boer entrenchment, at the head of his
men, and with a like sensation at the point of junction between stomach
and abdomen. He was greeted with a shout from the studio window.

“Hello, Pelham, old boy! Right welcome art thou, most gallant knight!
Wilt alight and quaff a posset?” There were not lacking signs that the
speaker had been indulging himself in several possets during the
afternoon.

“Ah, Gaspard, you are looking very fit, much better than you were when I
saw you last.”

“My dear fellow, new worlds are born every day. Richard is himself
again. Come in and have something. I feel as a snake must feel when he
sloughs off the old and emerges in his brand new skin.”

And in very truth, the change in the man was nothing other than a
transformation. Clean shaven, well groomed, garbed in hunting tweeds and
immaculate linen, and with his gun over his arm, he was once more the
Gaspard of the old days, handsome, cheery, insouciant, with today a
touch of patronising insolence. For Gaspard was now in his studio and
among his pictures. He was the artist once more, after three years of
exile, and with the divine frenzy stirring in his blood he was lord of
his world and of the men and things therein. Certainly no object of
compassion, and as certainly no man to approach with a proposal of
social ostracism. Small wonder that the little Colonel fidgeted
nervously with his glass and wondered within himself how the deuce he
could lead up to the matter in hand.

“Have another drink, Pelham,” said Gaspard, helping himself and passing
the decanter. “Jove, this stuff has mellowed and ripened these three
years. Three years? Three and a half years now. A millennium of hell!”
He shuddered visibly as he tossed off his glass. “But it’s over, thank
God! Over! Jove, it was often a near touch with me. There were days when
I dared not trust myself alone with my gun in the woods. Ah-h-h, God!”
Again he shuddered. “But it’s over. I’m going to paint again—and as I
never painted. I have great pictures here,”—he struck his breast
violently, “angels, devils, waiting release. Devils? Yes, I can paint
devils now. God knows I have reason to know them!” He turned swiftly
upon the Colonel, pouring himself another glass.

“Pelham, do you believe in the devil?”

The Colonel was frankly startled. “Well, of course, I——”

“Ah-h-h, I see, you know nothing about him. Yours is a sickly
abstraction. Well, thank God you don’t. But that is all done with. Here
I am back where a man can get a bath and sleep in a bed and see the face
of a white man. Pelham, I love to look at you, old sport. I’m not saying
you’re a beauty, but you are white. You’re my kind. Have another, eh?
No? Hear me, Pelham, it is good to be back home. Thought I’d never have
the nerve to return. But—man! Man! to die in a far land with never a
kent face to look upon as you go out—I just cudna thole it, as old Jinny
would say. By the way, how is old Jinny?”

“Oh, very well. Very useful and fairly happy, I think. You see she has
Paul.”

“Paul!” His voice lost its harsh, feverish note of bravado. “The boy,
you say, is well and happy, eh? Happy? What?” His voice was eager, his
look keenly inquiring.

“Yes, Paul is fine and fit and happy. Yes, I’m sure he is happy. Of
course, you know, he is awfully keen about you and has wanted to hear
from you and all that——”

“Come, let’s go about a bit,” said Gaspard abruptly, leading the way out
of doors. “Can’t understand how that main burst. Frost, I fancy. Must
put that right. Things are in an awful mess.”

“Couldn’t help being in a mess very well,” said the Colonel stiffly.

“Oh, I didn’t mean any criticism, Pelham. I’ll have a deuce of a time
straightening things out with you. Awfully grateful. Old Tom has told me
some and I’ve seen some too. And then there’s Paul.” He paused, looking
steadfastly at the Colonel.

“Don’t say a word about Paul. He has more than repaid any care we have
given him. He is one of us, and very dear to us. Indeed, we would be
only too glad to keep him with us,” said the Colonel, seeing an opening,
as he thought. “We—my wife and I——”

“He hasn’t been over,” said Gaspard. “Does he know I am home?”

“No, he doesn’t know. Augusta thought—we thought till you had got things
straightened out a bit we would not let him bother you.”

“Ah—I see. Very considerate of you both. I appreciate it. It was better,
of course. Must do something with that boy. He is what friend Barrie
would call a ‘lad o’ pairts.’ But we’ll think of that again. A lot of
things to do. My affairs are in a frightful mess. Have had a talk with
Sleeman. Shrewd chap, Sleeman—devilish shrewd! Must see my banker. Oh, I
hardly know where to begin. The old place has run a bit to seed. But I
shall soon get it into shape. Some things I want to consult you about,
old man—some developments that I have been planning.” So he rattled on,
giving the Colonel no opportunity of speech, but rushing with feverish
speed from one subject to another. They wandered about the stables,
noting the decay on every hand, till as they passed beyond the paddock
toward the hill Gaspard suddenly sat down upon a fallen tree.

“Let’s—sit—a little,” he said, his breath coming quick. The Colonel,
glancing at him, was shocked and startled at his appearance. His face
was a ghastly, pallid yellow, his forehead heavily beaded with
perspiration, his hands trembling.

“You’re ill, Gaspard. What’s wrong? Feel faint? Let me get you
something.” He set off toward the bungalow.

“No, no—don’t go,” said Gaspard impatiently. “In—a moment—I shall be—all
right. Don’t go—a little too much—excitement. Heart rotten—I think.
Soon—be—fit.” He sat huddled forward on the tree trunk, his hands upon
his knees, his eyes staring, fighting for breath.

“Don’t worry,” he said, striving to smile. “I am often like this.
Last—two days—like hell—again. Nerves all—shot to pieces. Sorry you—saw
me—like this.”

After some minutes’ rest, the spasm passed, the colour came back to his
face, his breath came more evenly, his hands grew steady. He slid off
the tree and lay quietly upon the ground.

“I’m all right now,” he said, looking up at the Colonel. “It was this
that drove me home from the North Country. One hates to be ill,
helpless, to pass out among those heathen, you know. And then there
was—Paul.” His bravado was all gone. His tone was low and wistful like
that of a child wanting its mother. The Colonel was smitten to the heart
with pity for him. The thought of the mission which had brought him
there was repugnant to him. Come what might, it would not be his hand
that would deal him a blow that might well be his death.

Slowly they returned to the bungalow. Gaspard poured himself a stiff
glass of spirits. “Ah, that’s better,” he said, after he had finished
the glass. “You see, I can’t stand much of a strain, especially
emotional strain. Seeing you again, and all that, got to my vitals. I
must go softly for a bit.”

“You ought to have a doctor see you right away,” said the Colonel with
decision. “Better let me send you McGillivray, what?”

“No, no. Thanks all the same. I mean to ride down to the Post and see
him one of these days. Today and tomorrow I am going to lie up.” Then
after a pause he added, “The day following I hope to accept Mrs.
Pelham’s kind invitation to lunch. Then I shall see Paul.”

The Colonel’s report to his wife was given in a
forlorn-hope-now-do-your-worst sort of manner.

“Did you see that Indian woman?” she asked.

“I did not. Would you have had me ask for her?” replied the Colonel,
with the air of a man who has dared the ultimate.

“No, dear, you did perfectly right. And it’s my opinion that everybody
else will follow your example.” His wife knew better than to goad a man
gone wholly desperate.

The third day at lunch she had her opportunity with Gaspard, but, as the
Colonel said, shamelessly crowing over her, nothing was said about the
conventions. The Colonel’s report of Gaspard’s grave heart seizure had
driven in her front line. Augusta, however, was merely biding her time.
She was still on guard, and waiting a favourable moment to make the
counter-attack.




                               CHAPTER X


The semi-conscious moments of waking to a new day were filled with
foreboding for the Colonel. Some horrid evil was impending. It took him
some moments to clothe the thing with reality. Once realised, however,
its potence was immediate and irresistible. It brought the Colonel
sitting bolt upright in bed. With a groan he lay down again, determined
to obliterate the spectre in that most completely satisfying of sensuous
delights, the luxuriating in forty winks stolen from the morning hours
rightfully dedicated to the toils of the new day. In vain. Not one wink,
much less forty, could he purloin. Paul was in his mind’s eye—Paul now
in one pose, now in another: Paul smiling, Paul tensely earnest; Paul
astride Joseph and dashing about like a centaur; Paul wide-eyed in
wonder, in dismay, in mute, pallid grief, and himself gibbering now in
one formula, now in another, the announcement that Paul’s father must be
ostracised from the polite circles of the Windermere Valley and that
Paul must make choice between his father thus ostracised and the “big
white house” and its dwellers.

The thing was a ghastly and cruel outrage, imposed upon him by fate
inexorable, in the person of his clear-eyed, clear-headed, resolute
wife. She was right, doubtless, though the soft-hearted little Colonel
could not properly appraise the full ethical value of her arguments. The
boy would be horribly hurt, and during those three years the roots of
comradeship had struck deep into the lives of both boy and man, perhaps
more deeply in man than in boy. They had ridden the valley for long
miles together, they had hunted and fished, they had camped, they had
boxed together, and in all these the boy had showed an eager aptitude in
acquiring a finish and perfection of attainment that had filled his
instructor with affectionate pride. The boy’s high spirit, his courage,
his quick, keen perceptive powers, his grace in motion, his artistic
passion for finish in everything he did, had knit the Colonel’s very
soul to him. It warmed the little Colonel’s fighting heart, for
instance, to have the boy in his boxing lessons come back again and
again with a spirit that only grew more insatiable with punishment. For
the Colonel was no dilettante instructor in the manly art, and every
lesson ended in a fight that left the boy on the point of taking the
count and the man pumping for wind.

No wonder the Colonel loathed his task. One consideration, and one only,
held him to it. Either he must accomplish it or leave it to his wife,
and, loyal soul as he was, he shuddered to think how very thoroughly and
conscientiously Augusta could do her duty. No, there was nothing else
for it. The task was his, and he would see it through. He would lure
Paul off for a ride and somewhere in the environment of the open woods
offering distraction he would deliver himself of his message.

But fate, in the shape of a young Holstein bull, took a hand, and to
some purpose.

“There he is again, Uncle Colonel, among the Sleeman cattle, and you
know they roam for ever and ever. Shall I cut him out?” Paul was
pointing an indignant finger at the young Holstein bull which had broken
through the Pine Croft fence.

“Can’t understand how that fence won’t hold the brute,” replied the
Colonel. “It is supposed to be bull tight. Well, he’s got a bunch of
your cattle with him. We must quietly edge them along toward the bars.
That will be easier than finding the break. Ride ’em quietly, Paul. No
hurry. Sing to ’em, boy.”

Easily the pinto cantered round the herd, gradually edging the Holsteins
toward the bars, the young bull going quietly enough with them. It was
very easily accomplished, and after half an hour’s cutting out the
straying cattle, bull and all, were within their own “policies,” as the
Colonel said.

“Hadn’t we better run young Braeside into the bull field while we are
here?” suggested the Colonel. “I don’t like him wandering off all over
the place.”

“All right, Uncle Colonel, I’ll just cut him out,” replied Paul, proud
of his cowboy attainments.

But the bull had a mind of his own, and with a bellow and flourish of
heels was away in a wild race toward the stables and corrals, Paul
dashing madly at his heels. The race brought up at the cattle corral,
into which Paul steered the surprised and winded animal, where he was
made safe for the time being.

“Now, young fellow, you can stay there for a bit,” said the boy
triumphantly, swinging his pony into a lope in the direction of the
bungalow. A hundred yards, and the boy jerked his pony to his haunches
and sat rigid, breathless, listening. Out of the bush rode the Colonel.

“You’ve got him, Paul,” he cried, catching sight of the boy.

But, heedless of him, Paul sat his pony as if turned into stone. From
the bungalow came a rushing flood of weird harmonies. A look of
uncertainty, almost of terror, was on the boy’s face.

“What’s that—who’s that?” he whispered. “It’s like——Is it my Daddy?
Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” His voice rang out in a shrill, quavering cry. He
shook the pinto into a gallop, flung himself headlong from the saddle
and disappeared within the bungalow.

The Colonel waited, listening, fearful. There was the crashing of an
unearthly chord, then silence.

“Well!” ejaculated the Colonel. “They don’t need me just at present.” He
rode up quietly toward the bungalow, dismounted, tied his horse and,
pulling out his pipe, threw himself down upon the grass near the door
and waited. He finished his second pipeful, then, mounting his horse, he
rode quietly homeward.

One part of his task at least was done. There was no need to break
gently to the boy the news of his father’s homecoming. But the bite in
the announcement still remained. He would have given something to have
seen Paul meet his father and to know the reaction upon the boy of
Gaspard’s _menage_, to employ his wife’s designation. Meantime he rode
slowly home to his wife, sorely distressed for the boy who had become to
him as his own son. The day would doubtless bring its own revelations,
and he was philosopher enough to resolve that he would await
developments. Later events justified the wisdom of this resolve.

The dinner hour brought Gaspard to the big white house in the proud
convoy of his son, to be at first shyly, then warmly welcomed by Peg, an
ardent admirer in the old days. During the dinner there was something
pathetic in the eager, wistful anxiety of the father to appear quite at
his ease and to carry off the situation with his old time aplomb, and
equally pathetic in the boy’s apologetic pride in his father, whose
whole manner somehow did not ring true.

Gaspard was obviously excited and overstrained, eager to please, too
eager indeed, and yet insolently defiant, ready to fight. He seemed to
be continuously conscious of an air of disapproval, if not contempt, on
the part of his hostess. For, do her best, Augusta could not get out of
her mind’s eye the little cavalcade which had accompanied Gaspard to the
bungalow. Hence her disapproving contempt. Why did he bring them back
with him? This was the question which, with irritating insistence, kept
inserting itself among Gaspard’s efforts at brilliant conversation. Not
the existence of that doubtful appanage of his, but his stupid
effrontery in daring to flaunt the whole thing in the face of his
friends and forcing them all to cut him. Augusta had no patience with
such stupidity; indeed, she could not conceive how a man of the world
could be guilty of any such ridiculous proceeding. It was a crime, not
so much against the ethical standards of the valley, but against good
form and common sense. In spite of herself, however, she began to be
conscious of Gaspard’s old time charm. A brilliant conversationalist
when he cared, a man of quite unusual intellectual culture, an art
critic with a sure touch and true feeling, as the dinner advanced and as
the Colonel’s generous old port began to warm the courage of his guest,
Gaspard’s apologetic and wistful air began to evaporate and to give
place to one of confident and complaisant ease. He was talking of “art,”
with a very large capital A, to which he had been led by an appreciative
reference to two new Raeburns which had recently arrived from England.
He knew the artist’s work and his school. Once launched, he was off on a
very even keel and with a steady breeze, over somewhat troubled waters,
stretching from the pre-Raphaelites to the Cubists. From that to student
days in the _Quartier Latin_, thence to his struggles with the hanging
committee of the Academy, he roamed with ever increasing confidence and
charm. Even the children were fascinated, while the Colonel was
jubilantly delighted, for with all her resolution to preserve a coldly
courteous attitude toward her visitor, Augusta, herself an enthusiast in
art, found herself engaged in a vigorous discussion with the artist over
the merits of the modern impressionists, whom she detested, eagerly
challenging, agreeing, appealing, with all her old time enthusiasm.

Suddenly Gaspard paused in the full tide of his discussion, caught by
the starry eyes of the fascinated Peggy opposite him at table.

“Mrs. Pelham,” he exclaimed eagerly, “there’s a picture for you. Why not
let me do her? I’d love to!”

A grey curtain fell over the animated face of his hostess.

“Portraits are not really my strong suit. But I believe I could do Peg.
I know I could. Eh, Peggy?” The little girl flashed a radiant smile at
him.

“Come over in the morning with Paul, and I shall have a go at you, eh,
what?”

“Peg has her lessons to do in the morning,” said her mother coldly. Her
tone drew Gaspard’s eyes to her face. Had it not been for his state of
exhilaration he would have been warned.

“Well, the early afternoon, then. Though I like the morning light
better, and one is fresher in the morning.”

“I think we shall not consider a portrait of Peg just now, Mr. Gaspard.”
Even in his present condition Gaspard got the full effect of the icy
chill in her voice. Indeed, the whole table got it. The children gazed
at her with wide eyes, questioning. They knew the tone and all its
implications. The Colonel hastened to man the breach.

“Very kind of you, Gaspard, I’m sure. We greatly appreciate the offer.
Some time a little later—when—a—things have—a—straightened out—a bit,
you know. When you get settled down. You understand?”

“Quite. Or, at least, I think I do. I am not really quite sure.”
Gaspard’s tone was a little weary. His voice had gone quite flat. But
into his eyes a steely light had come, as he turned them full on the
face of his hostess. That lady did not flinch. No one had ever accused
her of lack of courage.

“A little thought, a very little thought will show Mr. Gaspard the
impropriety of my little girl going to his house for the purpose
suggested, or indeed for any purpose whatever.” The cold, incisive,
deliberate tone cut like razor-edge steel, clean to the bone.

Gaspard shivered as from a knife thrust. His face went white, his lips
blue. For two seconds there was silence, then the Colonel took command
of the situation. In a voice of quiet, grave dignity he said, “Mr.
Gaspard has made us a very kind and very courteous offer, which I most
gladly accept.” The gallant little Colonel was in his best forlorn-hope
form. “The arrangements for sittings will be made later. There are,
however, matters which must be spoken of, and tonight. Perhaps the
children will retire. It is their bed-time, my dear. Good-night, Peg.
Paul, say good-night to your father.”

From one to another Peg flitted with a good-night kiss. With a grave and
puzzled air Paul followed her example, reserving his father to the last.

“Good-night, Daddy,” he said in a clear, firm voice, putting his arms
about his father’s neck. His father threw an arm about the boy and drew
him close in a quick, strong embrace, and for a moment or two held him
there.

“I’m awful, awfully glad you’re home, Daddy,” said the boy, standing up
straight, with a hand on his father’s shoulder. “I’m awfully glad. I’m
coming home tomorrow after lessons.” The boy, standing very straight,
let his eyes pass from one to the other of the group about the table, as
if challenging each to dispute his announcement.

A warm flush rose to Gaspard’s face. “Good-night, boy,” he said in a
husky, hurried voice. “Not tomorrow, Paul, if Mrs. Pelham will allow you
to remain a day or so—” his eyes were turned in wistful appeal to that
lady.

“Oh, surely, Mr. Gaspard,” she hastened to reply. “We shall be glad to
keep Paul as long as he can stay.”

“Thank you,” said Gaspard humbly. “Good-night, my boy. You will run over
tomorrow afternoon, eh?”

“After lessons tomorrow morning, Daddy,” said Paul firmly.

“Come, Master Paul.” It was old Jinny, who considered it still her
nightly duty and privilege to see Master Paul safely tucked away for the
night.

“Ah, Jinny! Glad to see you again,” said Gaspard, rising and giving her
hand a warm shake. “I hear you have been behaving yourself.”

“Aw, weel, they that asks a bugler needs yin,” said Jinny briskly. “I’m
rale glad tae see ye, tho ye’re sair peakit like.”

“Well, I’ve had a bit of a cold, but I’ll soon be fit again. Well,
good-night, Jinny. You have taken good care of the boy, I see.”

“An’ why wad I no?” said Jinny stoutly. “I held his mither on my knee.
Guid-night, sir. Guid-night, mem.”

Gaspard stood staring after her in silence.

“A faithful and very worthy old soul,” said the Colonel, noting his
gaze. “One of the best.”

“Yes, a faithful soul—faithful to the dead and faithful to the living.”
He sank into his chair, covered his face with his hands and sat there
huddled and silent.

“Brace up, old chap,” said the Colonel, after vigorously clearing his
throat. “We understand, and we thoroughly sympathise with your whole
position.” As he spoke the Colonel faced his wife boldly.

“Thank you, thank you, Pelham,” said Gaspard brokenly, grasping the
Colonel’s hand. “More than I can say I appreciate your sympathy. God
knows I need it, though I’m not asking for it.” He lifted his head and
faced his hostess. “No, I’m not asking for it. I meant to tell you. It
is but just to you—to all—that I should. You, Mrs. Pelham, disapprove of
me and—of—of my household; not without reason, as far as I am concerned.
As to—my—my household, a word or two is necessary. I married this Indian
woman——”

“Married!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Good man!”

“Married!” cried Augusta. “But that’s different!”

“Ah, you thought—well! I don’t wonder you felt like kicking me out. Yes,
I married her for two reasons. I knew it was what my dear wife would
wish, as an act of justice to the woman and to her child Peter. Also, I
wished to do so. She saved me from degradation and despair, and from
death by my own hand. Tonight I am saying to you that, while the place
in my heart once held by my dear—” he paused a moment with lips
quivering—“my dear wife can be filled by no other, yet I can thank God
that the woman now in my house is a good, pure-minded, cultured
Christian woman.”

“My dear Gaspard, my dear Gaspard,” said Augusta, rising and coming to
him with hand outstretched. “I cannot tell you how vastly thankful and
relieved I am. The other thing would have made all communication between
our families impossible, as you can see.”

“Good heavens! Do you think I——”

“Well, I did think it rather too much, you know. But now I am more
relieved than words can express. I shall call—I shall go to see your
wife, and shall see that my friends get this thing properly. Of course,
you must understand that there will be some difficulty with some of our
neighbours.”

“I am expecting nothing, dear Augusta. If you can allow the old
relations to be re-established as far as Paul and I are concerned and
can show a little kindness to my wife I shall be eternally obliged. Poor
girl! She too has given up much. The chieftainship of a great and
ancient people is hers, but all that she gave up for me—and her
children. Now, as to Paul, I was going to ask——”

“My dear chap,” interrupted the Colonel in an exuberance of delight,
“allow Augusta to tell you what we propose before you speak.”

“Well, Gaspard, you know,” said Augusta, “believing as I—as we did, we
of course felt that the old relations could not very well be
re-established. I mean—for Peg’s sake—for everybody’s sake. There are
such things as conventions, and——”

“I know, I know,” agreed Gaspard.

“Well, we thought you would allow Paul to make his home—his
headquarters—here with us. He could keep on his lessons with Peg. I look
after them myself, and he is doing quite famously and is quite a help to
Peg, I mean in the way of example and inspiration. Of course, now there
is not the same necessity, but if you think——”

“Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Pelham. I have thought this out during many
dark and terrible nights in the North Country, and I resolved that,
whatever duty I owed to Onawata, my present wife, I owed a prior duty to
my dear wife now gone and to our boy Paul. I am not going to allow
Paul’s future to be entangled or embarrassed by association with the
children of mixed blood. No one can tell how they will turn out. While I
am here they will be all right, but no one knows how long I shall be
with them. Sometimes I have my fears as to myself. But as to Paul, I am
resolved that he is not to be handicapped nor his future imperilled by
the sins and follies of his father. He is a good boy. So if you could
allow him to, as you say, make his headquarters with you, it would lift
an immense weight off my shoulders and relieve the situation generally
more than I can say.”

“Splendid! Splendid, old man!” exclaimed the delighted Colonel. “You
have put it exactly as it should be put. We shall be more than delighted
to have Paul stay with us. Indeed, I should feel it terribly to have to
give him up completely. Nothing could be more satisfactory to us, eh,
Augusta?”

“I am sure it is the best arrangement all round. Paul has his own
future, his own life to work out, and—and—well, I am quite sure you have
done the right thing. We shall do our best for Paul. He is indeed like
our own son, and a really fine fellow.”

“Splendid chap! Wonderful chap! Brilliant chap! Make his mark some day
if he lives,” exclaimed the Colonel, yielding to his enthusiasm for
Paul, and vastly relieved over the solution of a problem that to him had
presented the most painful possibilities.

The Colonel’s faith in a beneficent, over-ruling Providence was
appreciably strengthened by the events of the evening.




                               CHAPTER XI


The arrangement thus happily consummated had failed to take note of a
very important factor necessary to its perfect adjustment, namely Paul
himself. It was Paul, with the assistance of Asa, who finally settled
the problem of his future.

For some weeks the “big white house” continued to be the headquarters of
Paul, where, through a mutual understanding between his father and Mrs.
Pelham, he spent the greater part of the day. But no day passed that did
not see Paul for some hours at Pine Croft in the company of his father,
working up his music according to his father’s interpretation of the
great masters; reciting his catechism and Bible lessons, for these his
father insisted upon more keenly than upon any other; playing with his
father’s paints and brushes, with now and then a word of instruction as
to line or colour, composition or perspective; and struggling with his
mathematics, in which Augusta frankly acknowledged that she was rather
weak.

His father was eager to supplement in the education of his son the
elements which might be lacking in the instruction received at the big
white house, which, however excellent of its kind, partook somewhat of
the quality and characteristics of that received in an English Dame
School. With this idea in mind, the boy was initiated into the mysteries
of the elements of engineering, and under his father’s instruction began
to apply in a series of primitive experiments the principles of the
science to road building, bridge construction, water wheels, the laying
of water mains, and such like practical undertakings. Many a long and
delightful afternoon the boy toiled at construction work, with his
father watching while he lay and smoked, occasionally throwing a word of
advice or lending a hand.

In these studies and occupations, Peter was his constant companion and
worshipful assistant.

Between the Indian woman and Paul hung a veil of reserve which neither
seemed able to remove. The woman herself seemed unwilling to take the
place of wife and mother in the household. Centuries of tradition
wrought in her soul an ineradicable sense of subordination to her lord
and master. At the family table Gaspard insisted that she take her
place, but inasmuch as the charge of the household duties fell upon her
alone she seized every opportunity to serve her lord as the women of her
race had served from time immemorial, rather than preside as his equal
in the family. This was especially the case at such times as Paul
happened to be a member of the family circle, and had it not been for
Gaspard’s express command she on every occasion would have played the
part of servant to her master and the “young chief,” as she sometimes
shyly named him. Her love for the boy, which was with her second only to
that for her lord and master, was a strange mingling of maternal
tenderness and of adoration for something high and remote.

As for Paul, he could not have analysed to himself, much less explained
to any other, just in what light he considered the Indian woman who
occupied such a peculiar place in the household. What that place was
Paul, having never been told, was too reserved to enquire. His father
had never spoken of it, taking for granted that the boy had understood,
and no other had ventured to speak of the matter. For his twelve years
the boy had developed an unusual ability to do his own thinking on many
subjects, and, moreover, he carried an air of reserve that forbade
intrusion into the more intimate things of life.

For one member of the household, however, the sixteen-months babe, Paul
developed a swift and absorbing devotion. At his first sight of her the
boy utterly lost his heart, and thenceforward was her slave. For half a
century of a life teeming with incident and rich in emotion he was never
to forget that first vision of little Tannawita—“Singing Water.”

It was the afternoon of the eventful day on which he had recovered his
father after those three lonely years that he first saw the child.
Together his father and he had spent the morning hours, having the house
to themselves. After lunch his father, exhausted with the emotions of
the meeting, had gone to his room to rest, leaving Paul to meander
through a dream world of his own as his fingers wandered softly over the
keyboard of the piano. Thus wandering, with face turned toward his
father’s room, the boy became conscious of the lightest of light fingers
touching his arm. Startled, he swung about upon his stool, and there
beheld a pair of the bluest of blue eyes, looking fixedly into his
through a tangle of curls richly golden. The face made him think at once
of the child in a Madonna picture which he remembered his mother to have
shown him long ago. The eyes in the picture had the same far away,
other-worldly look as the eyes staring so fixedly at him. Hardly daring
to breathe, he smiled into the blue eyes, pouring into his smile the
utmost magic of his fascination. But the blue eyes gazed, unwinking,
unchanging, into his.

“Hello, baby,” he said softly, as if fearing to break a spell. “Who are
you?”

At once the little hands were lifted up high, while over the face ran
rippling waves of light and laughter.

“You are a ripping baby,” said the boy, lifting her to his knee.
Immediately the little hands went wandering over his face like little
gentle living things, poking into mouth and eyes and ears, while from
the baby lips came flowing in a gurgling stream the most exquisitely
melodious sounds that had ever fallen upon the boy’s ears.

“Well, you are a darling,” said Paul. “But where in the world do you
come from?” He glanced into his father’s room and seeing that he was
asleep he picked up the baby in his arms and went out into the garden at
the back of the house. There upon the grass he lay, playing with the
gurgling babe.

The little one had reached the toddling stage, able to move with timid
and uncertain steps. In a few minutes the two were deep in a game of
hide-and-seek. The baby had curious manners, one with her little hands,
carrying them before her face as if pushing something from her. Then,
too, she would pause suddenly in mid-career and stand silent, her head
forward as if listening intently. Paul had little experience of babies.
The only babe he knew was one of a neighbour’s, a Mrs. Macdonald, the
jolly, kindly matronly wife of a very shrewd and successful rancher some
five miles down the river. That baby, a sturdy, rosy little rascal about
the same age as this, would dash madly after Paul, chasing him round and
over obstacles with a reckless disregard of consequences. This youngster
had its own queer mannerisms which puzzled Paul. Holding by his finger
she could race with him freely and with sure foot on the smooth grass,
but alone she was filled with timid hesitation. Once he hid behind a
tree, calling her. Cautiously she came running, her little hands high in
front of her face, halted a moment listening, then in response to a call
came dashing toward him and ran full tilt squarely into the tree. The
impact hurled her violently upon her back with an abrased nose. Her
screams brought the Indian woman from the house, running swiftly.

“She ran into the tree I was hiding behind,” explained Paul
remorsefully.

The mother caught the child in her arms and, sitting on the grass,
soothed her with soft strange sounds till her tears were stayed.

“I am awfully sorry,” said the boy. “She must have stumbled head first
against the tree.”

Clasping the babe tightly to her breast and rocking her gently while she
crooned a quaint low song, the mother said nothing in reply.

“I am awfully sorry” again said Paul, puzzled and a little fearful at
her silence.

“No,” said the mother, when the babe had grown quiet, “she did not see
the tree. She does not see—anything. She—is—blind.” As she spoke she
clutched the babe fiercely to her breast.

“Blind! She can’t see anything? She can’t see me—now?” The boy was
staring, horror-stricken, into the blue eyes once more turned steadily
on him. He moved closer to the child. “She can’t see!” he said again in
a voice shrill with bewilderment, pain, anger.

The mother shook her head, rocking her child in her arms, her face fixed
in a look of stony despair.

“Will she never see?” demanded the boy. Again the woman shook her head.

“How did she—who did this to her?” again demanded the boy.

“She was born—this way,” said the woman in a toneless voice.

“Born—blind!” The boy kneeled down, looked into the blue eyes, touched
with his fingers the uplifted face now turned toward him, then, with a
low cry, put his face in the little one’s lap. “Oh, God, why did you let
her? Why did you let her?” he sobbed again and again. “She’s so
little—so little.”

At the sight of him the woman’s stony face broke in tender pity, the
silent tears flowed down her cheeks, while the baby’s fingers, like
little living things, played lightly over the boy’s head seeking his
face.

In that hour of solemn sacrament the boy in an unspoken covenant
dedicated himself to the care and protection of this babe upon whose
blue eyes God for some mysterious reason had let this unspeakable horror
of darkness fall. Thenceforth no love, no lure could draw away the boy’s
heart whensoever the babe had need of him. In that hour too the Indian
mother of the blind child gave to the boy the deep adoring love of her
heart, veil it as she might, second only to that she had given to the
man for whose sake she had abandoned home and race and all else that she
held dear.

The weeks following the arrangement as to Paul’s headquarters were
somewhat difficult for the boy. For one thing, Peg was never satisfied
that the whole afternoon should be given to Pine Croft, and was
continually impressing into her service the Colonel in planning
expeditions of one kind and another in which Paul should join. Then,
more and more Paul came to see that the days were dragging wearily for
his father. Few of the old neighbours visited at Pine Croft, in spite of
the vigorous propaganda carried on in the little community by the
Colonel and his lady in favour of a generous and liberal judgment of
Gaspard and his social misadventures. The only response came from the
Macdonalds who, in spite of the stern and rigid ethical standards
inherited from their sturdy Nova Scotian forebears, frankly accepted the
guarantee of the Colonel and his wife and often dropped in of an evening
or on a Sunday afternoon. But it was hard going for them all. The old
friends found it difficult to unbend in the old free and easy manners of
the old days, without finding themselves involved in reminiscences
painful and embarrassing to all concerned. And none of them, with the
very best of intentions, could break through the shy, proud reserve of
the Indian woman. She had her own life, and between that life and the
life of the valley there existed but one vital point of contact, the man
whose life she had twice saved and for whom she would gladly any day lay
down her life.

Sleeman alone, their nearest neighbour, appeared to be able to establish
free and friendly relations with Pine Croft and its mixed household. In
and out of the house he was with a familiarity which in the old days
Gaspard would have made short work of, but which in these days of
ostracism and loneliness he tolerated, even welcomed. Long hours they
sat together with, too often, the bottle on the table. Often too a poker
game beguiled the hours. Paul hated these afternoons and evenings and
hated the man whose visits made them possible. From Sleeman his very
soul turned in revulsion. There was in him the same quality which Paul
discovered in the big milk snakes which here and there he used to come
upon, sliding without changing shape out of sight into the underbrush.
His son, Asa, affected Paul in a similar manner. Never with any degree
of comfort had he been able to touch Asa’s hand. With Adelina it was
different. There was nothing snaky about her. A biting tongue she had
when it was needed, and a hard-hitting fist when occasion demanded, but
she never showed any snake-like movements. She stood up straight, ready
to fight for her rights and ready to accept a beating when it came her
way. But both father and son Paul kept at long range, and it is fair to
say that the repulsion was mutual. And this repulsion it was that
wrought upon Paul’s life a potent reaction.

Often in their morning expeditions the children from the “big white
house” and the Sleemans would foregather and explore some of the many
bits of wonderland in the midst of which they had their homes. Were it
not for Adelina, who was devoted to him, Paul would have avoided these
meetings. And then too, for Asa the dainty, bright, vivacious little
girl from the big white house had a strong fascination, of which, true
to her sex, the child was pleasantly conscious but the reaction from
which in a continual bullying and teasing she hated. But she admired Asa
for his strength and his ability to do things men could do with horses
and cattle and machinery, and in her heart she coveted for Paul, whose
slave she was, these gifts and powers. Of course, Paul had compensating
qualities which lifted him to a plane far beyond Asa’s poor reach. And
she made Asa conscious of this, to Paul’s undoing. For Asa was ever on
the watch for opportunities to humiliate him in the presence of the
others. Yet there was that about Paul that imposed limits upon Asa’s
bullying tendencies. Behind the smaller boy’s reserve there lurked a
spiritual quality of mastery that somehow held Asa’s coarser nature in
check and made the boy the dominating spirit in the little group. In
moments of crisis it was to Paul they instinctively turned.

Notwithstanding this, however, Paul had often sore conflict with himself
and was hard put to it to endure the humiliations which Asa put upon
him. For in the matter of retaliations Paul was severely handicapped by
his religious convictions. The majestic simplicity of the Sermon on the
Mount, in such matters as anger and retaliations, hampered him. The
impossibility of the _lex talionis_ had been instilled into his soul by
his mother’s doctrine in these matters which, by the way, was quite
undiluted by the ingenious refinements of a school of interpretation
which sought a place in that sublime ethical code for wrath, hatred,
revenge and such like exercises of the human soul. His mother, simple
soul, had only one method of interpretation, that of the childlike
spirit. Consequently Paul’s limitation in the way of the ordinary human
reactions to such tyrannies and wrongs as are the lot of the weak at the
hands of the strong were serious enough. After much long and painful
meditation Paul had achieved a working theory of ethics in regard to
rights of freemen under the yoke of a tyrant. He was quite clear about
that. He had cunningly extracted from the gallant Colonel his opinion as
to legitimate causes for war and he had come to the fixed conviction
that, given a worthy cause, war was praiseworthy and right, care being
taken to exclude all purely selfish motives. In the early days of Asa’s
tyrannous conduct, nearly two years ago, Paul made the painful discovery
that he was afraid of his enemy. It was then that he had approached the
Colonel with the request that he be taught to fight. He hated to feel
afraid. It lowered his self-respect immeasurably. More than that, it
deprived him of that fine glow of heroic virtue arising from his
voluntary endurance without retaliation of many acts of persecution. It
was this resolve to overcome the weakening and abasing sense of fear by
learning how to fight that spurred him to endure the somewhat strenuous
instructions of the little fighting Colonel in the manly art.

It was a glorious September morning and the Colonel was ready for his
morning ride. There was a shimmer of heat over the landscape and a
promise of thunder in the air. A breathless stillness had fallen upon
all things, and over the fields and the distant woods the September haze
hung like a thin blue veil.

It had been a successful season on the ranch. The fruit crops had been
abundant and through the agency of the newly organised Fruit Growers’
Association had been fairly well marketed. The harvest had been quite up
to the average, and within a day or two would be safely stacked or under
cover.

The Colonel had abundant reason for satisfaction with life, and should
have worn a much happier face. His wife, reading his face like an open
page, broke forth into protest.

“I don’t see why you should go around looking like that,” she said
impatiently.

“Looking like what?” exclaimed the Colonel, his face becoming at once a
perfect picture of radiant cheer.

“Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?” she asked petulantly.

“What can any one do? Anyway, what are you talking about, my dear?”
inquired her husband, illogically.

“You know quite well. You are worrying yourself to no end.”

“Worrying myself? Nonsense! And what about you?”

“The whole thing is about as bad as it could be. The man is doing
nothing to his place. Buildings, fences, corrals, everything is going to
wreck and ruin. And he hasn’t done a thing all this summer.”

“My dear, the man is ill. And he is hard up. I happen to know his Bank
has turned him down.”

“Yes, you have good reason to know,” said his wife, with significant
emphasis.

“My dear, we won’t speak of——”

“Oh, it is all very well, but you can’t go on like this. Something ought
to be done. That man is about desperate. He may do anything some day.
And he shuts himself up in that bungalow from everyone except Paul—and
that creature, Sleeman.”

“I don’t like that fellow. I don’t trust him,” said the Colonel. “He has
the worst sort of influence over poor Gaspard, with his poker and his
whiskey.”

“My dear, there will be a tragedy there some day, you mark my words.”

“Oh, nonsense! But what can I do? Why can’t some of you ladies do
something for the family?”

“There you are again!” cried his wife, lifting up her hands in despair.
“You can’t get near her. She is an Indian through and through, proud,
reserved. You can’t patronise her a——”

“But why should you?”

“Well, you know what I mean,” replied his wife impatiently. “Our women
went at my solicitation prepared to be quite kind to her. She made them
feel—Why, Mrs. Powers said to me, ‘She actually patronised us. Made me
feel as if she were quite my equal.’”

“And why not?” asked the Colonel simply. “In what is Mrs. Powers the
superior of this Indian lady?”

“Oh, I’m not snobbish, Edgar, as you probably know by this time, but——”
His wife’s voice was coldly indignant.

“My dear, my dear,” the Colonel hastened to apologise, “who would
suggest that you——”

“Well, I must say it is very difficult. She won’t visit. Even her
church—she was educated, you know, in a convent—even her church is a
kind of barrier. She rides down to the Post all alone when the priest
comes. I am in despair. I’ve tried my best, you’ve tried your best. The
long and the short of it is the man and his place are going to ruin.”

The Colonel remained silent. There was nothing to say. He had tried his
best with Gaspard, and so far had failed.

“If he would only brace up,” sighed Augusta. “But he seems to have lost
his nerve.”

“It is the last thing a man loses,” replied the Colonel gloomily.

“And there’s that boy——”

The Colonel lifted up his hand. “For God’s sake, don’t speak of the boy.
He feels as you do.”

“Nonsense! He does not understand the thing at all. He is perfectly
happy.”

The Colonel groaned. “Great heavens, Augusta, have you not noticed the
boy whenever he returns from the ranch? Have you noticed the kind of
music he improvises? The boy is worried. He is anxious. He is mystified
about that whole outfit. Don’t you notice he never speaks of his father
now. For the first month his father was his main theme. The thing is
really heart-breaking. He spends more and more time there. Some day he
will pack up and leave us.”

“Well, run away and take your ride. Look up the children and bring them
back with you. And _don’t worry_,” she added, shaking a minatory figure
at him.

“Not I!” shouted the Colonel, and putting his horse full tilt at the
bars cleared in fine style and, waving a farewell at his wife, took his
way by the river trail out of sight.

After an hour’s ride he found himself at the children’s rendezvous near
the river bend where an open space provided a delightful playground for
them. It was the Colonel’s practice to steal up Indian fashion and then
swooping upon them with war whoop and brandished tomahawk claim, if
unobserved till within twenty yards, capture and ransom. With great care
he approached within charging distance and was gathering his horse for
the final dash when a loud cry arrested him.

“Here you, Asa, stop that! Let him up! Let him up, I tell you!” It was
Adelina, dancing frantically about the boys struggling on the ground,
Asa uppermost and pummelling Paul vigorously about the head and
shoulders. Her cry unheeded, Adelina dashed in, wreathed her arms around
Asa’s neck and dragged him backward from his victim.

“You big coward!” panted the girl. “I’ll just go and tell pa on you
right away.” So saying she sprang on her pony and dashed off toward her
home, followed by the shouted threats of her brother.

“You called me a liar,” said Asa, approaching Paul threateningly.

“No,” said Paul, breathing hard, “I did not—but—you did tell a lie.”

“Yes, you did!” cried Peg, rushing toward the bigger boy like an enraged
mother partridge defending her chicks.

“Oh, you shut up and keep out of this,” cried Asa, reaching for her and
throwing her heavily to one side.

“You are a big coward!” said Paul, with one rip tearing off his jacket.

His longed for opportunity had come. The law of retaliation for one’s
own injury was not abrogated for him, but for others, especially for the
weak and defenceless, it was a man’s duty to fight. His heart glowed
with the old Crusader fire. Whether a long series of bitter humiliations
added some fuel to the flame he stayed not to consider. His religious
inhibitions were withdrawn. A plain duty lay before him. All his fear of
the bigger boy vanished. He was ready to be offered a sacrifice.

“Oho! you little liar, you have been wanting a good hiding for some
time, and now you’re going to get it.”

“Peg, keep back!” said Paul, quietly waiting.

The Colonel slipped from the saddle and crept near the clearing, taking
his place behind a thick bush.

“By Jove, the boy is going to stand up to him!” he said delightedly. “I
hope he’ll keep his head and do some foot work now.”

The hope was realised. With a rush Asa sought to grapple with his
opponent. Paul easily avoided and before Asa could recover had landed
one, two, three upon his enemy’s unprotected face. The Colonel hugged
himself in joy.

“Gad, the boy’s showing form,” he chuckled in high glee.

Once more Asa rushed, but again Paul eluded him, circling round his man.

“Aw, come on, you coward!” cried Asa. “You dassen’t stand up to me.”

“Keep away, Paul,” cried Peg, dancing excitedly in the offing.

“He’d better!” shouted Asa, rushing after his elusive foe. “But I’ll get
you all right.” But even as he spoke Paul suddenly checked himself and
landed heavily with a stiff swing upon Asa’s ear as he passed, with
telling effect. For a moment or two Asa lay where he had fallen, more
astonished than hurt, while Peg shrieked with joy. “Good foot work,
Paul!” Not for nothing had she attended the boy’s fighting exercises
with the Colonel for the last two years.

