“Who were they that dared to think a Cameron would not pay a just bill! Was not he a Cameron, the eldest of his brothers, and from the proudest clan of all the Highland Tartans?”
Andy felt as he had never felt before. The latent pride of his forefathers was stirred within him. Should they take the farm from his brother Donald? Should they take his farm and that of his wife and the home of his simple-minded brother Dan? “No, never!” determined Andy, “not while I live to protect the innocent,” the cry went up from his very soul. There was money to be had, wealth to be gotten, for life must be preserved. To the gold fields of California, to the mountain passes of the Rockies, or the far British Columbias, he would go, and before the expiration of the mortgages he would return, and in the eyes of his neighbors in Glengarry and among the storekeepers of the town, the name of Andy’s Dan, Laughing Donald or Andy Cameron would stand good for a great deal more than the pound of tea or the paltry dollar’s worth of sugar they had refused him this very night upon which he had made his resolve.
A day or two following the last trip Andy had made to the county town in the interest of procuring more money, he thought it next important that he consult his loyal but none too assertive spouse concerning the execution of the resolve he had settled upon, through which he hoped to clear the good name of Cameron in the county from the insults which had been offered him, even so slightly, by the storekeepers in the town.
Barbara Cameron, the faithful wife to whom Andy went for encouragement when he found that the burdens heaped upon him by the unfortunate members of his family were greater than the resources of the combined farms could support, listened with a heart full of sympathy while her husband unfolded the plan by which he hoped to retrieve their waning fortunes. Quietly, at first, he began to tell of the circumstances which compelled him to place a mortgage upon their own little farm and homestead. Then, arising in his excitement, he proceeded to relate to her the cruel indignities heaped upon his unfortunate brother by the avaricious tax gatherer, who seemed to take a special delight in hunting him to earth; and how, to satisfy his demands, and to meet the bills of the doctors and druggists, he had last of all been compelled to mortgage Donald’s home. For, he explained, as he sadly looked from the window over in its direction, he could not remain a passive onlooker while the cruel hand of fate still pursued the family of the helpless Donald, and a low fever slowly burned out the wick of life in the feeble frame of his gentle wife.
Finally, with a rising inflection in his voice and a righteous indignation of manner, Andy explained to his wife the nature of the insults which he had had offered to him in the town, and that he, as a Cameron, and the head of their little colony must resent the wrongs, and maintain the dignity and pride of his forefathers. He would leave her for perhaps two years, he said—he was going to the gold fields of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. There in the Cariboo Hills, in the Canons of the Rockies and in the shifting river beds of the melting glaziers, he would dig for gold. He would hunt the shining flecks of dust, the gold colored nuggets, seeking the wealth by which he hoped to retrieve his darkening fortunes.
“We will sell our cows, Barbara.” His voice was lowered almost to a whisper. “You and Dan shall have the money. The team of roans we must part with, too, Barbara. Laughing Donald and his frail wife, you will be kind to—and poor Dan, tell him always, Barbara, that Andy is coming back soon—coming soon.”
With confiding faith, though she did not quite understand, Barbara felt that if her husband said all this, it must be right for her to believe it. Andy had brushed away with the back of his hand the tears upon his weather-beaten cheeks awaiting her reply. She in her characteristic way, made only this comment: “When will you start, Andy, think ye?”
