The baseball match turned out to be a mere setting for the display of the eccentricities and superior baseball qualities of Sam, which apparently quite outcla.s.sed those of his teammates in the match. After three disastrous innings, Sam caused himself to be moved first to the position of short stop, and later to the pitcher's box, to the immense advantage of his side. But although, owing to the lead obtained by the enemy, his prowess was unable to ward off defeat from All Comers, yet under his inspiration and skilful generalship, the team made such a brilliant recovery of form and came so near victory that Sam was carried from the field in triumph shoulder high and departed with his new and enthusiastically grateful comrades to a celebration.

Larry, however, was much too miserable and much too unhappy for anything like a celebration. The boy was oppressed with a feeling of loneliness, and was conscious chiefly of a desire to reach his car and crawl into his bed there among the straw. Stumbling blindly along the dusty road; a cheery voice hailed him.

"h.e.l.lo, Larry!" It was Jane seated beside her father in his car.

"h.e.l.lo!" he answered faintly and just glanced at her as the car pa.s.sed.

But soon the car pulled up. "Come on, Larry, we'll take you home," said Jane.

"Oh, I'm all right," said Larry, forcing his lips into his old smile and resolutely plodding on.

"Better come up, my boy," said the doctor.

"I don't mind walking, sir," replied Larry, stubbornly determined to go his lonely way.

"Come here, boy," said the doctor, regarding him keenly. Larry came over to the wheel. "Why, boy, what is the matter?" The doctor took hold of his hand.

Larry gripped the wheel hard. He was feeling desperately ill and unsteady on his legs, but still his lips twisted themselves into a smile. "I'm all right, sir," he said; "I've got a headache and it was pretty hot out there."

But even as he spoke his face grew white and he swayed on his feet.

In an instant the doctor was out of his car. "Get in, lad," he said briefly, and Larry, surrendering, climbed into the back seat, fighting fiercely meanwhile to prevent the tears from showing in his eyes.

Keeping up a brisk and cheerful conversation with Jane in regard to the game, the doctor drove rapidly toward his home.

"You will come in with us, my boy," said the doctor as they reached his door.

By this time Larry was past all power of resistance and yielded himself to the authority of the doctor, who had him upstairs and into bed within a few minutes of his arrival. A single word Larry uttered during this process, "Tell my mother," and then sank into a long nightmare, through which there mingled dim shapes and quiet voices, followed by dreamless sleep, and an awakening to weakness that made the lifting of his eyelids an effort and the movement of his hand a weariness. The first object that loomed intelligible through the fog in which he seemed to move was a little plain face with great blue eyes carrying in them a cloud of maternal anxiety. Suddenly the cloud broke and the sun burst through in a joyous riot, for in a voice that seemed to him unfamiliar and remote Larry uttered the single word, "Jane."

"Oh!" cried the little girl rapturously. "Oh, Larry, wait." She slipped from the room and returned in a moment with his mother, who quickly came to his side.

"You are rested, dear," she said, putting her hand under his head.

"Drink this. No, don't lift your head. Now then, go to sleep again, darling," and, stooping down, she kissed him softly.

"Why--are--you--crying?" he asked faintly. "What's the--matter?"

"Nothing, darling; you are better. Just sleep."

"Better?--Have--I--been--sick?"

"Yes, you have been sick," said his mother.

"Awfully sick," said Jane solemnly. "A whole week sick. But you are all right now," she added brightly, "and so is Joe, and Sam, and Rover and Rosie. I saw them all this morning and you know we have been praying and praying and--"

"Now he will sleep, Jane," said his mother, gently touching the little girl's brown tangle of hair.

"Yes, he will sleep; oh, I'm just awful thankful," said Jane, suddenly rushing out of the room.

"Dear little girl," said the mother. "She has been so anxious and so helpful--a wonderful little nurse."

But Larry was fast asleep, and before he was interested enough to make inquiry about his comrades in travel the car in charge of Joe and Sam, with Mr. Gwynne in the caboose, was far on its way to Alberta. After some days Jane was allowed to entertain the sick boy, as was her custom with her father, by giving an account of her day's doings. These were happy days for them both. Between the boy and the girl the beginnings of a great friendship sprang up.

