It would be a great thing for the Service. He's the man. By the Lord Harry, he's the only man! In short," with a resounding whack upon his thigh, "he has got to come. The situation is too serious for trifling."

"Trifling?" said the Sergeant to himself in undertone.

"We'll go for him. We'll send for him." The Superintendent turned and glanced at his companion.

"Not me, sir, I hope. You can quite see, sir, I'd be a mighty poor advocate. Couldn't face those blue eyes, sir. They make me grow quite weak. Chills and fever--in short, temporary delirium."

"Oh, well, Sergeant," replied the Superintendent, "if it's as bad as that--"

"You don't know her, sir. Those eyes! They can burn in blue flame or melt in--"

"Oh, yes, yes, I've no doubt." The Superintendent's voice had a touch of pity, if not contempt. "We won't expose you, Sergeant. But all the same we'll make a try for Cameron." His voice grew stern. His lips drew to a line. "And we'll get him."

The Sergeant's horse took a sudden plunge forward.

"Here, you beast!" he cried, with a fierce oath. "Come back here! What's the matter with you?" He threw the animal back on his haunches with a savage jerk, a most unaccustomed thing with the Sergeant.

"Yes," pursued the Superintendent, "the situation demands it. Cameron's the man. It's his old stamping-ground. He knows every twist of its trails. And he's a wonder, a genius for handling just such a business as this."

The Sergeant made no reply. He was apparently having some trouble with his horse.

"Of course," continued the Superintendent, with a glance at his Sergeant's face, "it's hard on her, but--" dismissing that feature of the case lightly--"in a situation like this everything must give way.

The latest news is exceedingly grave. The trouble along the Saskatchewan looks to me exceedingly serious. These half-breeds there have real grievances. I know them well, excitable, turbulent in their spirits, uncontrollable, but easily handled if decently treated. They've sent their pet.i.tions again and again to Ottawa, and here are these Members of Parliament making fool speeches, and the Government pooh-poohing the whole movement, and meantime Riel orating and organizing."

"Riel? Who's he?" inquired the Sergeant.

"Riel? You don't know Riel? That's what comes of being an island-bred Britisher. You people know nothing outside your own little two by four patch on the world's map. Haven't you heard of Riel?"

"Oh, yes, by the way, I've heard about the Johnny. Mixed up in something before in this country, wasn't he?"

"Well, rather! The rebel leader of 1870. Cost us some considerable trouble, too. There's bound to be mischief where that hair-brained four-flusher gets a crowd to listen to him. For egoist though he is, he possesses a wonderful power over the half-breeds. He knows how to work.

And somehow, too, they're suspicious of all Canadians, as they call the new settlers from the East, ready to believe anything they're told, and with plenty of courage to risk a row."

"What's the row about, anyway?" inquired the Sergeant. "I could never quite get it."

"Oh, there are many causes. These half-breeds are squatters, many of them. They have introduced the same system of survey on the Saskatchewan as their ancestors had on the St. Lawrence, and later on the Red, the system of 'Strip Farms.' That is, farms with narrow fronts upon the river and extending back from a mile to four miles, a poor arrangement for farming but mighty fine for social purposes. I tell you, it takes the loneliness and isolation out of pioneer life. I've lived among them, and the strip-farm survey possesses distinct social advantages. You have two rows of houses a few rods apart, and between them the river, affording an ice roadway in the winter and a waterway in the summer.

And to see a flotilla of canoes full of young people, with fiddles and concertinas going, paddle down the river on their way to a neighbor's house for a dance, is something to remember. For my part I don't wonder that these people resent the action of the Government in introducing a completely new survey without saying 'by your leave.' There are troubles, too, about their land patents."

"How many of these half-breeds are there anyway?"