With greater deliberation the bigger boy set out to secure a clinch with
his exasperating opponent.

“Jove, if he can only keep away!” murmured the Colonel. Out and in, back
and forward, Asa sought to corner his victim, coming often within touch
but just failing to make his catch. The pace was beginning to tell upon
Asa, for he was quite unused to this sort of game and his wind was
going.

“Now, boy, go in! Go in! Why don’t you go——” the Colonel whispered in a
frenzy of excitement behind the bush. As if in obedience to the
whispered entreaty Paul met a sudden reckless rush of the other with a
full straight arm fair upon the chin, lifted him clear off his feet and
landed him two yards away on his back, where he lay stretched at full
length.

A shriek of delight from Peg greeted the result.

“What a little devil she is!” said the delighted Colonel to himself.
“Jove, what a hit, a clean hit! The boy’s a wonder! Here, here, look
out!” The Colonel’s anxiety was well founded. For Paul, dismayed at the
unexpected effect of his blow, had approached his enemy with the idea of
proffering aid. Slowly Asa recovered himself, raised himself to a
sitting position and sat heaving deep sobs, with his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Asa,” said Paul penitently. “I didn’t mean to hit so hard.”
But there was no response. Asa continued to sob heavily, still with his
head in his hands.

“I’m awfully sorry,” repeated Paul, drawing nearer. “I didn’t mean to——”

His compassion for his fallen foe never found full expression. With a
sidelong lurch Asa flung himself at Paul’s feet, gripped and hurled him
to the ground; then, clambering upon him, held him fast by the throat.

“Now, I’ve got yeh,” he panted, “and I’m going to punch the daylights
out o’ yeh.” And straightway he began pounding his prostrate foe about
the head.

Before the Colonel could clear the bush there was a shrill cry, a
flutter of legs and arms, and Peg hurled herself upon Asa, wreathed her
hands in his bushy hair, and with one fierce swing jerked his head
backward and dragged him off his victim.

The Colonel crept back into cover. “By Jove, I’ll let ’em fight it out,”
he muttered. “I do believe they’ll handle him.”

“I’ll get you, you little beast,” cried Asa savagely, making for Peg.
But before he had taken two steps Paul was on him like a thunderbolt,
raining blows on his face and neck till Asa, staggering and bellowing,
turned and fairly fled, with Paul hard upon his heels, landing right and
left as opportunity offered, till, once more, Asa tripping upon a root
tumbled headlong upon the grass and lay groaning.

The fight was over. Asa’s bullying days were done.




                              CHAPTER XII


The aftermath of the fight deprived the gallant Colonel of all his
exultation in his pupil’s triumph.

“What was it about?” he enquired of Paul as they rode home together. But
Paul was silent. His victory brought him no elation. He had done his
duty. He had fought in a perfectly good cause and, incidentally, though
this he would not acknowledge even to his own secret heart, he had wiped
out many a dark and deadly insult endured through many days. But for all
that his face was shrouded in deep gloom.

“What started the trouble?” again asked the Colonel.

“Oh! Daddy, Asa is always pickin’ on Paul, and today he said—he said—I
_will_ tell! now—he said Uncle Gaspard was a bad, bad man. And Paul said
it was a lie, and——” But at this point Peg caught sight of Paul’s face.
The look on it was enough to check Peg in mid-career. The boy was
ghastly pale, his lips blue and quivering. He pulled his pony to a dead
stop.

“He is not a bad man, is he, Uncle Colonel?” His lips could hardly frame
the words.

“Certainly not. He is not a bad man. He is a—a good man, but he is
having a very bad time.”

“He said—he said—” Paul’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, “he said—he
did—a—an awful bad thing—before—before Peter was born. But he did
not—did he, Uncle Colonel?”

The Colonel swore a deep oath, consigning Asa to depths of condemnation
unutterable. The boy’s honest clear blue eyes the Colonel felt were
boring clean down into his very soul. Nothing but the truth seemed
possible. He would have given untold wealth to have been able to “lie
like a gentleman.” But those blue eyes boring into the secret places of
his very being disconcerted the little Colonel. He hesitated just a
moment, then knew it was too late for anything but straight talking.

“Peg, ride on,” he commanded, and Peg, recognising the tone, without
question or hesitation obeyed.

Dismounting, the Colonel drew the boy down to a seat beside him and
there, face to face and as if man to man, told him the wretched tale,
seeing with the boy’s pure clean eyes all its sordidness in such light
as he had never before conceived it.

An hour passed, and the boy still lay on his face, shuddering and
sobbing. The Colonel sat down beside him, striving with word and touch
to lay what healing balm he might upon that raw and quivering wound.
Gradually the boy’s sobbing grew quiet. He rose from the ground,
exhausted, white and trembling.

“I think, Uncle Colonel,” he said, making a brave attempt to steady his
lips, “I’ll ride home.”

The Colonel searched his white face.

“Paul, you will come home with me tonight,” he said firmly, “and
tomorrow we shall have another talk.”

“Uncle Colonel,” said the boy, swallowing, “I think—I
want—to—see—Daddy.”

The Colonel had handled boys and men in his day, and knew just when
kindness was most cruel.

“Paul, you will do what I ask,” he said sharply. “Tomorrow we shall make
our plans.”

The sharp tone pulled the boy together.

“Yes, sir,” he replied quietly, “but—but—oh, Uncle Colonel, I know now
what Mother meant when she—told me—” The boy’s voice faltered, he drew a
deep breath, stood quietly for a few moments, then continued, “when she
told me to tell Daddy—about—the ‘seventy times seven.’ Poor Daddy!” The
brave little voice trailed off into a whisper.

“Come, boy, I want you to be a man, and a brave man. Your father needs
you and needs you to be strong and steady.”

He could have chosen no better word. The boy’s head went up, his
shoulders back. He threw the reins over the pony’s head, mounted and sat
waiting for the Colonel.

“Right-oh!” cried the Colonel. “Let’s gallop a bit.” They were on the
open road and for half a mile the Colonel’s broncho raced Joseph off his
feet.

“Always thought my bronc was just a shade better than your pinto,” said
the Colonel, pulling up. But Paul declined the challenge, allowing the
pinto to choose his own gait, which for that matter meant a racing pace
should the broncho feel so inclined.

Arrived at home they found a household torn with anxiety and a-thrill
with the echoes of the battle. Peg must have had a truly blissful hour.
But one of the Colonel’s quiet words was all that was needed to suppress
all curiosity and all undue exuberance of spirit.

Seldom were the conversational powers of the Colonel more brilliantly
exercised than through the dinner hour that evening, but with all he
could do and with the loyal backing of his wife—for these two never
failed to play up to each other’s lead—the haggard face of the boy had
the effect upon the little company of a ghost at a feast.

“Well, he knows the whole story now,” said the Colonel when the children
had said good-night. “He wanted to go home tonight.”

“And what’s this about Asa?” enquired Augusta. “As far as I could gather
from Peg’s dramatic recital they were all in a general mêlée.”

The Colonel’s face brightened.

“The boy is a wonder, a perfect wonder, cool as cress and a whirlwind in
attack.”

“But what happened?” demanded Augusta, whose sporting instincts were
deeply intrigued by Peg’s version of the encounter between the boys.
Nothing loth, the Colonel indulged himself in a graphic description of
the battle.

“A clear win, beautifully generalled and superbly handled! Like an old
ringer he was. The boy has it in him. And were it not for the horrible
fact that that young beast Asa had blurted out the wretched story,
doubtless with his own beastly embellishments, we should have all been
celebrating tonight. As it is, I know that boy is not sleeping, and I
tell you, Augusta, I am quite sick about it. The boy will go to his
father. Nothing under heaven will keep him back. He loves to be here,
but if it tears his heart up by the roots he will go. The very
wrong-doing of his father is a kind of lure. If people are down on his
father, all the more the boy will be at his side. And, b’gad, I think
the more of him for it. Tomorrow morning the boy leaves us forever.”

“Why, in all the world?”

“Point of honour. His father’s shame will be his.”

“And do you mean to say he will be tied for life to his father’s Indian
wife and half-breed family?”

“As to the Indian wife, she is as good as the husband, if not a bit
better.”

“But impossible, Edgar. She will be a burden, a burden impossible. Why
should a young boy assume that handicap?”

“Mark me, he’ll stick to his father. Try him tomorrow.”

The Colonel was proved to be right in his judgment, for, a quarter of an
hour after lessons and practice were finished, Paul stood ready at the
door of the living room.

“The wagon will come for my box, Aunt Augusta,” he said, standing up
white and very straight.

“Mother! Mother! He says he’s going to leave us! And his father told him
to stay. Tell him to stay, Mother.” Peg’s face was red and indignant.

“And why are you leaving us, Paul? Come here and sit down and let us
talk it over.”

Paul approached her, but did not sit down.

“Are you not happy here?” Augusta’s voice, when she chose, could carry a
world of tenderness. Paul’s lip trembled. He could not trust his voice,
and before Peg he would rather suffer much bodily injury than “cry like
a girl.” So he wisely remained silent, while Augusta cunningly and
carefully marshalled her arguments which she had spent much of the night
in preparing. The boy would have often made reply but for his recreant
lips which would not keep firm. In the midst of the one-sided argument
the Colonel entered the room.

“Daddy! oh, Daddy! he says he’s going away!” stormily cried Peg, whose
emotions had been deeply wrought upon by her mother’s moving
argumentation.

“Is he, Peg?” enquired the Colonel gravely.

The Colonel’s quiet voice fell upon them like the doom of fate. For the
first time since Paul’s first announcement to her two hours ago, his
departure seemed possible, and, as she looked at her father’s serious
face, inevitable. With a cry the child flung herself into her mother’s
arms in a passion of tears.

“Oh, Mother, don’t let him go. I don’t want him to go.”

With a bitter look at her husband, the mother gathered her child into
her arms for a brief moment or two, then lightly cried, “Hut! tut!
What’s all this about? If Paul wants to go home for a while, why
shouldn’t he go? We’ll see him every day. And he will come back again in
a few days.”

“He will not. He says he will never come back. He says we won’t want him
to come back. You did,” said Peg, glaring at the boy through her tears.
“You know you did.”

Peg’s words released the boy’s emotional tension. He glared back at her,
indignant that she should thus betray his confidence.

Hoping against hope, but too simply sincere to temporise, the Colonel
turned to Paul and, as if talking man to man, said gravely, “You have
thought this over carefully, Paul?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been thinking all night.”

“And you feel you must leave us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But, what nonsense, Paul! Why must you go?” enquired Augusta
impatiently.

“I—don’t know. Daddy—I think Daddy’s awful—awfully lonely,” said the
boy, dumb misery in his face.

“Why must he go, Daddy?” appealed Peg.

“Why?” The little Colonel rose to his feet, went and stood beside the
boy, and put his hand on his shoulder. “You want to know why he must go,
Peg?” His voice rang out vibrant and clear. “Then listen to me. He goes
because, b’gad, he’s a gentleman.”

A hot flush surged over the boy’s face. He flashed up one swift glance
into the Colonel’s eyes, a glance of adoring gratitude. Here was a man
who could understand a fellow. His head went up and his shoulders back.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and walked steadily out of the house, and for
many a day was seen therein no more.

Nor did the Colonel run across him for well nigh a month. For it was
well toward the end of September when, riding along the upper trail, he
met the boy on his pinto and hailed him jovially.

“Hello, you young rascal! Why have you never been to see your friends?
Don’t you know you are behaving very badly indeed?” Paul smiled back at
him in unfeigned joy.

“Oh, Uncle Colonel, I’m awful glad to see you. I just wanted to see you
awfully much.”

“Oh, you did, eh? Strange, too. The trail to the white house I believe
is still open. And your eyesight appears to be fairly good.”

“Oh, Uncle Colonel, I don’t know what to do.”

The distress in the boy’s face sobered the little Colonel.

“Tut, tut, boy! What is so very wrong? I saw your father a couple of
days ago and he was looking fairly fit, better indeed than for some
time.”

“Yes, I know, I know—but, oh, I can’t tell you, Uncle Colonel.”

“Well, come along, we will ride a bit along the trail. The nuts are
coming on fine, eh? Going to be a great crop. We’ll have a day at ’em in
a couple of weeks. A touch o’ frost and they will be fit, eh? I haven’t
had a good long day in the woods for weeks. We’ll take this upper trail.
Haven’t been to the top this whole summer. The colouring of the valley
ought to be worth seeing, eh?” And so the Colonel chatted, giving the
boy no chance to make answer. The doings and goings of the family, the
ranch operations, plans for the autumn hunting, these all were fully
discoursed upon till they reached a bare shoulder overlooking the wide
sweeping valley. Already the mountain sides were aflame with the hues of
autumn, variegated with the dark green of the massed pines. A truly
noble view unfolded itself before them where the valley with its
confluents rolled north and south, east and west.

“My! I wish Daddy were here,” sighed Paul. “He never paints at all now.”

“Ah, not at all?”

“Never. He just sits and sits, looking dreadful, except when I play
sometimes, then he tells me how to—to—make it sing, you know, sing like
some one singing. That’s the way he plays. But sometimes he won’t have
me play at all. Just hates it. And I don’t know what to do.”

“What about the fences and stables? Is he not going to get them in
shape?”

“He began to, but he gets tired awful quick, and he hasn’t got lumber
and things. And I heard him tell Sleeman he couldn’t get any money. A
man in Vancouver wouldn’t give him, not a dollar, he said. And he can’t
buy anything he wants. And Sleeman just laughs and says he’s a fool.”
The boy paused, holding back his wrath, then recovering himself went on
quietly. “Of course, Sleeman is a bad man, a very bad man, and I wish he
would not come and stay so late. Of course, Daddy is lonesome sometimes,
I guess.”

“Lonesome? Why doesn’t he drop over and see us now and then?”

“He says the neighbours have all forgotten him. But I went with him to
the Post and a lot of people remembered him. Jim—Mr. Powers, I mean, and
Mr. Macdonald, and Mr. Tom Smith and Jake Smith and Mr. Perrault and old
Murphy, Mr. Murphy, I mean, and a lot more men, they all remembered him.
But he thinks they have forgotten him. Of course they don’t come and sit
and talk as they used to when—before—I mean when Mother was here too.
Everything is different now, and Daddy just sits and—and—Uncle Colonel,
when Sleeman comes—” Paul always forgot his manners in mentioning
Sleeman—“when Sleeman comes they just play cards and play and play, and
they make such a noise, and Sleeman keeps filling up Daddy’s glass. Old
Jinny sometimes comes in and just takes the bottle right away. And I
wish she would every night, because next day Daddy has always a bad
headache. Oh, I wish Sleeman wouldn’t come.”

The Colonel’s face grew grave and stern.

“How often is Sleeman there?” he asked.

“He comes every week two or three times,” said Paul. “He’s a bad man.
When he dies he will go to hell. And it would be better for him to die
soon, because he is getting worse every day, wouldn’t it, Uncle
Colonel?”

“He’s no kind of a man to be round your house, at any rate.”

“And Onawata hates him. She would like to kill him, I know,” said Paul
quietly.

“What are you saying, boy?” asked the horrified Colonel.

“Onawata would like to kill him.”

“How do you know, Paul?”

“I have watched her eyes. Awful eyes. And it would be better, for he
won’t repent, of course. And he swears all the time, and you know when
he breaks the Third Commandment, what it says in the ‘reason annexed.’”

But the Colonel, being deprived of the privilege of instruction in the
shorter Catechism in his youth, was quite beyond his depth.

“‘Reason annexed?’ What on earth are you driving at?”

“You know what the reason annexed to the Third Commandment says, Uncle
Colonel, about the breakers of the commandment.”

“No,” confessed the Colonel. “What does it say?”

“That ‘the Lord our God will not suffer them to escape his righteous
judgment.’ So you see he can’t escape, and it would be better if he died
very soon.”

“Good Lord!” muttered the Colonel, appalled at the relentless theory of
the divine administration of the universe. “But what about the Sixth
Commandment? Surely that forbids killing.”

“No, Uncle Colonel,” replied the young theologian, “not always. For it
says it ‘forbiddeth the taking away of our own life or the life of our
neighbour _unjustly_,’ and of course it wouldn’t be ‘_unjustly_,’ you
see.”

“Great Heavens, boy! Don’t fancy yourself Almighty God. Better leave
these things to Him.”

“I do, Uncle Colonel,” said Paul with great solemnity. “Of course I do.”

“Well, keep up your Catechism, but for Heaven’s sake get old Fraser, I
mean Mr. Fraser—he’s your parson, isn’t he?—to explain things to you.”

“Oh, Daddy explains them to me every Sunday. He makes me say the
Catechism over every Sunday, and then I read him my lessons. You know,
the lessons Mother used to teach me from the Bible. Except when Sleeman
comes—then we sometimes forget.”

“One thing, young fellow, don’t let your—ah—what do you call her?—the
Indian woman, I mean——”

“Onawata.”

“Don’t let Onawata—a pretty name—get any such bloodthirsty notions in
her head, or she may murder the beast some day. Then they’d hang her,
b’Jove. Now I’m coming round to see your father soon. I have been rather
busy, but I must come soon. Now let us ride down. Don’t fret, and if you
want help any time ride over for me.”

It was not till the following Sunday that the Colonel was able to fulfil
his promise, and it being the Sunday for the Anglican service, which
came once in the month, it was late in the afternoon when he rode up to
Pine Croft and gave his horse into the care of Indian Louis. Through the
open door of the living room came Gaspard’s voice, booming loudly.

“That’s good for your soul, Sleeman, you ungodly heathen. Say it again,
Paul. It will do him good, if he has the brains to take it in. Go on,
boy. ‘What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?’”

High, clear, and with an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice, came
Paul’s answer.

“‘All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath
and curse, and so made liable to the miseries in this life, to death
itself, and to the pains of hell forever.’”

“That ought to do you good, you old sinner,” said Gaspard.

“What about yourself? I guess you’re in the same boat,” said Sleeman
with an oath.

“Oh, no,” said Paul.

“Why not?” said Sleeman savagely.

“Because there’s ‘repentance unto life,’ you know,” said the boy, with
no attempt to conceal his satisfaction.

“And what’s that?” asked Sleeman, with a sneer.

“Tell him, Paul. Tell the benighted sinner.” Gaspard was hugely enjoying
himself. Nothing loth, Paul recited the noble words, ‘Repentance unto
life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his
sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief
and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and
endeavour after new obedience.’

“There, Sleeman, did you ever hear anything more complete?”

Sleeman growled out an oath. “I don’t know what the devil you’re talkin’
about.”

Gaspard laughed loud and long. “Of course not, my dear fellow. Have
another drink. A man needs brains to understand that little book. That’s
why the great unwashed gag at our great system of theology. Ha! ha!”
Gaspard was immensely tickled at the boy’s answer. “Brains, my dear
fellow, brains. We furnish the system, we Calvinists, but not the
brains.”

“All the same, I guess I got as good a chance of missin’ hell as you,
anyhow.”

“No,” said Paul again, serenely triumphant.

“And why not?” said Sleeman with another oath.

“Tell him, Paul. This is really great. Tell the blighter, while I have a
drink.” There was a clink of glasses.

“Because you won’t repent,” said Paul, announcing a perfectly obvious
and cheering fact.

“And what about yourself, you—you——”

“Steady on, Sleeman. No profanity in our theological class. Go on,
Paul.”

“Oh, you won’t repent, you see, and we do. Don’t we, Daddy? O’ course we
do.”

The discussion was becoming a little too much for the Colonel, greatly
though he enjoyed the apparent perplexity and confusion of the outcast
and unregenerate Sleeman, so he made his presence known and entered the
room. He was welcomed by Gaspard with acclaim and with urgent
invitations to drink, by Paul with vociferous delight, by Sleeman with a
reluctant pretence of neighbourly friendliness.

Refusing a drink, the Colonel enquired, “What’s doing, Paul? Did I hear
you on your native heath, the shorter Catechism? My dear Gaspard, if I
am not an expert in Calvinistic theology, the fault is neither that of
Paul nor of the shorter Catechism, for the last three years we have had
almost daily exercises, Paul and I, in that most terrible and most
remarkable book.”

“Most remarkable, I grant you,” said Gaspard, whose love for theological
discussion grew with each successive glass, “but one not easily absorbed
by the unschooled Sassenach mind. Sleeman here, for instance, if I
repeated to him the immortal and noble phrases which register the answer
to the paralysing question, ‘What is effectual calling?’ would be as
hopelessly befogged as if I were reciting a bit of the Koran in its
original tongue.”

Sleeman squirmed and was silent. When Gaspard was discoursing upon
either art or theology he realised his hopeless inadequacy and had the
wit to venture no contribution. All the same, it angered him and
disturbed him not a little to have his postmortem career outlined for
him in the calmly judicial and final manner affected by Paul. His
obvious uneasiness under the process gave Gaspard unqualified delight.
It was hard enough to be coolly assigned to hell by a youngster who was
at no pains to conceal his entire approval of the Divine judgment in the
case, but that this disturbing verdict should become the occasion of
joyous mirth by his neighbour was, to say the least, irritating.
Besides, the homely and relentless logic of some of the “Questions,”
when rubbed in by the gleeful Gaspard, gave him some serious moments.

But to the Colonel the whole scene was not without its disturbing and
depressing elements. Gaspard, for all his cynical hilarity, had every
symptom of nerve strain and exhaustion. He was in no condition to run
neck and neck with the tough and seasoned Sleeman in a race for the last
drop out of the whiskey bottle. It was to the Colonel too a horror that
the boy should be forced to endure the sordid environment of a Sunday
afternoon spent in so degrading a manner. The thing was obviously
hateful to Paul. The boy’s whole manner showed high nervous tension,
anxiety, even dread. But from the situation there appeared to the
Colonel no escape. Paul would stick by his father, and the father was
held in the grip of circumstances beyond his power to shake off.

The Colonel sought to turn the conversation away from the profundities
of Calvinistic theology into the lighter vein of neighbourly gossip. But
Gaspard had imbibed enough from his bottle to be unreasonably fixed in
his own opinion of what was seemly in his house on a Sunday afternoon.
Moreover, it gave him an unholy joy to see Sleeman flounder among ideas
far beyond his comprehension and squirm under the forebodings of an
uneasy conscience. As the afternoon passed, Gaspard became less
controlled and more provocative and unpleasant in his goading of
Sleeman, till the Colonel began to fear a violent rupture between the
two. He became conscious also of a consuming anxiety in Paul, mingled
with a certain sense of humiliation for his father. Once and again he
caught an appealing look in the boy’s eyes, till he could bear it no
longer.

“Sleeman, it is quite time we were going home, you and I.”

Gaspard made loud and indignant protest. “Nonsense, Pelham! You don’t
come so often. Sit down, man.”

“No, we must go. And you are needing rest too, Gaspard. You want sleep.”

“Sleep!” shouted Gaspard. “Sleep! Ha! ha! Yes, I need sleep. But shall I
sleep? ‘To sleep, perhaps to dream! Ah, there’s the rub!’ The old boy
knew what he was talking about. But I know better. Sit down, Sleeman.
Don’t leave me, Colonel. Sit down—Ah, yes, Paul will play for you, and
then perhaps, who knows? I may sleep. Play, Paul! Play, boy! Play!
Play!” He was growing terribly excited.

“All right, Daddy. Listen to this. I call it ‘Asleep in the Woods.’
You’ll get it. You’ll hear all the things.” The boy was excited, too,
almost beyond control. He ran to the piano, struck a few crashing
chords, then allowed his fingers to rush up and down the keyboard in a
perfect fury of sounds, gradually passing into a more moderate tempo and
a more melodious theme, till he fell into a movement rich in tone
colour, dreamy in motif, varied in phrase, which might well suggest
night’s many tender moods in the great out-of-doors.

The Colonel waited to observe the effect upon the other two. Upon
Gaspard the effect was immediate. Deep in his arm chair he allowed
himself to sink, motionless, silent, and buried in thought. The demon of
furious unrest was exorcised. As with Saul of old, the evil spirit
departed from him, and for the hour at least he passed into peace. With
a feeling of immense relief, the Colonel turned his eyes toward Sleeman,
and could hardly believe but that his eyes were playing him false. With
his face full in the glare of the lamp Sleeman sat, bolt upright,
gripping the arms of his chair, held as by a spell, fascinated. Sleeman,
material of soul, vulgar in taste, coarse in fibre, there he sat with a
look as of another world in his face, as if another soul were gazing
through his eyes. Bewildered, rebuked, humbled, the Colonel looked and
listened, while the music poured out its melodious song, reminiscent of
murmuring pines and running streams under the quiet stars. How long they
sat thus, the Colonel could not reckon. It seemed that from some strange
and far off country he was recalled as the music passed into the stately
solemn chords of Handel’s Largo, with which the boy closed his
improvisation.

“Good night, Gaspard,” he said, as silence followed the music. “Now you
will sleep.”

“Good night, good night, old friend,” replied Gaspard, stretching up a
hand from his chair. “Yes, I shall sleep now.”

The Colonel touched Sleeman on the arm. “Come along,” he said quietly.
As if wakened from a sleep; Sleeman rose, stretched himself and with a
nod to Gaspard passed out into the falling evening. Together they walked
their horses down the avenue of pines in silence.

“Wonderful performance that, Sleeman, eh?” said the Colonel when they
had almost reached the road.

“Say, what was that little devil playing there? Ain’t he the limit? Say,
he’s the limit.”

“He’s a wonderful chap. Made me feel as if I had been in church.”

“Say, ain’t he the limit? He made me feel like hell!”

The emotions were similar, the phraseology varying as the personality of
the speaker.

When the men reached the parting of their ways the Colonel held out his
hand. “Good night, Sleeman,” he said. “We’ve had a great afternoon.”

“Good night, sir,” replied Sleeman, with a new respect in his tone.
“Say, ain’t he the very devil, eh?”

“That chap Sleeman isn’t a half had sort, after all,” the Colonel
announced to his wife as he sat smoking his after dinner pipe.

“Sleeman?” ejaculated Augusta. “Beast! That’s what he is!”

But the Colonel, recalling the look in Sleeman’s eyes, shook his head, a
puzzled wonder in his face.

“My dear, my dear, I am not so sure that I am the one to judge. And,
thank God, I don’t have to.”

And his wife, noting the look on his face, ventured no reply. This was
one of those rare moments with her when she wondered whether after all
the man she had lived with all these years were the simple soul she
thought him.




                              CHAPTER XIII


Over the wide valley the April sun was falling, warmly genial, releasing
from the moist earth a thousand fragrances. Under the glorious light the
valley lay in dim, neutral colours, except where the masses of pine
trees lay dark green and the patches of snow showed white in the hollows
between the pines and far up on the grey, rocky sides of the higher
mountains. Through the valley the river rolled blue grey, draining from
the hills by millions of trickling rivulets the melting snow. As yet the
deeper masses of snow and the glaciers lying far up between the loftier
peaks had not begun to pour down in spouting waterfalls to swell the
great river below. Everywhere were the voices of spring, hymning the
age-long miracle of freedom from the long tyranny of winter.

It was a Sunday morning, and from every direction the people were to be
seen gathering for service in the little Union Church which the united
efforts of the valley people had erected for the use of all who might
care to gather for worship. Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, all
had equal rights in the church, and each body its day for service. Today
was the Presbyterian day, and this day a high day, for it was “Sacrament
Sunday.” About the door a group of neighbours stood, exchanging the
friendly gossip of the valley and subjecting to kindly if pungent
criticism each newcomer approaching the church.

“Here’s Sawny Cammell in his ‘lum’ hat,” exclaimed Willy Mackie, whom
Sandy Campbell would describe as “yon wee Paisley buddie,” a little Scot
with a sharp tongue but kindly heart.

“’Is plug ’at is for to celebrate the ’oly Communion. (H)it’s ’is
Sacrament ’at,” giggled Sam Hatch, a wizened-up Cockney.

“’Ere, you cut that (h)out,” said his friend, Billy Bickford, a plump,
jolly-faced Englishman whose highly coloured and bulbous nose carried
its own history. “I don’t ’old wi’ Sandy in ’is religion, but it’s ’isen
and let ’im practise it as ’e jolly well wants to, that’s me.”

“’Old ’ard, ole top—’oo’s a-talkin’ agin Sandy’s religion or (h)any
man’s religion. I’m referring to ’is ’at, wich I might saigh I wish I
’ad the like of it. I (h)ain’t no ’eathen, I (h)ain’t.”

“All right, Sammy, all right. I’m not persoomin’ to suggest (h)any such
thing, but I’m sensitive about Sandy’s religion and (h)anything
belongin’ to it. Wot about ’is minister? Wot about ’im, eh? That’s wot I
(h)asks, wot about ’im?” Billy’s eyes were ablaze.

Behind Billy’s sensitiveness lay a story known to every one in the
valley. A story of a long, long fight against odds between Billy and his
bottle, in which the minister played a somewhat effective part. And
another story, a sad one to Billy and to Billy’s mild little wife, a
story of a diphtheria epidemic in the valley, of three children down
with it one after another, with the mother in bed with a fourth newly
born, of long watches shared by two desperate men, of which the minister
was one and Billy the other, and of two graves in the churchyard near
by. From the day those graves were closed Billy was “sensitive” upon any
matter touching Donald Fraser however remotely.

“’Is minister? ’Is minister?” cried Hatch, quite familiar with Billy’s
story. “Look ’ee ’ere, Billy, don’t you go for to make me saigh wot I
didn’t saigh. Wot’s ’is minister got to do with ’is ’at? Tell me that.
An’ don’t you——” The little man’s indignation made him incoherent.

“‘’Is Sacrament ’at,’ says you,” replied Bickford, attempting a
dignified judicial calm. “’Is Sacrament ’at ’as to do wi’ ’is Sacrament,
and ’is Sacrament wi’ ’is Church, and ’is Church wi’ ’is minister.”

“Lor’-a-mercy, ’ear ’im! Why stop at ’is minister. Why not go on to ’is
minister’s yeller dog?” fumed Hatch, highly incensed at being placed in
an attitude of criticism toward Sandy’s minister. “’Oo’s a-talkin’ about
’is minister, I (h)ask?”

“I (h)accept y’re apology, Sammy,” replied Billy, with gracious
condescension, “and we will consider the subject closed. Good morning,
Mr. Campbell. It is a rare fine Sunday morning for the Sacrament.” He
went forward with hand outstretched in welcome, leaving his friend Hatch
choking with unexpressed indignation.

“Good morning, Mr. Bickford,” replied Sandy, an undersized Highlander
dressed in his “blacks” and, as has been indicated, with a “plug” hat on
his head, whose ancient style and well-worn nap proclaimed its long and
honourable service. “It is indeed a glorious morning for the Sacrament,
to such as are worthy to enjoy it.” The Highlander’s eyes were deep blue
in colour and set deep in his head, under shaggy eyebrows. They were the
eyes of a mystic, far looking, tender, yet with fire lurking in their
depths. “Aye, for such as are worthy to partake,” he echoed with a sigh,
as he passed to a place beside his friend, big John Carr, a handsome,
slow-moving South Country Scot, where he stood lost in introspection.

“I guess Sandy has the pip this morning,” said a tall young fellow, Tom
Powers, with a clean-cut, clean-shaven brown face and humorous brown
eyes.

“I doot he’ll be better aifter the service. He has an unco’ low opeenion
o’himsel’,” said John Carr in an aside to Powers. “But he’s nae sae bad,
is Sandy.”

“Oh, Sandy’s all right. He’s got his Sunday clothes on, and they depress
him a bit. And no wonder. They do every fellow. Hello, here’s the
Colonel and his democrat. Got a new coat of paint, eh? Sure sign of
spring.”

Down the road the Colonel could be seen driving a spanking team of bay
roadsters in a light two-seated democrat, shoulders back, elbows
squared, whip-aflourish, altogether making a very handsome appearance.
At a smart pace he swung his bays into the churchyard and drew up at the
alighting platform, throwing his foam-flecked steeds upon their
haunches.

“Look at that now!” exclaimed Tom Powers, sotto voce. “What’s the matter
with the British Army?”

As he spoke the young fellow stepped forward and gave his hand to the
Colonel’s wife to assist her from the platform, then lifted Peg down
from the wagon, swinging her clear over the platform to the grass.

“Good morning, Mrs. Pelham. Mighty fine outfit, Colonel. You do the
valley proud.”

“Ah, how are you, Powers? What? Not too bad a match, eh?” He tchicked to
the bays, holding them on a firm rein. Well they knew what was expected
of them. On their hind legs they stood poised a moment or two, then in a
series of dainty prancing steps they were off toward the shed. It was a
part of the Colonel’s regular Sunday morning display.

Following close upon the Pelhams came Gaspard and Paul. A murmur ran
round the waiting group. Not for nearly four years had Gaspard been seen
at church, not since the tragedy of his wife’s death which had shocked
the whole valley. His presence today was the result of the efforts of
his minister, Donald Fraser, formerly a great friend of his late wife,
backed up by the persuasions of Paul who had refused for the past six
months to go to church without his father. This was Paul’s birthday and
as a treat for the boy he had finally consented to come. But there was
more than his regard for his minister and his love for his son in his
consenting to come. The past year had been one of stern discipline to
Gaspard. Ill health, loneliness, the stress of poverty, the sense of ill
desert had overwhelmed him in a flood of misery. Then came Donald Fraser
back into his life, from which he had been vehemently driven out,
refusing to abandon him. Every third week as the day of the Presbyterian
service came round the buckboard and the yellow buckskin broncho drove
up to the Pine Croft stables.

“You need not glower at me, Gaspard,” he had said the day of his first
appearance. “I am coming to visit you, for your sake because you need me
and for your boy’s sake who wants me. No! I’ll not put my horse in. My
duty does not make it necessary that I should force myself upon your
hospitality.”

But Gaspard had only sworn at him and replied, “Don’t be a bally ass,
Fraser. I’m not taking much stock in your religion, but I don’t forget
my—my family’s friends. Louis, put the minister’s horse up.”

From that day Fraser felt himself entitled to turn into the Pine Croft
drive when in the neighbourhood. And many an hour, happy and otherwise,
did he spend with Gaspard, fighting out the metaphysics of the
Calvinistic system in which he was a master, and with Paul over his
music, for the minister was music mad. Nor did he fail to “deal
faithfully” with Gaspard, to the good of the rancher’s soul. One result
of Fraser’s visitations and “faithful dealing” was the loosening of
Sleeman’s grip upon Gaspard’s life. It took but a very few visits to lay
bare to the minister’s eye the tragedy of degeneration in Gaspard to
whom in other and happier days Sleeman had been altogether detestable.

“Go and see the man. He is lonely and sick and devil ridden,” he
commanded the men of the valley, and they obeyed him. Under the
humanising influence of genial friendliness Gaspard gradually came
nearer to being himself again.

So it came that here he was once more at church, to the great
satisfaction of the whole body of his acquaintances of other days, but
chiefly of his son, to whom this Sunday morning, this radiant birthday
morning of his, was like a gift sent straight from the blue heaven
above. On every side Gaspard was welcomed with more effusion than was
common among the men of the valley. And the reason for this was that
Donald Fraser had been setting before them in no uncertain manner their
hypocrisy and Pharisaic self-righteousness in shunning a man who was a
sinner differing from them only in this, that his sin happened to be
known.

Paul waited only to witness his father’s welcome, then slipped in to his
old place at the piano, which served as an organ, to which Billy
Bickford conducted him in semi-official state, for Billy was a church
warden for the Anglican part of the congregation. In a moment or two,
through the open windows there streamed out a rippling flow of joyous
music. As the gay song of spring came rippling through the windows Sandy
Campbell started forward with a word of indignant protest.

“Haud ye fast a bit, man,” said John Carr, laying a big detaining hand
upon the Highlander’s arm. “The laddie is just tuning a wee.”

“Tuning? And iss that what you will be calling yon? I tell ye, John, I
love the laddie and his music, but iss yon thing a suitable music for
the house o’ God on the Lord’s day?”

“Haud on a wee, Sandy man!” adjured his friend. “Gie the laddie time tae
draw his breath.”

“What’s that reel, Sandy?” inquired Tom Powers, cocking a critical ear
toward the window. “Sounds a little like ’Tullochgorum’ to me. But I
ain’t Scotch, though my mother was.”

Sandy squirmed in the clutch of John Carr’s big hand, under the gibe.

“No, that must be Lord Macdonald’s—di-del-di, di-del-um,” hummed Powers,
tapping an ungodly foot in time with the music.

“John Carr, take your hand from my arm. This iss no less than
desecration, high desecration, I am telling you. The laddie has gone
mad,” cried Sandy, greatly distressed and struggling to free himself
from Carr’s calm grip.

“Listen to what he’s playin’ the noo,” said Carr quietly. As he spoke
the rippling dance of the spring music had given place to the simple
strains of an old-fashioned “bairns’ hymn.” As the three men stood
listening, each became aware of the subtle changes in the faces of the
others, but they knew not how upon their own faces were registered
emotions which they would have hid from all the world.

The lines of stern disapproval in Sandy’s face softened into those of
tender reminiscence. John Carr’s placid face became gravely sad, as his
eyes wandered to a far corner of the churchyard. While Tom Powers turned
abruptly toward the church door, whither Sandy had led the way. Over and
over again the bairns’ hymn stole like a far-away echo over the
congregation in major and minor keys, then glided into the more stately
and solemn cadences of the great Psalms and hymns of the Church
Universal.

One by one the people about the door passed quietly into their places in
the beautiful little church, and there sat listening till the minister
appeared. It was one of the great hours in Paul’s life, restored to him
again after months of absence from church. As the minister bowed his
head in silent prayer the piano began, in tones tremulously sweet, the
minor strains of that most poignantly penitential air of all Scottish
psalmody, Old Coleshill, a fitting prelude to the ritual, tender,
solemn, moving, of the ancient Scottish Communion Service.

The sermon was less profoundly theological than usual. The theme, as
ever on a Sacrament Sunday, was one of the great doctrines of the Cross,
“Forgiveness, Its Ground and Its Fruits.” And while the preacher
revelled in the unfolding of the mysteries the congregation, according
to their mental and spiritual predilections and training, followed with
keen appreciation or with patient endurance till the close.

To the superficial and non-understanding observer the Scot “enjoys” his
religion sadly. His doctrinal furnishing is too profoundly logical and
his moral sense too acutely developed to permit him any illusions as to
his standing before his own conscience and before the bar of Eternal
Righteousness, and while in other departments of life his native
consciousness of merit in comparison with that of inferior races renders
him impervious to the criticism of other people—for how can they be
expected to know?—and alleviates to a large extent even his own
self-condemnation at times, when it comes to “matters of the soul” he
passes into a region where he stands alone with his God in an ecstasy of
self-abasement which may in moments of supreme exaltation be merged into
an experience of solemn and holy joy. But these moments are never spoken
of. They become part of his religious experience, never to be revealed.

By the gleam in Sandy Campbell’s deep blue eyes the expert might have
been able to gather that Sandy was on the way to ecstasy. Gaspard,
though not of Sandy’s mystic type, had in him enough of his Highland
blood strain to respond to the Celtic fervour of Donald Fraser
proclaiming the mystery of the vicarious passion of the Cross. Today the
usual commercialised aspect of the great doctrine was overwhelmed in the
appeal of the Divine compassion to wayward and wandering children. The
minister was more human, less academic, in his treatment of his great
theme than was his wont. Paul, seated at the piano, was apparently quite
undisturbed by the profundities of the minister’s discourse. To him the
refinements and elaborations of theological propositions were so much
waste of words. Sin, judgment, repentance, forgiveness, were simple and
easily understood ideas. They had entered into his daily experience in
his earlier days with his mother. With God it was just the same thing.
Why fuss about what was so abundantly plain that any child might take it
in? Today he was watching his father’s face and Sandy Campbell’s. He was
interested in their interest and enjoying their enjoyment. His face
reflected their moods and emotions. The minister’s eye was caught and
held by the boy’s face, and all unconsciously his sermon took tone and
colour from what he found there.

The communion hymn was followed by an abbreviated—for time pressed—but
none the less soul-searching address, known in old-time Presbyterian
parlance as the “Fencing of the Table.” This part of the communion
“Exercises,” however necessary in communities only nominally religious
and in times when “coming forward” had come to be regarded as a purely
formal duty associated with the attaining of “years of discretion”
rather than with any particular religious experience, the minister
during his years in the valley had come to touch somewhat lightly. Among
the people of the valley there was little need of a “fence” to warn back
the rashly self-complacent from “unworthily communing.” Yet custom dies
hard in matters religious, and in consequence the “Fencing of the Table”
could not be neglected. Encouraged by the invitation to the holy
ordinance given with a warmth and breadth of appeal to “all who desired
to remember with grateful and penitent heart the Lord Who had given His
life for them,” Paul, without much previous thought and moved chiefly by
the desire quite unusual at such a moment to share in the solemn service
with his father, who apparently had suddenly resolved to renew his
relation to his faith and to his Church today, had slipped from the
piano seat to his father’s side. During the “fencing” process, Paul’s
mind, borne afar upon the spiritual tides released by the whole service
and its environment and quite oblivious to the argument and appeal in
the words of the address, was suddenly and violently arrested by a
phrase, “You must forgive him who has wronged you, else you dare not
partake.” As the idea was elaborated and enforced with all the fervent
passion of the minister’s Highland soul the boy’s whole mental horizon
became blocked with one terrible and forbidding object, the face of Asa
Sleeman. The sin of the unforgiving soul daring to enter into communion
with the forgiving Lord was pressed with relentless logic upon the boy’s
conscience. An overwhelming horror fell upon him. Forgive him who had
uttered the foul lie about his father? The thing was simply a moral
impossibility. The whole moral order of his Universe would in that case
come tumbling in ruins about him. The thing called for judgment, not
forgiveness—judgment and condign punishment. Wrong things and wrong
people must be punished, else what was hell for? Yet, “forgive him who
has wronged you,” the minister was saying, “else you cannot be
forgiven.” Clearly there was no hope for him. His whole theory of
forgiveness and restoration was rudely shattered. Asa and his father
might possibly escape hell after all. It was a disturbing thought. At
any rate, the communion was not for him. He glanced hastily at his
father.

“I am going out a bit,” he whispered.

“Are you ill?” inquired his father, startled at the pallor in his face.

“No, I’m all right,” he replied, and rising quietly he passed out and
through the open door of the church.

The “Fencing of the Table” was concluded in as thorough a manner as the
conscience of the minister demanded. The solemn moment when the elders
were to go forward for “the administration of the elements” had arrived.
From his place near the front of the church John Carr had risen,
expecting his fellow Elder, Sandy Campbell, to join him in his
impressive march to the “Table.” Sandy, however, was nowhere to be seen.
The situation was extremely awkward.

“Is Mr. Campbell not present?” inquired the minister, scanning the
congregation.

“’E’s retired from the church, sir,” replied Churchwarden Bickford,
respectfully rising from his seat, “but if I might (h)assist—” he added
with a hesitating glance at John Carr.

