The equipage bowled majestically out at the gate on the road to Broncho.
Hector had decided overnight to call on Molyneux for several reasons. His chief object was to ascertain, by diplomatic methods, whether, as the new commander of the Broncho district, he could rely on the support of Mr. Molyneux, as M.P. for that constituency, in all matters wherein that support was to be legitimately expected. His secondary object—to a certain extent dependent on the first—was to discover, to the best of his ability, whether Mr. Joseph Welland and Mr. Steven Molyneux were actually one and the same.
Upon the outcome of his visit, much would depend. In steering his course through the uncharted waters ahead, it was essential for Hector to know from the outset whether the local M.P. could be counted friend or foe; and he was taking no chances.
Hector had already heard certain allegations concerning Molyneux. He intended, during the interview, to test their truth.
When the Mounted Police first came into the country—these were Hector's reflections as he sat in the trap—the Northwest had been free of a certain great influence now beginning to make itself strongly felt. That influence might be summed up by the one word: 'politics.'. The population was small; it was too busy to care about the details of government; and it was glad to leave those details in the hands of the authorities appointed by the Crown, who were the instruments of a kind of benevolent autocracy. But, as time went on, the population increased and became more settled, the standard improved and British democracy demanded that the people should have a greater voice in the Territories. The years following the construction of the railway had brought these powers with them. The people began to send their own representatives to the local legislature and to Ottawa. The benevolent autocracy passed away and the double-headed monster lying beneath the surface of all representative government began to worm its way from the East into the Northwest—the monster politic with the twin heads, 'favoritism' and 'pull.'
Climbing gradually upward through this period of expansion, Hector, eyes and ears open, had come to a full realization of just what the change meant and could mean. By observation, he had learned something of the tremendous power possessed by politicians and especially of its decisive effect, for good or evil, on all matters affecting the government of the country. By watching the experiences of others and by enduring similar experiences himself, he had discovered that politicians can make or break not only any individual or group of individuals, no matter how prominent, no matter how worthy or efficient, who chance to be members of a government service, but even a whole department—an institution—worst of all, a regiment. And he had at last discovered that the life of such an individual, especially if he holds high authority, is apt to be one long fight for the preservation of himself and his subordinates from the machinations of the monster politic.
From this had risen the further knowledge that, in dealing with politicians, the personally helpless crusader must remember the old battle-cry, 'He who is not for us is against us'—that the officer fighting for his corps under the terrible handicap of an oath binding him to obey political authority, must do everything possible not only to deal with the enemies already threatening it, but to prevent other politicians from joining the hostile alliance, even descending, if necessary, to the bitter humiliation of 'bootlicking.'
All this Hector had learned in his steady progress up the ladder. And that was why he found it necessary, this morning, to visit Molyneux.
Had he not been so utterly bound up in his work, had the good of his corps been further from his heart, he might have left Molyneux to declare himself at leisure. But for almost a decade now he had thought of nothing but Duty and Regiment. The day which had witnessed his public christening as 'Spirit-of-Iron' and had brought back his letter to Frances had marked a new era for him—an era when, convinced that his destiny lay along a lonely path without a woman's love to brighten it, he had given himself with renewed ardour to his country. Changelessly true, certain that he could never care for anyone but Frances, he had waited, hoping always that she might re-enter his life, until the creeping years had killed the last remaining flicker of hope. But, though his faith in her had never wavered, though he always felt that she would have come to him had she been able, the belief had steadily grown upon him that, after all, she had not been meant for him. If he could not have Frances, he wanted no-one. With this in mind, he had plunged headlong into his work, making it his absorbing interest. Today—except for occasional moments of fierce regret—he thought of nothing else. Today, as a result, he held the reputation Mrs. Jackson had given him.
But these years had brought him face to face with no tremendous personal issue. Thousands of little problems had confronted him in the ordinary course of duty and he had so dealt with them all. Nothing in the nature of something predestined—an immense test, a vast struggle involving, say, the whole course of his existence or the progress of the country—had appeared to try him.