He did not use this phrase, however, toward one experience—the advent of Miss Molly Mackinder, the heiress, and the challenge that reverberated through the West after her arrival. Philosophy deserted him then; he fell back on the primary emotions of mankind.
A month after Miss Mackinder’s arrival at La Touche a dramatic performance was given at the old fort, in which the officers of the Mounted Police took part, together with many civilians who fancied themselves. By that time the district had realized that Terry O’Ryan had surrendered to what they called “the laying on of hands” by Molly Mackinder. It was not certain, however, that the surrender was complete, because O’Ryan had been wounded before, and yet had not been taken captive altogether. His complete surrender seemed now more certain to the public because the lady had a fortune of two hundred thousand dollars, and that amount of money would be useful to an ambitious man in the growing West. It would, as Gow Johnson said, “Let him sit back and view the landscape o’er before he puts his ploughshare in the mud.”
There was an out-door scene in the play produced by the impetuous amateurs, and dialogue had been interpolated by three “imps of fame” at the suggestion of Constantine Jopp, one of the three, who bore malice toward O’Ryan, though this his colleagues did not know distinctly. The scene was a camp-fire—a starlit night, a colloquy between the three, upon which the hero of the drama, played by Terry O’Ryan, should break, after having, unknown to them, but in sight of the audience, overheard their kind intentions toward himself.
The night came. When the curtain rose for the third act there was exposed a star-sown sky, in which the galaxy of Orion was shown with distinctness, each star sharply twinkling from the electric power behind—a pretty scene, evoking great applause. O’Ryan had never seen this back curtain—they had taken care that he should not—and, standing in the wings awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the audience, first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, and now a peal of ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood the significance of the stars of Orion on the back curtain.
O’Ryan got his cue, and came on to an outburst of applause which shook the walls. La Touche rose at him, among them Miss Molly Mackinder in the front row with the notables.
He did not see the back curtain, or Orion blazing in the ultramarine blue. According to the stage directions, he was to steal along the trees at the wings, and listen to the talk of the men at the fire plotting against him, who were presently to pretend good comradeship to his face. It was a vigorous melodrama, with some touches of true Western feeling. After listening for a moment, O’Ryan was to creep up the stage again toward the back curtain, giving a cue for his appearance.
When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the three took up their parable, but it was not the parable of the play. They used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn The Sunburst Trail at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began, O’Ryan could scarcely trust his ears or realize what was happening.
“Ah, look,” said Dicky Fergus at the fire, “as fine a night as I ever saw in the West! The sky’s a picture. You could almost hand the stars down, they’re so near.”
“What’s that clump together on the right—what are they called in astronomy?” asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer.
“Orion is the name—a beauty, ain’t it?” answered Fergus.