“Thank you, Mr. Bickford, if you would be so kind—” began Mr. Fraser.
“Ah! here is Mr. Campbell,” he added, greatly relieved. A church warden
might possess in full measure the qualifications necessary for his
exalted office, but as a substitute for an Elder in the administering of
the Sacrament he left something to be desired.

Quietly and with impressive deliberation Sandy made his way to the
“Table” while under cover of the ceremonial of “preparing the elements”
Paul slipped quietly into his place beside his father.

“And whaur did ye flit tae, Sandy?” inquired John Carr as they two were
“daunderin’” homewards after the service. “Man, it was a terrible
embarrassment tae hae yon Bickford buddie offer to officiate.”

“It wass the lad. He wass driven out from the ‘Table,’ but by what
spirit I wass unable to judge till I had inquired.” For some distance
Sandy walked on in silence and his friend knew him well enough to await
his word. “He was under deep conviction and sore vexed, but he was
brought out into a large place.” Still John Carr walked on in silence.
These matters were to be handled with delicacy and reserve.

“Yess! the word wass given me,” said Sandy softly. “Oh, yess! even to
me. ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.’”

“He is a wise laddie in spite o’ quirks,” ventured his friend.

“‘Quirks’?” inquired Sandy with some severity. “‘Quirks’ did you say?
And what might you be calling ‘quirks’?’ The lad is a rare lad with a
gift of discernment beyond his years. I went out in my pride of heart to
minister counsel to him. I found that it was for myself that he had the
word of the Lord. And a searching word it wass. Oh, yess! yess!”

“Hoots! Sandy, he wad na presume to instruct an Elder.” John Carr was
plainly shocked at the possibility.

“Instruct? What are you saying? The lad had no thought of me whateffer.
I found him away back beyond the church, wailing like a bairn that had
lost its mother, because, mark you! he was unfit to join with the people
of God in remembering the Lord. John Carr, I will confess to you as I
did to the Lord Himself that I was stricken to the heart for my pride
and self-sufficiency as I heard him crying after his God. Truly, the
Lord was gracious to me, a hard-hearted sinner, in that moment. For on
my knees I made confession of my sin before God—till the lad himself
gave me the word.”

“And what word was that, Sandy?” ventured John Carr, for Sandy had
fallen into silence.

“It wass the Lord’s word to my soul, John, and I will not be repeating
it. But it brought the light whateffer.”

“The laddie came forward I observed.”

“Oh, yess, yess, he came forward. It was given to me to remove some
slight misconceptions from the lad’s mind as to the Divine economy in
the matter of mercy and judgment, and he came forward. It was irregular,
I grant you, but who was I, John Carr, to forbid him the ‘Table’ of the
Lord?” Halting in his walk, Sandy flung the challenge at his friend’s
head and waited for reply.

“Tut! tut! Sandy, I’m no saying ye did onything but right tae bring in
the lad,” protested Carr.

“Indeed and indeed, he was the one who brought me in. ‘A little child
shall lead them.’ John, John, it iss myself that iss in sore need of
leading. And that have I learned this day.”

And no further enlightenment on the matter would Sandy offer that day.

But it would have helped John Carr to a better understanding of what had
really transpired at the back of the church that day had he overheard
Paul’s words to his father as they rode home from the church.

“Say, Daddy, I never knew Sandy Campbell—Mr. Campbell, I mean, was like
that.”

“Like what, Paul?”

“Well, he’s funny, you know, but he is awful, awfully nice. He
understands a fellow so quick—and—you know, Daddy, he made me think of—I
mean he talked to me—— Daddy, Tom Powers makes fun of him but I think
he’s just splendid.”

“How do you mean?” asked his father.

The boy was silent for some moments and then said shyly, “I don’t know
exactly. Oh, he is just splendid, Daddy!” he exclaimed with a rush of
enthusiasm. “He talked to me just like mother used to.”

“Did he, boy?” said his father, with a sudden choke in his voice. “Then
he must indeed be splendid.”




                              CHAPTER XIV


The Reverend Donald Fraser was pushing his buckskin broncho faster than
he really liked, but he was late for his next appointment and he had to
run in to Pine Croft for a hurried meal. Gaspard had insisted upon this,
and the unique experiences of the morning strongly inclined him to this
course.

The morning had furnished one of the rare oases which here and there
dotted the otherwise somewhat dreary landscape of his ministerial
experience in the Windermere Valley.

The recall of Gaspard to his place in the church had undoubtedly been an
event of quite impressive importance with the minister, just as the
moral and physical collapse of the rancher had dealt a heavy blow to the
cause for which the minister stood in the community. The unexpected and
voluntary forward step in the religious life taken by Paul too had
furnished an additional exhilaration in the experiences of the morning.
Paul had been to him somewhat of an enigma. He had never met with just
such another in all his forty years of varied service in the slums of
Glasgow and on the mission fields of the West. But he had been none the
less delighted, indeed thrilled, by the act of the boy in making his
first communion in this rather irregular and startling manner. The boy
was all right. The training of a wise and saintly mother had furnished
the mould for his soul stuff that would determine his character and
destiny. He wanted a word with both father and son before the first
impressions of the day had been dissipated. He believed in striking
while the iron was hot.

So urging his buckskin to unusual speed he turned into the Pine Croft
drive and in his old buckboard rattled up toward the bungalow.

As he turned toward the stables the figure of a man, wildly dishevelled,
hurled itself down the front steps and rushed toward a horse tied at the
garden gate. It was Sleeman, white of face, wild of eye, mad with fear,
and rushing as if hunted by ten thousand devils.

“What’s wrong? What’s up, Mr. Sleeman?” cried the minister, pulling his
horse to a standstill.

As he spoke there came from the bungalow a succession of piercing cries,
weird, wild, unlike anything he had ever heard, then the sound of a
shot, then a long, loud wailing.

“God help us! What is that?” cried Mr. Fraser, making for the door.
“Wait, you may be needed.” But Sleeman, tearing at the reins, had got
them free and, flinging himself across his horse, swung off down the
drive. Before he could get under way forth from the door came Paul, a
smoking gun in his hand, cleared the steps at a single bound, and,
eluding the grasp of the minister, rushed through the gate and pulled
his gun upon the flying horseman. The shot went wide, a second and a
third failed of the mark. The fourth shot found the foreleg of the
horse. The animal stumbled, recovered itself, then finally plunged
headlong to earth, flinging its rider heavily to the ground. With a glad
yell the boy ran swiftly forward, his gun held steadily in position,
waiting for the man to rise. But before he could get his “bead” the
minister, shouting “Paul! Paul! don’t shoot! don’t shoot, boy!” had
covered the intervening space and reached the boy’s side, just as the
fleeing man struggled on the road side to his feet and running low made
for the bushes.

As the minister touched the boy’s arm the flame leaped from the gun
muzzle, the flying figure stumbled, fell, rose and disappeared in the
underbrush.

“Paul! Paul! what are you doing? Stop! Stop! Listen to me, Paul.” The
minister’s arms were thrown around the boy. But like one possessed and
with a man’s strength the sinewy muscles writhed free from the
encircling arms.

Breathless, bewildered, the boy stood a moment, summoning his wits and
his strength, when from the doorway a voice came gasping, “Paul, boy! I
want you.”

“Daddy!” cried the boy, and flinging his gun down he ran toward his
father.

“Daddy! oh, Daddy, dear! are you hurt?” He caught his father in his arms
and held him fast.

As the minister reached the door Gaspard, clinging to his son, sagged
slowly down to the floor and lay white and gasping for breath. A hasty
examination showed a wound in the side, from which blood was slowly
trickling.

“Paul, take my horse and go for Colonel Pelham, and have him send for
the doctor.”

Without a word Paul ran swiftly to the back of the house, found his
pinto waiting, mounted and was off at top speed down the drive.

Within an hour, by a rare chance, the doctor was found and in
attendance.

“How did this thing happen?” he inquired.

“Tell me, Doctor, is this the end?” said Gaspard, speaking as calmly as
if asking about the weather. “Don’t lie to me, Doctor. You needn’t, you
know. I know your professional tricks. ‘Keep the patient quiet,’ and all
that stuff.”

“Gaspard, you have a chance, if you want to take it,” said the doctor,
patting his patient on the arm.

“Doctor, I want to live—to try once more to make good—for the boy’s
sake. But, Doctor, I have a queer feeling here.” He laid his hand on his
heart. “I think I am done for, eh? What about it, old friend? The truth,
Doctor. Only the truth will do. If I am going out I have some things to
do while I can. Doctor, I am no coward.” His eyes were quietly searching
the doctor’s face. There was in them deep concern but no fear. In the
silence could be heard the ticking of the doctor’s big watch. The
doctor’s face began to twitch.

“Thank you, Doctor, that will do. Now how long have I?”

“Three hours, perhaps six, Gaspard old man. You have a right to the
truth,” said the doctor, taking himself in hand with a firm grip.

“Again, thank you. I knew you wouldn’t fail me. Now, a little business.
Doctor, you watch my time.” The doctor nodded.

“Where’s Pelham? Ah, Colonel, I am going to ask you to take charge. It
is an infernal nuisance, but——”

“A pleasure! Eh—confound it! I mean, I shall willingly do all I can,”
replied the Colonel hurriedly.

“First of all, Gaspard, before anything else, tell me how this happened.
This is necessary,” said the doctor.

“Surely, surely, take it down—Paul and I riding home from church found
my wife struggling in the grip of that devil Sleeman—she defending
herself with her hunting knife—seeing them I sprang for gun, hanging on
the wall—the beast made a break for the door—my wife threw herself on
me, catching my gun hand—in the struggle the gun went off—the gun fell
on the floor—Paul grabbed it and very nearly did what I would have done.
He’s a little better shot than I—glad he didn’t get him. That’s all.
Paul saw everything. Paul! Listen! There must be no more of
this—remember!”

Paul started from the bedside where he had been kneeling and stood tense
and rigid.

“What, Daddy?” he said. “You know, Daddy, I must kill him. He deserves
to be killed. It is right, Daddy.” The boy spoke quietly with the steady
voice of a man set upon a simple and irrevocable duty. His father’s eyes
rested with loving pride on his boy’s face for a moment or two.

“Good boy!” he said, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Good boy!
And you will be a good man—a better man than your father.”

“Daddy! Don’t, Daddy!” The boy’s voice broke in a cry of pain. The
Colonel’s head went down on the bed.

“Steady, every one!” said the doctor in a strong, clear voice. “Don’t
waste his strength.” It was the word needed for the moment.

“Paul, my boy,” pleaded Gaspard. The boy stood, it seemed for minutes,
his hands writhing, his burning eyes upon his father’s face, his lips
closed in a thin white line. His father put out his hand to him. “You
promise, Paul?”

“A-a-ah!” A long-drawn sigh that seemed to carry in it the outgoing of
his very soul came from Paul’s white lips. “Yes, Daddy. Oh! yes! I
promise.”

“Good boy! good boy!” whispered his father, drawing the boy down to him.
“I knew! I knew!”

For a long time no one spoke, for Gaspard lay as if exhausted, with eyes
closed, voiceless and hardly breathing. After he had rested, Gaspard,
always husbanding his strength under the doctor’s care, went over his
affairs with the Colonel, turning over everything to his charge.

“There should be something left from the wreckage, Pelham. Not enough,
perhaps, but it will all go to Paul. Paul will take care of the others,
won’t you, boy?”

“Yes, Daddy, I will,” replied the boy, accepting without question a
trust that was to determine for him the course of his life at more than
one moment of crisis.

When he had finished with the arranging of his affairs Gaspard called
his Indian wife and her children to him. At once the others moved into
another room. No one witnessed that farewell, not even Paul. For an hour
the woman sat beside the man who was to her life as the sun to the
flowers. Almost without speech, without tears or moan or lament, she
sat, now with her head pressed down upon his hand, again with his hand
pressed hard against her breast, watchful not to weary him or exhaust
his failing strength with her grief. Beside him on the bed sat the
little blind child, her inquiring little fingers wandering over his face
as his voice changed with his pain. Beside his mother sat Peter, silent,
stoical, after the manner of his mother’s race. Before he sent them away
for the last time Gaspard called Paul to him.

“Paul, boy, you are free to take your way as far as these are concerned.
Their way may not be yours. I lay no obligation upon you. This woman is
my lawful wife. She is wise and good. But you will do justly by them.
This little one,” touching the blind girl beside him, “I had hoped might
have had her sight restored. Now—” for the first time since his wounding
Gaspard showed signs of breaking—“I don’t know. Life in the wilds would
be hard for her.”

“Daddy! Do you think I would leave her?” cried Paul.

“Thank you, Paul! Thank God for you, Paul!” Then the Indian woman at a
sign took the children away, leaving Paul close to his bedside.

As the evening fell Gaspard grew rapidly weaker, the doctor relieving as
best he could his pain and distress throughout the dreary hours of the
night. Then at the breaking of the day his spirit fared forth to meet
the dawn.

                  *       *       *       *       *

All through the summer the valley looked on with amazed approval and
sympathy at Paul as with a man’s wisdom and courage he ran the Pine
Croft ranch. Looked on, and more. More than once the neighbours gathered
in an old-fashioned bee and helped the boy with the crops, the fencing,
the branding of stock and with other ranch operations before which Paul,
with his lack of experience and labour, would have been quite helpless.
Under the burden of responsibility and of incessant work the boy
developed a gravity of demeanour and a strength of purpose far beyond
his years. With all childish games and sports he had done. Sleeman, who
had disappeared from the valley upon the day of the tragedy, he never
saw, but never forgot. Asa he ignored completely and avoided, but
Adelina he frequently met in his lonely rides round the range. Her he
found it impossible to ignore. She would not permit him to do so, and
indeed, after the first shock which the sight of her gave him, Paul came
to tolerate, then to enjoy, her company on those lonely rides of his.
She was a good comrade, a capable assistant in emergencies and with an
amazing endowment of tact and delicacy of feeling.

At the “big white house” Paul was a welcome and frequent visitor, but
not upon the old footing. His lessons were done with. He had no time for
them, but more than that he had assumed, with his responsibility as a
man, a man’s attitude toward life and a man’s manners. For some weeks
Peg openly resented this new rôle of Paul’s, ridiculing it as a thing
“put on,” a mere pose. But the boy’s gravity and gentleness, his
preoccupation in his work and his constant association with her father
and the men effectually shut Peg out from his life. She found before the
summer was over that the fourteen-year-old boy had in a single day
become a man, and a man to whom she had become a mere child. She had
lost a playmate and had not yet acquired a friend.

But if she had lost one playmate she gained another, in the little blind
Tanna, who in great measure helped her to endure her loss and to
overcome her resentment. Through the long summer days Peg found in the
little girl a new and altogether delightful interest. After much
persuasion on Peg’s part and after approval by Paul, the little girl was
allowed by her mother to mount old Tubby’s back behind old Tubby’s
mistress and to take many a sober jaunt hither and thither along the
quiet trails. Those were golden days for Peg, when Paul could make it
chime with his work to join them in their jaunts or to meet them at a
convenient rendezvous and share their lunch. With Paul, his very shadow
everywhere, went Peter, a silent, dour, devoted henchman, rejoicing to
fetch and carry for his chief.

The mother, thus left much alone with her grief, withdrew more and more
from the life of the household. Like a dark shadow she glided about the
house, rarely speaking except to her little blind child, and spending
most of her days in the woods near to the enclosed plot on the
pine-shadowed hillside where was the new-made grave beside the two
others, which held all that had made life for her vivid with love and
gladness. Except when spoken to by Paul her face was masked by the
passionless colour of the dead. Paul alone could kindle a flicker of
light in her sombre eyes and set tremulous life waves rippling over her
face. Often she would be found by Paul, wearing her Indian dress and
roaming the woods, ostensibly seeking for roots and herbs for medicinal
use. It seemed as if her loneliness and grief were driving her away from
the newer environment of the white men’s civilisation and back to the
ancient racial and primeval precincts of her own people.

In late September the word went through the valley that Sleeman had
returned and had shut himself up in his ranch, holding communication
with none but his own people. That word produced a strange effect upon
the Indian woman. The casual mention of Sleeman’s name seemed to
galvanise into vivid life her dead face. A new gleam appeared in the
depths of her sombre eyes and burned there with a steady glow. Her
wanderings began to take her to the hills behind the Sleeman ranch. One
afternoon, wearied with a long day in the saddle after straying cattle,
Paul, allowing his pinto to graze at will, lay down to rest and fell
asleep in a thicket. He was startled into wakefulness by the sense of
some living thing near him, which becomes second nature with those bred
in the wilds. Creeping stealthily toward the edge of the thicket which
sheltered him he saw erect upon an out-jutting rock a woman’s figure
with wind blown tresses, with one hand outstretched toward the Sleeman
ranch and in her outstretched hand a long hunting knife. It was the
Indian woman Onawata. In the rhythmic cadence of a wailing chant her
voice rose and fell, thrilling with suppressed and passionate emotion.
The boy shuddered as he listened, but deemed it wisdom to remain hidden
from her view. As he lay watching the chanting ceased, the woman fell
upon her knees, lifted her face toward the skies, her lips moving as if
in prayer, raised high above her head her knife, pressed the naked blade
to her lips, made the sign of the cross, bowed her head a few moments as
if again in prayer, then rose to her feet and wearily took her way. A
weird mingling it was of primal human emotions, expressing themselves in
a ritual in which Christian and pagan symbolism found a place. Shocked,
startled, terrified, the boy waited a sufficient time to allow her to
remove from the vicinity, then mounting his pinto rode hard to the “big
white house,” where he laid before the Colonel the thing he had seen and
heard.

“What does it mean, Paul?” inquired the Colonel when the boy had
finished his tale.

“Why, Uncle Colonel, it means only one thing, the thing I would mean
if—if—God would let me. But He won’t let me. Besides,” he added as if to
himself, “I promised Daddy.”

“You are right, boy. It is not given into our hands to take vengeance.
God will——”

“But that’s just it, Uncle Colonel. God won’t. And——”

“How do you know, boy? Don’t you go dictating to the Almighty. He has
his own ways and times that to His wisdom seem best. Who are we to
instruct Him what to do and when? No, boy, leave the ordering of the
universe to God. Do your own work and let God do His. But this thing may
lead to some desperate deed.”

“Onawata is acting very queerly. She sits for hours under the trees. She
eats little food. She gets up at night and wanders round the house. I am
awfully afraid she will do something. What can I do?”

“We can only watch her, and do all we can to turn her mind to other
things,” said the Colonel. “She is very, very lonely and very sad, and
by continual kindness we may help her to forget.”

“She will never forget,” said Paul.

The very next day Paul was much cheered by the proposal of Onawata that
they should all go riding. Immediately he responded to the suggestion.
Saddles and bridles were furbished up, with saddle bags for food, and a
delightful day was spent by the family, with Peg in charge of little
Tanna. This was but the beginning of many such days throughout the
golden month of September, and Paul reported to the colonel a most
cheering improvement in Onawata’s whole bearing.

“That is quite good news. Poor thing! she will soon be all right again.
Keep up the riding excursions. Peg is quite delighted. They are doing
her as well as Onawata a world of good. Keep ’em up, Paul, keep ’em up.
If we could only get her interested in our local social events now it
would be a great thing for her. There’s our fall picnic now coming off
next week. By Jove! I shall speak to Augusta. We must get her out to
that, eh? what? Must try to work that, eh?” The Colonel was full of a
generous excitement over the prospect.

To his utter surprise and delight Paul found Onawata quite ready to
consider the possibility of the picnic, and during the days intervening
the whole family was occupied with preparations for the great event. It
was no small disappointment to all concerned therefore that on the
morning of the picnic day both Peter and Tanna were so completely in the
grip of some children’s ailment as to be quite unfit to support the
excitements of the day. There was nothing for it but that the mother and
children should abandon all thought of anything but a perfectly quiet
day at home. Paul attached himself to the Colonel’s party, and Peg
attached herself to Paul. For that day at least Paul appeared to throw
off the cares of manhood so prematurely thrust upon him and with Peg
abandoned himself to the delights of a boy’s holiday. The dark of the
evening found two very happy people riding up the lane toward the “big
white house.”

“It has been a wonderful day, Paul,” said Peg, “and you have been just
like you used to.”

“It’s been a jolly day, all right,” said Paul. “And I am awfully glad
Joseph showed those fellows how to jump.”

“And you beat Asa out at the last,” exclaimed Peg rapturously. “I think
he is just a horrid boy, though he is so big and strong.”

“Huh!” grunted Paul.

“Well, he _is_ strong, you know, and he is great in football. We never
would have beaten the Post but for him.”

“Oh, he can play football all right,” admitted Paul, with something of a
grudge. “He’s a little slow, of course, but——”

“But then he is so awfully sure at back. He just tumbled those forwards
about. Of course, he spends a lot of time practising.”

“Huh!” again grunted Paul.

“You can’t really be a good player without practice, can you?”

“Oh, I dunno,” said Paul, who had given little attention to football and
who in consequence, though giving great promise because of his unusual
speed, had not won any great glory on the field that day. “I don’t care
much for football anyway.”

“Oh, Paul, I just love it. It’s a wonderful game.”

“Oh, pshaw!” said Paul in contempt of a game in which he did not excel.

“Oh, never mind,” said Peg cheerfully, “we won the jumps anyway. And
Joseph was a regular deer in the racing.”

“Wasn’t he?” exclaimed Paul, restored to good humour by the remembrance
of his pinto’s achievements at the picnic, where he won premier honours
from the field.

“And, Paul, you were good to me,” said Peg shyly when they came to the
bars.

“Oh, shucks, Peg!” said Paul, greatly pleased.

“You were, Paul. And that Adelina is just a bold thing.”

“Oh, she isn’t half bad. Rides awfully well.”

“Yes, she does,” acknowledged Peg, “but she has a wonderful pony. And
don’t you think that cap she wore was awfully funny?”

“Why! that’s a regular jockey’s cap, she told me.”

“Jockey cap! For a girl!” Peg’s finer sensibilities were obviously
offended. She, however, skilfully and lightly turned from distressing
and disturbing subjects of conversation to one in which she was more
deeply concerned.

“But, Paul, you have never been over at our house once this summer,” she
said reproachfully, “and you used to come every week at least.”

“Why, Peg! I’ve been often over here.”

“Yes, on some old business or other with Daddy.”

“Oh! Well!”

“Well! I don’t call that anything. You never see me—us, I mean. You
never play for us. And you’re always so busy. And—and—Paul, you are just
forgetting all about us.” This was going a long way for the
proud-spirited Peggy.

Paul considered a few moments. “Yes! I guess that’s so, Peg. But I _am_
busy, you know. And besides, they want me at home. They always want me
to play for them before going to bed. Their mother used to sing queer
little Indian songs about the beasts and the trees and the stars and
things. And then I spin them out on the piano, you know. And the little
one, she’s just wild over them and—you know—it is awfully hard for her,
always in the dark— Oh, Peg, no light! It must be just terrible for
her!”

“I know, I know, Paul. You are just a dear to poor little Tanna. Oh, it
is so awfully sad for her. And I am a pig to want you to come away from
her.”

“You’re not a pig, Peg,” said Paul indignantly. “You are just fine to
Tanna, and I won’t ever forget that, Peggy.”

They had turned Tubby out into the paddock and were standing in the soft
light of the September moon near the corral. Peg’s voice grew very soft
as she answered, “But I just love her, Paul, and I want to be good to
her because I’m sorry for her—and—and because she is your sister. She
_is_, isn’t she, Paul?” Peg finished a little breathlessly.

Paul turned this over in his mind. He was conscious of queer stirrings
within him. It came to him all at once that Peg was a girl, not simply a
fine and splendid chum, but something different from himself. The
moonlight fell in a soft glory upon her sweet face and dainty girlish
figure. As he stood looking at her she smiled up into his face. A warm
rush of something, he knew not what, filled his whole body from his toes
upward.

“Peggy,” he said with a quick catch in his breath, “I think—I’d like to
kiss you.”

The little girl’s eyes grew large with something almost like fear, but
she did not shrink away from him. Instead she lifted up her face,
smiling with tremulous lips.

“Would you, Paul?” she said.

He suddenly caught her in his arms and kissed her.

“Oh, Paul, that was my nose,” said Peg in a disappointed voice.

“I was in a hurry,” explained Paul.

“Why hurry?” inquired Peg innocently.

“That’s so,” agreed Paul, amazed at her self-command, and then took his
time.

It seemed to Paul that he had done a thing immensely significant. Again
he looked at Peg and wondered what had happened to her, she was so
utterly different; and to himself, he seemed another being. As he
continued looking at her he felt no desire to kiss her again. He
wondered, indeed, how he had ever come to do such a thing. He wanted
rather to protect her. She seemed so little, so tender, so needing
protection. It suddenly came to him that henceforth he would always have
to stand between her and any harm. She was in his charge, just as Tanna
was, and yet with a difference. Yes, a wonderful and delightful
difference. He was greatly puzzled over it all. He wanted to get away
alone and think.

“Good night, Peg,” he said abruptly, and swung himself on his pinto.

“Good night, Paul,” answered Peg in a voice shy and tender. Something in
her tone set Paul’s nerves tingling again. He wanted to get off his
horse and kiss her again, but somehow he felt too that this would not be
fair to her. She looked so little, so unprotected. No, he must not do
it.

“Good night, Peg. I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful day,
Peggy.”

“Oh, wonderful, Paul! I won’t ever forget!” sighed Peg, looking so
sweet, so wistful, so radiant in the moonlight that Paul, feeling his
control threatened by the surge of strange emotions, dug his heel into
the pinto and swung him down the lane at a gallop.

Peg stood motionless, watching till she saw him clear the bars, then
listened so long as she could hear the pony’s hoof beats drumming far up
the road. Then she drew a long breath, gazed round about her as if upon
a strange world and smiled up at the moon in a friendly way as if
sharing with the man there a delicious secret. Then she put her fingers
softly to her lips, looked at them, kissed them gently and went quietly
into the house and soon to bed, a happy-hearted if somewhat bewildered
little girl. And over all the world the moon rode high, serene in her
soft and radiant splendour.

Within an hour there came to Peg up in her bedroom the sound again of
hoof beats, hard driven as by dread of impending death. Nearer they came
and nearer and with no slackening speed. She sprang to the window. She
heard her father go to the door. She could make out the piebald coat of
the pinto coming down the lane. Clearing the bars in his stride the
pinto came with unchecked speed to the very door. From the saddle Paul
hurled himself and fell breathless in the Colonel’s arms.

“Oh! Uncle Colonel!” he gasped. “She’s—done it!”

“Steady, boy. Steady, Paul. Wait! Not a word,” commanded the Colonel,
holding the boy with steady hands. “Wait! Not a word! Take your time!
Sixty of a count!” The Colonel proceeded quietly counting while Paul, to
whom this law of the Colonel was well known to be inexorable, got his
breath and quieted his nerves.

“Now then, quietly, Paul! Go on!” said the Colonel in a voice peremptory
and calm.

“Uncle Colonel, you see that light beyond the hill? That’s Sleeman’s
house. She—Onawata has killed him with her knife and then set fire to
the house. I found her all ready to go, with horses saddled and packs
made up. They have gone.”

“Who?” said the Colonel sharply.

“Onawata and Peter and—and Tanna. And I——”

“Where have they gone?”

“Colonel, I don’t think I ought to tell you. You see, the police will be
after them. And I am going too.”

“You, Paul? Nonsense! You must not think of such a thing.”

“Uncle Colonel, I must go with them. I see that to be right. I promised
Daddy to care for them. And there’s Tanna——”

“Nonsense, Paul! Let them go! They don’t need you. You can’t throw away
your life like that. Anyway they will be caught. You must not mix up
yourself with this thing.”

“I must go, Uncle Colonel. I could not go without seeing you. I must go!
Oh! I must go! I promised Daddy! And Tanna will need me.
Good-bye—good-bye!” He caught his reins preparatory to mounting.

“But, good God, Paul! You see what this means? Don’t you see that——”

“Colonel Pelham,” said Paul quietly, “I see it clearly. That’s why I
must go. God wants me to.” The Colonel knew the boy well enough to
realise the utter finality of his resolve.

“Well, Paul, God keep you, boy, if you must go. God keep you, my dear
boy.”

“He will, Uncle Colonel. I know He will. And some day I’ll come back.
Say good-bye to Peg. Tell her I’ll never forget.” The boy was speaking
in the voice and manner of a full grown man, and like a man the Colonel
treated him. He would fain have taken the lad in his arms, for he loved
him as if he had been his own son, but somehow the grave, firm tones,
the steady voice, checked any demonstration. They shook hands in
farewell and Paul swung himself onto the pinto. But before he could turn
his pony round a little white figure appeared at the door, and with a
faint cry ran toward him with hands outstretched.

“Paul! Paul! You are going away! I know! I heard!”

Flinging himself from the saddle Paul was at her side, and holding her
hands in his stood silent, fighting to hold himself steady.

“You are going away, Paul!” Again came the pitiful cry.

“Oh, Peggy! dear Peggy! I must go, I must go. Uncle Colonel, take her
away, take her away. Good-bye, Peggy.”

Her father touched her arm. “Come, Peggy,” he said quietly. “Paul must
go.”

“Daddy! Daddy!” she cried. “He’ll never come back!”

“Peggy, listen to me,” said the boy, once more speaking in a man’s
voice. “I shall come back to you. Remember what I say. And, Uncle
Colonel, you remember too, I am coming back. And, Peggy, I’ll never,
never forget.” He turned once more to mount.

“Paul,” the child’s voice was sharp with grief, “you
didn’t—say—good-bye.”

The boy stood hesitating, then came to the Colonel. His man’s pose fell
from him.

“Uncle Colonel,” he said, his voice quivering pitifully, “good-bye.” He
put out his arms, the Colonel drew him to his breast and kissed him on
the cheek twice.

“Good-bye, my boy. The good God have you in His care.”

“Good-bye, Peggy,” said Paul, and putting his arms round her kissed her
on the lips.

“Good-bye! dear, dear Paul,” whispered Peggy, clinging to him. “I won’t
ever forget.”

In her father’s arms she lay listening while the hoof beats drummed
farewell far down the trail and faded into silence.




                               CHAPTER XV


A white plain swept by furious winds and fit for the foot of God, white
with a dazzling whiteness except where the red sun half down the western
slope touched the wind-ruffled snowdrifts with a burnish of gold, gold
deepening to purple in the hollows: a pitiless plain, glaring white up
to a pitiless sky glaring blue and a pitiless sun glaring red, blinding
the eyes, and swept by a wind, a pitiless wind that cut through fur
coverings clean to the bone and reached with icy edge to the very heart.
Across this pitiless, glaring, wind-swept, sun-burnished plain now a
little party made its painful way; a youth verging to full manhood; a
boy in his early teens; a girl some years his junior, a mere child
indeed; fur-clad all of them, leading and driving three limping dogs
attached to a toboggan. Upon the toboggan lay a woman wrapped close in
furs. Where the drifts obscured the trail the youth broke the way for
the team of limping dogs which the boy following lashed into movement
lest they should drop in their tracks. Led by a dog trace behind the
toboggan, the little girl ran lightly and easily through the broken snow
or over the hardened crust, the freshest of the party. Wrapped to the
eyes in furs they could defy the knife-edged wind just so long as they
kept in motion. Halt they dared not, for death, hard and close upon
their tracks, haunted their trail.

Breaking the track and pulling hard on his leading line, the young man,
with unseeing eyes set in his haggard face, strode, or rather stumbled
along, leaning far over his stride like one ever on the verge of
falling. For the last hour and more he had abandoned any attempt to hold
the trail. The main direction he knew lay down this frozen lake, and
between the flanking lines of low bush half a mile distant on either
side. Half a day’s journey away was the Hudson’s Bay Post, the last lap
in their fifteen days’ struggle against wind and sun and snow-blocked
trail. A struggle it was of growing desperation. For the first three
days of their journey they knocked off their twenty miles a day, all
four running lightly. Then a three days’ blizzard held them fast, with
their grub sack growing lighter. For the next four days the best that
was in them could cover a bare ten miles a day, for the woman whose
feverish eagerness had driven them through the last weary miles of every
day’s run, had fallen in her tracks and against fierce protestations had
been forced to the toboggan. Again a blizzard of three days brought them
to starvation rations, with still thirty-five miles between them and
safety. The night before the woman had converse with the young man.

“Paul, you will need to do the driving now,” said the woman. “I can no
longer. We must make the Post, Paul. Why not take the children with you
and leave me in camp here? You can run swiftly and come back for me. I
don’t wish to be the death of all of you. It is I that have been a curse
to you and your family from the first. Oh, if I could pay the price by
dying now!”

“Onawata, you are always wise, but tonight you are not wise. I might go
through alone and bring you help, but we shall try one day more. At any
cost we must stick together.”

“One day more then, Paul,” replied Onawata, “but promise me you will not
sacrifice the living to the dying.”

“Dying? Wait till we get you to a doctor. We will make a good run
tomorrow.”

“You will not promise? There is Tanna.”

“God means us to go through. I know He does.” The Calvinist in him
forbade despair. He had the sense of being somehow included in the plan
of the eternal decrees. Nothing could kill that conviction. And hence he
would, he must follow his gleam so far as it led.

“Promise me, Paul,” pleaded the Indian woman with passionate intensity.
“Death has spoken to me. I have heard his voice. Soon, soon, a few weeks
at most, I go with him. Why should the young die for me?”

“I promise to do the best for them,” said Paul solemnly. “And if the
choice comes at last you will choose that they shall live?”

“Yes, I will promise.”

“Good! You will not fail. You have never been anything but true, Paul.
Your God will not fail you.”

“Your God, too, Onawata,” said Paul gently.

“Ah, there is only One—the Great Spirit, the Great Father. Perhaps He
will let a poor and evil child creep in at His feet. Ah-yah-i-yah—”
wailed the woman. “The light had gone out, the dark filled my soul, I
saw no way, I made my way, it was the way of death, death to him also
who deserved death, and death to me—and death—ah-yah-i-yah—death to all
I love—perhaps——”

“Hush, hush, Mammy!” said Paul, soothing her as he might a child. “God
is good, He forgives, He forgives. Never fear Him. And I know we shall
get through. Now rest. We start again at dawn.”

The next day a driving head wind and the blinding drift slowed down the
pace of the limping dogs to a bare ten miles for the five hours of
daylight, leaving twenty-five miles still to go.

Again the Indian woman besought Paul to try the journey with a light
toboggan and the children and leave her in camp.

“They will not hinder you much, Paul. Even Tanna can keep up with you.
But I drag you down to death.” But Paul could not be persuaded.

“One day more,” he said. “Then if I must I will.”

But next morning the tail of a blizzard held them fast for two precious
hours. One of the dogs refused to move and Paul with a swift blow of the
hatchet put it out of misery and fed the emaciated bones to the others.
After that Onawata had surreptitiously, when the others were after wood,
saved some fragments of the flesh. When the blizzard had somewhat
broken, Paul once more got the little party on the march, Onawata
marching with the rest. An hour’s run however found her staggering with
pain and weakness, and Paul forced her to the toboggan.

“We shall make it tonight,” he said. “It is going to be fine now.” But
the woman shook her head.

“No, no,” she said. “There is another storm coming.”

“Not a bit of it,” declared Paul. “Look at that sky.”

“Hurry! hurry!” said the woman.

For another two hours Paul led the way, breaking the crusted trail,
ploughing his way through drifts and dragging his limping team and part
of their load after him. The wind had dropped, and with it the
temperature. The icy cold fell upon them, its penetrating thrust making
for heart, lungs and every vital organ. Pause they dared not. In the
lead, Paul, staggering forward with legs numb from sheer weariness and
lessening vitality, broke the trail for the dogs, leaning his weight
hard upon his leading line. Behind the toboggan the boy lashed the
crawling dogs with weird Indian objurgations, behind him again the
little blind girl, guided by a dog trace, ran lightly over the broken
trail, her spirit still undaunted.

A deeper drift than usual halted the party till Paul should break a way
for the bleeding feet of the dogs. At the pause the dogs fell prone in
the snow, panting and whimpering. The boy at the rear of the toboggan
dropped upon his knees and fell huddled on his face. Looking back, Paul
saw him thus huddled in the snow. With a loud harsh cry he staggered
back, seized the boy by the neck and shoulder, shook him with savage
fury, cuffed him, kicked him up onto his legs. Peter stood swaying on
his feet, looked about him with a dazed, sickly grin upon his face.

“What’s the matter? Was I asleep long?” he asked thickly.

“Asleep long? Asleep long? You blasted idiot! Don’t you know what sleep
means on this trail? Nice man you are on a job like this!”

Slowly into the dark face of the boy the red blood came up, then,
ebbing, left it grey.

“All right, Chief,” he muttered, “I sleep no more.”

“Listen to me, Peter. If you ever drop again I’ll cut you to pieces with
your dog whip.”

Peter gazed, dumb and shuddering, at his chief, as he called him; not
that he feared the whip, but because in all his life he had never heard
Paul speak to him in such a tone.

“We are going through, and no one must drop or stop. We must get
through! We must get through! And, by the Eternal God,” he lifted his
clenched fists toward the hard, pitiless blue sky, “we will go through!”
At the terrible furious voice the little girl began to cry. Paul glared
at her a moment or two. Never in his life had he been so near breaking.

“Stop it!” he snarled, baring his teeth like a dog.

“Yes, Paul, I’ll stop,” said the child, her quivering lips setting in a
firm line. His eyes softened as he looked upon her.

“All right, Tanna. _You_ won’t quit,” he said.

Once more, under the emphasis, the red flushed up in the face of the
boy.

“Who’s a-quittin’?” he said angrily.

“Get your dogs going,” replied Paul, picking up his line. But neither
commands nor lashings could move the leader from the snowdrift where he
lay. With a low exclamation of fury Paul stepped to the toboggan.

“We can’t fool with you,” he said, fumbling among the camp stuff.

“What is it?” cried the girl. “Which dog?”

“Lynx,” said the boy in a low voice.

With a little cry, “Paul, don’t!” she sprang forward, stumbled over the
toboggan, scrambled to her feet, felt her way over the dog team till she
came to the leader, then kneeling down beside him she put her arms round
the grizzled husky.

“Oh, Lynx,” she murmured in his ear, “good Lynx, dear Lynx, try once
more, Lynx.” The dog whined, licked the face bending over him, struggled
to his feet. “He will go now, Paul,” she said eagerly. “He will try
again. See!” She caught the dog by the collar. “Come on, Lynx. Come,
Bliz. Come, good dogs. Hup! hup! mush! mush!” The three dogs strained on
their collars, swaying on the traces, a shout, a plunge, and the
toboggan stood free from the drift. Paul replaced the axe in the camp
kit.

“He has saved himself this time,” he muttered. “Get to your place,
Tanna.” The girl with a loud cheery cry called again to the dogs, her
hand on the head of the leader. Once more with a whine they responded
and the toboggan was on its way again over the crusted snow.

“Now then, a little run here, the going is good,” cried Paul, picking up
his lead line. But the woman’s voice stayed him.

“Wait, Paul,” she said, raising herself on her elbow. She pushed the
hood back from her face and gazed about her at sky and woods. “No, Paul,
we shall make camp,” she said. “A storm is coming.” She pointed to the
angry sun and the four brilliant sun-dogs surrounding it. “We must make
camp, Paul, and quick. Look! There is good wood.” She pointed to a thick
clump of pines and underbrush at the edge of the lake. The young man
growled impatiently.

“We can make it,” he said in a voice of sullen desperation. “How far is
the Post yet?” She held up her two hands twice. “Twenty miles yet!” he
exclaimed in dismay. “We could make it before morning,” he added
stubbornly.

“Yes, if the storm kept off and if I could walk,” said the woman, a
bitter weariness in her voice.

Quickly Paul surrendered. “We will camp,” he said, swinging off toward
the bushy pine bluff. “Come on, Lynx, you!” With a glad whimper the dogs
strained on their traces and set off on a limping gallop. They knew as
well as any that the welcome camp ground lay before them.

In among the thick undergrowth of scrub pine they dragged the toboggan
where they found shelter from the cutting wind.

“Lie where you are, Mammy,” said Paul. “We will have a fire in a minute
or two.” The woman turned over with a groan.

“Is it very bad, Mammy?” said the little girl, kneeling down beside the
toboggan.

“The pain? That matters not,” said the woman bitterly. “It is hard to
drag you all back, perhaps to——” she paused abruptly.

“Everybody at work!” shouted Paul, seizing the axe and slashing down
with swift, sure blows the young spruce and balsams, and flinging them
in a heap near the toboggan. Swiftly the little girl fell upon them with
a long hunting knife, slicing off the boughs for the bed.

“The fire, Peter!” snapped Paul. “Jump!” Peter needed no urging. With
eager intensity they all flung themselves at their work, the bed, the
fire, the supper, wood for the night, and a shelter against the
impending storm. It was a race for life with the swift-coming night, for
night finding them unprepared meant death to some of them, perhaps to
all. They each knew their special tasks and with swift despatch they
went at their work. While Paul was slashing down the underbrush, Peter
having gathered a large pile of dry brushwood was digging out with a
frying pan a large circular space some seven feet in diameter. This done
he proceeded to pile his brushwood in the circular space he had cleared,
and soon he had a fire blazing under which the snow rapidly melted away.
Then, seizing the axe which Paul had laid aside, he went off for more
wood. There could not be too much wood with a storm blowing up, for if
the storm became a blizzard wood meant life. Meantime, with saplings
stripped bare of their branches and the trees standing thick about, Paul
was constructing a shelter as near the fire as was safe, weaving the
branches thatchwise till a fairly thick semi-circular brushwood wall
stood about the fire. Around this shelter he would stretch later a strip
of canvas and some soft deer skins which were still in the toboggan. An
hour’s strenuous work saw a crude but fairly substantial brushwood built
on three sides of the deep circular hollow from which the fire had
partially melted the snow. Clearing from this hollow space the melted
slush Paul proceeded to bank the sides high with the softened snow which
almost immediately was frozen into a solid mass impervious to wind. Upon
the space thus cleared, he placed a thick layer of balsam boughs. These
he covered over with a fur rug.

“Now, Mammy! There you are!” he cried cheerily. “In you go. We will have
supper in no time.”

Painfully the woman dragged herself out of the toboggan and seated
herself in the shelter.

“Now, then, Tanna, you have the water ready?”

“Soon, Paul, I think,” said the child, who had meantime been nursing a
small fire under a pail of melted snow. “You go for the wood,” she
added, “we can do the rest.”

“Look out for the fire then,” said Paul.

“I will watch her,” said the woman. “You can go for the wood. Get
plenty; we may need much.”

“You need not fear for me,” said the girl. “I have no eyes in my head,
but my fingers are as good as eyes.” For a few moments Paul stood
watching.

“Yes! You are a wonder, little one,” he said in a low voice, touched
with pity.

The girl lifted her face to him, showing two large blue eyes whose
lustre was dimmed with a scarcely perceptible film. But though the blue
of the eye was somewhat dimmed the spirit that shone through the face
was one of untamed invincibility.