"Well, only a few hundreds I should say. But it isn't the half-breeds we fear. The mischief of it is they have been sending runners all through this country to their red-skin friends and relatives, holding out all sorts of promises, the restoration of their hunting grounds to the Indians, the establishing of an empire of the North, from which the white race shall be excluded. I've heard them. Just enough truth and sense in the whole mad scheme to appeal to the Indian mind. The older men, the chiefs, are quiet so far, but the young braves are getting out of hand. You see they have no longer their ancient excitement of war and the chase. Life has grown monotonous, to the young men especially, on the reserves. They are chafing under control, and the prospect of a fight appeals to them. In every tribe sun dances are being held, braves are being made, and from across the other side weapons are being introduced. And now that this old snake Copperhead has crossed the line the thing takes an ugly look. He's undeniably brainy, a fearless fighter, an extraordinary organizer, has great influence with his own people and is greatly respected among our tribes. If an Indian war should break out with Copperhead running it--well--! That's why it's important to get this old devil. And it must be done quietly. Any movement in force on our part would set the prairie on fire. The thing has got to be done by one or two men. That's why we must have Cameron."

In spite of his indignation the Sergeant was impressed. Never had he heard his Chief discourse at such length, and never had he heard his Chief use the word "danger." It began to dawn upon his mind that possibly it might not be such a crime as he had at first considered it to lure Cameron away from his newly made home and his newly wedded wife to do this bit of service for his country in an hour of serious if not desperate need.

CHAPTER III

A-FISHING WE WILL GO

But Sergeant Cameron was done with the Service for ever. An acc.u.mulating current of events had swept him from his place in the Force, as an unheeding traveler crossing a mountain torrent is swept from his feet by a raging freshet. The sudden blazing of his smoldering love into a consuming flame for the clumsy country girl, for whom two years ago he had cherished a pitying affection, threw up upon the horizon of his life and into startling clearness a new and absorbing objective. In one brief quarter of an hour his life had gathered itself into a single purpose; a purpose, to wit, to make a home to which he might bring this girl he had come to love with such swift and fierce intensity, to make a home for her where she could be his own, and for ever. All the vehement pa.s.sion of his Highland nature was concentrated upon the accomplishing of this purpose. That he should ever have come to love Mandy Haley, the overworked slattern on her father's Ontario farm, while a thing of wonder, was not the chief wonder to him. His wonder now was that he should ever have been so besottedly dull of wit and so stupidly unseeing as to allow the unlovely exterior of the girl to hide the radiant soul within. That in two brief years she had transformed herself into a woman of such perfectly balanced efficiency in her profession as nurse, and a creature of such fascinating comeliness, was only another proof of his own insensate egotism, and another proof, too, of those rare powers that slumbered in the girl's soul unknown to herself and to her world. Small wonder that with her unfolding Cameron's whole world should become new.

Hard upon this experience the unexpected news of his father's death and of the consequent winding up of the tangled affairs of the estate threw upon Cameron the responsibility of caring for his young sister, now left alone in the Homeland, except for distant kindred of whom they had but slight knowledge.

A home was immediately and imperatively necessary, and hence he must at once, as a preliminary, be married. Cameron fortunately remembered that young Fraser, whom he had known in his Fort Macleod days, was dead keen to get rid of the "Big Horn Ranch." This ranch lay nestling cozily among the foothills and in sight of the towering peaks of the Rockies, and was so well watered with little lakes and streams that when his eyes fell upon it Cameron was conscious of a sharp pang of homesickness, so suggestive was it of the beloved Glen Cuagh Oir of his own Homeland.

There would be a thousand pounds or more left from his father's estate.

Everybody said it was a safe, indeed a most profitable investment.

A week's leave of absence sufficed for Cameron to close the deal with Fraser, a reckless and gallant young Highlander, whose chivalrous soul, kindling at Cameron's romantic story, prompted a generous reduction in the price of the ranch and its outfit complete. Hence when Mandy's shrewd and experienced head had scanned the contract and cast up the inventory of steers and horses, with pigs and poultry thrown in, and had found nothing amiss with the deal--indeed it was rather better than she had hoped--there was no holding of Cameron any longer. Married he would be and without delay.