"Larry, I think you are queer," said Jane to him gravely one day. "You are not a bit like you were in the car."

A quick flush appeared on the boy's face. "I guess I was queer that day, Jane," he said. "I know I felt queer."

"Yes, that's it," said Jane, delighted by some sudden recollection. "You were queer then, and now you're just ornary. My, you were sick and you were cross, too, awful cross that day. I guess it was the head.i.c.k. I get awfully cross, too, when I have the head.i.c.k. I don't think you will be cross again ever, will you, Larry?"

Larry, smiling at her, replied, "I'll never be cross with you, Jane, anyway, never again."

CHAPTER VII

THE GIRL OF THE WOOD LOT

June, and the sun flooding with a golden shimmer a land of tawny prairie, billowy hills, wooded valleys and mountain peaks white with eternal snows, touching with silver a stream which, glacier-born, hurled itself down mountain sides in fairy films of mist, rushed through canyons in a mad torrent, hurried between hills in a swollen flood, meandered along wide valleys in a full-lipped tide, lingered in a placid lake in a bit of lowland banked with poplar bluffs, and so onward past ranch-stead and homestead to the great Saskatchewan and Father Ocean, prairie and hills, valleys and mountains, river and lake, making a wonder world of light and warmth and colour and joyous life.

Two riders on rangey bronchos, followed by two Russian boarhounds, climbed the trail that went winding up among the hills towards a height which broke abruptly into a ridge of bare rock. Upon the ridge they paused.

"There! Can you beat that? If so, where?" The lady swept her gauntletted hand toward the scene below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt was tall, strongly made, handsome with that comeliness which perfect health and out-of-doors life combine to give, her dark hair, dark flashing eyes, straight nose, wide, full-lipped curving mouth, and a chin whose chiselled firmness was softened but not weakened by a dimple, making a picture good to look upon.

"There!" she cried again, "tell me, can you beat it?"

"Glorious! Sybil, utterly and splendidly glorious!" said her brother, his eyes sweeping the picture below. "And you too, Sybil," he said, turning his eyes upon her. "This country has done you well. By jove, what a transformation from the white-faced, willowy--"

"Weedy," said she.

"Well, as it's no longer true, weedy--woman that faded out of London, how many--eight years ago!"

"Ten years, ten long, glorious, splendid years."

"Ten years! Surely not ten!"

"Yes, ten beautiful years."

"I wish to G.o.d I had come with you then. I might have been--well, I should have been saved some b.u.mps and a ghastly cropper at last."

"'Cut it out,' Jack, as the boys say here. En avant! We never look back in this land, but ever forward. Oh, now isn't this worth while?" Again she swept her hand toward the scene below her. "Look at that waving line in the east, that broad sweep; and here at our left, those great, majestic things. I love them. I love every scar in their old grey faces.

They have been good friends to me. But for them some days might have been hard to live through, but they were always there like friends, watching, understanding. They kept me steady."

"You must have had some difficult days, old girl, in this awful land.

Yes, yes, I know it's glorious, especially on a day like this and in a light like this; but after all, you are away from the world, away from everybody, and shut off from everything, from life, art--how could you stick it?"

"Jack are you sympathising with me? Let me tell you your sympathy is wasted. I have had lonely days in this land, of course. When Tom was off on business--Oh! that man has been perfectly splendid. Jack! He's been--well, I can't tell you all he has been to me--father, mother, husband, chum, he's been to me, and more. And he's made good in the country, too. Now look again at this view. We always stop to look at it, Tom and I, from this point. Tell me if you have ever seen anything quite as wonderful!"

"Yes, it's glorious, a little like the veldt, with, of course, the mountains extra, and they do rather finish the thing in the grand style."

"Grand style, well, rather! A great traveller who has seen most of the world's beautiful spots told me he had never looked on anything quite so splendid as the view from here--so s.p.a.cious, so varied, so majestic. Ah, I love it, and the country has been good to me!