“Go, Paul,” said the woman. “She is quite safe.” She paused, then added
with infinite sadness in her voice, “While she has me she is safe.”

The girl felt her way to the woman and passed her hands over her face.
“Do not fear for me, Mammy. I shall take great care.” The woman took the
child in her arms and, rocking herself to and fro, held her there in a
passionate embrace. The young man turned hastily away on his quest for
dry wood, for already the sun had finished his brief winter course and
with dying rays was glaring angrily at the swiftly triumphing night.

The evening meal consisted of a watery stew, the nourishing ingredients
of which were a pork rind, the last remnant of their meat supply, some
fragments of hard tack, and some spare bones with dark red ragged
remnants of flesh attached, which the woman had thrown into the pot but
as to the nature of which none of them made inquiry. In other
circumstances, Paul at least would have turned with loathing from the
revolting mess, but tonight he forced himself to devour with ravenous
haste the portion assigned him by the woman. Eat he must if he were to
carry his party through the last twenty miles.

The sick woman ate a morsel of food, drank a little of the soup, then,
gripped with agonising pains, refused further nourishment.

Some bones saved from the last camp were thrown to the dogs who with
much savage snarling and fighting soon cleared them away.

The fire, originally laid upon a foundation of green spruce logs and now
burned down to glowing embers, was drawn almost within the enclosure of
the shelter and kept alive with judicious care. Within the recesses of
the shelter the party disposed themselves for the night. The girl crept
within the woman’s fur rug and soon fell asleep. The boy huddled close
beside them and, as near the fire as he dared, sat fighting off the
overpowering drowsiness that threatened every moment to subdue him.

“You go to sleep, Peter,” said Paul. “I’ll take the first watch. I’ll
promise to wake you.”

“Word of honour?” said the boy.

“Word of honour!” replied Paul.

The boy sat a little longer, then reluctantly snuggled down among the
brush and instantly sank into a dead sleep.

With the night the threatening storm came howling down upon the little
company, hissing, moaning, shrieking, as if legions of demons were
riding the winds, destruction in their hearts. Around their frail
structure the blizzard piled up a great bank of snow, effectually
shutting out the piercing wind, so that with the heat from the glowing
fire in front the sleepers took no hurt from the Arctic cold. The chief
danger lay in the blizzard. Alone Paul might buck through, but with the
sick woman and the little blind girl the attempt would be worse than
madness. The blizzard might last for three days, even for five, and they
were at the end of their food. Spent though he was with his two weeks’
fight against head winds and drifts through the long and terrible miles,
his gnawing anxiety for the little company dependent upon him had worn
his nerves so ragged and raw that Paul felt no need of sleep, as the
slow hours of the night dragged out their weary length. Never had he
been more wide awake, more keenly sensitive to the terrors and dangers
of his environment. He found himself listening and trying to
differentiate the voices of the storm outside. Through the birches and
poplars, bare of leaf, the blasts rattled and hissed like nests of
serpents; through the spruce and pine they moaned and sighed like souls
in distress. As he sat listening to the mingling voices of the blizzard
he began to hear in them the notes of hate and savage fury as of raging
beasts. The woods seemed to be filled with them. He shivered, listening
to shriekings and howlings, low snarls and growls, cries and weird
callings of beasts he had never known, and all the northern beasts he
knew well for he had hunted them to their dens and holes. He seemed to
catch a note of triumph, of savage exultant triumph, through the tumult.
They had him sure and fast. They knew it and he began to fear it. They
seemed to be closing in upon him. He could hear beneath the howlings and
shriekings the hiss of their whispering voices just at the back of the
shelter. He sprang to his feet. He would meet them out there on their
own ground. Out from the cover of the shelter he leaped into the
blizzard. The cutting drive of the granulated snow bit into his bare
face. A moment he stood staring into the blinding, cutting,
needle-pointed drift, then suddenly he stumbled back and sank huddled
behind the shelter, his soul and body shaken by the impact of a new
fear. Was he going mad? It was no unknown thing in those terror ridden
wilds for strong men to be driven mad. Huddled and shaking he sat
straining his ears after the voices daring him forth. Then to him thus
straining, with every nerve taut and every sense a-tingle, there came
through the raging, shrieking, hissing welter a voice clear as the song
of a bird in the stillness of the dawn, a voice clear and familiar:

“He maketh the clouds His chariot, He walketh upon the wings of the
wind.”

A wonderful quiet fell upon him. In the clear warm glow of the firelight
in the old Pine Croft bungalow he saw a boy sitting on a low stool,
gazing up into a face alight with serene courage. Outside, the tempest
howled down the valley, lashing the windows, pounding at the doors and
twisting the huge pines about like wisps of hay.

“That is a good verse to learn tonight, my boy,” the woman was saying.
And over and over again, till the words were bedded firmly in his soul,
she chanted the great words of that noble Hebrew psalm.

As on that night long ago, so tonight again the storm suddenly lost its
power to terrify him. He remembered the vision he had that night of the
great God out there, the good and kindly God whom he had been taught to
know as his friend, riding forth down the Windermere upon his rolling
cloud chariot and borne upon the wings of the wind. Gone was his
paralysing fear. He rose from his huddled position and stood at the
mouth of the shelter, his own man again. Steadily he faced the howling
blizzard. It had lost its terror. He raised his hand high above his
head, as if in salute. He knew he was not alone. He would win through.
Deep in his soul was the conviction whose roots ran far back into his
childhood memories, that in the eternal covenant and plan his life had a
place. That, among others, he owed to his mother. Yes, he would win
through. No blizzards that blew could down him. His Calvinistic faith
held him steady on his course.

He threw some wood on the fire and as the wood crackled up he touched
Peter on the arm. Instantly the boy was wide awake.

“Quiet!” whispered Paul. The dark Indian face immediately hardened into
bronze, the black eyes only gleaming with life.

“Come,” signalled Paul.

Carefully the boy stepped around the fire and sat down beside his
brother. Upon a piece of birch bark, with a burnt stick, Paul drew an
outline of the lake, showing the trail leading to the Hudson’s Bay Post
at the south-east end, as he had got it from Onawata.

“Peter, I am going to the Post tonight. You stay here. Keep the fire
going. Some one will come for you. Keep the fire going and make a big
smoke all the time. Kill the dogs if you must.”

“Wait for the morning, eh?” he said, his dark eyes imploring.

“No, I must get through. The blizzard may last three days, then it will
be too late for any of us. You see?” The boy nodded silent assent.

“When the fire burns low twice wake me up.” Again the boy nodded.

“Good boy! We’ll get through,” said Paul, putting his hand on his
shoulder. The boy’s face flushed red, then grew grey again. The chances
for getting through he knew well were very slim indeed.

With but a moment’s further delay Paul lay down near the fire. Round the
little snow-banked shelter the storm howled its wildest, but through all
its strident and threatening voices another voice came, calm and serene
and heart-stilling, “He rideth upon the wings of the wind,” and Paul
hearing that voice was instantly asleep.




                              CHAPTER XVI


The Hudson’s Bay Post stood at the southern end of the lake, as did most
Hudson’s Bay Posts in the North Country, and consisted of a group of log
buildings, well constructed, neat in appearance and well adapted to
their purposes of trade and defence. The store, with the Factor’s house
attached, was the most imposing of the group, and next in size was the
Mission House, which did for dwelling for the missionary, the church and
the school, all under one roof and within four walls. Straggling
outhouses were scattered about where boats and canoes and tackle of
different kinds were stored. A few Indian wigwams and well built huts
near the forest line completed the picture.

It was early morning and the air was bitter cold and thick with driving
snow. About the Post there was not a sign of life except at the door of
the Mission House, where a six-dog team hitched to a toboggan waited for
their master. In their harness they lay curled up, backs to the wind, a
nondescript lot, of varied and altogether doubtful ancestry but mostly
husky.

Suddenly the leader raised his head, pricked up his ears, sniffed the
wind and uttered a short sharp bark. Instantly the remaining five were
on their feet, vigorously barking, indignant that they had missed
something and protesting that they knew quite as much as old Skookum,
who after his first warning bark had remained standing stiff-legged and
bristled as to his back, sniffing the wind. The door of the Mission
House opened and a little man, fur-clad as for a journey, looked out.

“What’s up, Skookum? Lie down, you old idiot,” he said. The other five
looked foolish, but old Skookum maintained his posture, with ears alert
and hair stiff and bristling. He knew that down the wind a definite and
authentic scent had struck his nostrils. His was no second-hand
knowledge, and he was not to be browbeaten into denial of a veritable
experience.

“Well, old son, you are not usually an ass,” said the missionary. “We
will investigate.”

He ran down to the shore and looked up the lake through the drifting
snow. “Nothing there,” he muttered, “but Skookum knows a thing or two.”
Long and steadily he gazed, waiting for a break in the drift of snow.

“By Jove! I believe there is something moving out there,” he said. Long
he stood peering through the breaking drift that blinded his eyes and
for the most part shut out the landscape. But nothing was to be seen. He
returned to the house.

“You smelt something, old boy,” he said, patting the leader’s head, “but
it’s gone away. A fox or something, eh?” But Skookum’s nose was still in
the air and he refused to accept anything but the testimony of that
reliable organ. As the missionary turned to re-enter the house Skookum
again lifted his voice in a sharp, decisive bark and again his chorus
supported him with vociferous yelping.

“Shut up, you idiots,” said the man to the five chorus dogs. “You didn’t
smell anything.” For a moment the missionary stood undecided, looking at
Skookum. “All right, old boy. It’s a beastly day to be out in, too
beastly to take a chance. We’ll take your word for it.”

He entered the house, shouting, “Mother, Skookum says there’s some one
up the lake, so before I go to Pine Point I shall run up a bit.”

“All right, John. It is a dreadful storm, but you were going out anyway,
and it may be a runner from the Indian camp, you know.”

“You’re right, Mother, as you always are. I didn’t think of that. My
mitts? Ah, here they are. And my bottle in case——? Ah, yes, thanks. I
shall come in before I start, for the Point if I don’t find anything.
Good-bye.”

His wife followed him to the door. “What a day! No! No! Come back,
children, from the storm.” She drew back into the cosy room two
brown-faced little boys who were keen to follow their father to the lake
shore.

Within twenty minutes they heard the barking of the dogs, and in another
moment her husband burst into the room, steadying a tall slight youth
who swayed, staggered, clutched at the door and so hung, his chin fallen
on his breast, his breath coming in gasps and deep drawn sobs.

“Quick, Mother, tea!” said the missionary, holding the stranger from
falling.

“Here, old chap, sit down. You’re all right now,” said the missionary,
pushing a chair toward him. But the youth clung fast to the door.

“No!” he gasped. “No! Mustn’t sit. Mother—two kids—up lake—mustn’t
sit—never get up again.” But even as he spoke his hold loosened on the
door. The warm air of the room relaxed his nerve tension and he slumped
down in a huddled heap on the floor. Swiftly the missionary’s fingers
were at work, loosening hood and coat.

“Yes, that’s right, Mother,” he said, taking from her hand a cup in
which she had poured some spirits and hot water. “Now, get this into
you. Good! A little more! Ah, now you are coming round. Now finish up
the cup. Down with it, do you hear! No nonsense! Fine! Now, let’s see
how you are. Hands all right, or nearly so. Off with his moccasins,
Mother! Feet? Toes frozen a bit. Some snow, Mother, and rub ’em hard.
All right, boy! You’re sound outside.”

So working swiftly he kept up in a loud, cheery voice, now soothing,
again commanding, a monologue with which he strove to divert his patient
from his own condition and restore him to normal self-control.

“Now the tea, Mother. A little spirits in it—ah, not too much—he doesn’t
need it. Nothing like tea. Puts heart into a man—no unpleasant
reactions. Great stuff, tea, for this country, eh? Something to chew on
now, Mother. Toast? Nothing better! A little more now. Lots of time
though, no rush. Sit down, old chap.” By this time the young man was on
a chair. “Sit down. _Sit down._ What?”

“No!” said the young man, getting to his feet. “I will not sit! Must get
back—mother—two children—in camp—snow bound—starving—dying! Must go.” He
was on his feet now, his hands stretched out imploringly.

“What?” shouted the missionary. “A woman and children? For God’s dear
sake, where? How far?”

“Left there—an hour after midnight. Come! She is dying!”

“Where, boy? For God’s sake, where?” Without waiting his answer the
missionary flung open the door, whistled a succession of shrill blasts
with his fingers, waved violently to a man who appeared at the door of
one of the huts near by and turned back to the boy.

“What’s your name, boy?” he shouted.

“My name? Paul.”

“And the woman—your mother?”

“No—yes—my stepmother.”

“And dying? Where? Show me!” The missionary dragged him to a map hanging
on the wall. The boy shook his head.

“Give me paper,” he said.

The missionary thrust paper and pencil into his hands. With shaking
fingers he drew a rough outline of the lake, and traced a trail along
the east shore.

“There!” he said, indicating a jutting point. “Twenty miles—one hour
after midnight—I left.”

“Twenty miles! God help us now!” muttered the missionary, making swift
preparations. “Quick, Mother! Tea, hot bricks, blankets, grub, whiskey.
Ah! Thomas, good man—” he turned to an Indian who had come in—“party
lost up the lake, twenty miles. Get ready to go with me. Another
team—the Factor’s. Quick! quick!” Without a word the Indian vanished.

The missionary turned to the boy. “Now, lad, you go to bed. Mother will
look after you.” He turned to his wife, busy with the preparation of
food. “Feed him, Mother, and let him sleep. I know that point. We will
bring them in safe enough.”

“I am going. I am all right now,” said Paul, pulling on his moccasins.
“I am going. I know the way.”

“Nonsense!” shouted the missionary. “You stay here. You don’t go a foot.
You will only keep us back.”

Paul looked at him stupidly, then smiled. “I am going. You can’t keep me
here. I am going.” His voice remained quite quiet. “I’ll not hold you
back. Let me go! Oh, let me go!” Again his hands went out in an
imploring gesture.

The missionary paused in his preparations, keenly searching the boy’s
face.

“All right, you young mule!” he snapped. “We haven’t time to argue.
Anyway we have two toboggans,” he added to himself. “All right, all
right. Feed this youth, Mother. He can stand some meat now. Fill the
beggar up while we get ready. Here, off with those socks of yours,” he
continued. “Dry socks, Mother. Two pairs. My mackinaws—find a pair of
mitts. All right, now! Steady all!”

His wife, without a word and with swift hands that never hesitated or
fumbled, followed out his instructions.

“Here, boy!” said the missionary. “If you are going with me, listen and
obey orders.” There was no mistaking that tone.

“Yes, sir, I will!” said Paul. “Tell me what to do.”

“First sit here close to the fire,” said the missionary, drawing close
to the glowing stove a big rocking chair. “Eat and drink all you can.
Don’t guzzle; take your time. Get dry, warm things on your feet and
hands. We shall not move for twenty minutes or so. Eat—drink—rest. Do
you hear?”

“Yes, sir. I will. I am all right, sir, thank you, sir.”

“Good boy! Good stuff, eh? Now don’t talk.”

Eagerly, ravenously, yet with no indecent haste, he ate the food given
him, helping it down with cups of strong tea, pulling on the while dry
clothing. Having eaten and got into dry things, he settled himself down
into the big rocker. In a dozen breaths he was asleep, insensible,
immovable, dead to his world.

The missionary smiled. “We will give him half an hour, Mother. He is
dead beat.”

“Poor lad! How thin he is! And how terribly worn he looks! I am quite
anxious about him, John. He can never go with you. Why not slip away
now? You would be back before he wakes.”

“He has had a hard go, but he looks fit enough.”

“Why not let him sleep? He cannot go twenty miles.”

“We will give him half an hour. If he woke and found us gone you would
have to tie him. He would follow us till he dropped.”

In consultation with Thomas the missionary studied the boy’s rough
sketch.

“That is just beyond the Petite Traverse, Thomas, eh?”

Thomas pondered. “How long he marshe?”

“From midnight. But he could not make good time in his condition and
against that storm, eh?”

Thomas stood calculating. “La Petite Traverse ten miles,” he said,
holding up two hands. “La Grande Traverse, he—” he showed fifteen
fingers “and some more. S’pose he run queeck, eh? No dreeft. De
win’—she’s blow heem—poof!”

“The Big Traverse!” exclaimed the missionary. “That’s good eighteen
miles! Still, as you say, there would be little drifting on the lake
with this wind. He might do it. By Jove! Thomas, we have a big job
before us. And that boy wants to come with us.”

“Non, non, he cannot! Impossible!” Thomas was very emphatic, the
missionary’s wife equally so.

“Look at him, John! Did you ever see a boy so terribly worn?”

The missionary sat regarding the youth. “He is thin and worn. I am sorry
I gave him my word, by Jove! Everything ready, Thomas? What have you,
Mother? There is a sick woman, you know.”

“Starving and worn out, like enough,” replied his wife. “There’s a
bottle of soup and tea and hard tack and meat.”

“Fine. We will give him a full half hour.”

“Perhaps when he wakes he can be persuaded to wait here,” said his wife.

“Not he! He is a mule, a perfect mule. Look at that mouth, that long
jaw. He will try it anyway. We may have to put him on the toboggan, but
he will go.”

Thomas shook his head. “No bon! No bon! Him sleep so five hour, dead
like one bear. We go toute suite!”

But to this the missionary would not agree. “At any rate, we must give
him the chance to say.”

“It’s a shame! a crime!” said his wife.

At the end of three-quarters of an hour the missionary stood up, put his
hand on the shoulder of the sleeping boy and gave him a slight shake.
With one movement the boy was on his feet, awake and alert.

“What is it, Peter? Time, eh?” he asked, gazing upon the faces about
him. “I was—I’m afraid I was asleep,” he said shamefacedly. “All ready?
Let us go.” He drew on his light fur coat, seized his mitts, caps and
snowshoes.

“No use, Mother,” said the missionary. “All right, we’re off. You’ll see
us when we get back. Good-bye.” He kissed his wife.

“Oh, he cannot make that trip, John. He will perish on the way,” said
his wife, quick tears coming to her eyes.

“Nonsense, Mother! He has two days’ march in him.”

The boy stood, his big grey eyes turning from one to the other. They
were concerned for him. The tears in the woman’s eyes were for him.
Slowly a deep red flush overspread his thin haggard face. Silently he
took her hand in both of his, held it for a moment, then with a kind of
shy grace he kissed it.

“You are awfully good,” he muttered, turned away and made for the door.

“_En avant!_” shouted the missionary cheerily. “All aboard! See you
later, Mother!”

There was little breaking trail for the dogs that day; for, in Thomas’
dramatic words, “de win’ she’s blow heem—poof!” So after the first half
hour the party struck and held to the steady dog trot that devours the
white miles in the north land and keeps the blood jumping in the teeth
of forty below. The boy took his turn with the other two in leading.
After two hours’ run the missionary would have swung off to a bold
out-jutting headland, heavily wooded, dimly seen through the storm.

“There is the point beyond the Petite Traverse, Thomas,” he said.

“Oui!”

“No, that is not the camp,” said Paul. “Farther up, farther up.”

“Beyond the Grande Traverse, Thomas, eh?” said the missionary. “Another
eight miles at least. Are you fit? Can you go on?”

The boy looked at him a moment with eyes that burned in their deep
sockets like points of fire, then without answer he set off on a dog
trot on the northward trail.

A twenty minute run brought them round the headland. They were on the
edge of the Big Traverse, a bleak white plain, bare of mark or guiding
sign, swept by bitter wind and driving snow. The missionary was for
striking straight across the open, but Thomas after the Indian habit was
for the more cautious plan of skirting the shore. “De win’, she no so
bad, and de trail he’s no get los’.” Paul was for the shore line too.

They had not run for more than half an hour longer when old Skookum, who
was leading, began to show signs of anxiety, sniffing, whimpering and
uttering short yelps. The missionary pulled up his team short.

“Something coming, sure thing, man or beast,” he shouted to the others
following. They all stood listening intently, but only the howling and
hissing of the storm came to their ears. The dogs had all caught
Skookum’s restlessness, sniffing and whimpering.

“Huh! Something! Indian think,” grunted Thomas, sniffing like the dogs.

“Indian, eh?” said the missionary sharply. “By Jove, it couldn’t be——”
he paused, looking at Paul.

Quickly the boy’s hands went to his lips, he threw back his head and
flung out into the storm a long weird call. Thomas glanced quickly at
him. “Chippewayan,” he grunted.

Faintly and as if from a long way to the lake side came a similar call.

“Peter!” exclaimed Paul, setting off in the direction of the call. The
missionary caught and held him fast.

“Hold on! Let’s be sure! Call again.”

Once more, Paul with his hands to mouth uttered his call and again from
the lake came the faint response.

“From there, eh?” said the missionary, pointing north-west.

“_Oui!_” said Thomas, pointing a little farther north. “Indian there!”

But already the boy was off into the blinding drift.

“Hold up, you young fool! We must keep together,” cried the missionary,
dashing after him. “Follow up, Thomas, with the dogs,” he shouted.

Not a sign of the boy could he get, but keeping the line of direction
carefully he ran with all his speed, listening intently as he ran. Again
there came on the storm wind the long weird call.

“More to the left,” he muttered, swinging off in that direction, but
keeping up his pace. A few minutes of hard running, and through a break
in the drifting storm he caught a glimpse of a huddled group of
snow-sheeted spectral figures, and in the midst of them Paul holding in
his arms a woman, tall and swaying in the storm like a wind-blown
sapling. Clinging to the young man was a child, a little girl, and near
by a boy stood, sturdily independent. Instantly the missionary took
command.

“Here, Thomas!” he shouted, starting back on his tracks. Soon he met the
Indian with the two dog teams, coming along at a gallop. “We have them
here, Thomas. Let us make camp at the big headland. Quick! Quick!” Round
the little group the Indian swung the teams.

“Get her on to the toboggan, Paul,” ordered the missionary. “We camp at
the headland. Good shelter and good wood. Only hurry, for God’s sake,
and follow me.”

The woman sank without a word onto one of the toboggans, the little girl
upon the other, the boy scorning to ride. And rescued and rescuers made
for camp.

Dazed, stupid, devoid of sensation or emotion, Paul trolled after the
last toboggan, but through his head the words kept time to his feet: “He
maketh the clouds His chariot; He rideth upon the wings of the wind.”
And he knew that they were true.




                              CHAPTER XVII


Chief Factor MacKinroy himself would have been the first to assign to
the missionary, the Rev. John Chambers, M.A., Oxon., the position of
premier influence and even of authority, not only in the little
community at the Post but in the whole district tributary to the Post,
with its nondescript population of white traders and trappers,
half-breeds and Indians. And this was due to those mysterious qualities
that go to the making of personality, and to the services which the
possession of these qualities fitted him to render. He was the titular
head of the Anglican Mission, which of course gave him a standing at
once influential and authoritative, but had he not been more his
official position as a dignitary of a great church would have gone but a
small way to win him place and power.

Fifteen years ago, raw from the greatest university in the English
speaking world, he had come up with a Hudson’s Bay Company brigade and
had planted himself here in this far north outpost of civilisation, to
establish a mission in partibus infidelium for his church. Quite a year
before his arrival, his coming had been duly announced by the company
authorities in London to Factor MacKinroy, who received the announcement
with explosive profanity in the “twa langiges” and then speedily forgot
all about the thing.

“And who the deevil will you be?” was the Factor’s greeting, when the
fly-bitten and sorely battered representative of the church disentangled
himself from the motley crew of the brigade and presented himself to the
Factor’s gaze.

“Ah—I beg your pardon. Ah—Chambers is my name——”

“And what the deevil will be your business in these parts?” inquired the
Factor, on the lookout for doubtful characters, rival traders, prying
politicians, globe trotters and the like.

“Before I answer your polite inquiry, sir, may I ask who the devil are
you?”

For quite ten portentous seconds the Factor glared at the little man
whose steady blue eyes twinkled pleasantly at him out of a face brick
red and horribly distorted by the assiduous attentions of the swarms of
various kinds of flies, big and little, black, brown and grey, for the
past six weeks. During those portentous ten seconds the Factor’s keen
eyes had been taking stock of the little man before him, with swift
appraising glances.

“God bless my soul!” said he at length. “And it is yourself will be the
new minister. And I will be asking your pardon, for I can well see you
are a man as well.”

So began a friendship that fifteen years of mutual knowledge and of
common experience of the toils and perils of the wild North land welded
into something that no earthly strain could break.

To John Chambers the wild, rude life brought never an hour of regret,
never but one. That was the hour after the letter had gone south by the
monthly mail, in which he had set free from her engagement the English
girl with whom in earlier days and in happier surroundings he had
planned his life. But the desperate loneliness was wiped clean from his
memory by another hour of ecstatic and delirious joy which followed the
incoming of the English mail some three months later. For that mail
brought him a letter palpitating with indignant scorn of him and his
high-flown and altogether idiotic purpose of self-immolation. “What
about me, you silly boy?” inquired the writer. “Are you the only person
in the world? Now be it known unto you that on or about the thirty-first
of March—for I believe your execrable roads break up in the later
spring, and I cannot and will not brook delay—there will be in Edmonton
a young female person,” here followed a description which the reader of
the letter refused to recognise, “looking for convoy and a convoyer to
the wild North land. If the convoyer happen to be a little man—you know
you are only five feet, eight and three-quarters inches though you
protest five feet nine—red headed and much freckled of face and with
dear, bold, blue eyes, so much the better,” at the reading of which the
said convoyer flung the letter high, kicked over his stool, seized his
stolid and loyal Indian factotum, Thomas by name, and whirled him into a
mad Kai-yai! Hai-yai! war dance.

Together for more than a dozen years they fought the good fight against
ignorance, dirt, disease and all the other varieties of humanity’s ills
in which “the world, the flesh and the devil” manifest themselves and
with varying success winning with other rewards the trust, the
reverence, the love of Indian, half-breed and white man alike and
awakening in all whose love they won the more or less persistent desire
to emulate their deeds and attain their likeness, a truly notable
achievement.

The rescue of the Indian woman and her family was to the missionary a
bit of his ordinary day’s work, as was the daily ministering to the sick
woman, without questioning and without suspicion, such help for body and
soul as she required. The woman’s need was great, and for these good
Samaritans this established a sufficient claim upon the full wealth of
their resources, with never a suggestion or sense of burden. Indeed,
within the missionary’s home the coming of the little blind girl was as
the visit of an angel unawares. It added not a little to the cares of
the missionary’s wife that she was not infrequently called upon to
settle furious strife between her sturdy young sons as to their rights
and privileges in the service of the little maid. Within a week the
whole family had made for themselves an assured place in the little
community about the Post. The only cloud upon the horizon of their
community life was the only too obvious fact that the Indian woman was
travelling her last trail and that the camp ground was in sight.

Upon this shadowed area of peace came breezing from the south Sergeant
Starr on his way to the far north, seeking a runaway half-breed murderer
and thief. A cheery soul was the sergeant, in spite of his seventy-three
inches of gaunt and grim manhood. He had left his corporal a hundred
miles back, nursing, at another Hudson’s Bay Company’s Post, a frozen
foot.

“Where has your man gone, Sergeant?” inquired the factor. “Have you any
idea now?”

“Up the Athabasca—among the Chippewayans, I rather guess,” replied the
sergeant, “and they are the very deuce too to work with. Close as clams.
No use for us.”

“But you will be getting him in time, I suppose,” said the factor
dubiously.

“It’s a habit we have,” said the sergeant, as if gravely announcing a
demonstrated fact. “What’s new? Who is the young Apollo?” he added,
nodding in the direction of Paul who was passing.

“Yon lad is one of a party rescued by Chambers from the teeth of the
last blizzard, a week or so ago.”

“Chambers is at his old tricks, eh?”

“Aye. And this time he made a very fine catch whatever. Four of them,
one a woman, an Indian with a blind little child——”

“What?” exclaimed Starr, arrested in his unloading operations. “A blind
girl? An Indian?”

“Half-breed Scotch. Indian mother.”

“What name?” enquired the sergeant sharply.

“Name? That I do not know. We don’t bother with the names of our guests
much,” said the factor.

The sergeant nodded. “Quite right, quite right, Mr. MacKinroy. But I am
interested in this family. Fine young fellow that. And blind child, eh?”

“And what will you be after, Sergeant?” asked the factor, knowing his
man.

“Not much, except that I may say to you, Mr. MacKinroy, that I am of the
opinion that I have hit upon something that the commissioner has been
asking us to dig up for the past six years.” The sergeant’s deliberate
voice and manner were quite impressive.

“And what will you be meaning now, Sergeant?”

“Six years ago a family corresponding in numbers and personnel to your
rescued party disappeared from the Windermere Valley, vanished into
space, absolutely into thin air—quite unbelievable, but actually did,
you know. Head’s all terribly up in the air about it. Reputation of
force and all that, you know. Of course, they had a week’s start. Fellow
refused to lay information.”

“Now then, Sergeant, if you will tell me what you are discoursing upon I
will be obliged, but if not you may as well shut your gab,” said
MacKinroy, athirst for news from the outside and annoyed at the
sergeant’s scrappy and wholly unsatisfactory account of what offered
mystery.

“Oh, I beg pardon, MacKinroy. Forgot you were out of it. The bones of it
I’ll give you. Chap, Gaspard by name, rancher, artist, tangled up with
Indian girl—Athabascan chief’s daughter—after his wife died went dippy,
married Indian girl, brought her back to ranch with two children, both
his, youngest blind girl—my clue, see?—neighbor rancher, Sleeman by
name, bad lot, hanging round, monkeying round with Indian woman, Gaspard
and his son, this young fellow here I fancy, came on the scene, found
her fighting off Sleeman, jumped for his gun, the woman grabbed him to
prevent murder, in the struggle Gaspard was shot, died; woman goes quite
mad, moons round giving out signs of dementia, one night Sleeman’s house
goes up in smoke, Sleeman himself pulled out of the fire by one of ours
with an ugly knife wound in the ribs, at first charged Indian woman with
crime, later refused to make any formal deposition; same night woman and
whole bunch vamoose utterly, fade off the landscape, trail lost
completely. Of course, every Indian in the North Country sets himself to
mix that trail. For two years search actively carried on, then slacked
off—Sleeman’s influence, I suspect—but all the same it will be _kudos_
for the man that lands ’em, and I fancy that’s me.”

“Huh! It will be good for you to see Chambers,” said MacKinroy in a
doubtful tone.

“I shall see him,” said Sergeant Starr. “He has sense.”

The sergeant was right. Chambers had sense, as he made abundantly
evident after hearing the officer’s story.

“You won’t get her, Starr,” he said. “You will lose your _kudos_, old
chap.”

“You mean she is——”

“There’s another call come for her, a call which takes precedence over
that of the North-West Mounted Police.”

“Hard luck, eh, Chambers? What about them, the youngsters I mean?”

“Don’t know. No plans yet. Must have a talk with her and with Paul.
Pretty much of a man, that young chap.”

“Let me in on that, Chambers. I might help and it might clear things up
a bit.”

“I shall see about it,” said Chambers. “No use worrying her.”

“Shan’t worry her. Does she know she didn’t kill the man, for instance?”
asked the sergeant.

“True enough. I shall see Paul.”

Paul’s answer when the missionary broached the subject was a prompt and
decisive negative.

“She is not to be worried. Let the policeman talk to me if he wishes,
but he is not to see her. She has for six years been haunted by a dread
of the police. Her whole tribe have covered the trail all this time. Let
her go in peace. Let him talk to me.”

The following morning it was that the sergeant, sauntering about the
Post, came to the hut placed by the factor at the disposal of the Indian
woman and her family. He was met at the door by Paul, who immediately
stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

“You can’t come in,” he said, facing the sergeant.

“No?”

“No!”

“It would be good that I should see the sick woman,” said the sergeant
in a courteous voice.

“You will not see her,” said the youth. The sergeant noted, as it was
his business to note, the glitter as of steel in the blue grey eye, the
lips thin to a line, the muscles stiffen as for a spring.

“Steady, young man,” he said in a quiet voice. “Don’t do anything rash.
I don’t want to hurt her or you. But I must interview her.”

“No!” said Paul.

“Young man, I must do my duty.” At the word Paul wavered.

“Your duty? Yes, you must do your duty. But she is very ill. She is
dying. Ask Mr. Chambers. He knows.” The distress in his face touched the
sergeant’s heart.

“I shall see the missionary,” he said.

“Oh, thank you,” said Paul, impulsively offering his hand. “She is very
ill. She would be afraid of you, and she must not be troubled. It will
be only a few days.”

“All right, young man. We won’t do anything to hurt her. You are all
right.” He shook hands warmly and went on his way.




                             CHAPTER XVIII


It was the Indian woman herself that settled the matter of the interview
with Sergeant Starr. After a day’s pain more acute than usual she sent
for the missionary.

“I have something to tell you. Can you receive my confession and give me
absolution?” she asked him, acute anxiety shining in her dark eyes.

The missionary, being more man than missionary and having had large
experience of the soul with its burdens of sin and terror, answered
quietly, “Tell me your trouble. Do not fear. There is forgiveness for
you, and peace.”

“I have done a very wicked thing. I want absolution and the holy oil
before I—go away. And I want you to put it on paper for the police at
Edmonton. It is for Paul—it may hurt him. It is—for Paul,” she added,
clutching the missionary’s arm. “Nothing must hurt Paul.”

“Dear sister, tell me your sin, and if you wish you may tell the police
yourself. He is here.”

“Here? Here?” A momentary fear leaped into her eyes, then faded out.
“Ah, good! Let him come. Let him come, quick! And Paul. Quick! Quick!”

“He will come at once,” said the missionary, and hastened to bring the
sergeant. At the door he met Paul. “She has asked to see the sergeant,”
said Chambers.

“Wait,” said Paul, and went to her. He found her in a fever of eagerness
and impatience.

“Ah—Paul—” she panted, “now I know the blessed Mother hears my prayer.
Bring the man—the policeman to me—quick! I have a heavy load here,” she
struck her breast, “I wish to give it to him.”

“Why not tell the missionary, Onawata?” said Paul. “You need not tell
the policeman.”

“No, Paul. The policeman is best. Oh, I have prayed to get to Edmonton
to tell the police. Bring him, Paul. Bring him. I am strong, and I must
tell him. Go, Paul, quick.”

Without delay Paul did her bidding. And in a few minutes the three men
were at her bedside.

“You have found me,” said the Indian woman, smiling triumphantly at the
sergeant.

He gazed at her in amazement. Indian women of all types he had known,
good and bad. But this type was unknown to him. Indian she was, but the
soul looking through her dark eyes was the soul of a refined and gentle
woman, and her voice and speech suggested a lady of his own race.

“You need not fear,” he said gently.

“Fear?” she said, still smiling. “Oh, no, I have no fear of you. You
cannot hurt me. But I am glad you are here. I asked the priest to bring
you. He is a good man. He will listen and you will listen. I have
something to tell you. And Paul will listen too. It is for Paul I
speak.” Her breath began to come in gasps.

“Do not distress yourself; wait till tomorrow,” said the missionary.

“No! no! Now! now! You will put it down for the police.” Her eyes
carried her appeal to the missionary’s heart.

“I will put it down,” he said in a quiet voice, “if you will speak
quietly.”

“I will speak quietly and will speak only the truth.” She fumbled at her
bosom, drew forth a crucifix, kissed it, and in a voice calm and devoid
of all trace of emotion told her story.

“It was his fault that my man was killed,” she concluded. “I planned to
kill him. It was right that he should die, but for Paul I changed my
mind. That night it was not in my heart to kill. I went to his house to
get back from him money he had taken from my man, for Paul. Then I would
go away, with my children, back to my people. He tried to do me wrong in
his house. I struck him with my knife. The Chippewayan strikes but once.
Then I was afraid. I put fire to the house, that my trail might not be
found, and, like the storm wind, my pony carried me home. Before we
could go Paul found us and came with us. He would not let us go alone.
It was folly. Now I have brought him back before the light goes out of
my sky. For these long, long years we have been like the wild deer, or
the fox in the forests and mountains.” She paused, exhausted.

“Yes,” said the sergeant, “we could find no trace of you.”

“My father’s people would leave no trail of the daughter of their
chief,” she said proudly. “Now,” she continued, after she had rested a
few minutes, “I bring the son of my man back to his people. He is not
Indian, and he must not join himself to my people. I have kept him
clean. He will be great among his own people. This his father would
wish. I have brought him back. You will take him to his people.” She
turned her eyes upon the sergeant, waiting his answer.

“I will bring him back,” he said. “I give you my word.”

“Good! That is all. My work is done now,” she said with a little sigh.
“I have spoken true words.” Once more she kissed the crucifix.

“Listen,” said the sergeant. “The man you struck did not die. One of our
men pulled him from the burning house. He lives today.”

“Sleeman is alive?” exclaimed Paul.

“Alive?” said the Indian woman. “Wait, Paul. You will let me speak.” She
lay for some moments with eyes closed, then in a voice which shook with
emotion she cried, “Alive? Ah! ah! I _was_ glad he was dead, now I am
glad he is alive. The good Father told me it was not good to go—to
pass—with blood on the hands. The Holy Mother was praying for me! It is
good!” She turned her dark eyes upon Paul. “No, Paul. You remember your
word to your father. That is done.” She put her hand on his arm. “No!
no! That is not the way of your people. For me? Perhaps. For you? No! It
is not your law.” Again her eyes searched his pale set face.

“He would have wronged you, Onawata, my father’s wife. There is only one
thing for me—only one.”

“Paul, I have brought you back to your people. I have kept you clean.
You will be a great man among your people. You will promise me.” She
raised herself on her arm. “I go—perhaps I shall see your father, my
chief. I cannot go without your word. A-a-ah!” her voice rose in a
wailing cry. “To him, to you, I brought only sorrow and shame. Lay on me
no more, Paul. I have suffered much.” She fumbled under the pillow and
drew out and unwrapped a small parcel, carefully wrapped in deer skin.
“Take it, Paul. It is your mother’s good book. You will kiss it and say
you will not kill the man—for her, for her, Paul!” Her voice rose in a
cry, her hands reached trembling toward him.

The boy was terribly shaken with the struggle going on in his soul. He
knew the book well. He took and turned it over in his hands, opened it
at the fly-leaf, read in faded lettering the words written, he well
remembered when, “For my son Paul, from his mother. ‘Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God.’” The scene flooded his
memory—the Pine Croft living room, his mother’s face with its wondering,
tremulous smile as he told her how up through the tops of the pines,
between the little white clouds he could see God looking down at him. He
remembered how, as she was tucking him in that night, she brought him a
new Bible, with his name in it and her name and the beautiful words
about seeing God, and how she kissed the book and kissed him as she gave
it into his hands. Like a mountain torrent sweeping away a dam, the
surging tide of his emotion swept away his control. He dropped on his
knees by the bed, pressed the words to his lips, sobbing.

“Oh, Mother, Mother! dear, dear Mother! For your sake! Yes, yes! for
your sake!”

The men turned away and moved softly from the hut, leaving the two
alone. The Indian woman lay back, spent and done. She had fulfilled her
trust. She had brought back to his people, clean from lust and from
blood, the son of the man who was to her as God Himself. Next day the
sergeant went north on his quest, carrying a message to the Athabascan
chief from his daughter.

The passing of Onawata was all peace. An hour with the missionary, even
though he was not of her faith, brought her something of the peace that
passeth understanding. There was still her anxiety for the future of her
children, which she had settled in her own way. There only remained the
telling of it to them, and that she deferred till the very last.

They were together in the little hut after a day of quiet rest and
freedom from pain.

“Here, Tanna,” she called in her soft Chippewayan tongue. “Come hither,
little Singing Water, light of my eyes. Come in beside me.” She gathered
the child in her arms and held her close. “Peter, come too.” The boy
came and knelt by her bed, his dark face set as if cast in bronze. He
well knew what was before them all. His mother’s arm went round his
shoulders.

“Little ones, your mother is going away,” she began, her voice coming
softly and evenly, like the flowing of quietly running water, “away to a
good country—ah! a good country!—where the warm sun is always shining,
no frost, no snow, no hunger, no pain, no sickness, no fear, no
fighting, no blood. Oh, it is a good country.” She lay quiet a few
moments, her dark face growing young and beautiful. The little girl’s
fingers crept over her face.

“Oh, Mammy, you are smiling. When will we go? I do not love the cold and
the hunger, and I want no more pain for you, Mammy dear.” The little one
spoke in her father’s tongue. Her mother had seen to that. “And, Mammy,
there will be no more dark. I know! I know!”

The mother drew the little one close to her with a low moaning cry and
again she lay silent, drinking slowly to the dregs that last bitter cup
that all mothers must drink. But having drunk, she set herself to her
last service for them.

“Not today will you come, Singing Water,” she said, her voice flowing
softly again. “I will go and later you will come, and Peter and Paul.
And now you will listen and remember, you and Peter, while the sun
shines and the winds blow you will not forget.”

“Yes, Mammy,” whispered the child.

“You and Peter will go back to my people.”

“No,” said Paul, speaking with sharp decision. “Where I go they will
go.”

“They are not your people, Paul.”

“They are my father’s children.”

An eager light came into the woman’s eyes.

“Paul! Paul!” she cried in English. “You do not know what you say. They
are of my blood. They will be a burden on you. They will spoil your
life. Your father, Paul, did not wish that, I know. Peter will be a
great chief. He will care for Tanna. I have planned this with my father.
They will drag you down as I dragged your father down. I—who would have
given him the blood from my heart! You must not do this.” Her voice was
eager and tremulous with pain. “I will not spoil your life too.”

“They are my father’s children. They are my brother and sister,” said
Paul, in a voice steady and strong. “Do you think I can leave Tanna to
go back to the blanket and the wigwam? Tanna! my little blind sister!”
His voice rang out in indignant scorn. “No, no, Mammy,” he added, using
Tanna’s form of address, rare with him, “say no more. It is settled.
They go with me.”

A look of great wonder dawned in the woman’s eyes—wonder and joy.
Raising herself she held out her hands to him.

“Paul!” she cried, her voice broken with sobs, the tears flowing down
her cheeks. “Your God hears! Now I know, I know! Oh, I feared to lay
this burden on you, but now I know He hears. I was afraid for Tanna, my
Tanna living in the dark. I feared for her. But now——”

Paul took her hands in his, leaned over and, for the first time in his
life, kissed her.

“Have no fear, Mammy,” he said softly. “I will keep her with me
always—always.”

The blood slowly came up into her dark face, touching it with rare
beauty. Passionately she kissed his hands.

“My chief!” she whispered. “You will do this!” She turned to the
children. “Peter! Tannawita!” she said, reverting to her own tongue,
“listen to me now.” Her voice was solemn, almost stern. “Give Paul your
hands, quick!” Wondering, the children put their hands in Paul’s. “You
are going with Paul, your brother. He is your chief, to obey, to love,
to serve with your lives, always.” She plucked the crucifix from her
breast. “The Holy Jesu, the Jesu of the Cross hears your promise.” She
pressed the crucifix to their lips, then to her own, and lay back, pale,
upon the pillow. When she had rested a little she opened her eyes.