The only drag in the proceedings had come from the Superintendent, who, on getting wind of Cameron's purpose, had thought, by promptly promoting him from Corporal to Sergeant, to tie him more tightly to the Service and hold him, if only for a few months, "till this trouble should blow over." But Cameron knew of no trouble. The trouble was only in the Superintendent's mind, or indeed was only a shrewd scheme to hold Cameron to his duty. A rancher he would be, and a famous rancher's wife Mandy would make. And as for his sister Moira, had she not highly specialized in pigs and poultry on the old home farm at the Cuagh Oir?

There was no stopping the resistless rush of his pa.s.sionate purpose.

Everything combined to urge him on. Even his college mate and one time football comrade of the old Edinburgh days, the wise, cool-headed Dr.

Martin, now in charge of the Canadian Pacific Railway Hospital, as also the little nurse who, through those momentous months of Mandy's transforming, had been to her guide, philosopher and friend, both had agreed that there was no good reason for delay. True, Cameron had no means of getting inside the doctor's mind and therefore had no knowledge of the vision that came nightly to torment him in his dreams and the memory that came daily to haunt his waking hours; a vision and a memory of a trim little figure in a blue serge gown, of eyes brown, now sunny with laughing light, now soft with unshed tears, of hair that got itself into a most bewildering perplexity of waves and curls, of lips curving deliciously, of a voice with a wonderfully soft Highland accent; the vision and memory of Moira, Cameron's sister, as she had appeared to him in the Glen Cuagh Oir at her father's door. Had Cameron known of this tormenting vision and this haunting memory he might have questioned the perfect sincerity of his friend's counsel. But Dr. Martin kept his secret well and none shared with him his visions and his dreams.

So there had been only the Superintendent to oppose.

Hence, because no really valid objection could be offered, the marriage was made. And with much shrieking of engines--it seemed as if all the engines with their crews within a hundred miles had gathered to the celebration--with loud thunder of exploding torpedoes, with tumultuous cheering of the construction gangs hauled thither on gravel trains, with congratulations of railroad officials and of the doctor, with the tearful smiles of the little nurse, and with grudging but finally hearty good wishes of the Superintendent, they had ridden off down the Kootenay Trail for their honeymoon, on their way to the Big Horn Ranch some hundreds of miles across the mountains.

There on the Big Horn Ranch through the long summer days together they rode the ranges after the cattle, cooking their food in the open and camping under the stars where night found them, care-free and deeply happy, drinking long full draughts of that mingled wine of life into which health and youth and love and G.o.d's sweet sun and air poured their rare vintage. The world was far away and quite forgotten.

Summer deepened into autumn, the fall round-up was approaching, and there came a September day of such limpid light and such nippy sprightly air as to suggest to Mandy nothing less than a holiday.

"Let's strike!" she cried to her husband, as she looked out toward the rolling hills and the overtopping peaks shining clear in the early morning light. "Let's strike and go a-fishing."

Her husband let his eyes wander over the full curves of her strong and supple body and rest upon the face, brown and wholesome, lit with her deep blue eyes and crowned with the red-gold ma.s.ses of her hair, and exclaimed:

"You need a holiday, Mandy. I can see it in the drooping lines of your figure, and in the paling of your cheeks. In short," moving toward her, "you need some one to care for you."

"Not just at this moment, young man," she cried, darting round the table. "But, come, what do you say to a day's fishing away up the Little Horn?"

"The Little Horn?"

"Yes, you know the little creek running into the Big Horn away up the gulch where we went one day in the spring. You said there were fish there."

"Yes, but why 'Little Horn,' pray? And who calls it so? I suppose you know that the Big Horn gets its name from the Big Horn, the mountain sheep that once roamed the rocks yonder, and in that sense there's no Little Horn."

"Well, 'Little Horn' I call it," said his wife, "and shall. And if the big stream is the Big Horn, surely the little stream should be the Little Horn. But what about the fishing? Is it a go?"

"Well, rather! Get the grub, as your Canadian speech hath it."

"My Canadian speech!" echoed his wife scornfully. "You're just as much Canadian as I am."

"And I shall get the ponies. Half an hour will do for me."

"And less for me," cried Mandy, dancing off to her work.

And she was right. For, clever housekeeper that she was, she stood with her hamper packed and the fishing tackle ready long before her husband appeared with the ponies.