"Sergeant-Major Whittaker! You couldn't have a better man!"
"Whittaker! Well, I'm—; Jove, that's splendid! Is he here, sir?"
A short time later, these two, who had last met as Sergeant and senior N.C.O., were shaking hands as officer and civilian.
"Yes, sir, I came down right away," said Whittaker, smiling all over his bronzed hatchet face. "Fact is, I heard Colonel Stern was here organizing a column and—well, anyway, I'm like that old warhorse in the Bible, saying 'Ha! Ha!' among the Capt'ins. I smell the battle afar off an' there's no holding me. Once a soldier always a soldier, Mr. Adair!"
Things were looking up! With Sergeant-Major Whittaker and his little troop of constables to stiffen it, Hector could make such a corps out of the splendid raw material at hand as would write a new chapter in the history of frontier cavalry.
It was at this time that Hector was introduced to the machinations of the political press, with which he was to have a close acquaintance later on.
Newspapers from the East came in regularly, full of prophecy, criticism and advice, each more hysterical than the last. Issue after issue, blatantly headlined and editorialed by know-nothing party reporters fifteen hundred miles distant from the scene of action, reached the hands of Hector and his constables, uttering such things as these:
ARE THE MOUNTED POLICE ASLEEP?
IS THE COMMISSIONER AFRAID?
SOME DRIVING POWER NEEDED.
KOW-TOWING TO THE REBELS.
One day he saw his trumpeter tearing one of these papers to shreds, crying:
"Damn them! Damn them!"