“Paul,” she whispered, raising her arms toward him, while into her eyes
came a look of shy, adoring love. “You are a good man. God will always
go with you and them.” She drew him down and kissed him.

“Yes, Mammy, I know,” said Paul, kissing her in return.

In a few moments, exhausted but with a great peace in her heart, the
mother fell asleep, her children beside her and Paul watching by the
fire. An hour later the missionary came in, his wife following.

“She is asleep,” said Paul.

The missionary leaned over her. “Yes, she will rest quiet now,” he said,
gathering up the little girl in his arms. “Take the children with you,
Mother,” he added, giving the sleeping Tanna to his wife. “You go too,
Paul, I will watch now.”

They laid the Indian woman under a clump of spruce trees near to the
lake shore, the little crucifix on her breast, and on her face, made
beautiful with the beauty of youth, a great peace.

Before a month had passed a tall eagle-faced Chippewayan warrior,
splendid in his chief’s dress and decked in the colors for the dead, and
with him six tall Chippewayan braves, came stalking into the Post.
Gravely he greeted Paul.

“Wah-na-ta-hi-ta comes for his dead,” he announced.

“She lies under the spruce trees there,” said Paul. “She gave me much
love for you. She was at peace when she went away.” And then, bringing
him in to the hut, he told him the story of his daughter’s passing. The
old chief listened with face unmoved.

“I would see this man who gave her peace,” he said gravely.

To the missionary the old chief brought rich gifts in furs and curiously
wrought garments, refusing all gifts in return. It was not seemly that
his dead should be in debt for any service done. Then the missionary,
reading the grief and haughty pride in the piercing dark eyes, told him
of his daughter’s last days, of her peace, her hope, and her willingness
to go. And as he told the story the stern lines in the bronze face grew
soft, the piercing eyes grew kind.

“Good man!” he said in English, offering his hand. “Good heart!”
touching the missionary on the breast. “The Great Spirit will remember.”
And in token of his gratitude he and his six men deigned to break bread
at the missionary’s table and to accept gifts at the missionary’s hands.

After two days he made ready to go. Peter and Singing Water he was for
taking with him.

“She gave them to me,” he said in his own speech, which Paul knew as
well as he. “The little one will be in my heart and keep it warm. The
boy will be my son. He will be chief of my people when my camp fire is
cold.”

“No!” said Paul gently, but looking straight into the fierce old eyes.
“They are my father’s children, my brother and my sister. Their mother
put their hands in mine. They will tell you.”

Peter and Tanna were called.

“She gave me to him. I put my hands in his. I kissed the Holy Cross. He
is my chief,” said Peter simply.

“And you, Singing Water?” inquired the chief, his voice soft and tender.

The little blind girl moved quickly to the old chief’s side, passed her
fingers over the hard bronze face.

“I love my mother’s father,” she said gently, “and my mother’s people.
You were all so good, so good to me. But—but——” here the tears ran down
from the beautiful sightless eyes, “my mother gave me to Paul. I—I—oh! I
must go with Paul.”

The chief stood staring toward the spruce trees, his face fixed in every
line.

“It is good,” he said. “I shall go back to my people with my dead—alone!
My heart is cold. Soon the light in my eyes will become night and in my
ears will be no song of the Singing Water.” Then, with a sudden and
stern solemnity, he turned to Paul. “They have given their hands to you.
You are their chief. The chief hunts, fights, lives, dies for his
people. Will you?” He thrust his eagle face into Paul’s, his fierce old
eyes piercing to the young man’s very soul.

Not for an instant did Paul flinch or falter, but, giving glance for
glance, and yet with a grave and gentle courtesy, made answer, “I have
promised.”

For some moments the eyes of each held the other’s, then sweeping in one
all-embracing gesture earth and sky, the old chief intoned as in a
solemn ritual, “The sun, the sky, the earth, these have heard. These
will remember. The eyes of the Great Spirit are never shut. They will
follow the trail through the forests, over the mountains and down the
valleys, while the winds blow and the rivers run.”

For a moment he held Paul’s hand in his, then gave both hands to the boy
Peter, kissing him on both cheeks. For a long time he stood, obviously
striving to get hold of himself, then, in a voice that in spite of his
iron control faltered and broke, he said, “Come, Singing Water.”

With a cry the child sprang toward him. Lifting her in his arms he
kissed her eyes, her forehead, her lips, while she clung sobbing. Then
giving her to Paul he turned away. With stately grace he waved farewell
to the group at the missionary’s door, and, followed by his six tall
Chippewayans, he set his face toward his own North land, with never a
look behind, taking his dead with him.




                              CHAPTER XIX


“How do you like your young cowboy, McConnell?”

“Oh, all right, Starr. Seems a nice quiet young fellow.”

The two men were smoking on the verandah of Sergeant Starr’s neat little
house at the Mounted Police Headquarters. They were old friends, such
friends as Western men become who have stood by each other when life and
death were in the game.

“He is all that. I owe him something,” said the sergeant.

“Oh, that’s all right, Starr. I’ll straighten that out. How much?” said
the big Irish rancher.

“How much? Hot much,” replied the sergeant. “Only my life.”

“Mother o’ Moses! Let’s have ut!” McConnell had a habit in moments of
excitement of reverting to the speech of his childhood.

“Well, it is something of a story. Have you time for it?”

“All the time on the face av the clock, if it’s a story. You mean this
last trip? You never told me, Starr—and you promised it to me. Spit it
out, old boy.”

“It is some story, and but for that young chap I wouldn’t be here
telling you today. Well, here goes. I told you how I found him up at
Fort Reliance Hudson’s Bay Post, two hundred miles up in the Athabasca,
on my way north after a half-breed wanted for murder, Guerrin by name.
Told you how he got there with his Indian stepmother and two kids. Had
the bad luck on my up trip to have to ditch my corporal—frozen foot—so
had to play a lone hand. Got my man, though, and brought him back to
Fort Reliance. Let me tell you that every minute of that trip, day and
night, I had my hand on my hip. That half-breed Guerrin was an old
friend of mine. Twice I had spoiled a little game of his, and this time
I knew that with the prospect of a hemp-dance before him he would stop
at nothing. So it was man to man every minute of the march.

“When I got back to MacKinroy’s I found that the Indian woman had died
and that Paul had arranged to leave the youngsters in the meantime at
the Mission School and was keen to get back to civilisation. I struck a
bargain with him to bring him out and find him a job if he’d help me out
on the trail here. For the first three days all was serene. My prisoner
apparently had thrown up the sponge, and was all in mentally, a case of
collapse, with Indian stoicism accepting his fate and obeying orders
like a whipped cur. At least, so I thought. At the end of the third day
my cursed luck threw me into an ice crack, twisted my ankle, broke a
small bone as a matter of fact the doctor here says, and there I was
seventy miles or so from the Fort here, with a murderous prisoner, a
deadly fighter, strong as a bull, cunning and cruel as a lynx, and with
me a boy raw to this game, untried. I had to take to the toboggan,
rations were cut fine, very fine, and the trail was getting more and
more rotten every mile. I’ve had many more cheerful nights than that
night, as I lay sleepless by my fire, planning my course and weighing my
chances. My chances seemed slim enough, I confess to you.

“Next morning I tied my bucko up to a tree and took the boy off for a
council of war and set before him the facts—no neutral tints in the
picture, I assure you.

“‘He’s a devil in a fight,’ I told the boy. ‘Man to man on equal terms
he could beat up either one of us.’

“I liked the cool, questioning look in the boy’s eyes. I learned
afterwards that he had gone through the braves in old Wah-na-ta-hi-ta’s
tribe and come out top dog. But he had never gone the full limit—never
killed a man.

“‘And this half-breed Guerrin has it in for me. He would rather get me
than get free, I believe. He knows all the tricks too. Can we take him
through, or will we have to let him go, Paul?’ I said, trying him out.
He could not hide the surprise, the contempt in his eyes.

“‘I thought the Mounted Police always got their man,’ he said.

“‘They do—finally—but sometimes a Mounted Police has had to pay the
price,’ I said, keeping my eyes on his.

“‘Of course,’ he said, without a quiver of a lid, ‘they do their duty.’

“I tell you, old man, from that minute I felt sure we would make it or
both be feeding the wolves. Then I sprung my plan on him.

“‘Paul,’ I said, ‘I’m going to swear you in as a special constable.’

“‘Can you?’ he said.

“‘I have the authority. Are you willing?’

“‘For this trip?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I am willing.’

“I swore him in, told him my plan. ‘Here’s a gun,’ I said, offering him
one of mine.

“‘Have one—my father’s.’

“‘Can you shoot?’

“He gave me a jolt then. He looked about, saw a squirrel chattering and
whisking on a scrub pine, his hand flashed from his pocket—bang!
bang!—and the squirrel dropped, with two holes through its body.

“‘Dad showed me, and I’ve been practising a bit in the north for the
last five years.’ I just gulped.

“‘You’ll handle him,’ I said.

“‘Who?’

“‘Guerrin!’

“‘Never killed a man—don’t want to—couldn’t!’

“‘Rather he’d kill you? or me?’

“He looked at me doubtfully. ‘I don’t want to kill him. I couldn’t kill
him.’

“‘All right, let him kill me.’

“No, I think I could stop him,’ he said. Not very satisfactory, but it
was the best I could get out of him.

“We took watch about. But Guerrin fooled me properly. I don’t deserve to
be alive. After fifteen years in the force, handling bad men of all
kinds! That devil played ’possum, dragged back, growing weaker and
weaker, couldn’t eat, staggered on march like a drunken man, and at the
end of the first day fell down and lay like a log. Begad, I thought I’d
never get him in. The whole weight fell on Paul, trail breaking,
packing, mushing. Two nights out from the Fort, Guerrin staggered into
camp, fell down and refused to move. We made him comfortable before the
fire, fed him soup and stuff. Paul was pretty well in that night, and
didn’t tie up my prisoner. I took the first watch myself, hadn’t had
much sleep so fell off. Don’t know what it was—one of the dogs, I think,
gave a snort in his sleep—I opened my eyes, and, by Jove! six feet away
was Guerrin, knife in hand, on the crouch for a leap. I gave one yell
and flung myself as far as I could to one side. His knife touched a rib
and glanced off. Before I could get my gun he was on me, jabbing like
all possessed. I managed to grab his knife hand and hold him off. My
shout woke Paul, but he seemed dazed for a moment.

“‘Shoot!’ I yelled. ‘Shoot, you damned fool!’

“With one leap he covered the distance between us and was at Guerrin’s
throat. But that half-breed was like a wild cat; he squirmed free and
was off on the forward trail where it opened into a little lake, Paul
after him like a hound after a fox. ‘Shoot! shoot!’ I kept yelling. He
paid no attention. I laced up my moccasins, tied up my foot and hobbled
off as best I could after them. I hadn’t gone one hundred yards when I
came on ’em. Say, there was nothing to it. That boy was all over him
like ten thousand cats, and before I could come up had him lying quiet
and still, not a move out of him. I don’t know what he did or
how—knocked him out, I fancy—but that breed walked back to camp, dropped
to his bed and went to sleep like a baby.

“‘How in hell did you get him?’ I shouted at him, for I confess I was
considerably worked up.

“‘Oh, quite easy. He can’t run very fast and he doesn’t know how to
fight.’ The champion runner and the wickedest fighter in the North
Country!

“‘Where did you learn to fight?’

“‘Uncle taught me to box, and I used to wrestle with the Indians in the
north.’ I learned after some trouble that he had licked the whole tribe
at it.

“The rest of the journey was like a walk to church. I wanted him for the
force, but he’s bound to make money and make it fast. That’s why he went
to you. How is he doing?”

“All right. Quiet chap. The boys haven’t quite got on to him, poke fun
at him a bit. ‘Squatty’ Hayes is inclined to ride him a bit.”

“Well, my advice to Mr. ‘Squatty’ Hayes is to not monkey with the band
wagon or he may get his feet in the spokes.”

“He is keen now about learning the rope, working at it every off minute.
He can ride all right, but doesn’t know the rope.”

“He’ll get it. That’s his kind. He’s a finisher, you hear me. I’m
interested in that boy. Owe him a lot. Besides, he has a way that gets
me. And the missus and the kids are just a little worse.”

“All right, Starr, we’ll do our best for him. We’ll shove him along all
we can.”

The big Irishman was as good as his word, for before the summer closed
on the Three-Bar-Cross Ranch Paul had worked his way to the first rank
as a cowman and was drawing pay second only to the foreman, “Squatty”
Hayes, and without exciting the envy of any of his fellow-riders, unless
it was that of “Squatty” to a certain extent. But “Squatty” was too sure
of himself and too lazy, if the truth be told, to worry over the rapid
rise of a kid rider like Paul. The boy he bullied unmercifully, making
him fetch and carry shamelessly. But Paul’s good temper and good cheer
were unfailing and he never seemed to notice what was so obvious to
every rider on the ranch as well as to every member of the McConnell
household. Nor would he ever have noticed “Squatty’s” tendency to ride
him had it not been that the indignant fury of McConnell’s fiery hearted
and fiery headed sixteen-year-old daughter Molly made her take a hand in
the game. One evening as Paul came riding up to the bunk house door
after a long day in the saddle and was walking stiff and weary with his
horse to the corral, “Squatty’s” big voice boomed out after him.

“Hey, there, kid! Bring up my bronk, will you? I’m in a hurry. Get a
move on!”

“All right, ‘Squatty,’” answered Paul cheerily.

“Say, Paul! Don’t you do it!” rang out the girl’s voice, till the whole
bunk house heard. “Why do you let that big stiff boss you around?”

Paul stood looking at her in mild surprise. “Why? Well, he is boss,
isn’t he?” he said, a slow smile coming to his face.

“You’re hired to ride herd, not to lick his boots.”

“Why, I don’t——”

“You do!” cried Molly, flinging down the reins on the neck of her
temper. “You do! Tell him to go to hell!”

“All right,” said Paul cheerfully. Then, raising his voice, he sang out,
“‘Squatty,’ you go to hell!” and moved off with his pony to the corral.

A high tide of strongly sulphurous and quite unintelligible language
preceded “Squatty” from the bunk house, ending in the quite intelligible
question, “What’s that you say, kid?”

“Didn’t you hear?” inquired Paul innocently, as he strolled on his way.

“Look here! you blankety, blank young pup, I’ll knock your blank,
blankety blank head off.”

Paul stopped abruptly, swung his horse round, and leaned up against him.

“Ladies present, ‘Squatty,’” he said quietly. The quiet tone was like
oil to flame with “Squatty.”

“Huh!” said Molly. “He don’t make no difference for them!”

“I’ll show you!” said “Squatty,” striding up to Paul and throwing his
full weight into a swinging drive with his right at the boy’s head.

Just what happened no one of the company about the bunk house door, much
less “Squatty” himself, could explain, but when the slight confusion was
past the foreman was discovered to be quite helpless in the boy’s grip
and yelling for mercy. What had happened was after all very simple to
one who had become a master of all the tricks of Indian wrestling. Paul
with his right hand had met the reckless drive of “Squatty’s” mighty
right with a grip on the wrist, had swung the body half round, twisted
the arm up behind the back and with his left wreathed in the back of
“Squatty’s” coat collar now held him powerless and in agony.

“Let go, for God’s sake, kid,” groaned “Squatty.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, ‘Squatty,’” said Paul pleasantly, “but you
mustn’t do things like that, eh?”

“No, no, cut it out. I was just fooling,” said “Squatty.”

“So was I,” said Paul, letting his man loose. “And I’ll get your horse
for you if you’re tired.”

If ever there was a puzzled man it was “Squatty.” His astonishment
completely neutralised his rage. His eye ran up and down over the
slight, boyish figure. He still felt that steel-like grip that had held
him helpless.

“Say, kid, we’ll call it a game,” he said, offering his hand. “You don’t
need to get no horse for me.”

“Sure, I will, Squatty,” said Paul, heartily shaking his hand. “I’m not
as tired as I was.”

He swung himself on his pony and loped off after the foreman’s horse,
leaving a group behind him dumb with mingled surprise and admiration. It
was Molly who broke the impressive silence.

“Say, ‘Squatty,’ we’re always learning some, ain’t we?” she said with a
grin.

With grave deliberation “Squatty” paused to eject a stream of tobacco
juice, wiped his lips carefully with the back of his hand, and made
reply, “Molly, some fools git beyond the learnin’ age. You and I ain’t
that kind of fool.” And from that hour and for many a long year, among
Paul’s most stalwart champions “Squatty” Hayes was reckoned in the first
rank.

There was no further reference to the incident among the cowboys, for
“Squatty” was fierce in the “rough and tumble,” but there was no more
“ridin’ of the kid” in the McConnell bunch.




                               CHAPTER XX


From that day on Paul seemed to become more a member of the household
than simply one of “the bunch.” In the McConnell living-room stood a
really fine piano which the Irishman had taken off the hands of a young
Englishman who had been called home and had in reckless haste sold
everything and gone. Once Paul had been introduced to the instrument it
became the regular custom that after the boys had “fed up and washed up”
an invitation would come down to the bunk house, delivered in person as
a rule by Molly, in something like the following terms, “Ma wants you to
come up and play some music for us, Paul. The rest of you kids can come
up too if you like.” With which invitation the boys would be meekly
content. Thus night after night it was their custom to sit entranced,
all unconscious of the flight of time, under the weird witchery that
flowed from those long, sinewy fingers while Paul wandered at will from
“Ole Dan Tucker,” “Money Musk,” and “Turkey in the Straw” to “The
Moonlight” or a Bach fugue, or, best of all in Molly’s estimation, one
of Paul’s own improvisations. One thing, however, Paul always insisted
upon, and in this he was loyally backed up by “the bunch,” that Molly
must first play one of her pieces, “Silvery Waves,” “Woodland Echoes,”
“Clayton’s Grand March,” or, by special request, “The Maiden’s Prayer.”
Happy evenings these were to them all: to Paul, revelling once more in
the long-lost joy of communing with the great masters of music, and in
renewing memories of his boyhood years; to the boys; and to Pa and Ma
McConnell, keeping time with foot and hand to rollicking reel and jig
which, as nothing else could, brought back with almost painful reality
the good old times in old Ontario or Nova Scotia or in a very humble
cabin on “the dear ould sod beyant the sea”; and to Molly, sitting with
wide blue eyes staring into space, her heart rocked with mingled
emotions whose meaning she could not fathom.

But these nights, as all nights will, passed with the passing summer,
and with the approach of winter new plans had to be made.

One day when the snow began to fly and the cowboys were beginning “to
strike for the bright lights,” there to relieve themselves of their
summer’s pay that burned like molten metal in their pockets, McConnell,
after a long and serious conversation with his shrewd and motherly
spouse, lured his “kid cow-puncher” into his private den, to have “a
little chaw about things.”

“Got any plans for the winter, Paul?” he asked abruptly, after
exhausting such subjects of conversation as were of mutual knowledge to
them.

“Yes,” said Paul, “I’m going to study to be an engineer—going to
Vancouver or some other place where I can get teaching and experience in
an office.”

“Why! you ain’t got no schoolin’. It takes a lot of schoolin’ to be an
engineer, and a lot of money.”

“I know,” said Paul gloomily, “but I know the books, and——”

“‘Know the books’? An’ what d’ ye mean by that?”

“Yes, my—I had three books of my father’s with me up north. I know them
backwards. And I’ve got three hundred dollars about, and that will see
me through this winter. And then I’ll get a start.”

“Say! boy! You never seen a city yet, eh?”

“No,” smiled Paul.

“Don’t know what livin’ in a city means, eh?”

“No, but——”

“Three hundred dollars! An’ your fare to Vancouver to pay, an’ your
clothes to get, an’ you got to go round with the boys—an’—say, don’t do
nothin’ till I talk with Ma.”

“I’m going, Mr. McConnell. I’ll make it go. I must make it go. I must—I
will!”

Never during his seven months’ acquaintance with the young man had
McConnell heard that tone in Paul’s voice or seen that look on his face.
To him Paul had been simply “a nice quiet young feller,” but here was a
man speaking, a man with something of iron in his make-up, with a
flaming passion in his soul.

His report to his “wimmin folk” was quite sufficient to indicate that
his talk with the young man had been somewhat of a revelation to him. He
was humbled to discover that neither of them was in the very least
surprised by what he had to tell them. But then he never had been able
to quite keep up with their mental processes. In the face of some
startling discovery such as the one he had just made he would catch a
look flashing from one to the other, a look of mutual understanding
between themselves and of amused pity for him.

“O’ course he’s a man. And he’ll be a big man too some day,” said Ma
quietly.

“But he’s such a quiet young feller,” protested Pa.

“Quiet?” said Molly, with unexpected vehemence. “Say, Pa, where have you
been keepin’ yourself? You’d oughter seen him tie ‘Squatty’ up in a knot
till he squealed like a pig stuck in a gate. Say! I seen his eyes that
night and I felt like a snake was runnin’ down the spine o’ my back.
Quiet? So’s forked lightning.”

“Well, I never knowed,” said the abashed McConnell humbly, and again
with chastened spirit he detected that glance of superior knowledge and
pity flash from mother to daughter.

“It’s a pity he’s got to go to Vancouver,” said Ma. There was an eager
light in Molly’s eyes as she glanced at her mother. “Why don’t you offer
him a job, Pa? You need a smart man for foreman and time-keeper for them
tie camps of yours next winter. Goodness knows you lose money enough for
want of a bookkeeper.”

“He’s awful smart with books and things,” said Molly.

At the tremor in her voice Pa McConnell gave her a sharp look. Where
Molly was concerned he was keenly alive.

“He’s a nice enough young feller, but too young for a foreman. Might do
for time-keeper and store boss and that sort of thing,” said McConnell,
evidently turning the problem over in his mind. He did need just such a
man. He would save his wages because he would be both careful and
honest. And if he turned out well and made good—well—who knows? There
were possibilities in just such a young fellow. His contracting business
was developing beyond his personal supervision. He needed a partner. The
father looked at his daughter. He was startled at the eager, almost
breathless, anxiety in her face.

“Make him an offer,” suggested Ma. “You won’t be doing much for six
weeks or so. But he can stay round here and keep things goin’. And I was
just thinkin’”—she hesitated ever so little—“he might learn Molly on the
piano some.” The careless indifference in Ma’s tone was slightly
overdone, and she steadily refused to look at either of her listeners.

McConnell was busy lighting his pipe, which was giving him trouble.
Through the smoke he stole a casual glance at Molly while he diligently
puffed away. It gave him a queer twinge of pain and pity to see her face
flame to the colour of her hair and then gradually grow white, as the
girl looked steadily into the glowing face of the kitchen stove. For the
white face was not that of his little girl but of a girl suddenly become
a woman.

“Guess he won’t have much time for music lessons,” he said, covering his
pain with a harsh laugh, “but I might do worse. He’s mighty keen after
the dough. I might try him with sixty dollars and all found.”

“Now, Pa,” said his spouse sharply, “there ain’t no sense in talkin’
them figgers. He _is_ keen on the money, but you know he’s got to keep
them kids up at the school. He told Molly about them. And you ain’t
goin’ to get him for no sixty dollars. Nor for twice that. My land! Tim,
you’re not hiring a cowboy! You’re hiring a foreman and
perhaps—well—offer him one hundred fifty an’ no less, or he won’t look
at you.”

Twenty years’ experience of Ma’s shrewd estimation of values had taught
McConnell the wisdom of pondering her advice, but in spite of this he
could not restrain an exclamation of horror.

“One hundred and fifty! Holy mother o’ Moses, Ma! Have ye fled y’re
sinses? One hundred and fifty!”

“Yes, one hundred and fifty. If you don’t make it two hundred. An’ I
want to tell yez, McConnell,” said Ma, in her excitement reverting to
the rich brogue of her childhood days, “that unless ye have the sinse to
handle a big thing in a big way ye’ll make a fool av y’rsilf and niver
git a hair av him. An’ so ye won’t.”

Pa gazed at his wife in a maze of troubled wonder. What was the meaning
of this outburst? Not once in a year did Ma allow her emotions to reach
full tide as now. He was greatly disturbed himself. Here was something
beyond him which called for careful handling. Pa McConnell temporised.

“Tut! tut! thin, old woman. Wasn’t I just foolin’ wid ye? What’s the
hurry skurry about anyway? If we want him we’ll get him, an’ that’s no
lie. Molly darlin’, pass me a spill. Divil a draw can I get out of this
pipe o’ mine, at all, at all.”

And Ma recognised that for the present the discussion was at an end.

But Paul was making his plans for departure. He had written two letters,
Molly knew, for she had posted them. He had been down to the fort to see
the sergeant, and Molly resolved that she would jog the elbow of fate.

“My! I wish I could play,” she said to Paul as he was allowing his
fingers to carry his fancy whither it would.

“But you can, Molly,” said Paul, his generosity straining his
conscience.

“Huh! ‘Silvery Waves,’ ‘Clayton’s Grand’ and ‘The Maiden’s Prayer!’” The
infinite and bitter contempt in Molly’s voice startled Paul.

“Hello, Molly! Where did you get that?” he asked.

“From you,” said Molly sullenly. “I’ve heard you play.”

“Well, Molly, you are surely coming on. You have learned something you
will never forget.”

“Say, Paul, I wish—I wish—you would learn—teach me to play! Say! Pa’s
goin’ to offer you a job as his foreman. Won’t you take it—an’—an’—learn
me to play?”

There was no egotism in Paul. He had no knowledge of the moods and ways
of girls. But his instincts were true and his intuitions keen. Something
in the girl’s voice and in her big blue eyes made him horribly uneasy.
He was conscious of a quick desire to save her from humiliation.

“This is music, Molly, and simple, too. Listen!” He played with
exquisite finish a Sonatina of Mozart, one of his childhood’s lessons.
“You could learn that easily. See! there’s the motif of the thing, the
main tune, I mean. I’ll write it down for you and teach you.” Without
giving her a chance to renew her request, he went on from one simple
thing to another of the great masters, till the entrance of her mother
gave him a chance to escape.

But Molly was not deceived. “He won’t stay, Ma,” she said, her lips
trembling.

“What? Who?” inquired her mother sharply, with a quick glance at the
girl’s face. “Here, Molly, them milk cans is to wash and your Pa will be
round here in ten minutes raisin’ Cain—an’——”

“He’s goin’, Ma,” persisted Molly, her lips quivering.

“I don’t believe he’s goin’. Pa hasn’t said nothin’ to him yet. You get
on with your work or you’ll ketch it. Your Pa is goin’ to talk to him
today. Come! git a hustle on!” The edge on Ma’s tongue sent Molly about
her work, but only served to confirm the girl in her opinion. She knew
her mother. Wearily she went to the milk cans.

Ma found an opportunity for a brief but pointed word with her husband
before he set off on his trip with the milk for the Fort.

“Offer him big money, Pa. Don’t be mean. It’s not him I’m thinkin’ av,”
she said, helping her husband to load the milk cans.

“Now what the divil are ye afther, Ma?” inquired McConnell, gazing
open-mouthed at his spouse. When the brogue came rich to his wife’s
tongue he knew that things were stirring in her heart.

“Man dear, have ye no eyes at all, at all?” she asked impatiently, with
a glance at her daughter, who was chaffing with Paul at the head of the
team. McConnell’s eyes followed her glance.

“Saints and angels! Is that it?” he said under his breath.

“An’ for the luve av Hiven, Pa, remimber it’s not a foreman y’re
buyin’.”

“Bedad, Ma, it’s mesilf that can see through a stone wall with a hole in
it,” he said with a wink. “Quiet your heart, little woman. The thing
will be done.”

But before the milk cans were safely delivered at the fort Tim McConnell
was not at all so sure that the thing would be done. Indeed, so troubled
in his mind was he and so uncertain that he took his friend the sergeant
into his confidence.

“I went the limit, Sergeant, so I did,” he said, “for I knowed that if I
didn’t Ma would—would—Ma would be terrible disappointed. Offered him two
hundred and fifty dollars a month and found, and what’s more I told him
there was more than money in it.”

“You did, eh?” said the sergeant. “And what did you say was in it?”

“Well now, Sergeant dear,” said McConnell, dropping into his Doric, “you
wouldn’t have me throwin’ things at his head. But I said to him, sez I,
‘If things goes well it’s not a foreman ye’ll be, my boy, an’ when that
comes it’ll not be a question of money betune you an’ I,’ sez I, so I
did.”

“You did, eh?” replied the sergeant. “And what did he say then,
McConnell?”

“He didn’t say nawthin’. But from the look of him——” McConnell stopped
abruptly. “Sergeant, he said he must talk to you. An’ if ye can do
anything—man dear, I just can’t go home to the women wid the news. That
little—they’d take it bad.”

“I’ll do what I can, McConnell, but he’s got something on his mind,
drawing him on.”

The sergeant had a shrewd suspicion of what it was that made it
impossible for Paul to remain at the Three-Bar-Cross Ranch. He also knew
that no hint of this would he ever get from the young man himself. This,
however, gave him but the slightest concern.

“She’ll get over the thing,” he said to himself as he watched McConnell
drive off down the trail. “They all must have a go at it, the little
dears. But there is something eating into that boy’s soul. I only hope
he will give me a chance to help him out.”

The sergeant would get his chance that evening, for Paul was to spend
the night at the sergeant’s quarters, but he knew well there were
certain reserves beyond which men, some men at least, could not pass
with each other. If Paul chose to confide in him, well and good, but he
wasn’t a chap whose affairs you could pry into.

But Paul was quite open with the sergeant. He was in need of advice. His
life had been so remote from the world and its affairs, and now he was
face to face with big problems and he knew that in the sergeant he had
found a friend. He was glad when the sergeant said to him after dinner,
“And what about you, Paul?”

“Thank you, Sergeant. I’d like to ask you some things.”

“Fire ahead, old boy. You know you can ask anything you like.”

“First about that—about Sleeman. How do I stand with him. My father’s
wife burnt his house down. Don’t I owe him for that?”

“Not in law you don’t. The brute deserved it.”

“Man to man, Sergeant, as my father’s son, what should I do? What would
a man, a man of his class do?”

“Man to man, Paul, your father would consider it a debt.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Now, another thing. Do you happen to know anything
about my father’s affairs, with Sleeman, I mean? I know that your police
go into things pretty thoroughly. I have been thinking a lot.”

“You have, Paul. Well, we found out some things, not all we would like
but enough to make it worth while for you to go a little deeper, a good
deal deeper. Colonel Pelham knows a good deal. He unfortunately is in
England just now with his family.”

“Oh!” Dismay and disappointment were in the exclamation. “Then I shall
see Sleeman.” There was a long silence while the men smoked. They were
both looking down the trail that Paul was proposing to follow. Then the
sergeant spoke.

“Paul, you will have to be careful just at this point. No, wait till I
finish. Let me show you what I see from my point of view, as a member of
the force, I mean. If men could get things from that point of view they
wouldn’t so often make a mess of their lives. You are going to see
Sleeman. You must see him. I wish I could be with you, but that won’t do
either. But now listen!” The sergeant leaned over to Paul, put his hand
on his knee and said with slow emphasis, “You must not do anything to
him that you would not do if I were there.”

The boy’s face became very grave and quiet.

“There will be Another there.”

“Another? Who?” asked the sergeant.

“God,” said Paul simply. “I’ve always felt like that.”

The sergeant was a man not easily dashed, but this time he was plainly
dumbfounded.

“What I mean is He won’t let me kill him, as I wanted to do once,”
continued Paul. “You see, I have thought a lot about this.” A sudden
passion shook his voice. “Sergeant, these six years I’ve thought of
nothing else. I thought she had killed him. I was sorry it was not I.
Then you told me he was alive and I was glad—oh, wild! But as you know,
I promised her—and besides I have been thinking it all over again this
summer—every day, every night.” His voice was now quiet, almost cold. “I
know now I won’t kill him. I won’t be allowed. I may hurt him, may have
to, but I won’t do anything—I mean, that I shouldn’t do, that you
wouldn’t have me do. No, I won’t, I won’t be allowed.”

The sergeant swore softly and said, “Say, boy, I didn’t think you were
that sort.”

“What sort?”

“Why, religious, you know.”

“I am not religious. But ever since I was a little chap I have always
felt somehow that God is near me. Don’t you think so, Sergeant?”

The sergeant, who was one of the most regular and faithful attendants at
Church Parade and most devout in his religious exercises, found himself
hard put to it by the sudden demand for a confession of his faith.

“Eh? What? Why, of course—why, dash it all, boy, I’m not a blasted
atheist.”

“I beg your pardon, Sergeant. I knew, of course. But what I mean is, you
needn’t worry about me when I see Sleeman. He ought to be killed, but I
have got over the notion that it is my particular job to kill him.”

“Righto!” said the sergeant heartily. “And the same, you never know.
Sleeman is a proper brute. He has injured you terribly, cheated your
father too if I’m not mistaken. You never know what he may say or do.
Might insult you, say something about your—your people, you know.”

“I have thought of that. But I must see him. I must get a statement of
his dealings with my father, you see.”

“Will you get that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Paul with quiet assurance.

“How?”

“Oh, I know how. You see, I have made Indians talk before now.”

Something in the boy’s tone made the sergeant’s flesh creep.

“Gad! boy, remember you are not among savages any longer!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, but he must tell me, you see,” said Paul in a matter-of-fact tone.
“He ought to tell me. And so I will make him. I think he will tell me.”

“Good Lord! I believe he will,” said the sergeant. “But for Heaven’s
sake go easy.”

But Paul refused to make any disclosures as to his methods. The sergeant
hastily changed the subject.

“Then what, after Sleeman?”

“Going to study in Vancouver. I will have three hundred dollars. I can
get some work to do, can’t I? McConnell thinks I can’t do it. He wants
me to stay with him. They have been awfully good to me, but I can’t
stay. I must get away. I’m going to be an engineer and do big
things—build railways and bridges, like Daddy, you know.” He paused,
looking doubtfully at his friend. But the sergeant only nodded
encouragingly.

“Sure! fine thing!” he exclaimed as Paul waited.

At his words the young man caught fire. He had expected criticisms,
objections. The sergeant’s approval released the dreams of years. All
the hopes, desires, ambitions, that for the past six years he had
cherished, buried and revived again, he now poured forth into the
sergeant’s sympathetic ear.

“You’ll do, my boy! You will make it go! By Jove, you will!” cried his
friend, when Paul, somewhat shamefacedly and apologetically ceased his
outpourings. “And remember, whenever you strike a stiff grade you have
one man to back you with all he has.”

The sergeant had not forgotten his promise to McConnell, but as he
thought of it he knew at once how impossible it was of fulfilment. The
boy saw his way clearly. Nothing that McConnell could offer could avail
to turn him from that way. What lay in it of peril or of pain, who could
say, but press the path he would at all costs and at all hazards.

Thus it came that on a morning in that most glorious season of the
Canadian year, the Indian summer, Paul set forth on his great adventure.
It had been decided in family conclave that he would make the journey
more cheaply, an important consideration for him, by horseback than by
train, and more especially that the warm-hearted Irishman had insisted
that he should take with him the cow-pony on which he had ridden the
range for the past six months.

“It would be a shame to part yez,” he declared, “an’ next summer, please
God, you can ride him back where there’ll be a job waitin’ ye, so there
will.”

Long and vigorously Paul protested, but in vain.

“Tush!” said Ma McConnell to Paul in an aside, brushing away his
protests. “Why not let the poor man pleasure himself in givin’ the beast
till ye? An’ what’s a pony or less to McConnell?”

So provisioned and furnished till his dunnage bag and saddle bags were
like to burst with their gifts, Paul stood ready to take his departure.
They all made light of the leaving. In a few months he would be back
again, and besides, as Ma McConnell declared, what was to hinder them
taking a bit of a jaunt to the city themselves during the winter?
Indeed, they had long planned such a trip, and as for Molly, Pa was just
sayin’ how she ought to get a chance at her schoolin’ and her music for
a bit. So he might be on the lookout for them any day.

“Molly, where are ye thin? Och, the poor child! Ye’ll jist excuse her.
It’s broken hearted she is at the leavin’.”

“Say good-bye to her for me,” said Paul. “And good-bye, Mrs. McConnell.
You have been awfully good to me. I shall never forget you.”

“Hoosh! ye boy!” commanded Ma. “Will ye be afther breakin’ the heart of
me? Be off wid ye.” But she held him tight in her arms, refusing to let
him go for some moments, kissing him on both cheeks and praying the
saints to keep him, while Pa jeered at her.

“Howly Mary! Will ye consider that now! Right forninst the eyes of me!
Did ye iver behold the likes o’ that now? Well thin, me bye, good-bye
till ye. An’ if ye iver find yourself in a tight place call on Tim
McConnell an’ he’ll be at y’re back till y’re breast bone shows
through.”

At the turn of the trail Paul swung round his broncho and waved again
his farewell.

“Good-bye, all!” he cried. “And be sure to say good-bye to Molly.”

A mile from the ranch door the trail dipped down into a coulee and wound
through a thick bluff of mingling poplar and birch. With head fallen on
his breast and with his sight dim with unshed tears, Paul allowed his
pony to slowly take his way through the golden maze of trees. He was
leaving behind him the spot in all the big world that he could most
truly call home. He did not see behind a thicket of spruce a girl lying
prone, peering through the branches with burning eyes till the last
sight of him had vanished and there remaining long after the sound of
his horse’s hoofs had died away, her white face pressed hard upon the
soft brown moss.




                              CHAPTER XXI


The short November day was closing in a freezing drizzle of rain as old
Indian Tom, milk pail in hand, set out for the cowstable to do his
evening “chores.” As he turned into the stable yard he was startled to
see a horseman waiting him there, gazing round about him, a tall, lean
young man, hard of face and so dark of skin that he might have been a
blood brother but for the blue-grey eyes that looked down upon Tom as he
drew near.

“Hah!” grunted Tom. “Who come?”

“Hello, Tom! Don’t you know me?” said the young man, smiling at him.

The smile revealed him to the old Indian. Dropping his pail, Tom ran to
him with a cry.

“Kai-yai! Little chief come back! Good! good!” With both hands
upstretched he reached for the hand extended to him and almost dragged
the rider from his horse. Then followed a stream of jubilant Chippewayan
which continued unbroken while the horse was being unsaddled, rubbed
down and made comfortable for the night.

“You have everything in good order, Tom,” said Paul, returning from a
survey of the stables. “But where are the horses and cattle?”

“No more,” said Tom, spreading wide his hands. “Only cochon, heem at
house.”

“At the house?”

“Huh! Heem and his small leetle cochons at house. Come! I show heem,”
said Tom, leading the way to the woodshed attached to the kitchen, where
Paul discovered a sow and some half dozen half grown porkers, happily
and conveniently domesticated, the explanation of their proximity to the
bungalow being the desire of the Indian to save himself the annoyance of
exposure to the inclemency of the weather in their care during the
winter months.

“And where are the rest of the stock?” inquired Paul.

“Colonel Pelham, he mak de beeg sale. He’s all gone—all gone!” replied
Tom.

“And the money? But you won’t know.”

“No.”

“And the Colonel—where is he?”

“Me not know. Over de beeg water, think. He go some place,” replied Tom,
waving his hand in the direction of the universe generally.

“Oh, all right. I shall get into touch with him and he will tell me
everything,” said Paul more to himself than to Tom.

“And Sleeman, Tom?” inquired Paul.

“Sleeman? He at ranch. Ole woman she go dead. Girl she at home—good
clothes—oh!” Here, English failing him, Tom launched forth in his native
tongue into a highly coloured description of the magnificence of the
Sleeman girl. Asa, too, according to Tom, had developed into a “beeg
man,” “fat,” with plenty of money and gorgeously apparelled. Sleeman, as
far as Paul could gather, had made “much big money” through his
contracts in supplies with the railway construction gangs. He listened
with growing bitterness of spirit to Tom’s glowing accounts of the good
fortune that had come to the Sleemans, with which he contrasted the
unhappy fate that had befallen his father and his family, due to
Sleeman’s crimes. The age-long problem of the prosperity of the wicked
in a world ruled by a righteous God pressed hard upon his soul. During
those six lonely years with the Chippewayans in the North land, while he
was passing from boyhood to manhood, he had pondered long and deeply
upon that problem. True, his father had committed his sin. But he had
repented of his sin, bitterly repented, and to the utmost of his power
had made atonement. His sin had been forgiven and he himself reinstated
in the Divine favour. That was simple and right. Paul had come to
estimate at its full ethical value that sin and not according to the
standard of the savage or of the frontier people with whom he had met.
In her hasty flight from the consequences of her crime his Indian
stepmother had taken care to pack with her necessities a few books,
snatched up almost at random, among them two engineering books of his
father’s, a volume of Shakespeare and his Bible, his mother’s gift to
him. The engineering books and the Shakespeare he had practically
mastered, as far at least as the text was concerned. As for the Bible,
during those years of isolation from civilisation no day passed without
his giving an hour or more to its study. More than that, at the request
of his stepmother it became his daily practice to make the Bible a text
book for her children. For Tanna this was an hour of unmixed delight,
but for Peter the trail was heavy and progress was at the cost of much
toil and suffering.

In regard to his problem of evil and its punishment Paul had founded his
system of ethics upon the doctrine set forth in the Old Testament and in
the tragedies of the great master of the drama in the English or indeed
in any other tongue. That doctrine was simple and straightforward. The
criminal in due course received the just reward of his crime, both here
and hereafter. That was entirely as it should be.

The prosperity and happy fortune of Sleeman and his family, in contrast
to the tragic death of his father and his family, constituted an
insoluble problem for Paul. Had the Indian woman’s knife found its
intended vital spot and had Sleeman in consequence “gone to his own
place,” as was the case both in the Old Testament and in Shakespeare,
the demands of righteous government would have been met. But his father
slept on the hillside, done to death practically by Sleeman; his Indian
wife, balked of her just vengeance, lay in her far North land grave,
leaving her children homeless among strangers; while, prosperous and
happy, Sleeman and his family still lived, untouched by the vengeance of
man or God. Here upon the scene of this tragedy and in the atmosphere in
which it had been consummated, the pain of the insoluble problem became
almost unbearably acute. Paul thrust it from him in the meantime and
turned to matters more immediately pressing.

Indian Tom had evidently been making his abode in the kitchen, which
reproduced in its condition of general disorder and dirt the Indian mode
of housekeeping. From the kitchen Paul passed into the living room, and
went through the rest of the house, followed by Tom, whose face
exhibited every sign of anxiety. Paul was amazed and delighted at what
he saw. The rooms were in a condition of perfect order and cleanliness.

“Why, Tom, this is wonderful! You are a splendid housekeeper.” He ran
his hand over the face of the piano. “Not a speck of dust anywhere! Did
you have a housecleaning today?”

“Huh!” grunted Tom, in a state of high delight. “Every day! Every day!
Clean! clean! sweep! sweep! Every day! Every day! Colonel’s Pelham’s
woman she say clean him up every day. Look!” He caught down a shot gun
from the wall and threw open the breach. Paul looked through the
barrels. They glistened like silver.

“Good! Fine! Father himself never had it better. You have kept
everything in the very best shape.”

“De beeg chief, he good man to Tom,” said the Indian in a husky voice,
his face set in an unmistakable mould of grief.

The emotion manifested by the stoical and simple-hearted savage released
the flood of grief and loneliness that, without his knowledge, had been
gathering within Paul’s heart ever since he had turned in at the Pine
Croft drive. He threw himself into a chair, put his face in his hands,
while great sobs shook his body. On the floor beside him the Indian sat,
silent, his face rigid, immovable, as if cut in stone, his eyes
unseeing, staring straight into space. Thus they sat, master and man,
separated far as the poles asunder by race, breeding and convention, but
finding a meeting point in the great and profound emotions of love and
sorrow, in which all men, red, black, brown and white, are one.

After supper Tom took Paul to a special store-room where were piled up
the family boxes and trunks, each labelled as to its contents in the
Colonel’s neat hand-writing: “House linen,” “Silver,” “Books,” “Private
papers,” etc. From a cupboard in the kitchen Tom took a ring of keys and
indicated without the slightest hesitation the key for each trunk and
box. Indian Tom had been faithful to the trust imposed by the Colonel’s
“woman,” for the sake of the old chief who had saved his life many years
ago.

“We will open this one, Tom,” said Paul, pointing to the box labelled
“Private papers,” “and then you can go to bed. I shall be busy for a
couple of hours.”

But the grey dawn was coming over the mountains before Paul had gone
through the papers found in the box. The work was greatly facilitated by
the exactitude with which his father had tabulated and classified his
papers. The early letters from his wife before marriage, letters from
her during his absences from home, business documents, correspondence
with old friends of art school days, all were in their proper bundles,
rubber banded, dated and annotated in the neat lettering characteristic
of draughtsmen trained in the offices of the homeland. Nothing in the
way of private papers of date later than that of his wife’s death had
been preserved. It was as if his life in things of the heart and soul
had been buried in that grave which held all that was dearest in life to
him.

The private letters Paul left untouched. Some day he might be able to
slip off those bands and peruse the words that would be like windows
into the inmost shrine of his mother’s heart. But not today. He had a
business on hand for which he would need a cool head and a cool heart,
and a business for which he must prepare himself by an exhaustive study
of his father’s affairs. His knowledge of business matters was that of a
child. Business methods, business terminology, business principles, were
to him as English to a Chippewayan. The matter to which he addressed
himself was to discover the extent of his father’s indebtedness to
Sleeman. But after hours spent in figuring and comparing statements of
various dates he found himself compelled to acknowledge that he had come
to no assured opinion on the matter in hand.

A red leather-bound note book contained a record of receipts and
expenditures, but the record could not be made, by any arithmetical
process of which Paul was master, to square with the papers in the
trunk. Certain things appeared to be clear, however. There was a
mortgage on the ranch for fifteen thousand dollars, of the proceeds of
which ten thousand had been paid to the bank in Vancouver. To this entry
was attached the note, “This squares the bank, and Sleeman too, outside
of the mortgage, thank Heaven! Would to God I could square other
accounts as well. Those, alas! I must commit to the mercy of Almighty
God and to the love of those I love dearer than life itself.” Long Paul
pondered this note, but without clear understanding. A list of entries
of sums of money, following the mysterious letters, “I.O.U.,” with dates
and Gaspard’s signature, was found on one page and on the opposite page
a list of sales of Holsteins and Percherons, but the sums did not
correspond, nor did the entries marked I.O.U. correspond to a neatly
labelled bundle of slips of paper, duly dated and signed, similarly
marked with the letters I.O.U. and figures representing certain sums of
money. Finally Paul threw up the struggle and resolved that he would get
the truth from Sleeman himself. He had little knowledge and less
experience of business matters, but he had an instinctive knowledge of
men. Indeed he knew himself to be possessed of a strange power of
reading the hearts of men. No man had ever been able to lie successfully
to him.

Filled as he was with a settled and deadly rage toward Sleeman, he knew
that though he could kill him with his bare hands and though some such
vengeance was the man’s due for the killing of his father, yet from such
an act of vengeance he was prevented by the conscience within him and by
his solemn word to both his father and his Indian stepmother. No, he
must not and would not execute vengeance upon his enemy. Upon that he
was resolved. But he was equally resolved that he would find a method by
which he would extract the truth from Sleeman’s soul. With this resolve
arrived at, he fell into sleep as the dawn was breaking, from which he
was roused by Indian Tom only when the forenoon was half gone.

He found that his mind had carried over from the previous night the
bitter hate toward Sleeman which had been with him during his six years’
absence from home, and in an intensified degree. Before setting out on
his visit to Sleeman he walked up the hill at the back of the house, to
the little enclosed piece of ground where were the graves of his father
and mother. The poplars and birches about were bare and gaunt, but the
balsams and spruce clustered in a kindly way near the little plot, and
overhead the tall pines waved their feathery tops and sighed softly in
the wind. To Paul the place was as a temple of God, but as he looked
upon his father’s grave and remembered how it was that he came to be
lying there, into his heart there came a prayer that justice should be
done on him who had wrought this evil, and with the prayer a solemn vow
that the execution of that act of justice should not be by his hand. For
to him it came clear and certain that this matter lay in other hands
than his and that he should hold himself in readiness to act only as he
should be clearly guided. That he would be guided was to him a settled
conviction that left him with mind undisturbed and will resolved to
follow the path that should be made clear to him. In this mind he set
forth on his journey.

He took the old mountain trail to the Sleeman ranch. Every turn in the
trail was familiar to him, every turn associated with some incident in
his boyhood days. But he was in no mood to linger. Swiftly he rode and
came to the door of Sleeman’s new house, which stood on a site a little
removed from that which had been fired by his father’s Indian wife. The
door of the living room was open and standing within was Sleeman,
lighting his pipe. Without knocking Paul entered the room and walking
slowly toward Sleeman spoke in tones that cut like cold steel, “I am
Paul Gaspard. I have business with you.”

At his words Sleeman’s face turned a sickly, greenish yellow, the pipe
slipped from his fingers and fell clattering to the floor. He backed
away toward the door of an inner room, opened it and with a swift leap
was behind it, locked.

“Open that door,” commanded Paul. A moment he waited, then drove his
heel at the lock just below the door knob. With a crash the door flew
open. Within the room Sleeman was standing, a gun in his hand, hanging
loose by his side.

“Keep back,” he shouted hoarsely.

“Put—that—gun—down—quick!” came from Paul in sharp, staccato tones.

“You keep out of this room,” said Sleeman, in a blustering voice that
shook for all his bravado.

A movement swifter than the eye could follow, the snap of a gun, and
Sleeman’s gun was flung against the wall, his fingers dripping blood.

“A mistake, Sleeman. Didn’t intend to hurt you,” said Paul quietly. “I
should have warned you I am a trick hand with the gun. I tell you now.
Don’t try anything on me. There are five shots left in this gun. I can
shoot five fingers off you before you could draw. I should love to do
it. Do you know, Sleeman,” here Paul’s voice dropped a note, “I find it
hard not to kill you. I stood by my father’s grave this morning. You
killed him. Don’t speak, you dog! Only God Almighty is keeping me from
killing you now. Listen carefully. Do what I ask you and for God’s sake
if you want to live beyond this hour, do it quick!”

Paralysed with fear, the wretched man sank into a chair and sat there,
voiceless, staring at Paul, his breath choking him.

“You need a drink,” said Paul after looking at him disgustedly for a few
moments. “Get it, and quick.”

Quickly, gladly, Sleeman went to a cupboard, poured himself a stiff
glass of Scotch and drank it off.

“Now, Sleeman, I want from you a statement of how my father stood with
you in money matters.”

An amazed relief expressed itself in Sleeman’s blotched countenance.

“Yes, yes, certainly. Quite simple,” he said, striving to speak calmly.

“Get your papers,” ordered Paul sharply.

Sleeman went to a safe, brought out a tin box and selected some papers.

“There’s the mortgage,” he said. “That’s about all.”

Paul glanced at the document. He knew very little about such matters.

“This is for fifteen thousand dollars. Did you pay him the full amount?”
asked Paul, recalling an entry in his father’s red book.

“Yes—ah—the full proceeds of the mortgage,” said Sleeman.

“Sleeman, don’t try to deceive me. I know when a man is lying. Did you
give my father fifteen thousand dollars in money?” Paul’s voice carried
to Sleeman the fear of death.

“Not exactly. That is—he owed me something—we had other deals, you
understand.”

“No, I understand nothing but that you are trying to deceive me.” His
eyes, like points of steel, were boring into Sleeman’s. He leaned far
over the table. “Sleeman,” he entreated, “don’t make me hurt you. I
would love to, but unless it is necessary I must not. Listen! If it
should become necessary I will, and gladly. I should like to hear you
groan—as—as—oh, Sleeman!—as I heard my father groan the day you killed
him.”

“I didn’t kill——”

Paul’s open hand flashed to Sleeman’s face. “Liar!” he snarled, half
rising from his chair.

“Stop! stop!” cried Sleeman, utterly cowed and unmanned. “I’ll tell you
straight. I have the papers here. Don’t—do—anything!”

“Oh, you poor cur!” cried Paul. “If you were only a man I should know
what to do with you.” He was bitterly, horribly balked. He could not
bring himself to punish this abject creature. The truth was Sleeman was
by no means the man he was six years ago. He had been heavily
dissipating, and his face showed his physical and moral degeneration.
“Get through with this,” said Paul angrily. “Put your papers on the
table.”

Sleeman hastened to obey.

“Make a list of them.”

“Why? What do you——”

“Make a list of them!” snapped Paul.

The list was made out, Paul supervising and hastening the operation.

“You are sure these are all the papers relating to my father?” said
Paul, again boring him with steely eyes.

“Certain,” said Sleeman. “They are all there.”

Paul took the list, read it carefully, wrote a few words under it,
signed the paper and handed it back. “I shall take these for a few
weeks,” he said quietly, making a sheaf of the papers and snapping a
rubber band about them. “I shall return them to you in good order.”

“You have no right! You can’t——” began Sleeman, sputtering in his wrath.

Paul rose, put the bundle in his inner pocket. “Why can’t I?” he said.
“Do you see any reason? I don’t.” So saying he turned about and left
Sleeman standing with his mouth open and in a fury, if the colour of his
face gave any indication. At the door he turned and came back to
Sleeman.

“You have a new house. Your old house was burned. You know by whom.”

“Yes, I know. The——”

Paul with one stride was close to him. “Stop!” he said, gripping him by
the arm. “You are speaking of my father’s wife. You fool! Don’t you know
you are trifling with death?”

“My arm!” cried Sleeman. “You are breaking my arm.” Paul flung his arm
from him.

“She burned your house after you had attempted to outrage her,” he said.
The cold fury in his eyes struck Sleeman’s thumping heart with a new
terror. This young man stood to him for the very vengeance of God.
Indeed he could not understand why it was that he had not been killed an
hour ago for a crime for which western men show no mercy.

For some moments Paul stool regarding him with steady eyes, as if
deliberating the man’s fate.

“You know you should not be alive, Sleeman,” he said in a voice low,
tense, terrifying. “I wonder if God means me to kill you?”

“No! No! For God’s sake, Paul! I am a sick man! Don’t touch me! I was
wrong. I was wrong. I don’t blame her. I—I——” He was shaking in all his
body. He looked indeed a sick man.

A sudden thought came to Paul.

“Go and write down what you have said, and sign it! Go quick!” he
commanded.

“Yes! yes! What?”

Paul dictated a confession of his crime, and an exoneration of his
stepmother from guilt, which the shaking man signed with trembling,
eager fingers. He was very near the limit of his endurance, and was
anxious only that he should get through this interview alive and
scathless.

Putting the confession into his pocket with the other papers Paul turned
once more to Sleeman.

“What was your old house worth?”

“Oh—not much—not much. I don’t know. I——”

“Listen to me,” said Paul. “Colonel Pelham will act for me as
arbitrator. Appoint your man. I will pay what they decide to be right.”

Sleeman gazed at him in open mouthed astonishment.

“Pay me!” he gasped. “No! no! Oh, Paul, I don’t want pay for that—I——”

“Do what I tell you,” said Paul, and passing out of the house he mounted
his horse and was about to depart when into the yard cantered a lady,
tall, finely developed, sitting her horse superbly and with a somewhat
masculinely dashing style. With a slight bow Paul was passing her when
she drew up her horse sharply, swung him round and reaching out her
hand, cried:

“Why, glory be! If it ain’t Paul! The years can’t change those eyes. How
are you, Paul? It is good to see you again. And so tall and handsome!
Get off your horse and come in. Didn’t you come to see me? Or was it
Dad?”

Her frank, breezy, kindly manner did much to take the chill out of
Paul’s voice.

“I have just had a little business with your father, Adelina,” he said.
“But,” he added, taking her hand, remembering that he had no quarrel
with her, “I am glad I saw you before I left.”

“But you will come in. Do come. I want awfully to have a talk with you.
When did you come home? And how long are you going—I mean—oh, shucks! I
want an hour’s talk at the very least.” She paused abruptly, studying
his face. Then she turned to her father, who had come to the door. What
she saw in his face apparently changed her mind. “I will ride with you a
bit, Paul,” she said quietly.

Gladly would Paul have declined her offer, but he could find no
convenient excuse, so in silence they rode together toward the Pine
Croft Ranch, Paul wondering how much she knew of the whole tragedy of
his father’s death and she trying to compose the tumult in her heart
which the sight of Paul had awakened. Paul was determined that he would
wait her pleasure and her revealing. Suddenly and apropos of nothing,
Adelina burst forth into a vivid account of her life’s happenings during
the past six years; two years in a Toronto school, a winter in Vancouver
with an aunt, the rest of the time poking round this valley, which
however had considerably wakened up from its dreamy monotony of their
early years—new settlers had come in, surveyors’ parties were everywhere
about, a railway was to be put through the Crow’s Nest Pass, times were
good, everybody who had anything to sell was making money. Her dad, or
rather Asa, A. Warren Sleeman, Esq., now, if you please! was into town
sites and railway contracts and that sort of thing, and making slathers
of money. Oh, everything was booming. And by the time her history had
been related she had herself firmly and fully in hand. “And now for your
story, Paul,” she cried, turning her dancing eyes on him.

In three sentences Paul told her. Five years and a half he had lived
with his stepmother’s people in the far north. His stepmother had died
on the way out, leaving her children at a Mission School. He had herded
cattle near Edmonton for the last six months and was on his way to
Vancouver now, to learn to be an engineer. That was all. Somehow
Adelina’s face shone as with a light of glad relief. Paul had come back
to her as free of heart as he had gone.

“Vancouver? Oh, bully!” she cried. “I know lots of people in Vancouver.
Do you know anyone? No! Then I’ll give you introductions to some swell
people. They are Asa’s friends.”

“I shan’t have time for many friends. I must work,” said Paul.

“Oh, shucks!” cried Adelina. “Every fellow needs friends to get on.”

Paul set a grim mouth. “I shall get on,” he said.

Adelina’s eyes showed their admiration, but her words scorned him for
his independence.

“Get every friend you can and use him all you can, that’s my theory. Why
shouldn’t I? I’m ready to help my friends,” said this worldly wise young
lady. “By the way, have you heard anything of the Pelhams? Of Peg?”

“No,” said Paul, looking away across the valley. “They are in England, I
hear.”

“Yes, have been for a year. Before that Peg was in school in England for
years and years. She is awfully pretty, no end of a swell, and engaged
to be married.”

In spite of all his self-control Paul’s hands tightened on his reins so
that his horse came to a full stop.

“Go on, you brute,” he said, angry at himself. “Young a bit for that,
isn’t she?” he said in a voice which he strove to make casual.

“Young? Dear boy, don’t you know that she is just two years younger than
you or I? She is a finished young lady.”

Paul turned this over in his mind as an astounding bit of information.
Peg as a young lady, as one whom a man might desire to marry, was
something not only amazing but quite disturbing.

“Is she—are the Pelhams coming back home soon?” he inquired, his mind
occupied with the picture of a little girl standing in the moonlight,
looking up at him and whispering, “I won’t ever forget, Paul.”

“This winter they come back, I think. At least, if Peg doesn’t get
married,” said Adelina, her shrewd eyes searching his face and reading
it like an open book.

Paul caught the look, resented it, and closed the open book. But he
would talk no more of the Pelhams or of their plans. He listened
instead, or appeared to listen, to Adelina’s chatter about Vancouver and
the possibilities of a gay life in that young and ambitious city, till
they came to the Pine Croft drive.

“You are not listening to me a bit, Paul,” she said, with a pout. “You
are thinking of Peg I know,” with a gay laugh, “but you might as well
put her out of your mind.”

“Yes,” said Paul gravely, “I might as well put her out of my mind, and
every other girl, as far as that is concerned.” He pulled up his horse
sharply and swinging his arm to include in its sweep the Pine Croft
Ranch, he said with a touch of bitterness in his tone, “I have to make
twenty thousand dollars to buy back all that, before I think of anything
else.”

“Buy back? From whom, Paul?”

“From—why, don’t you know?—from your father, Adelina.”

A gleam came into Adelina’s eyes.

“No, I did not know, Paul. I don’t know anything about your affairs. But
why that first?”

But Paul would not discuss the matter. Adelina was quick enough to see
that he was keen to be alone. She longed to express sympathy, she longed
more to offer aid, but, remembering the look upon her father’s face as
he stood at the door a few minutes ago, determined to say nothing.

“Good-bye just now, Paul,” she said, offering her hand. “When do you
go?”

“I hardly know,” replied Paul, taking her hand in his, his mind quite
evidently far away. Her warm firm grip recalled him. “Good-bye,
Adelina,” he said. “Thank you—for—for coming with me.” What he really
meant was for the sympathy expressed in her warm hand grip.

“You know, Paul,” said the girl, with a sudden shyness, “I am awfully
sorry for you, for everything—you know.”

“Yes, I know, Adelina,” he said, a strange feeling of desolation falling
upon him. “Again, thank you. Good-bye.” Again he took her hand.

Adelina let her eyes rest steadily upon his for a moment or two,
withdrew her hand and, wheeling her horse, set off down the road at a
gallop, while Paul rode thoughtfully up the drive, realising for the
first time in his life how utterly alone he was in the world. As he drew
near the bungalow he straightened himself in the saddle.

“Well, she is gone,” he said. “And anyway I have my work to do. And God
helping me I will do it.” But he was not thinking of the girl who was
galloping down the road.




                              CHAPTER XXII


Reverend John Wesley Robinson had just returned from his morning service
in the First Methodist Church, pleasantly tired and stimulated by the
exercise of his sacred office. He was a young man of vigorous, indeed
athletic, physical frame, of excellent education, and was supposed to be
somewhat radical in his theological position; a popular preacher and, in
vulgar parlance, “a good mixer”; greatly liked by his congregation too
he was, and by his wife adored. To the companions of his boyhood days
and to his college mates he was known as “Wes” Robinson, but his wife,
being of High Anglican extraction and accepting his denominational
relations with considerable reluctance, abjured the “Wesley” in his name
and called him Jack.

He was late for lunch and therefore was received at the door with
vigorous chiding.

“You are terribly late, Jack. I pity your people this morning. Why did
you preach such a long sermon? What in all the world keeps you till this
hour?”

“Am I late? I suppose I am. I apologise. And I shall be ready for lunch
in three minutes. I have had an exciting experience.”

“Well, hurry then,” she cried after him as he ran upstairs.

Settled down for lunch and with the preliminaries well on the way, the
minister’s wife proceeded to question her husband as to his exciting
experience.

“Now tell me all about it,” she said, “and begin at the beginning. Did
you have a good congregation?”

“A great congregation,” replied her husband. “And splendid singing.”

“And, of course,” said his wife, “a good sermon. Did you ‘make ’em sit
up,’ as you told me you would?”

“Well, certainly I made one young fellow sit up. And he nearly beat me
up for my pains.”

“What do you mean?” asked his wife.

“Just what I tell you. I thought I was in for a genuine row.”

“Go on! Go on! Why do you stop?”

“Well, it is such an astonishing experience that I am almost paralysed
by it.”

“Go on, you silly boy,” cried his wife impatiently. “You are so
provoking.”

“Well, let me begin at the beginning. You remember my sermon was a
discussion of the origin of the Bible, and I went in for a somewhat mild
discussion of the critical difficulties and that sort of thing attached
to the text, as I told you last night.”

“Yes, I know you did. And you remember I warned you that you would get
into trouble.”

“Well, you were right, as you are always. But let me go on. Don’t
interrupt me. At the close of the service, after all the people were
gone, I found sitting in the back a young man dressed like a cowboy,
apparently not waiting for me but held there, entranced by the music.
DeLaunay was playing some weird and wild thing. I came down with my most
gracious smile and hand outstretched to welcome him to the church, in
the orthodox style, when he rose from his place, a tall, lean, hard
looking chap, and yet the kind of fellow that you would call ‘a
dear’—good blue eyes, thin face, very attractive, in short, ‘a lovely
boy,’ as you would say.”

“Well, what was the matter with him?” inquired his wife impatiently.

“What was the matter? My heterodoxy.”

“Well then I agree with him. I am sure he must be quite a nice boy. And
I wish you would just leave people alone with their Bibles. It was good
enough for their fathers, why not good enough for them?”

“Well, my dear, I have two reasons, as you very well know. The first is
that if I leave the people alone my conscience won’t leave me alone. And
the second is that if I leave the people alone they will soon be leaving
the church alone.”

“Well, go on with your story. Tell me about the boy.”

“As I said, I began welcoming him most cordially to the service, and
that sort of thing, and he opened out on me. First shot, ‘You don’t
believe the Bible!’ he said. ‘What?’ I said. ‘You don’t believe the
Bible. You don’t believe it is God’s inspired word. Do you?’

“Well, I was flabbergasted. I said, ‘Yes, of course I do.’ ‘But you said
a lot of it wasn’t true. How do you know the true parts from the
untrue?’ At this he pulls out his Bible—it looked well worn from
use—opens it at the very first chapter and said, with a long finger
pointing to the first verse—by the way, he has beautiful hands—‘You
don’t believe that first verse: “In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.” You don’t believe about Adam and Eve. You don’t believe
about Noah and Joseph and Moses and Pharaoh’s daughter and Goliath.’

“My dear, I tell you I was completely knocked off my pins. He was so
deadly in earnest. His keen blue eyes were blazing into mine with the
light of battle in them. He was full of vital energy and he looked ready
to leap at me. Great Scot! I couldn’t help thinking what a halfback he’d
make, how those long, sinewy hands would grip and hold. And when he said
to me, ‘Are those things true or not?’ I had the feeling that if I said
they were not true he would get me by the throat. You know it is rather
awkward to answer a question like that offhand, to give, in fact, your
whole theory of Biblical criticism in a sentence. I confess I stood
gaping at him. He was so fiercely intense. He turned over to the New
Testament. ‘How about this?’ he said, putting his finger down on the
second chapter of Matthew. ‘How about Jesus? How much of that is true,
how much is false?’ And when he came to that the boy’s lips trembled. My
dear, my heart went out to him when he said, ‘What about Jesus?’”

“What did you say?” inquired his wife, her eyes shining at him. “He must
be a dear boy.”

“I frankly tell you I funked the whole question. I said, ‘Come and see
me and we will talk it over.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I will.’”

“Good for him!” cried his wife. “And it serves you right, Jack. Then
what happened?”

“Well, I got him to promise to come back tonight. I said to him, ‘You
are not treating me fairly, you are not playing the game. Give me a
chance to put my whole case to you.’ That seemed to stagger him a bit.
He said, ‘Yes, that is fair. I will come tonight.’ It was the music,
however, that got him.”

“And where is he now?”

“I left him moving up toward the organ, in a kind of trance. He had
never heard an organ in his life. I suppose he is there still. But I
must see that boy, I must get him.”

“I should think so,” said his wife. “You owe him something.”

“I suppose I do,” said Jack, his face wearing a troubled look. “Say!
This preaching business is a terrible job.”

“Never mind, my dear. I am sure you preach perfectly beautifully, and
there is no better preacher in the city. But I wish you would not preach
so much with the idea of ‘making ’em sit up,’ as you say. I tell you
what, Jack,” she added with an inspiration, “take him to the Mission.
That is what he wants.”

“Darling, you are a wonder,” cried her husband. “I wish I could show you
how wonderful I think you are.” He rose from his place and walked round
toward her end of the table, with the idea of demonstrating the
marvellous charm of his wife.

“Go and sit down, you silly boy. Your dinner is cold. But you must get
that boy and bring him here. I wonder where he is having his dinner?
Down in some of those horrid hotels, I suppose.”

But Paul at that moment was oblivious of anything so material and
mundane as dinner. As a matter of fact, he and the old white-haired
organist, Victor DeLaunay, were discussing and discoursing music. As the
old organist was concluding his morning postlude he turned about and saw
a young chap with face aglow standing at his back.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed the youth. “Wonderful!”

“Do you play?”

“No. The piano a little.”

“But you know the keyboard?”

“A very little,” replied the young man, humble in the presence of a
great master.

Charmed by his manner and by his face, the old organist said—and it was
a great concession—“Would you like to try?”

For answer Paul vaulted over the rail and was at the old man’s side on
the bench. “Would you really not mind? I should like just to try it.”

“Come on then. Proceed.”

As Paul settled himself at the keyboard there was a great roar from the
pedal notes.

“Ah! Keep your feet off the pedals.”

“What?”

“Your feet. Keep your feet off the pedals. See!” And the old organist
slid his feet up and down in scales and chords.

“Oh! You play with your feet! Wonderful!”

“Yes. Now try without the pedals.”

Then Paul placed his hands upon the keyboard. A simple Mozart melody
flowed from under his fingers, a bit of the glorious Twelfth Mass. An
expression of surprise lit up the old man’s face. He began manipulating
the stops. Paul stopped playing.

“What are you doing with those things?” he inquired, amazed at the
variation in the tone produced by the stops.

The old man eagerly proceeded to explain the mechanism of the organ,
demonstrating the value and purpose of each stop as he went along.

“Now,” he said, “you play. I will show you how the stops go. Do that
Mozart thing again.”

With growing confidence and courage Paul began to play and soon in the
rapture of the music forgot himself. From one master to another he went,
doing his piano music, exhilarated, overwhelmed, the old man following
or anticipating his moods with the stops. Finally he wandered into his
own Spring Symphony, the “Out of Doors” Symphony of Pine Croft. He
stopped abruptly.

“Tell me, is there any stop for running water?”

“What are you playing?” inquired the old organist.

“Oh, a foolish little thing that I call the Spring Symphony, an
out-of-doors thing. What is the stop for running water?”

In harmony with his mood the old man pulled out a stop.

“That’s it!” shouted Paul. “Now sunshine, bright yellow sunshine!” And
again the organist responded. From one mood to another of the spring day
they wandered together. “Now then, a storm!” And the diapasons began to
roll forth their sonorous tones. “Evening!” shouted Paul. “The sunset!”
and at last, “The stars!”

By this time they were both in a state of super-exaltation. When Paul’s
fingers fell from the keyboard the old man, with the tears streaming
down his face, cried out, “Boy! boy! mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Who taught you
that?” He threw his arms around him and kissed him, French fashion, on
both cheeks.

“Come with me,” he continued. “Come home and dine with me. I want you to
know my girl, my Julie. I want you to play my piano, a wonderful piano.”
There was no resisting the impetuous enthusiasm of the old organist, and
before Paul was aware he found himself accepting this invitation to
dinner and on his way to the organist’s home. And as they walked they
talked, and talked music only.

“Who taught you your music?” inquired the old organist. “Your father? He
must have been a great artist.”

“It was my mother made me practise,” said Paul. “And to her I owe any
skill I have upon the piano. But my father was an artist. He had the
thing in his soul, and though he never professed to be a great player I
think now he must have had the gift of music. It was he that taught me
to play the music of the streams, of the wind in the trees, of the
sunset, and of the stars. He himself used to play these things to my
mother and me, when the mood was on him.”

“Ah!” cried the old organist. “That is true teaching. That is high art,
and there is no other. Oh, these teachers of today, and in this city!
Atrocious! Atrocious! Murderers of music! Philistines! Barbarians! One,
two, three, one, two, three; tum, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum! A diploma at
the end of a year, or at most of two years! Public performers after
another year! Gilmour’s Grand March, Smith’s March to Moscow, Jones’
Storm at Sea—oh, it is terrible! It is terrible!”

Their way home took them a long walk through the suburbs of the city.
There, hard against the heights overlooking the city, Paul found a
little house snugly ensconced in the shadow of a great rock and
surrounded with a garden riotous with late blooming flowers.

“Oh, what a garden!” he exclaimed. “And what lovely flowers! My mother’s
flowers!”

“Ah!” exclaimed the old man. “Your mother’s flowers? Good! These are my
Julie’s flowers, the dear girl. There is the artistic soul. I will show
you some of her work. Some day she will be a great artist. Some day I
shall take her to see the great world galleries. Come in, Mr. Paul, come
in.” He threw open the door and swept Paul in with an old world bow.
“Welcome to my humble abode! Welcome to my home! Julie! Julie!” he
cried.

In response to his call a girl came running out of the door. Tall she
was and slight, the plainness of her face redeemed and glorified by
wonderful dark eyes. A girl in face and expression, though in years she
had long passed the period of girlhood.

“You are very late, Papa,” she exclaimed “and very naughty indeed. You
must be tired and hungry.”

“My dear, my dear, what matter? We have had a glorious morning, my
friend and I. Ah! This is my friend, Mr. Paul—” he hesitated—“your other
name?”

“Gaspard.”

“Ah! Gaspard! Mr. Paul Gaspard. French, my dear, French. That is where
he gets his music. French, of course!” The old gentleman was much
delighted. “Mr. Gaspard, my daughter Julie. A wonderful young man this,
Julie. Now we must hasten through dinner in order that we may have some
music.”

But Julie would have none of this. “Papa,” she said severely, “you must
at once go and prepare yourself for dinner. Show Mr. Gaspard to your
room. And then we shall sit down and quietly enjoy our Sunday dinner,
and we shall take full time to it too.”

“Ah! Julie, you are so material. You are so much of this world.”

“It is well for you that somebody is material and of this world. But run
away and get ready.”

It said much for Julie’s housekeeping powers that the unexpected
appearance of a guest in that small family produced no apparent
embarrassment. The dinner was simple, and, to a young man fresh from the
ranges, not too substantial, but quite sufficient for the old organist,
who picked daintily at his food, and for his daughter.

Her father was full of his discovery of Paul, much to the latter’s
embarrassment, who protested that he was not a musician and assured
Julie that he played the piano but a very little.

“Ah, but some day!” cried the old organist. “Some day you will be a
great artist on the organ. I see it in your fingers, I see it in your
face, I see it most of all in your Spring Song. Ah! Julie, he will play
for you his Spring Song.”

But Julie insisted that the subject of music should be banished from the
dinner table. “If my father talks music,” she said in explanation to
Paul, “he cannot and will not eat. Therefore we must talk something
else, even the weather. But no more music till dinner is over.” And this
she achieved by skilfully turning the conversation now to one subject,
now to another, and most successfully when she beguiled Paul into
telling the story of his experiences of the past summer. Beyond that he
would not go. His reticence also extended to his plans for the future.
In regard to what he meant to do he expressed himself in vague
generalities, and his hosts were much too well bred to show any
curiosity on the subject.

Dinner over, the old gentleman was relentlessly hailed away by his
daughter to an hour’s rest. “You know, Papa, you have your evening
service and you must have your rest to be ready for it. My father is not
strong,” she explained to Paul, “and therefore he needs to be cared for
like a baby.”

“Ah, Mr. Gaspard,” said her father, “she is a hard taskmaster. She is
one to be obeyed. She rules me with a rod of iron. I shall leave you.
There is the piano, and I beg you to consider yourself as in your own
home.”

“Yes, Mr. Gaspard,” said Julie, “we shall treat you like one of the
family and leave you to yourself. My father must have his sleep, and for
me there are my household duties waiting.”

“And I will not disturb you if I play?” said Paul to the old gentleman.

“Not at all. I shall the more easily fall into sleep.”

And so there followed for Paul an hour of perfect bliss. The piano was a
magnificent Broadwood, of exquisite tone and in perfect tune. And to
Paul, who had not touched a piano worthy of the name for more than six
years, this opportunity was as cold water to a thirsty soul.

Ever and anon Julie flitted in and out of the room, intent upon her
duties, now throwing in a word of appreciation and again suggesting one
of her favourite bits for Paul’s playing. When her work was finished she
came into the room and, drawing Paul away from his piano, by the charm
of her conversation led him far afield into regions hitherto unknown to
him. She talked of books whose titles he had never known, she talked of
great pictures by masters of whom he had never heard; but when she
talked of nature and its secrets, of the mountains and rivers, she found
in Paul a kindred soul, alive to the beauty and glory of the great
outside world. She had never seen the Windermere, and she led Paul to
picture for her the scenes that lay about his childhood’s home and to
tell her of his father’s work in spreading them on canvas.

“And your father’s pictures?” she inquired. “Where are they?”

“Many of them,” he said, “I have left at Pine Croft—our home, you know,
in Windermere. But a number of them I have brought with me. I should
like to show them to you.”

“Oh, do,” she cried. “Will you bring them to me? I should like to see
them.”

It was late afternoon when her father appeared, ready for music and for
more music. But with delicate tact she made Paul feel that it was her
desire that the old gentleman should not be unduly excited but that he
should save his full strength for his evening service. Thereupon Paul
took his leave, promising himself the pleasure of hearing the old
musician once more at the church that evening. “And afterwards come home
with us.” To this Paul eagerly agreed.

The boarding house which late on Saturday night, upon his arrival in the
strange city, Paul had stumbled upon had but one redeeming feature, it
was cheap. The rooms were ill kept, the table service was dirty, the
boarders were noisy and ill-mannered, and the keeper of the house was
overworked and consequently unsympathetic to the wants of her guests. As
Paul was passing up the dark and filthy staircase to his room a young
man came lounging out of his bedroom and stumbled down, the stairs,
lurching heavily against Paul.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”

“All right,” said Paul. “It is dark, isn’t it?”

Something in his voice arrested the young fellow. “You are a new boarder
here?” he said.

“Yes. I came last night. My name is Gaspard.”

“And mine is Dalton,” said the young man, turning back with Paul. “Come
into my room. I want to talk to you. It is Heaven’s own mercy to meet a
gentleman in this God-forsaken hole. Sit down. I want to talk to
someone. I must talk to someone.”

Dalton had apparently been drinking heavily. His eyes were bloodshot,
his hands were trembling, he had the wretched appearance of a man
recovering from a bout.

“Yes, it is a God-send to meet a man who can talk decent English. This
is a hell of a place where brutes congregate, and Sunday is one long and
ghastly agony for me.”

Paul listened in astonishment. He had never met with a man of just this
type. He had known drinking men, in all their moods and tenses, for the
most part men of the woods and plains, trappers, hunters, cowboys,
half-breeds. But here was a man of such education and culture as would
make Paul class him with his own father.

Dalton during the next half hour proceeded to give Paul the history of
his doings of the past day and night, growing more confidential and
loquacious as he helped himself from a bottle which he kept in his
cupboard.

“Have a drink,” he cried, pressing the bottle upon Paul.

“No,” said Paul, “I never take it. I have never learned to like the
stuff. To me indeed it is distasteful.”

“For God’s sake, never change your mind on that,” said Dalton. “Avoid
your first drink. It is the devil’s trap, and sooner or later it gets
you. It has taken years to get me, and now for this”—he held the bottle
up before him—“I would sell my soul, I am selling my soul.”

“Then why not chuck it?” said Paul.

“I wish to God I could,” cried Dalton.

“Then I will help you,” said Paul. And picking up the bottle, he threw
it out of the window. “There!” he said, as the crash came back to their
ears. “That at least will hurt you no more.”

“What the hell do you mean?” cried Dalton, making a spring at him.

“Oh, nothing,” said Paul coolly, gripping the other’s wrists and holding
him as a man might hold a child. “You wanted to be rid of it and I
helped you.”

“Well, by Jove!” said Dalton, breaking into a laugh. “You are a cool
one. And you have a most infernal grip. There was a time—but that is
past, curse it! Let us go down to tea. What are you doing tonight?”

“Going to church.”

“To church?” laughed Dalton scornfully. “To church? You go to church? I
used to go; I used to like to go to church. But,” with a great oath,
“I’m done with it. I am done with the church and all that sort of
bunkum.”

“Better come with me tonight,” said Paul. “I will take you where there
is some good music at least. As to the preaching I can’t promise you
anything.”

“Not on your life!” cried Dalton. He tore open the cupboard door. “Here,
devil take you! you’ve thrown out my last bottle. I must get some more.”

“What about tea?” said Paul.

“Tea? No! No tea for me. The thought of eating makes me sick. I must
have a drink. Young man,” he said, “go to church and stick to your
church if you can and as long as you can.” He stumbled downstairs and
left Paul looking after him in amazement and some pity.




                             CHAPTER XXIII


The night had fallen, black, with breaking clouds, and the moon
struggling through, as Paul set out for church. Ignorant of the city’s
streets, his instinct for direction, developed on many a northern trail,
guided him aright as he cut across the city by back streets and lanes
towards his destination.

Passing along a dark street, he saw before him a group of men, noisy,
hilarious, quarrelling. Drawing near, he discovered the group to consist
of three men assisting a fourth, apparently drunk, and blocking the
sidewalk. He was not entirely ignorant of the ways of men in liquor, and
was proceeding quietly on his way when he was hailed by the drunken man.

“Hello there, boy! Come here, boy! Come here, I want you.”

“What do you want?” replied Paul, drawing near.

“Come here, boy,” said the drunken man, with great gravity. “I want
shplain shomething. Lemme go. Want shee thish young man. Hands off. My
name’sh Dan Tussock, can’t come over me.”

“That’s all right, Dan. Come along now. Don’t go making a row,” said one
of his friends, soothingly.

“Lemme go, I tell you. Walk by myshelf. Here, boy!” He seized Paul by
the coat collar and hung, swaying.

Paul stood regarding them curiously.

“What are you looking at, young man? Did you never see a man pickled
before?” The speaker had an evil face, cunning, and with a shaggy growth
of whiskers.

“Yes, I have seen men pickled,” said Paul. “But if this gentleman wants
to speak to me I am going to hear what he has to say.”

“That’sh all ri’. Don’t take no lip from ole Sammy here. My name’sh Dan
Tussock, can’t come over me.”

“Ah, come along, Dan,” said “whiskers.” “The cops will get you.”

“Copsh? Who’sh ’fraid copsh? Copsh know Dan Tussock, Sammy.”

“Sure they do, Dan,” said another of the men, smooth of face and smooth
of manner. “We are just getting our friend here home,” he added in an
aside to Paul. “We don’t want him run in, you see.”

But Dan Tussock was very alert, although thoroughly “pickled.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “Friendsh sheeing me home. Shay, meet my friend,
Mishter—shay, what’sh your name?” to “smooth face.”

“Why you know your old chum, Dan. You know my name—Sissons.”

“Sure I do. Shis-sh—Shish-sh—what’sh your name?”

“Sissons, you know. Say, Dan, you are pretty well stewed when you can’t
say my name,” said the man, with a loud laugh.

“Meet my friend, Shish—Shish—Shis-sh— What the hell name is thish
anyway?”

“Sissons! Sissons!” said the smooth-faced fellow, sharply.

“That’sh what I say. Mr. Shis-sh—meet my friend, Mr. Shis-sh—What’s your
name, boy?”

“Paul.”

“Sure! Paul. ‘Paul who was also called Saul.’ No, not ri’. ‘Saul who was
also called Paul.’ Meet my friend Shis-sh——” But the name was too much
for Dan.

“Come on now, Dan,” said the third man, a giant of a fellow. “We are not
going to stay here all night, and if you want that drink you have to
come right away.” So saying, he threw his arm around the drunken man and
lifted him along with him. “And you, young man,” he added, turning to
Paul, “cut away from here. You are holding up the procession. Git!”

“Yes,” said “smooth face,” quietly, “you just slide. We will handle him
all right. Good night!”

“Good night!” said Paul, none too sure that all was well, but unwilling
to interfere and anxious to be on his way.

But he had not gone very many yards when loud voices from the group
arrested him and, turning about, the moon showed a struggle going on.
Immediately he ran back toward them. As he ran he saw a hand rise and
fall and then a form crumple to the sidewalk. Swiftly and silently he
was upon them. As he had expected, he found Dan Tussock down and two of
the men going through his pockets. The giant whirled on him, swung
something over his head, which, fortunately for him, Paul caught in a
paralysing blow upon his arm. A half-arm upper cut caught the giant
fairly under the chin, the head snapped sharply back and he pitched
backward off the sidewalk and there lay. With an oath “whiskers” rushed
at Paul, but tripping over the drunken man he too fell headlong.

“Come on, I’ve got it,” shouted “smooth face,” dashing off. But Paul
with his unharmed arm caught him round the neck, shouting for help at
the same time to a cab which was driving past, and slipping his hand
into the man’s inside pocket grasped what he found there.

At the approach of the cabman, “smooth face” tore himself free and made
off, followed by “whiskers,” and, in a minute or so, by the giant who
had risen, painfully and dazed, to his feet. Paul, bending over Dan
Tussock, found him still insensible, and the moon, breaking through,
showed his face pallid as that of a dead man.

“Dead?” asked the cabby.

“No, his heart is beating. Strange! No blood, no wound,” said Paul.

“Black-jack!” grunted the cabby. “Does the trick very neat, without
blood or broken bones. Friend of yours?”

“No, not exactly. But we will bring him along.”

Together they lifted the unconscious man into the cab and set off for
Paul’s boarding house. By the time they had arrived there, Tussock was
able to speak and to help himself to a certain extent. They reached
Paul’s room with difficulty and against the protests of the landlady,
who declared that she “kept a respectable house and didn’t want no
toughs round here.”

“Toughs?” cried the cabby indignantly. He had just pocketed his fare
from Paul. “What you givin’ us? Don’t you know a gentleman when you see
him? This chap has had an accident.” Then, in an aside, he added, “He’s
all right, and he’ll make it all right with you too, old girl, if you
play up properly.”

Impelled by the suggestion, the landlady did what experience had taught
her was necessary, and soon Paul had Dan Tussock deposited in his own
bed, where he lay snoring heavily till morning.

He wakened late and sat up, asking in a loud voice and with an indignant
oath, “Where am I? What house is this?”

“You are in my room, and I hope feeling better,” said Paul.

“Better? I have got a head and a throat burning like hell fire. Who are
you, young fellow, and how did I get into your room?”

Then Paul told him the tale of his last night’s adventure, Tussock
staring at him with dull red eyes.

“And you brought me here, eh? What made you jump into this thing?”

“Well, I couldn’t see a helpless man beaten up by ruffians, could I?”

“And so you jumped in to help a stranger? Well, Dan Tussock doesn’t
forget a friend, you will find. Where did _you_ sleep?” he added.

Paul pointed to his blankets on the floor.

“Gave me your bed, eh?”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Paul lightly. “I’ve often slept in worse
places.”

“What’s your name?”

“Paul Gaspard.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Well,” said Paul, “it’s a little difficult to explain. I came to study
to be an engineer and eventually to make twenty-five thousand dollars.
Now, however, I chiefly want a job to pay my board.”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars? You don’t want much, do you? What do you
want it for?”

To his own astonishment Paul found himself taking this rough, uncouth
man into his confidence and telling him as much of his story as seemed
necessary.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars, eh?” repeated Dan Tussock. “Well, men
have made more than that in a few weeks in this country. How much have
you got now?”

“On Saturday night,” replied Paul, with a humorous smile, “I had two
hundred and fifty dollars or so, as I approached the city. Unfortunately
I fell asleep on the train——” He paused.

“And now?”

Paul put his hand into his pocket and brought out some silver.

“That is all,” he said. “But my board is paid for a week. So you see I
must have a job.”

“Jumpin’ Judas! You are a cool one!” said Tussock. “Well, we’ll see
about that.” He made an attempt to rise but speedily collapsed, pale and
panting for breath. “My God! What is the matter with me?”

“Black-jack, the cabman said,” replied Paul. “Lie still for a while.
Tell me what you want and I shall get it for you.”

“Lie still! Say! What day is this?”

“This is Monday.”

“Monday! What time?” Again he attempted to rise, swung his feet over the
bedside, hung there for a few moments, and again collapsed.

“There, you see. You must lie still,” said Paul.

“Boy! Boy!” Tussock gasped faintly. “What time is it? In God’s name,
what time is it?”

“Ten thirty.”

“Bring me my pocket book. Quick! Quick!” With trembling fingers he
turned out its contents, bills, soiled papers, newspaper cuttings. “How
much money do you make?”

“Six hundred and fifty dollars,” said Paul after he had counted.

“Six hundred and fifty? Oh, curse them! They rolled me for five hundred.
Got to find that someway. Who will lend it to me? Forbes might do it,
but I don’t know. Must find some way.”

“Here is another pocket book,” said Paul, “which I pulled from the man’s
pocket.”

“Let me see!” shouted Tussock. “Jumpin’ Jeroosha! What’s this? Four
hundred, five hundred, six hundred! Saved, by the celestial climbing
cats! Saved!” He lay back, gasping. “Paul, Paul, listen to me,” he said,
grabbing Paul by the hand. “You got to get to the office of Gunning &
Strong—get the names, Gunning and Strong—Gunning is the man to ask
for—Gunning & Strong, lawyers. Got to pay them before eleven thirty one
thousand dollars to hold a big deal. Chance of a lifetime! Chance for a
fortune! My third chance, and my last chance! Got to get that to them
before eleven thirty. Pay it! Get a receipt! Go! Go! Run like ten
thousand devils were huntin’ you. Don’t talk to me!” he cried, pushing
Paul off from him.

“I don’t know where these men are.”

“You don’t know the town? Lord above!”

“Draw me a map,” said Paul. “I can follow a trail.”

With fingers that shook Tussock tore a leaf from a note book and drew a
map showing the shortest route to the office of Gunning & Strong.

“There! Follow that. Run! And come back quick. Go! Get out of this!” he
fairly yelled.

Impelled by his impetuosity, Paul rushed from the room, and in half an
hour was back, receipt in hand, and with him a man whom Tussock greeted
in enthusiastic welcome.

“Hello, Con, you blasted old whale! Say, did you get that thing done?”

“Nip and tuck, Dan!” replied the man. “This young fellow held them to
it. Mighty smart, too. Got the deal cinched all right. But what has been
biting you? What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter? What’s always the matter? What’s been the matter for
twenty years? I am a fool, a golly-woggled, horn-shackled, blankety
blank fool. That’s all. Nothing more. And this young fellow pulled me
out of a hell hole last night, put me to bed, kissed me good night, and
now is nursing me back to health. That is what I want, Con—a nurse, a
keeper. I ain’t safe. I ought to be on a string, like a blankety blank
poodle dog, muzzled and on a string! Say, boy!” he said, turning to
Paul, “give me your hand. You’re a man, straight grained and white to
the core. You want a job, eh?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t want one any longer. You’ve got one now. You are hired with
Dan Tussock, at one hundred and fifty per! And, by the eternal jumpin’
crickets! two hundred, if you keep me from making a gosh blamed fool of
myself. Two hundred a month, do you hear? Start at one hundred and
fifty, as time-keeper, book-keeper, anything you like! You show him the
ropes tomorrow morning, eh, Con? We need ’im.”

“Yes,” replied Con, “we need someone, sure thing. We need him bad, you
know that, Dan.”

“Know it?” replied Dan. “Con, you hear me, I am on my last chance. Three
out, all out, with me. This young fellow is sound timber, white pine, no
knots, no chicks, straight grain. I know ’im. I’m makin’ ’im my keeper.
By Jingo! I will make him my treasurer. I won’t draw no money without
his signature, so help me, great Jehoshaphat! We will start him at one
hundred and fifty per, and two hundred if he makes good on the job of
keeping me straight, with an increase every quarter. I am on the biggest
thing I ever struck in my lifetime, and this time I’m going to make
good. But I sure want a keeper. And he looks to me like one. Good-bye,
Con. Get the men out on that Heights job and push it like all possessed.
I’ll be there some time, when Paul here gets me on my feet. That’s his
job.” Tussock broke into an explosive shout of laughter. “You’ll earn
your money, boy.”

“I’m not hired yet, Mr. Tussock,” said Paul quietly.

“What? Don’t you want a job?”

“Yes, I want a _job_. Time-keeper? Yes. Book-keeper? Yes. Man-keeper?
No.”

“Why not? Somehow I just know you can keep me straight.”

“No,” said Paul sharply. “How can I keep you straight? No man can keep
another man straight.”

“Look here, young fellow, I mean this.” Tussock’s voice was very solemn.
“I have made and lost two fortunes. I have a chance now of a third. But
what’s the use? When I get a roll in my pants, these blood-suckers smell
it like a rat does cheese. Oh, I don’t blame them, it ain’t their fault,
it’s my own. And sometimes I think it ain’t no use tryin’.” He rolled
over, with his face to the wall. “I feel like it’s no good. I might as
well quit. When I am on a big job I’m all right; when I’m through, with
my money in my pocket, I am a fool.”

The helplessness in his voice touched the boy’s heart. “I can keep your
money for you,” he said, “if you give me the authority. But——”

“Then what are you kickin’ about?” Tussock turned once more toward Paul.
“If you keep my money, if you make me an allowance, if I can pay no
money except on your order, they can’t roll me, can they?”

“All that I can do, Mr. Tussock,” said Paul.

“Will you?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Give me your hand,” Tussock shouted. “Con, I’m going to win this time.
We are all going to win. Now get out, and get to work! I’m going to
sleep.”

That same night, as Paul was passing up to his room after tea, he again
met Dalton, who greeted him gruffly.

“Come in, Gaspard,” he said. “I want to talk to you.” Together they
entered Dalton’s room. “I say, I want to apologise to you,” said Dalton.
“I was crazy last night and acted like an insolent fool.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Paul lightly. Then, as if struck by a
sudden thought, “I say, you are a lawyer, aren’t you?”

“Yes, a kind of lawyer. With Gunning & Strong. I saw you through the
window at our place today.”

“I want to ask you something.” And Paul proceeded to tell him of the
arrangement which he had entered into with Dan Tussock that morning.
“Can some paper be drawn up,” he asked, “to give me control of his
money? I don’t care much for the job, but somehow I feel as if I want to
help him. He seems a good chap.”

Dalton was extremely pessimistic about the whole matter. It was easy
enough to draw up an instrument giving Paul control of Tussock’s money,
but no man could be kept straight by anyone but himself. “I have tried
it for five years, and I tell you it’s no good. The money part can be
arranged, but it’s not a question of money. It’s a question of habit, of
inclination, of will power.”

“Come up and see him,” urged Paul.

“No. I’ve no desire to see another wreck.”

“Come. I would like you to draw up this agreement.”

Reluctantly Dalton went with him. It was indeed a strange meeting. The
three men spent the night exchanging their life stories and discussing
the future.

Paul led the way, giving them as much as he thought necessary of the
story of his life.

Dan Tussock followed. An orphan at an early age, he had been brought up
in the school of hard knocks and hard work. He had made his own way
since he was twelve years of age. He had developed a power of
organisation and leadership among men, he had become a money maker, but
uneducated and ignorant of the ways of the business world he had been a
mark for sharps and sharks and, most of all, with no human ties and
responsibilities to steady him, he had been the victim of his own
passions, and now at fifty years of age he was a failure.

Dalton’s story was different, but with a like ending. Born of a good
Ontario family, after a distinguished university course he had become a
student in theology. Gifted with brilliant social parts, a mis-step led
him to abandon his theological studies and become a student in law.
Again he registered a brilliant success, but again he became a victim of
his social qualities. Five years ago he had found it necessary to sever
his connection with the firm in Toronto in which he had held a junior
partnership and had come to the West, resolved to make a new bid for
success in the new country. He had obtained a junior position in the law
firm of Gunning & Strong, and for a time did well, but discouragement
and loneliness sapped the strength of his resistance, and for the past
three years he had been steadily deteriorating until he had become a
mere office clerk, “a sort of glorified office boy,” as he himself said,
“and headed for hell. In want of a keeper too, begad!” he said, with a
bitter laugh. “Better take me on too, Gaspard.”

His words suggested an idea to Dan Tussock. “Right you are, boy!” he
cried, sitting upright in bed. “A keeper it is that you want. Let us
make a partnership of it. I’ve got my hand on one of the biggest things
ever swung on this coast. As I told you, I can organise the work and see
it through, but sure as fate I go to pieces when the job is done.
Dalton, you’re pretty much in the same fix. You hate your work, there’s
nothing in it for you, and you’re going to the devil. Here’s Paul,
wanting to make twenty-five thousand and needing a start. I can show him
twenty-five thousand dollars, and more, if he ties up to me. What do you
say? Let’s make a partnership of it.” And with growing enthusiasm he
proceeded to expound his scheme. He had just completed a job out of
which he had made several thousand dollars, he had that day made his
first payment on a purchase of another tract of wild land which he
proposed to clear up and sell as city lots. There was big money in it,
if properly handled. The city was growing, building sites were badly
needed; he knew he could swing the work and push it through, but on the
business end he was always falling down. “And worse than that, with
money in my pocket I need a keeper. Dalton, you are a lawyer, and I
guess you know your job. You look to me like a worker. Can’t do anything
with a lazy man, but you’re not lazy. What you want is something worth
while to keep you climbing. You’re a fool like me. You need a keeper
like me. Here’s Paul, wanting a job. We’ll give him the job.”

Dalton sat gloomily smoking. “You’re right, Tussock,” he said. “I need a
keeper.” He put his face in his hands and groaned. “I’m a fool. I am
worse than a fool, I’m a dead failure.”

“See here, Dalton,” said Tussock. “I’m an older man than you. I’ve seen
fifty years of life. I never had a friend that didn’t help me down. I’m
not saying it wasn’t my own fault, but every friend I have had has
helped me down. Dalton, what about you?”

Dalton sat thinking, smoking savagely.

“A friend?” he said slowly. “There was my mother. But she died. And—” he
paused a moment “—there was one other. But I threw her down. Oh, hell
and blazes!” he broke forth with a fierceness that startled both his
hearers. “What are you talking to me about? Friends? Yes. They were all
going the same way, and they all helped me down. No—I helped them down.
We went down together. Oh, hell and damnation! Damn all friends! Damn
life! Take your damn partnership! It’s all a piece of cursed foolery.
I’m through. I’m sick, I’m done with it. I’m going to hell alone.” He
rose, kicked back his chair and made for the door.

“Hold on, Dalton,” shouted Tussock. “Come back here. Give me one chance
more. Don’t be so darned selfish. Give me a chance. I want you. We want
the same things—something to work at, something worth working for, and,
yes, more than anything else, a friend to climb up with. We both want a
keeper, Dalton. And here’s Paul, young, clean, fit, and a fighter, and,
by the eternal jumpin’ cats! I believe a friend to tie to.”

“Sit down, Dalton,” said Paul quietly. “I need your help in something. I
want to ask you something.” His quiet words brought Dalton back again to
his chair.

“Spit it out!” he said.

Paul pulled out his Bible, turned the leaves over and handed Dalton the
book. “Read that to us,” he said, his finger upon one of the great
psalms of Hebrew literature.

“‘He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord shall keep thee from all evil.
He shall keep thy soul. The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming
in, from this time forth and forever more.’”

“Tell me, Dalton,” said Paul, leaning forward, his hands on his knees,
his face set in eager and intense anxiety. “You have studied this. Is
the Bible true, Dalton? Do you believe it is true? Wait a minute! I was
sure till yesterday morning, till I heard a preacher in this city say it
might not be.”

With deadly earnestness he told of his yesterday morning’s experience.
He was like a man pleading for his very life, indeed something more than
life was at stake. In simple, almost childlike words, he told the story
of his boyhood’s faith, of how he had come to feel about God, to see Him
in the clouds, and to feel that He was near and that He was good. He
told the men listening to him with very grave and solemn faces of his
mother’s faith and how it had brought her comfort and strength and
peace. He told of his father’s failure, and then of his return to faith.
He gave a vivid account of his six years in the Chippewayan country, and
how the thought of God had always been with him and how the conviction
that God was caring for him and showing him the way had kept his heart
up and his courage from failing.

“Till yesterday morning,” he said, his voice vibrating with the
intensity of his passion, “every word in that Bible was true to me. But
that minister said the story of Adam and Eve, of Noah, of Joseph, of
Moses, _might_ be true. I could have torn him out of the pulpit and
smashed in his face. But he is a scholar and he is a preacher. Dalton,
you have studied these things—tell me, is that true?” The boy pointed
with a shaking finger at the book in Dalton’s hand.

Dalton sat silent. He recalled his own discussions, as a student, with
the young professor setting forth his theories of Biblical criticism. He
remembered how he too had sweated when this brilliant teacher of his had
cast doubt upon the historicity of parts of the Bible. And he understood
to some degree at least the intensity of the emotions in this boy’s
heart. The words of scornful disbelief that were ready on his lips died
there. The boy’s face, the honest, clear, blue-grey eyes, the pain in
them, the anxiety, the doubt, held back Dalton’s glib disclaimer of
faith. He temporised.

“Is what true?” he said.

“Is the Bible true? The story of Adam and Eve, of Joseph, of David and
Goliath—that Psalm, is that true?” Again Paul laid a shaking finger upon
the words that had just been read.

“Gaspard,” said Dalton, “don’t be a darned fool. What has that psalm got
to do with Adam and Eve, and Noah, and the rest of those old boys? Don’t
you know how your Bible is made up? That’s not one book. That’s a
library of sixty-six books bound in one volume, written by I don’t know
how many authors, who lived I don’t know how many centuries apart—did
know once, but I’ve forgotten. The early parts of the Bible came down to
us as fragments of literature preserved by the Hebrew people, literature
of all kinds, folk lore, songs, political addresses, great poems,
letters, theological discussions, differing in character, content,
quality and worth. If you ask me, Do I believe the Bible is true? I
would have to say, Yes and no. I’m not going to give you a lecture on
Biblical criticism just now, but I want to say this, you don’t need to
believe that the man who wrote the story of Adam and Eve was writing
history, in order to believe that the psalm I have just read is true.
Don’t you go chucking your faith in the Bible till you have studied a
lot more about it. And as to that psalm, your mother believed it, didn’t
she?”

“She did,” said Paul, under his breath. “Yes, she did.”

“And she lived by it, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did.”

“That ought to be good enough for you. There are millions more like her
in the world today, and they’re all the best people.”

Then silence for some moments, Paul’s face carrying deep lines of
anxiety and doubt and dread. To him it seemed as if the foundations of
life were rocking under his feet. Intently Dalton studied his face, then
in a kindlier tone said:

“Gaspard, listen to me. I am no religious man, but I have studied these
things a bit. That book of yours is a unique book. Some fools insist on
going to it for geology, history and that sort of thing. My professor
said to me once a thing that helped me when I was in the sweat box of
unbelief and all that. He said something like this:

“This is the book of God and man. The heart of it is a noble and worthy
conception of the unseen God—that is its contribution to human thought
and life. It is a Revelation of God, a revelation steadily growing in
clarity till it finds perfect expression in Jesus the Christ.’

“Oh confound it, Gaspard! God knows there are problems scientific,
ethical, philosophical and religious that no man can solve. Get hold of
the great simple fundamental fact of God revealed and mediated in the
Christ, and let the other things in the meantime go hang. Our faith is
the _Christian_ faith, we are no bally Mohammedans. It is, as my
professor used to say, Christocentric—Christ centered faith—chew on that
and don’t worry.”

Again there was silence for some moments, and then Paul, leaning
forward, said in a voice hardly above a whisper, “Dalton, do you believe
that psalm is true?” With an oath Dalton sprang to his feet. “Look here,
I’m not in the confessional. But,” he shouted, “I do believe it. In
spite of hell, in spite of the devil, I do believe it. And when I give
that up I’ll blow my brains out.”

“Then,” said Paul, sitting back in his chair, with a deep sigh of
relief, “there’s the Keeper you need, Dalton.”




                              CHAPTER XXIV


“I am afraid Jack is having trouble with his Quarterly Board. He is very
late, and I am sure will be terribly tired, for he has had a hard day’s
work.”

“My dear Mrs. Robinson, don’t worry about your husband. I am quite sure
he will get his own way. You know, he has a gift in that direction.”

“But, Mrs. Gunning, you know, because Mr. Gunning must have told you,
how slow some of the deacons are to get his point of view.”

“Never mind, my dear,” said Mrs. Gunning.

Mrs. Gunning was a comfortable person whose ample and billowy
proportions radiated an atmosphere of maternal and cheery good nature.
She had dropped in to spend the evening with her pastor’s wife, who was
not in a condition to be left long alone.

“The Board cannot understand the needs of the Mission,” said the
minister’s wife, “and those people down there need help so badly, and
they are working so hard, with their wretched equipment in that old
shed, to keep things going.”

“I know, my dear. Frank is very interested, and I am sure that he will
he able to do something with the Board. He has often told me of the work
they are doing. He hears about it from young Mr. Dalton. You know he is
in our office. And really it is quite wonderful how the Mission has got
hold of him. He has made friends with that young fellow, Gaspard you
know, who plays our organ sometimes.”

“Oh, yes,” cried the minister’s wife enthusiastically. “Isn’t he a
perfect dear? I think he is a lovely boy. And so shy. I can’t get hold
of him, somehow. But he is doing wonderful work in the Mission, all the
same, with the men and boys. Jack is quite taken with him. You know, all
this summer he has taken those boys for hikes down the water-side. He
camps with them, quite in the Indian fashion—you know he lived for years
among the Indians.”

“So I understand,” said Mrs. Gunning. “I know he is doing Dalton good.
That young man has been keeping straight all this summer. Of course, he
never goes to church, you know, but he is always at the Mission. Such a
clever young fellow—brilliantly clever, Frank says—but very fast, my
dear, very fast. You know what I mean.”

The minister’s wife did not know, but her nod might mean anything.

“I do hope,” she said, “that the Board won’t be mean about it. Jack is
so very keen about the boys. There! I hear him.” She jumped to her feet
and ran to the door. There followed exclamations and silences, and Jack
came in, triumph written on his face.

“We put it over, Mrs. Gunning! We put it over! Or at least your
excellent husband did.”

“Oh, indeed? And of course you just looked on.”

“Well,” said the minister, “I gave the thing a shove. Gunning will be
along in a minute or two and he will give you the details.”

In a short time Gunning arrived, a big man with a thoughtful,
intelligent face and shrewd eyes with a humorous twinkle in them. The
minister’s wife welcomed him warmly.

“So you did it!” she cried. “It was perfectly splendid of you. We have
just heard from Jack.”

“Heard what?” said Mr. Gunning, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“Heard all about you and how you put it over.”

“Oh, indeed?” replied Mr. Gunning. “Well, that’s very nice hearing, I
must say.”

After the first cups of tea had been disposed of, the minister’s wife
demanded a full account of the evening’s proceedings from her husband.

“Did you have a big fight, Jack? Tell us all about it. And begin at the
beginning.”

“Fight? I should say so. I was backed into my corner and over the ropes
when friend Gunning waded in. And after he got through we only had to
shovel up the remains.”

“Do begin at the beginning, Jack. I don’t like your way of jumping into
the middle of things.”

“Well,” said Jack, “it is a good story, a great story, and I shall give
it to you as best I can. But you ought to have been there to really get
the atmosphere. The proposition I put up to the Board, you see, was
this, that if they would undertake the equipment of a Mission House I,
with my friends down there, would undertake the erection of a building;
I would look after the outside if they would look after the inside, in
other words. Well, I put up the bluff as vigorously as I could, threw
the dare at them and told them to come on.”

“But, Jack,” remonstrated his wife in a shocked tone, “you can’t do
that.”

“So they thought, my dear, and at first they were quite ready to cover
my bet. Of course, when I said equipment they were doubtless thinking in
terms of their ancestors’ ideas, a little cabinet organ and a few hymn
books, rows of benches, with or without backs, some godly pictures and
scripture charts on the walls, costing in all somewhere about two
hundred dollars. I made the diplomatic blunder of going into details too
early in the game. But when in my enthusiasm I began to elaborate and
set down one thing after another—kitchen and kitchen furnishings, piano,
gymnasium, library, magic lantern, and a nice cosy parlor, with some
extras—you ought to have seen their faces gradually lengthen. By Jove!
their chins were down near their stomachs!”

“Oh, Jack!” exclaimed his wife.

“Well, that is a little extreme, I confess. But you ought to have seen
Busted’s face.” Gunning smiled slowly at the recollection.

“‘And what would all this cost?’ he inquired. ‘Well, not more than
twenty-five hundred dollars,’ I said jauntily. ‘Ah!’ said Busted, and
his tone appeared to settle the whole question.

“In vain I tried to draw a picture of the cosy, cheery, happy home idea
for these waifs and strays of the streets. The chill that settled down
on that Quarterly Board set me looking round for my overcoat. Then they
fell upon it, singly and in groups. Finally old Busted summed up the
case, eulogising the enthusiastic idealism of ‘our young pastor,’ but
reminding the Board that they were business men and must deal with cold,
hard facts in a business way. Then he proceeded to make his eternal
speech upon our congregational indebtedness, our need of equipment, the
cost of operation, music——”

“Music!” exclaimed his wife. “Goodness knows our music doesn’t cost very
much. Of course we pay our organist—how much, Mr. Gunning?”

“About seven hundred.”

“Think of it! Seven hundred dollars for the best organist in the city!
Poor dear old man!”

“He is not very strong,” said Mrs. Gunning sympathetically.

“No, he’s not. And if it were not for the help that young fellow Gaspard
has been giving him he would have had to resign six months ago.”

“What a wonderful player he is!” said Mrs. Gunning. “Of course, we must
keep Mr. DeLaunay, but really you know I enjoy the young man’s playing
very much better.”

“And what happened, Jack?” asked his wife.

“Well, I was gathering myself for a final leap into the arena, with my
resignation fluttering in my hand, when friend Gunning stepped in, in
his usual quiet and effective manner. He made a regular jury speech. He
began by putting a little edge of deeper blue on Busted’s picture, and
then when he was nicely inside their guard he took them down the Bay on
a Sunday afternoon excursion and introduced them to a camp scene, Indian
style, wigwam and camp fire, twenty boys, young devils from the
waterfront, gathered round a young fellow who was holding them
fascinated, enthralled, so much so that they hardly noticed brother
Gunning slipping in among them. What was he giving them? Bunyan’s
‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ up to date. The actual scene I believe was the
struggle with Napoleon. ‘I know a little about artistic speech,’ says
brother Gunning, ‘or at least I thought I did, but this young man was a
revelation to me. He had everything, literary finish, artistic color,
religion, all being poured into the ears and eyes and hearts of these
young ragamuffins, the prospective criminals of our city.’ Dear ladies,”
continued Jack in solemn tones, “he had ’em all gulping, and when he was
done the thing was over.”

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Gunning. “I made my little contribution. It was
really Mickey Dunn that did the trick.”

“By Jove! Mickey came in like a whirlwind,” said Jack. “Mickey was
priceless. Believe me, if the whole thing had been carefully prepared
and staged it could not have been better put on. The climactic effect
was perfect. Little Mickey—you know him, a little Irish runt, with a
brogue you could cut off in chunks—began telling them of the parental
difficulties in his own family with his own rapscallions, three of them
at least of the street Arab age, from sixteen down. ‘Roamin’ the streets
they were,’ said Mickey, ‘an’ me whalin’ the life out of them to get
them to Sunday school and to church, till their mother’s heart was clean
bruk for them.’ Then Mickey proceeded to give them a picture of these
rapscallions of his who were going the way straight to the devil and
breaking the hearts of their mother and father in the process, and how
they were gripped by this young chap. ‘He got them in,’ says Mickey,
‘with a quare sort of Sunday school, _athaletics_, an’ boxin’ an’
handspringin’ an’ the loike, and now they’re off the streets and niver a
fear has their mother for them. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!’

“When Mickey had got through the atmosphere had risen to the boiling
point. Those old chaps were wiping away the tears, and oh, b-hoys! the
thing was over and done with, and a resolution enthusiastically passed
pledging twenty-five hundred dollars at least if and when I finish the
outside of the building.”

“Oh, Jack! splendid! wonderful!” cried his wife. She rose from her place
and ran round to Mr. Gunning. “Oh, dear Mr. Gunning! I’d love to kiss
you!”

“Go on!” shouted Jack. “I’ll hold Mrs. Gunning.”

“And now what about your part of the contract?” asked Mrs. Gunning. “How
are you going to get the outside done?”

Jack winked slowly at her. “Ah! I didn’t tell them all I knew about
that. That is a mystery, a great secret. But I will tell you, Mrs.
Gunning, if you give me your solemn promise not to whisper it to your
dearest friend. It is that young Gaspard again. Seems to me, for a man
who doesn’t like my preaching—and he doesn’t, and I’m not sure that he
likes me very well——”

“Oh, Jack! He adores you,” said his wife.

“Well, he regards me as a heretic. But all the same, that young Gaspard
must have some secret mesmeric power with boys and men. You know he has
a job now with Dan Tussock, a contractor—you know him, Gunning.”

“Know him? Well, rather! I’ve known him for years. You see, I’m his
legal adviser. And I’ve pulled him out of many a hole. He’s a great old
card, but he’s sound at heart.”

“Well, wait a minute,” said Jack. “Young Gaspard, in some mysterious way
has effected some sort of organization which embraces old Tussock,
Dalton and himself. Do you know anything about it?”

“Well, I know a little,” said Mr. Gunning. “It is a partnership of
sorts. Dalton looks after the legal end of the business, Tussock runs
the work, I don’t know just where Gaspard comes in—he’s time-keeper,
treasurer, pay master—but they’re getting on quite well, I believe—land
clearing, with some real estate transactions thrown in.”

“Real estate?” said the minister’s wife in rather a shocked voice.

“Oh, they are on thoroughly sound lines,” said Mr. Gunning. “Dalton will
see to that. But of course you can’t count on Tussock. He’s liable to
blow up any day. He’s already gone through two fortunes.”

Jack’s face grew grave. “It is a doubtful proposition, I know,” he said,
“but after all, Gunning, aren’t we all doubtful propositions? We’re all
liable to blow up, each in his own way. We have got to have some faith,
eh? Well, anyway,” he continued hopefully, “Gaspard began by getting
Dalton, an old varsity athlete, working those boys into some sort of
gymnastic exercises. I have watched him closely, and he’s a master hand
with boys.”

“I believe he is,” said Mr. Gunning. “But the reaction upon Dalton is
quite striking. I believe he has quite cut out the drink, and for the
last nine months has kept straight. Of course, I don’t know how long it
will last.”

“You old pessimist!” cried Jack indignantly. “Have a bit of faith, eh?
Why not? Well, as I was saying, Gaspard got Dalton, and then, but how he
did it the Lord only knows—and I mean that, for it is the Lord’s doing,
‘and wondrous in our eyes’—he got old Tussock down there. The old boy
had nothing to do with his evenings, and Gaspard shrewdly guessed that
his idle moments were his dangerous moments. So he has got him involved
in the Mission enterprise and in its work.”

“Yes, that has been the ruination of Dan Tussock. He has had nowhere to
spend his evenings except those low-down hotels.”

“Oh, by the way,” interrupted Jack, “Gaspard worked a rather fine thing
there. You know he has struck up a great friendship with the DeLaunays,
father and daughter—quite captured Miss DeLaunay, who is quite an
artist, by the way, and that is something of an achievement, for she is
rather superior. I fancy they were rather hard up and had some vacant
rooms, but however it was managed Gaspard, Dalton and old Tussock, no
less, are all domiciled with the DeLaunays, where they have comfortable,
clean and very congenial quarters. And that, you see, Gunning, removes
Tussock from one of his danger spots. But where was I? Oh, yes. This
young Gaspard got Tussock interested, got him busy fixing up the old
shed, patching and mending, till one night in disgust Tussock put up a
bluff to the boys, offering lumber and material if they would get their
fathers and big brothers to turn in and do the work. Gaspard nailed him
on the spot, Dalton jumped in, a building organisation was effected, and
I have been holding them back as to building construction till I saw my
way toward the inside equipment. But tomorrow—tomorrow! ladies and
gentlemen—we shall break ground. Hurrah!”

“Praise the Lord!” ejaculated Mrs. Gunning fervently, who was a good
old-fashioned Methodist.

“And before the snow flies the Waterside Mission will be housed in a
beautiful, commodious and well equipped building of its own. That is, if
Tussock, Gaspard, Dalton and Company hold together. I modestly claim to
be a part of the company.”

“The heart of the company,” remarked Gunning.

“Not on your life!” cried Jack. “That’s Gaspard.”

“I do hope and pray they stick to it,” said Mrs. Gunning, earnestly.

“They’re doing awfully well at present,” said Gunning. “Making a good
deal of money, and have excellent prospects of making more.”

“To my mind,” said Jack, “they’re making more than money. They’re making
men.”

The opinions of both gentlemen were soundly based. The firm of Tussock,
Gaspard and Dalton were making money and making it fast, making it by
hard, driving work, transforming uncouth, broulé land left hideous and
unsightly by axe and fire into smooth and fair building lots for the
dwellings of men: fine constructive work; buying by the acre in the
rough, selling by the foot in the finished product, and multiplying
their investment ten, twenty, one hundred fold. These were the days of
the youth of the vigorous, growing Canadian city, the commercial capital
of a great province, situated upon one of the world’s great harbors and
reaching across the wide Pacific for the trade of the awakening nations
of the Orient.

The prospects of the company holding together were perhaps brighter than
many of their friends imagined. The bonds that bound them each to the
others were other than financial. The head of the firm was Dan Tussock,
the organiser and driver of work. With thirty years’ experience in
dealing with men, material and machines in all kinds of constructive
work, he had mastered the secret of how to apply power to raw material
for the service of mankind, which is the secret of industry, as had few
in that bustling, rushing, up-building province of British Columbia.
Associated with him was the young lawyer, Dalton, a master of all
technicalities of his profession, a shrewd negotiator, an alert watch
dog against all such predatory creatures as had made prey of Dan Tussock
during his checkered and eventful life. With them, the youth Paul
Gaspard, inexperienced in the ways of men, ignorant of affairs, but
furnished in rich measure with the priceless endowments of a clear, high
mind, with instincts for things right and fine, and a heart vastly
capable of unlimited loyalty to a friend, even to the obliteration of
self.

Already they had cleaned up and disposed of their first acre of land at
good profit, and were now embarked in a still more extensive enterprise,
the clearing and marketing of a new subdivision of the city. Besides
this, in Tussock’s mind new enterprises were taking shape, timber limits
and lumber mills were visualising themselves; for Dan Tussock had once
been known as one of the lumber kings of the Pacific coast.

The financial affairs of the partnership, the receiving, banking and
disbursing of moneys, were in the hands of Paul. It had been settled in
joint conference that a certain fixed allowance should be paid to each
of the partners, but nothing without the signature of the treasurer. And
with loyal adherence to the pact, Tussock and Dalton drew their share
and, what was of infinitely greater importance, were living within their
means. Both men had passed their word to each other and to Paul that
during the life of the partnership no drop of strong drink should pass
their lips. To Dan Tussock this involved no serious self-denial, for
that indomitable worker loved doing big things and while engaged in
worth-while enterprises he was in little danger from the temptations
which lay in wait for him during his idle days. But to Dalton the pledge
to abstinence from drink was a different matter. Day by day and night
and day the desperate, dreary fight went on, and there were nights when
but for his environment he would have given up in despair and rushed out
to his old haunts, seeking relief from the terrific craving that was
gnawing like a vulture at his vitals. In this fight, however, he was
more fortunate in his fighting ground than ever before in his life.
First of all, he was driven with work. In the office with the change in
his habits he found himself entrusted to an ever increasing degree with
matters of importance, and after office hours the affairs of the new
company so fully occupied his time and engaged his energy that he was
only too glad when night came and he yielded himself to the comfort and
cheer which his new home with the DeLaunays afforded him.

That home, after an exhausting day of work and struggle with the gnawing
craving for drink, from which he was never wholly free, was to him a
very gate of Heaven. There he found clean and cheery comfort, the charm
of bright and cultured companionship, and music, always music, for which
fortunately he had an absorbing passion. From many an hour of despairing
conflict he was saved by the DeLaunay piano under the manipulations now
of the old master when he was in form and again of Paul when he could
spare the time. A royal evening there was at least once a week, when the
old organist who had taken charge of Paul’s musical development would
seize upon the young man and take him through a book of Mozart’s duets.
Or, if Dan Tussock was in his corner with a pipe and appearing too
terribly bored with what he called “high falutin’ noise,” Paul would go
through a collection of reels, strathspeys and jigs, which would set
Dan’s pulses jumping and his feet shuffling time.

There were other evenings when Dalton would give an hour to the
overseeing of Paul’s engineering studies, for that young man was hard at
work for examinations; or it might be to the discussion of the newest
works on Biblical criticism, furnished by Rev. John Wesley Robinson.

But for four nights of the week and for every Saturday afternoon the
DeLaunay household had made itself responsible for the Waterside
Mission.

In Dan Tussock’s philosophy of life, success in that lifelong struggle
against the unsleeping foes that dogged the footsteps of his friend
Dalton and himself was bound up with three fundamental essentials, in
his own words, “somethin’ to work at, somethin’ to work for, and a
friend that keeps a-climbin’.” To these Paul had suggested a fourth,
without which the others would prove ineffective, “a Keeper.”

Paul, however, was a chap who never talked religion. His religious faith
was that of a child, unspoiled by convention and untrammelled by
formulæ. His reading and his talks with Dalton had helped him through a
dark and terrible passage in his spiritual experience, helped him back
to his faith in his Bible, a faith more intelligently based than
formerly and therefore more in touch with the work-a-day problems of
life. His faith in the reality, in the friendliness of God, his mother’s
God, the God of his childhood days, had never been touched. He was
forced to acknowledge his inability to get much out of the sermons of
the young and brilliant preacher of the First Methodist Church. They
were too academic for him, they left him cold and doubting. But in the
preacher’s talks to the Mission folk and especially to the boys and the
men Paul found something to “chaw on,” as Dan Tussock said. The preacher
was more human, more real, more vitalising, more in touch with the
practical things of life. Tussock’s summing up of the difference between
the pulpit discourses and the Mission talks, after he had tried both and
rejected the former, was accepted by Paul as satisfactory: “In church he
looks like he’s earnin’ his money. In the Mission he’s after the boys.”
But Dalton would have none of this. “Get out, Tussock,” he said.
“Robinson is all right. He has all sorts of fools to handle. In the
pulpit he deals with a lot of highbrow theorists and a lot of
dyed-in-the-wool hard-shell old time Methodists, who need a jolt now and
then to remind them that they are alive. In the Mission he has his coat
off, fighting the devil and hell, and, as you say, he’s after the boys.”

By the end of the summer the new Mission house was opened, free of debt,
and splendidly equipped for its work. At the opening function, by
skilful and united team play on the part of the preacher and Paul,
Dalton found himself forced to occupy the chair, to the great advantage
of the meeting, while Dan Tussock, to his confusion and disgust, found
himself “floor manager and general push of the show,” as he afterwards
declared to his friend, Miss DeLaunay, who had come to be his confidante
and who had assumed a sort of maternal responsibility for the
big-hearted, simple-minded, lonely man.

This important bit of work safely accomplished, and the work on the
subdivision being fairly under way, Paul came to Tussock with a request
for a month’s leave of absence.

“A month, eh?” said Tussock. “Why, sure thing!”

“I want Dalton, too,” said Paul.

“Dalton? Both of you?” said Tussock, aghast.

“Mr. Gunning is going to take over our work.”

“Oh, all right. You’re free. Where are you goin’? Shootin’ trip?”

“No. I am going to pay some of that twenty-five thousand. Dalton doesn’t
know he is going yet.”

“Well, you sure are some manager!” said Tussock. “Yes, certainly, go.
You have earned your holiday, and I guess you’ve got enough to pay most
of your twenty-five thousand. What about it?”

“Oh, that’s all right, thank you. I can make a fairly substantial
payment.”

“Well, if you want any help, you know where to go, Paul. I owe you a lot
more than money can ever pay.”

That night Paul handed all the papers he had taken from Sleeman to
Dalton, with his father’s red book. “I want you to go through these for
me,” he said. “I am anxious to get clear of this mortgage and everything
else.”

Dalton took the papers and spent an hour over them, becoming more and
more indignant as he mastered their contents. The day following he went
to the Bank of Montreal and continued his investigations. To him the
whole affair was absurdly simple.

“Who is this Sleeman?” he asked Paul, when he was ready with his report.

“A neighbour of ours, with whom my father had dealings.”

“A philanthropist, I judge, a friend, and a gentleman, eh? Let me get
into grips with him!” said Dalton savagely. “We’ll bring blood out of
his heart!”

“I don’t want his blood,” said Paul shortly. “I could have had that. I
want to get this mortgage cleaned up.” And thereafter Paul proceeded to
give the story of his father’s transactions with Sleeman, as far as he
knew them. Dalton listened with set lips and gleaming eyes.

“I should like very much to see this gentleman.”

“You’re going to see him,” said Paul. “You and I leave for the
Windermere tomorrow. I’ve got a month, off for both of us from Tussock,
and Gunning is to look after our affairs.”

Dalton gazed at him in amazement. “You sure have your nerve! A month’s
holiday! You’re one smooth boy, all right.”

“Yes,” continued Paul coolly, “there are some guns at home, and some
sheep on the mountains. You’ll go, won’t you, Dalton?”

“Oh, boy!” cried Dalton. “Will I go? This thing, without the guns and
the sheep, would bring me, but the two together—well! I’m with you, boy,
all the way!”

“We may go up north into the Athabasca,” continued Paul. “I told you
about my brother and sister up there. I may bring them back with me.”

“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Dalton. “Anything else in view? What about
Alaska? And the Pole? But, ‘lead on, Macduff,’ I’m with you all the way
and back. By the way, how much money have you for this mortgage
business?”

“I was going to ask you about that. I’ve about five thousand dollars
cash and, without counting up, I guess about twenty thousand invested.”

“A lot more than that,” said Dalton, “if my figuring is right.”

“I intend,” continued Paul, “to pay all I can on this mortgage.”

“Look at this, Paul,” said Dalton, flourishing a paper under his eyes.

“What does this mean?” asked Paul, after he had read it, gazing blankly
at his friend.

“It means, boy, that from the sale of certain chattels, five thousand
dollars was realised and deposited by Colonel Pelham to your credit some
six years ago, which, with interest, amounts now to just about six
thousand dollars.”

Paul continued to gape at him. “Six thousand dollars! If I had only
known! But,” he added quickly, “I’m glad I didn’t know. If I had there
would have been no firm, Tussock, Gaspard and Dalton, and I should not
have found two of the best friends a man ever had. We’ll turn this in
too on the mortgage. We ought to be able to almost clean it up.”

“Not if I know it!” cried Dalton. “This Sleeman is a robber. By Jove!
I’ll make him cut down this thing to bare bones before I’m through with
him. No fifteen thousand dollars of mortgage money for him—the old
skinflint! He takes a mortgage for fifteen thousand, pays your father
ten thousand, keeping five thousand back for interest. Ten per cent.,
prepaid! Oh, we’ll get him. Then, there’s a bundle of I O U’s which he
holds, nearly two thousand dollars more, which I suspect have been
already met, if your father’s red book is correct, and it has every mark
of being a most exact record. I say, Paul! What about paying what you
can on this mortgage and having the rest transferred to the company and
getting the thing out of this robber’s hands?”

“Could that be done, Dalton?”

“Sure, it can be done. I’ll see Tussock about it.”




                              CHAPTER XXV


By the end of the fifth day the two young men were nearing the end of
their ride through the Windermere Valley. They had made the trip in
leisurely fashion, for the weather was superb and every hour was one of
supreme delight; furthermore, their mounts, secured from a livery barn
at Golden, were none of the best. As the sun was making toward the
horizon the riders topped the crest of a long incline, from which the
lofty tops of the fir trees of Pine Croft could be seen.

“Hold up, Dalton,” cried Paul. “There among the firs is Pine Croft, and
your eyes are resting upon the finest bit of mountain scenery in all
British Columbia; my father, who had seen the best, used to say the
finest in the world.”

Dalton sat entranced. His vocabulary of wonder and admiration had long
ago been exhausted.

“I wish I had saved up a big adjective or two,” he said. “Your father
must have been right, for anything finer is beyond my powers of
imagination.”

“Pine Croft Ranch sweeps up over those hills on the left,” said Paul,
“and about five miles down the river. Every mile, every yard, is dear to
me, how dear I never knew till this moment. Do you wonder I love it?”

“Paul,” said Dalton slowly, “I’d spend my last dollar if necessary in
helping you to redeem it. We will get that old robber and make him come
through. Never fear.”

“Let’s go,” shouted Paul, digging his spurs into his nag.

“Hurrah! I’m with you,” cried Dalton, and down the long incline they
sped at a perilous pace. A perilous pace it proved for Paul, for at a
little dry waterway his beast struck some loose stones, stumbled and
pitched headlong, hurling Paul far before him, head first, upon the
stony road, where he lay in a huddled heap.

Dalton hastened to him, laid him out upon his back and proceeded to put
into operation such methods of resuscitation as he had often practised
on the football field. But there was no response from the unconscious
Paul.

“Good Lord!” he cried, looking wildly about. “He’s dead.” He sprang to
his feet, caught his horse, and was about to mount, with the idea of
seeking help at the Pine Croft Ranch, when he heard the sound of horse
hoofs and, turning, saw coming down a line which they had passed a rider
cantering toward the road. With his fingers to his lips he sent forth a
piercing whistle and stood waving at the rider, who immediately swung
into a gallop. “A girl, by Jove!” he said to himself. “And a corker.”

“An accident, eh?” she inquired, leaping from her horse. “Why, it’s
Paul!” The girl flung herself down by him and took his head into her
lap. “Oh, is he dead?” she cried, lifting a pale and terror-stricken
face to Dalton. “Here! Why do you stand gawking there? Get water.”

“Where(?” gasped Dalton, gazing about wildly.

“Follow that lane to a well and bring a bucketful. And for Heaven’s sake
move!”

Flinging himself on his horse, Dalton followed the direction pointed
out, found the well and a bucket standing beside it and dashed back with
the bucket half full of water. A dash of water in his face, a deep
sobbing breath, and Paul opened his eyes, gazed without recognition at
the face hanging over him and closed them again.

“Paul! Oh, Paul!” cried the girl in an ecstasy of fear. “Speak to me!
Don’t you know me?”

Again Paul opened his eyes, let them rest a moment on the girl’s face,
then said with a quiet smile, “Hello, Adelina!”

“Oh, Paul,” cried the girl, drawing up his head to her breast, while the
tears came flowing from her eyes, “I was afraid you were dead.”

Her voice seemed to arouse him. “Dead! What’s wrong with me?” he said,
sitting up and swaying stupidly.

“Lie still,” ordered Adelina sharply. “Don’t move for a few minutes.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Dalton. Adelina caught the look which
Paul flashed up at his friend. Her face flushed scarlet, but Dalton
remained gravely serene.

“You stay there where you are till I tell you to move,” commanded
Adelina imperiously.

“Quite right,” said Dalton heartily. “Stay right there.”

“And perhaps you might feel if any of his bones are broken,” said
Adelina severely, flashing an indignant look out of her lustrous eyes at
that young man.

“Oh, certainly,” said Dalton, grabbing hold of a leg. “That’s all right,
eh, Paul?” he inquired, manipulating that member of his anatomy
gingerly.

“Oh, get out, Dalton. My bones are all right. Nothing wrong with me. I
have often been pitched like this before. So have you, Adelina.”

“Have seen ’em killed, too,” said Adelina, with a shudder. “But thank
Heaven you’re not that,” she added with a little laugh that somehow did
not go with her pale face and strained tone of voice.

“Now let me up, Adelina. I’m fit enough,” said Paul, raising himself on
his elbow. Adelina put her strong arms under his shoulders and helped
him to his feet.

“Come in and rest for a bit, Paul,” she said. “I don’t think you ought
to go on. Besides, there is no one at home to look after you.”

But Paul could not bring himself to accept her invitation. Nor would he
insult her by seeking to make excuse, for he knew that she knew the
reason why he would not enter the Sleeman abode.

“I am quite all right, Adelina, and Dalton and I wish to get settled
down in our quarters tonight.”

Adelina made no reply, but she made little effort to hide her
disappointment.

“Let me carry the bucket back for you,” said Dalton. “Shall we walk?” he
added, taking the bridle of her horse.

“No,” said Adelina. “I hate walking. And you don’t need to come.” But
Dalton insisted upon riding home with her.

“Why didn’t you go in with her, Paul?” said Dalton on his return. “She
was quite cut up by your refusal, I could see—quite grumpy with me. I
was not on her horizon, in fact. Stunning girl she is, old boy. Who is
she, anyway?”

“Why, Dalton, I must have had my senses knocked out! That’s Adelina
Sleeman.”

“What! Old Sleeman’s daughter? Good Lord, what a beastly fix!”

“Fix? She is a fine girl, one of the best,” said Paul.

“And I’ve got to put the screws to that—to her father tomorrow.”

“Let’s go on, Dalton. We will attend to that tomorrow.”

“Takes all the satisfaction out of my trip,” grunted Dalton. “Must go
over this case again.”

“Don’t see why. All you want is justice.”

“My dear boy, you haven’t grasped the niceties of the legal profession.
There is justice and justice. And there are various methods of obtaining
justice. I have been cherishing a fond expectation of seeing that old
robber squirm and wriggle like a bug on a pin. But now—well, you can’t
get any pleasure from seeing your prospective father-in-law squirm.”

“What the deuce are you talking about?” exclaimed Paul.

“Just what I have been saying. We have parted from the future Mrs.
Richard Dalton, unless she’s pre-empted. By Jove! old boy, what about
you? Begad! are you in there? Great Heavens! Now that I think of it, she
was rather terribly broken up over your supposed demise. Jove, that
explains everything—her grief, her rage at me, her curt dismissal. Say
the word, old man, and I back off the scene, hiding my wounds, smiling a
twisted smile, I believe it is, set lips, serene face, while a vulture
gnaws at my inwards. Oh, I’ll play the game——”

“Oh, you bally ass,” said Paul, mounting his horse, “cut it out! We were
boy and girl together.”

“Ah, that’s the fatal fact,” groaned Dalton.

“Don’t be an idiot. She does not care a hoot of a horned owl for me, in
that way, I mean. You are free to make old Sleeman your father-in-law,
for all I care,” said Paul with a grin. “But she is a fine girl, all the
same, mighty good sport.”

“Hold! No need for trumpets on that motif. Through all the corridors of
my soul they are sounding her praises. But you—you! Honor bright now!
Are you out of it? Once and for all. Your hand on it, old man, I mean
it,” said Dalton, pulling up horse and reaching out his hand to Paul.

“Honor bright! Go in and win your father-in-law, for all I care,” said
Paul.

“Oh, darn the father-in-law!” said Dalton, with a grimace. “But thank
the Lord you don’t marry your father-in-law. All right. She may turn me
down. Doubtless will on my first attempt. But hear my solemn vow—well,
never mind. Now for plan of campaign. Tomorrow we approach the old
villain. But stay! He must have some redeeming qualities to be the
father of a girl, a goddess, by Jove! like that. I shall set myself to
discover them. Never fear! I am still your lawyer and shall handle your
case with all fidelity and zeal, but with the soft pedal, my boy, the
soft pedal. I shall smile and smile and make him think I am saving him
from the clutches of stern retributive justice. Those I O U’s, for
instance, according to your father’s record, have obviously been met. It
will be mine to suggest that by some slight aberration of memory that
fact has escaped him. He will fall on my neck with gratitude. Jove! I’m
surrendering a lot of fun, but she’s worth it. Must recast my brief,
eh?”

“Well, that’s your job, and good luck with the girl, Dalton. Here we are
at Pine Croft. A lonely place, old man, but such as it is you are
welcome. Here is Tom. Hello, Tom! All fit?”

“Good! Good!” grunted Tom, running toward Paul and grasping his hand.
“Little chief come again!”

“Tom is one of my father’s old friends, Dalton. Taught me all I know
about the woods and things in them. Tom, my friend, Mr. Dalton.”

“Huh! Good! Good man!” said Tom, giving Dalton a keen look and offering
his hand.

“You are all right, Dalton. Tom is careful with his friendship.”

“Mighty glad to have Tom for a friend,” said Dalton, shaking the old
Indian’s hand warmly.

“How is supper, Tom?” said Paul. “Any prairie chicken? Partridge?”

“Huh! Chicken! partridge! deer!”

“Great Cæsar’s ghost! Tom, you don’t mean to say you’ve got all that?”
cried Paul.

“Huh!” grunted Tom, delighted. “Plenty, plenty on mountain.”

“Oh, I say, old boy! What about four o’clock tomorrow morning, eh?” said
Paul.

“Tomorrow? No! Business first. Tonight and tomorrow to business. After
that I’m your man. By the way, does the young lady by any chance handle
a gun?”

“Handle a gun? Rather! At least, she could six years ago.”

“Paul! Paul!” said Dalton solemnly. “What have I done that the gods
should so order my lot?”

After supper, while Paul and old Tom went over the guns and the hunting
gear and made all preparations for a week’s hunt, Dalton buried himself
in his papers, seeking to discover how he might utilise the soft pedal
without injuring his case, with the result that before they went to
sleep he had his new campaign fully planned.

“It’s all right, Paul,” he said. “We will get him all the same, but with
considerably less suffering to the old sinner.”

“I am not anxious to make him suffer, Dalton. I have got over that a
bit. He will get all he deserves, but not from me,” said Paul.

“Paul, you are a long way better man than I am,” said Dalton. “When I
see what you have lost through that old devil’s crime, I tell you I see
red. And I can’t understand how you take it as you do.”

Paul sat silently smoking for some minutes, looking into the fire.

“It is because of what all this brings back to me, Dalton, that I am
able to keep my hands off him and perhaps one day—to forgive him—not
yet, not yet—but perhaps some day. That’s my mother’s chair you are
sitting in——No! No! Sit down; I want you to sit there,” he added as
Dalton sprang up from the chair. He rose and took from a side table a
Bible. “This was her Bible, Dalton,” he said, his voice vibrating with
emotion. “I am going to read her last lesson to me.” Dalton laid his
pipe down while Paul read to him the immortal words which have set for
men whose hearts are hot with the passion for vengeance the ideal of the
Master of mankind. “I say not unto you until seven times, but until
seventy times seven.” Then, turning the pages to the story of His
Passion, he read again, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do.”

“I have not arrived yet, Dalton, at the mountain peak, God knows. For
seven years I have been funking it, as utterly beyond me. But tonight I
glimpse it far up in the clouds. Here my mother learned to forgive, here
my father found forgiveness, and here I begin to feel how much I need
forgiveness. There’s a lot of humbug in me, Dalton.”

“Oh, darn it all, Paul, cut that out, unless you want to condemn me to
hell straightway.”

“I’m not thinking of you. Every man must work this out for himself and
in his own relations. There is that man near me here I have long wanted
to kill. As God is above, Dalton, I have waked up at night in that far
North country, wet with sweat, my hands clutched in the bed clothes, my
heart pounding with the joy of choking to death the man who brought
about my father’s death. Tonight in this room I feel myself in the
presence of my mother and in His presence Who was more to her than all
in the world, and that’s saying something, for she loved greatly. I feel
mean and contemptible. Her last words were, ‘Tell Daddy till seventy
times seven.’ Dalton, I have been saying the Lord’s Prayer night and
morning for seven years, and every time dodging the issue under a
pretence that in seeking vengeance I was only seeking justice. Justice
is not hatred, bitter, hot, heart-racking hatred. Justice is a holy
thing, with its foundation in the heart of the Eternal God, and lies
next to mercy. I have been a self-deceiving hypocrite. Never in these
seven years could I have gone to Sleeman and said, ‘Sleeman, I only seek
justice upon you.’ I knew I wanted more than that. God help me! I wanted
to feel my fingers in his throat and see his eyes turn back in his head.
That is the test of religion. I believe in God, I hold the thought of
Him close to that of my mother, I know Him, He has stayed by me all
these years—and yet—and yet—” he paused abruptly. “That will do for just
now, Dalton. I have been a wicked fool. I am seeing things a bit
differently tonight.”

Dalton was standing aghast all this time. This was a new Paul to him,
not the cool, controlled, self-contained man he had known and esteemed,
but a man shaken with passions deeper than he had ever seen in any human
being. His face was white, his eyes ablaze with a light that goes only
with madness, his sinewy hands were opening and shutting in convulsive
clutchings. It was easy to believe that those fingers could tear life
from any man’s throat.

“Good God, Gaspard! I never dreamed you had this thing in you. Look
here, old chap, I suggest you let me settle this thing tomorrow with
this man. I mean—I think—well, what’s the use going through all this
thing as you must when you see him? Besides, I can handle this without
you.”

Paul threw himself down in his chair and with shaking fingers began
filling his pipe.

“That’s all about that, Dalton,” he said in a voice still trembling. “I
think I shall take your offer. It just occurs to me—what would you say
if I went off and left you alone to handle this thing, and I went north
to Fort Reliance for my brother and sister? I could do it in about two
weeks. You could potter about here with Tom. There’s good shooting. What
do you say?”

Dalton sat smoking, his mind working swiftly. It would be a good thing
for Paul to be out of the way for a few days. It would be rather lonely
for himself, of course, but there flooded before his mind’s eye a vision
of flashing black eyes and curving lips, altogether alluring. There were
possibilities in the new situation.

“A good idea, Paul,” he said enthusiastically. “I would only hinder you
on that trip north. And when you returned we could still do a bit of a
shoot, eh?”

Long into the night they talked over their new plans, coming at last to
the determination that in two days Paul should set off on his northward
trip, leaving Dalton to conclude his business with Sleeman alone.

They were still lingering over a lazy breakfast when a cheery call from
the hill at the rear drew them out of doors, to find Adelina, a radiant
vision of picturesque loveliness, superbly mounted and vibrant with
life.

“Ah! our patient is apparently happily convalescent,” she cried, waving
them a salute.

“And able to partake of some slight nourishment, as I can testify,”
replied Dalton, his eyes glowing with the admiration which he took no
pains to conceal.

“Then what do you say to a preliminary survey of the beauty spots of our
little valley, eh, Paul?”

“I am tied up with some matters demanding attention, but if you can take
Dalton off my hands I shall be more than grateful,” said Paul.

“Ungrateful beast!” said Dalton. “I too have matters of grave importance
demanding my instant attention, but I fling them to the winds in the
presence of such an opportunity.”

“Gratitude is one of the rare virtues, Mr. Dalton,” said Adelina, hardly
looking his way. “I can understand Paul’s pre-occupation. But really,
Paul, can’t you postpone some of this business for a day at least?”

“Awfully sorry, Adelina. As a matter of fact, I am getting ready for a
trip to the north to see my brother and sister.”

“Your brother and sister? Oh, yes, of course. And where are they?”

“Up at Fort Reliance at a mission school. I may bring them back with
me.”

“Bring them back?” she said, astonished. “What can you do with them
here? But that’s none of my business,” she added hurriedly. “You can’t
give me—you can’t take this one day off?” She turned her horse about so
as to hide her face from Dalton, who moved away to admire the view of
the valley, and bent slightly over her saddle toward him.

Paul came over to her and, with his hand on her horse’s neck, looked
steadily into her eyes. “It is awfully good of you, Adelina,” he said,
“but I don’t believe I ought. You know—you see——”

“Ought!” said the girl, and for her life she could not quite keep the
bitterness out of her voice. “I know when you put that horrid word in
that there is an end to all persuasion. I suppose you know Peg is home,”
she added, her eyes holding his as she waited for what she expected and
dreaded to see in them. Her expectation and her dread were not
disappointed, for quickly though Paul turned his head he was not quick
enough to hide the leap of light into his eyes, nor with all his
steadiness of control could he prevent the swift grip of his fingers in
her horse’s mane. She sat back straight in her saddle.

“Peg? Home? I thought she—I thought they were still in England,” he said
in a low tone.

“You will hardly pass through the valley without seeing her, Paul,” said
Adelina, smiling down at him uncertainly.

“No, I would not do that. I must see them.”

“And your business? Your pressing business?” said Adelina, still
smiling.

“My business?” said Paul gravely. “The Pelhams are our oldest friends.”

“And dearest?”

“And dearest, Adelina,” he said, regarding her with grave, kind eyes.
Then after a slight hesitation, “Is her—is the young man with her?”

Adelina’s face was full of pity. “Yes, Paul, he is here.”

“I want to see him too,” he said.

“I’m afraid—Paul—you are too late,” she said, once more leaning down
toward him, with a rush of warm emotion in her eyes.

He was too simply honest to pretend ignorance of her meaning. To his
immense surprise her words came like a heavy blow to him. He held
himself rigidly quiet for a moment or two.

“Too late!” he muttered, looking far across the valley. “I don’t know.
I’m not sure—of myself. I wish I were sure. I don’t know. But,” here he
straightened his shoulders, “I will know today. She was such a child,
Peggy!”

Adelina sat very still on her horse, regarding him intently.

“Good-bye, Paul,” she said abruptly, her voice low and a little
unsteady. “And the best of luck.”

Her voice recalled his eyes from the far hills.

“What? Oh, thank you, Adelina,” he said, taking her outstretched hand in
both of his. “You are a good fellow.”

“So are you, old chap,” she said, pulling her hand away. “And now I
shall take charge of Mr. Dalton, if he will have me.”

“Gratefully, humbly, eternally, now and forever more, amen,” fervently
said Dalton, coming back to them.

“Sounds satisfactory, doesn’t he, eh, Paul?”

“You will find him entirely so,” said Paul, with emphasis. “But be
careful of him. Don’t put him over the jumps too soon.”

“I’ll take care of him,” said Adelina with a grin. “He looks fragile.”

“I am,” said Dalton. “I feel myself going all to pieces.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Adelina, with a saucy toss of her head.

From the front door Paul watched them ride down the drive, Dalton
mounted on Paul’s cow broncho.

“Sits his horse well,” he said, his eyes on Dalton’s well knit figure.
“He is a man and he has won out. But, by Jove, he will need to be a man
to be worthy of her, if he can get her.” He turned back to the house.
“Tom,” he called out, “will you please have Dad’s horse for me this
afternoon? I am going for a bit of a ride.”




                              CHAPTER XXVI


Having watched his friends out of sight he turned back into the house,
took down his gun and belt of cartridges and sauntered up the hill. But
his mind was not on his sport. Adelina’s fateful words were echoing like
a tolling bell through his heart, “Too late! too late!” He tried to
explain to himself that sense of shock that the words had given him. He
had been trying for the past nine months to analyse his feeling for Peg.
Love? That was hardly possible. Seven years ago, when as boy and girl
together they had ridden the country over, there was no thought of love
in his mind. All that sort of thing he would have despised as a silly,
sissy affair. He could remember that he had assumed a sort of
responsibility for Peg in those days; it was his business to take care
of her, she was so delicate a thing, so needing care. It was that sense
of responsibility for her that had wrought in him such fury at Asa on
the day when Peg and Tubby had their ignominious tumble into the pool.
But love for Peg? He could not quite analyse the sense of desolation, of
outrage, that had swept his soul when Adelina had announced to him nine
months ago that another had intervened and had assumed the right to care
for her. Peg engaged to be married? That she had really given to another
than himself the right always to protect her, to care for her, to
defend, to fight if need be for her? It seemed to him that no man should
step in and claim that right. He would like to see the man who would
dare do this. Was this love?

He had been devouring under Dalton’s guiding during the few spare hours
that had been his these last months the works of some of the masters of
English fiction. He had read of love and of lovers, their ecstasies,
their passions, their despairs. Certainly no emotion of like quality had
fallen upon him. Would Peg expect that of him, if he should by any
chance he able to oust the other man from her heart? Could he give her
that kind of love? He knew he could not. Why then should he disturb her?
Why not go his way till she was married and safely in another man’s
care? Ah, that was it! Could any man care for her, give her that tender,
unceasing, protective care that he knew he could give, that he longed to
give, and that somehow he could not persuade himself that Peg would
desire any other man to give? Was that love?

After all, it was Peg who had the word. If Peg were satisfied that this
man should henceforth be her protector, then he would simply back off
the stage. He would hate to do anything to disturb little Peg. He could
not endure the thought that anything should grieve her. He remembered
how her tears used to fill him with fury. He felt now that he would
gladly tear in pieces any man who would bring the tears to those great
blue eyes. He must see Peg, and he must see her with the young man. He
must see her eyes as she looked upon him. He could easily visualise the
young man’s eyes as he looked upon her. But the young man counted for
nothing. Nor indeed did he himself count for anything. It was Peg that
mattered. He came to see that clearly. More than anything in his life,
it was important that Peg should be happy and safe. And the man that Peg
felt could make her happy and keep her safe should have the right to do
so. Yes, Peg had the word. And Peg’s happiness and security were the
important issues. What should come to him or to that other man was
really a subordinate issue.

It was late afternoon when he rode slowly down the drive. He had
clarified his mind as to his objective in going to the “big white
house,” but he knew not just what reception was awaiting him. The air
was warm and balmy, a gift day from summer to autumn; the valley was
full of deep purples and blues; the river gleamed bright in the late
afternoon sun; and far in the west the dark mountains lay softly against
a sky of liquid gold. It was good to be alive, and good to be at home in
the valley again. Paul’s heart was warm with tender memories of his
boyhood days, his boyhood friends, and among these he discovered now
that Peg had ever held the central place. In every scheme of life, past
and future, Peg was assigned the chief rôle. And this afternoon it was
to meet Peg, after all, that he was riding to the “big white house.” The
others, important and dear as they were, formed the setting merely for
her appearance. Paul caught himself up sharply for this, but off guard
he found his mind ever arranging its stage furnishing in such fashion as
to give Peg the central place and the leading rôle.

Hence when he rode quietly into the front yard and stood at the open
door of the living room, it was Peg who first caught and held his eyes.
For some moments he stood silently gazing at the girl across the width
of the room. Then he took a step toward her, his eyes still fastened
upon her face.

“Good afternoon,” said the Colonel, courteously, rising to greet a
stranger.

“You don’t know me,” he said, smiling at the girl.

With a faint cry she advanced slowly toward him. “Oh, it is you!” she
said. “Oh, Paul, you have come back!” With hands reaching toward him she
ran the remaining steps.

“Yes, Peg, I said I would come for you,” he said, his voice tense and
low, taking her hands in his.

“I always said you would come,” she said, her blue eyes shining, her
face pale, her lips trembling.

The sight of her shining eyes, her pale face and quivering lips was to
Paul’s heart like a breath of wind upon a smouldering fire. Swiftly he
released her hands, threw his arms about her, drew her close to him and
kissed her upon the lips. As suddenly he released her and stood back as
if expecting he knew not what.

“Peggy!” cried the Colonel.

“My dear!” cried his wife.

“Paul!” shouted the Reverend Donald Fraser, one of the group.

The only silent member of the party was a young man, tall,
broad-shouldered, with a strong if somewhat heavy face and good blue
eyes, now shining with amazement and anger.

“Why not?” cried Peg, standing up straight and tall, her face crimson,
her eyes flashing. “It is Paul.”

“Why not?” said Paul, his voice ringing out with a glad challenge in it.
“I said I would come for her.”

The Reverend Donald Fraser was the first to recover normality.

“You are welcome home, Paul. I heard of you last winter in the city, but
I failed to see you.” He took Paul’s hand in his, shook it warmly,
patting him on the shoulder the while. “You were doing great work there,
I understand.”

The Colonel and his wife joined in the greeting, but Paul fancied there
was something wanting in the welcome. He missed the Colonel’s old time
shout of joy at seeing him.

The Colonel then presented him formally to the young man, standing
behind Peg. “Mr. Guy Laughton, the eldest son of Sir Stephen Laughton,
one of our oldest Dorset families and my oldest and best friend,” the
little Colonel announced in swelling words. “Guy, this is Paul Gaspard,
an old family friend, indeed I might almost say a member of the family.
Brought the boy up indeed.”

The young man bowed in an easy, off-hand manner, muttering his delight
at the meeting. Paul took a stride toward him, offering his hand.

“I am glad to meet you, Mr. Laughton,” he said, “glad to meet an old
friend of the Colonel’s.” The grip in which he expressed his delight
made the young man wince.

“You will join us at dinner, Paul,” said the Colonel’s wife. “We are
just sitting down.”

Something in her manner prompted Paul to decline, but the quick, eager
look in Peg’s eyes decided him.

“Thank you, Aunt Augusta,” he replied. “I shall be glad to.”

The dinner somehow was going badly, despite the Colonel’s very best
dinner stories and his lady’s most brilliant efforts at conversation.
The young Englishman attended strictly to his eating, carrying an air of
nonchalant if courteous indifference toward the efforts at conversation
by the Colonel and his wife. The Reverend Donald Fraser won the
gratitude of Mrs. Pelham for the gallant manner in which he came to her
rescue. The minister felt the restraint and as a friend of the family
was bound to do his utmost to save the situation. After the Colonel had
failed in an heroic attempt to engage Laughton in a discussion of
English politics, for which he cared not a farthing, English sport, in
which he was deeply interested, doings at Oxford, where they had a
common meeting ground, the minister took Paul in hand. He drew from him
an interesting description of the life, the habits, the occupations of
the Indians of the far North country. Finally he took him up on the
religion of the Chippewayans.

“They have a real religion I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” said Paul. “It is not our religion, but I would say a real
religion, with very noble elements in it. They believe in and worship a
supreme spirit whose favour they seek and whom they strive to obey.”

“But it is wholly pagan?”

“Yes, we call them pagan, but I often wondered what God would call some
of them. For some of them, those who really practise their religion, are
good men. Of course, some of them don’t take much stock in their
religion, but——”

“But,” interrupted the minister, “there are many of our own people don’t
take much stock in religion, I fear.”

“Right, sir. And just as with us, those who are most loyal to their
religious principles are the best men. And they are good men.”

“Good men? What do you mean exactly?” inquired the Colonel, whose
experience of the native population of British Columbia had not been of
the happiest.

“Good in your own understanding of the word, sir,” said Paul firmly.
“They are honest, they are loyal to their obligations, they are kind to
their own, they are capable of heroic self-sacrifice, they have perfect
manners, the manners of a gentleman, in short.”

“How do they treat their women? Beasts of burden, I understand. Eh,
what?” said Laughton, abruptly breaking into the conversation.

“They treat their women pretty much as my ancestors and yours treated
their women a few generations ago, as Mr. Fraser, who is an expert on
that subject, will tell you, I guess,” said Paul.

“Quite right, Paul, and not so many generations ago either. Indeed, I
will go so far as to say as very many men in my country and yours treat
their women today,” said Mr. Fraser, addressing himself to Laughton.

“That, sir, I take leave to deny,” said the Englishman with some little
heat.

“You will excuse me, Mr. Laughton,” said the minister. “I was visiting
my native country only a year ago. Yes, in the highlands of Scotland I
saw things that grieved me to the heart and that made my blood boil.
Sir, I saw women carrying the manure from their byres in creels upon
their backs and depositing it upon their little fields, while their men
were lolling in the sun, smoking their pipes.”

“Ah!” said Laughton, with an ironic smile. “You are speaking of the
crofters and that lot.”

“Yes, more’s the pity. But I also visited in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, in
Dundee. I spent some weeks in London, sir—no, excuse me, not the East
End only, I will take you also to the West End. I stood at the doors of
your grand theatres and music halls. I saw there the painted women, poor
unhappy creatures that they are! Beasts of burden? Would to God they
were only beasts of burden, sir! Beasts, and lower than beasts, made to
serve the lusts of English gentlemen!” The blue eyes of the Scot were
aflame with indignation. “I warrant you, Paul, you saw nothing of that
among your Indians of the North. Ah, sir,” turning again to Laughton,
“the paganism of London is something for which all honest Englishmen
ought to be concerned and for which all of us ought to blush. You will
excuse me, Mrs. Pelham,” he continued, bowing courteously to his
hostess. “I have studied this matter with some care, and as a man of the
British Empire I am filled with anxiety for the future of our people.”

“Oh, hang it, Fraser! You will always have that sort of thing. We are
not so bad as the rest of the world.”

“Sir, you are right, but should we not be something better?” said the
minister earnestly. “But I have no wish to discuss this matter here.”

“I ought to apologise, sir,” said Laughton. “I believe I am responsible
for giving the conversation the turn it has taken. Mr. Gaspard was
speaking of gentlemen among the northern savages, I believe.”

“Yes,” said Paul, “and I stay by what I have said. They were Indians,
pagan, savages, they had their faults, their vices, they were by no
means perfect. I have met some fine men, some gentlemen, though I have
seen little of the world I must confess, but no finer gentleman have I
met than the old chief of the Chippewayans. He was a man of the finest
courage and endurance; he took the most scrupulous care of his people:
when they suffered he suffered, he ruled them with justice and
consideration, he kept them free from the vices of white civilisation;
he stuck by his word; he was clean right through to the bone; he was
what I call a gentleman.”

“Must have been one of the right sort,” said Laughton heartily.

“He was that,” replied Paul, his eyes lighting up with a kindly look at
the Englishman. “You would have been glad to know him.”

“You got to know him well, eh?”

“I did,” said Paul. “I lived with him for six years.” He paused just a
moment, then lifting his chin a little and looking Laughton in the eyes
he added, “His daughter was my father’s wife.”

“What say? Your father’s——Good Lord!——I mean——” The Englishman stopped
in confusion.

“Yes,” said Fraser, “and a fine, educated, Christian woman she was too.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Paul with quiet dignity. “She was that and more
than that to me.”

There was an awkward silence for some moments. Mrs. Pelham appeared much
annoyed. The Colonel fussed about, ordering from the servant things he
did not want. Peg, with face crimson, kept her eyes upon her plate.
Again the minister stepped into the breach.

“The children are well?” he asked Paul.

“I go to Fort Reliance to bring them out with me. Peter I am going to
place on the ranch where I spent a summer myself. The little girl,” here
his voice took on a softer tone, “I shall bring with me to Vancouver.
They have both done splendidly at the school, so the missionary says.”

“Little Tanna I remember was very beautiful,” said Peg, for the first
time joining in the conversation.

“She is beautiful, very quick mentally, has a good voice, a bright,
cheery little soul,” said Paul.

“She is blind,” said Peg softly to Laughton.

“Good Lord! I mean—how awful!” said Laughton, in a horrified voice.

“She is not unhappy,” said Paul quietly.

Again the conversation lagged, though the Colonel endeavoured to lure
Laughton into speaking of his plans. Laughton informed him he had no
plans, and left the matter there. Paul began to be conscious of an
attitude almost of hostility on the part of Mrs. Pelham, and even the
Colonel refused to be interested in his affairs.

As the ladies rose from the table Peg came to Paul’s side and said
hurriedly, “I want to hear about Vancouver. Adelina was very
tantalizing, beginning so many interesting things and never finishing
anything.”

“I must go soon,” said Paul.

“You are not to go without seeing me,” she said imperiously, as she
passed to her mother, who was waiting impatiently for her.

“You are behaving ridiculously, Peggy,” said her mother when they were
alone. “The whole dinner was spoiled with—that—that disgusting
conversation and—and all.”

“Well, Mamma, I had little enough to do with the conversation.”

“That’s just it. You can talk well, but you allowed Paul and Mr. Fraser
to absorb the attention of the table and bring in objectionable things.
I have no patience with you. And Paul—what need was there for dragging
in those horrid half-breed children and their mother? Surely the less
said about them the better.”

“Oh, Mamma, I thought it was just splendid of him to stick up for them
as he did.”

“What will Guy think of your friends, I wonder?”

“I wonder what he thinks of his own friends!” retorted Peg.

“What do you mean, child?”

“I mean that horrid creature, Lady Alicia, who went everywhere,
and—and—you know the kind of person she is.”

“We only met her incidentally. And—of course, the thing is quite
different. Her family is among the oldest in Dorset. Surely the thing is
quite different from this horrid affair with a squaw. Ugh! it is too
awful! Disgusting! What must Guy think of your friends in this country?
And the idea of you kissing him that way!”

“I don’t know how I came to do that, Mamma. Somehow it seemed a very
natural thing to do,” said Peg, blushing hotly. “I just couldn’t help
it.”

“Then let there be no more of such nonsense. Guy was very much shocked.”

“Was he then, poor dear?” said Peg, with a grimace. “Oh, he will put it
down to our extraordinary colonial ways. If Mr. Guy doesn’t like it, he
can just lump it.”

Her mother’s eyes were reading her daughter’s face with some anxiety.

“Don’t be rude, child,” she said sharply.

“I was not thinking of you, Mamma,” said Peg.

“Well,” said her mother more calmly, “I am quite sure I can trust you,
after all you have seen of the right sort of life and the right sort of
people for the past two years, to show both self-control and sound
common sense.”

“I hope so, Mamma,” said Peg demurely.

“And I hope too, Peggy, that you will remember that you must consider
your future.”

“I hope so, Mamma,” said Peg, more demurely.

“Of course, Paul is a fine boy and he has many attractive qualities, but
he is hardly more than a boy, and——”

“He is over twenty-two, Mamma, just two years older than I.”

“But he knows absolutely nothing of the world.”

“Except everything there is to know of life in the great North land,
and——”

“Don’t interrupt me, child. You have your father’s habit of
interrupting. What I mean is that he has seen nothing outside this
country, and very little of that; no experience of men and affairs.”

“Adelina told me a lot of wonderful things he is doing in Vancouver,
wonderful for a boy.”

“Adelina!” Her mother’s voice was full of scorn. “Much her judgment is
worth in matters of this kind! And the girl is mad about him herself.”

“Is she?” asked Peg, with a queer little smile.

“And he would suit her admirably.”

“Perhaps I ought to tell him, Mamma,” said Peg, with a gleam in her eye.
“Only I don’t think he would listen to me.”

Her mother looked at her sharply. “What do you mean, Peg? You are most
annoying and perplexing.”

“I mean, Mamma, that Paul loves me and would not look at Adelina.”

Her mother gasped. “And how do you know, child?”

“Oh, Mamma! How did you know? How does any woman know?”

“Woman!” ejaculated her mother.

“You know I must think of my future,” said Peg sweetly. “You see, I know
Paul.”

“You know Paul! Nonsense! You knew him seven or eight years ago.”

“Paul is not the kind that changes, Mamma.”

“Good heavens, child! What are you talking about?”

“About Paul. And that he is in love with me and that he will never,
never change.” The girl’s face was alight with a glow of ecstatic
rapture.

Her mother sank heavily into a chair. “And Guy?” she asked faintly.

“I am sorry for Guy. He is a good chap. But you can’t blame me for Guy.”

“And your father? He has set his heart upon your marrying Guy. You know
he talked the matter over with Sir Stephen. Why, Peg, they all think it
is settled, and you allowed them to think so.”

“Perhaps I did. And I am sorry for that. But you see, I didn’t quite
know about Paul—oh, I ought to have known. But you all said he would
never come back. Father said so. Poor Father! I _am_ sorry for him.”

“Do you mean to tell me, Peggy, that you are deliberately throwing over
Guy for this——” Her mother paused, breathless.

“For Paul? I am not throwing over Guy. I never accepted Guy, whatever
you and Father may have done or understood.”

“And you mean to marry this boy, with all his horrid connections?”

“Mamma,” cried Peg, “if Paul asks me to marry him I will. I would take
on the whole lot of them if Paul would ask me.”

“You shameless girl!” exclaimed her mother, in a fury of contempt.

“Of course, he hasn’t asked me. You see, Adelina told him I was engaged
to Guy—I got that out of her. And he, poor boy!—you know his queer
notions of honour and conscience and all that sort of thing—it would be
like him to go off without a word, even if he broke his heart over it.”

Her mother sniffed audibly and contemptuously.

“But I won’t let him,” continued Peg joyously. “Do you think I could do
that, now that I know he loves me? Oh, he is a silly boy! I know he
meant to come here tonight and play the noble, self-controlled,
high-minded gentleman, see me taken up with Guy, and, making no sign,
then go away, and that sort of stuff that all the silly men do in books.
But the moment he looked at me he forgot himself, forgot everything but
me. His eyes, his dear blue-grey eyes, told me everything. That’s why I
kissed him, Mamma. How could I help it? And now he is bracing himself up
to go away without a word. And he will if I let him. But I’m not going
to let him go. I’m going to let him ask me—make him ask me—oh, Mamma, I
am shameless, but I am happy, so happy, happy, my heart is just
bursting, mad with joy! For Paul is the only man in the world I have
ever loved or can love.”

The girl was standing with her back to the dining-room door, her hands
clasped over her heart, her face uplifted and radiant as light, her eyes
glowing through a mist of tears, her voice low and vibrant with the
passion of her love. As she uttered these last words the dining-room
door was opened and in it stood Paul, with the others close behind him.
The girl, following her mother’s horrified gaze, faced swiftly about and
stood aghast. A rush of crimson dyed her face, her neck, her bosom, then
faded, leaving her pale, shrinking, overwhelmed, speechless. As her eyes
found Paul’s face she drew herself erect, with head thrown back,
waiting. For one instant Paul stood motionless, his eyes devouring her
lovely face, then, with swift steps, he was at her side, on his knees,
her hand clasped in both of his, his lips pressed to her fingers.

“Peg, dear, dear Peg,” he murmured. “Is it true? Can it be true that you
love me?”

She stooped low over him. “Yes, Paul, dear Paul, with all my heart I
love you,” she said, lifting him to his feet, her voice low, sweet, but
reaching to every ear in the room.

The little Colonel was the first to recover speech. “My God!” he cried,
in a voice shaking with amazement and anger. “What does this mean?
What—what can I say, Guy?”

Pale to the lips, but with the cool steadiness with which men of his
race have been wont to meet shattering disaster, the Englishman made
answer.

“What is there to say, sir? The last word is with Peg, and she appears
to have said all that is necessary.” Then walking slowly toward the girl
he offered his hand. “May I wish you all the joy in life?” he said,
bowing low over her hand. A moment he hesitated, then offered his hand
to Paul. “You have already the best of luck, the sweetest girl in the
world. And I believe you will be good to her.”

Tall and very straight Paul stood, with one arm around the girl at his
side, his head held high, his face grave, his blue-grey eyes steady upon
the little Colonel. His voice came firm and clear in a quaint mingling
of dignity and boyish candour.

“I love Peg. I can’t help loving her, Uncle Colonel. I have always loved
her, I think. I never knew till tonight how much. And, before God Who
hears me now, I pledge myself to love her and serve her all my life.”

The Colonel was dazed, like a man struck by a cyclone. He stood, as it
were, among the ruins of that imaginative structure which, in
collaboration with his life-long friend and comrade in arms, Sir Stephen
Laughton, he had erected with fond and elaborate care for his child. He
found himself defeated, humiliated, and worse, for, as he thought, his
honour was involved. As he recovered his mental poise his indignation
rose. His wrathful eyes wandered from face to face, seeking sympathy and
help, and finding none, searching out a point of attack. As most
vulnerable he lit upon the young Englishman who, looking wretched and
embarrassed, had edged somewhat behind the Reverend Donald Fraser,
standing uncompromisingly fronting the wrathful man.

“Guy, I deeply regret this—eh—most—eh—unhappy, most
disgraceful—eh—occurrence. Will you explain to your respected father my
deep disappointment and regret. Tell him—but what is there to say? What
can a man do in such a case as this?” He waved his hand vaguely toward
the two young people pilloried as culprits before him. “What can a man
do, I ask you?”

“If I may venture a suggestion, sir,” replied Guy, with the air of a man
offering perfectly disinterested advice, “I should say congratulations
all around were in order.”

“Congratulations!” shouted the Colonel. “Damnation!”

“Edgar, my dear Edgar,” protested his wife.

“My dear, allow me. And you, sir,” he said, turning abruptly to the
Reverend Donald Fraser, “can you condone such proceedings? What do you
say, sir?”

“Sir, with your permission,” said the minister with solemn gravity, “in
words of weightier authority than my own, I would say, ‘Whoso findeth a
wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor from the Lord.’ Who are
we that we should seek to oppose the leadings of providence?”

“Providence?” snorted the Colonel. “The devil!”

“Edgar, I beg you,” pleaded his wife, who in twenty-two years had never
seen her husband in such a mood.

“My dear, my dear, you must allow me. In this matter my honour is
involved.” Then, wheeling upon Paul, in tones of chilling courtesy he
said, “And you, sir, all that I shall say to you is this, that I have
the honour to wish you good night.”

“Colonel Pelham!” entreated Paul.

“You will find your horse in the stable, sir,” said the Colonel, bowing
profoundly.

Paul stood motionless for a moment, then with an answering bow he
replied gravely, “Good night, Colonel Pelham. Good night, Aunt Augusta.”

“Wait, Paul, for me,” said Peg, starting forward. “I’m going with you.”

“Not tonight, Peg,” said Paul. “When I am ready for you I shall come for
you.”

“And when will that be?” inquired the Colonel ironically.

“Tomorrow, sir. Today, I am glad to say, Pine Croft comes back into my
hands, clear of all encumbrances.”

“Clear?” gasped the Colonel.

“Clear,” said Paul quietly. “Tomorrow I shall come for your daughter.”

“You defy me, sir?” shouted the Colonel.

“Edgar, I beseech you——” cried his wife.

“Please, my dear, I must beg you not to intrude,” replied the Colonel,
quite losing control of himself.

“Mamma, good night. I am going with Paul tonight. I cannot stay here one
moment longer. When Paul goes out of that door I go too.” Her cheeks
were a flame of colour, her eyes a blaze of light.

“Wait, Peggy. I am going with you,” said her mother, going to her side.

“Augusta? Going? Where?” exclaimed her husband, aghast.

“With my daughter,” replied his wife, her head high. “I have no doubt
but Paul can find a place for us tonight.”

“Mr. Fraser,” said Paul, “would you be able to give me your services
tomorrow afternoon, at a marriage ceremony?”

“That I will, my boy, with all my heart,” said the minister. “And you,
sir,” he continued, facing the Colonel, “it is my duty to inform you
that you are acting in an unworthy and un-Christian manner.”

“Sir,” replied the Colonel haughtily, “I beg to inform you that neither
my honour nor my conscience are in your keeping.”

“Come, Peggy,” said his wife. “We will get ready.”

“Augusta!” said her husband faintly. “You are not going?”

“Edgar, you are breaking the girl’s heart,” said his wife, with a break
in her voice, on her face a look tender, wistful, reminiscent. “And I
know what that means.”

“You know? Augusta!”

“Yes, by bitter experience,” said his wife.

“By bitter experience?” echoed her husband faintly, all the fight gone
out of him. “Do you mean that I—— My God, Augusta! What do you mean?”

“No, no, Edgar! Don’t be a goose! You have been a perfect dear to me all
these years. But can’t you see that you are breaking Peg’s heart?” said
his wife, coming nearer to him.

“Augusta!” implored the Colonel, opening his arms toward her. “Have I
ever in any way hurt—injured—broken—— Good God, Augusta!” The little
man’s voice grew husky.

“Dear, dear Daddy,” cried Peg, running to him and throwing her arms
round her father’s neck. “I have been a wicked girl. But Paul loves me,
as you love Mamma. And, Daddy, I love Paul. And who was it taught me to
love Paul, long ago? It was you, Daddy, it was your own self, Daddy,
when you used to love him. You don’t want to break my heart?”

“Break your heart, Peggy? My little Peggy!” said the Colonel, sniffing
and fumbling for his handkerchief. “Here, Paul, take care of this girl,”
he said, pushing Peg away from him. “Augusta, my dear, if ever I have in
any way, by word——”

“Hush, you silly man. You have been a perfect angel to me,” said his
wife, putting her arms about him and kissing him.

“Guy!” said the Colonel, when he had wiped his eyes and recovered his
speech, “I deeply regret your disappointment. You will assure Sir
Stephen that somehow this thing got beyond me. I did for you all a man
could, but Peg must follow her heart.”

“I think, sir,” said Guy, greatly relieved, “you have really hit it. I
quite agree. Of course, Peg must follow her heart.”

“Paul, give me your hand, my boy,” said the Colonel, with recovered
dignity. “Take my girl when you are ready for her. And after all, my
dear,” turning to his wife, “we shall be glad to have the Gaspards again
at Pine Croft.”

“Yes, my dear, especially these Gaspards,” replied his wife.

                                THE END.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Gaspards of Pine Croft, by Ralph Connor