The whole story of Imbrie as they knew it was told, with all the embroidery that had been unconsciously added during the past months.
CHAPTER IV MORE ABOUT CLARE
Determined to make the most of their rare feminine visitation at Fort Enterprise, on the following day the fellows got up a chicken hunt on the river bottom east of the post, to be followed by an al fresco supper at which broiled chicken was to be the pièce de resistance. The ladies didn’t shoot any prairie chicken, but they stimulated the hunters with their presence, and afterwards condescended to partake of the delicate flesh.
Stonor, though he was largely instrumental in getting the thing up, and though he worked like a Trojan to make the affair go, still kept himself personally in the background. He consorted with Captain Stinson and Mathews, middle-aged individuals who were considered out of the running. It was not so much shyness now, as an instinct of self-preservation. “She’ll be gone in a week,” he told himself. “You mustn’t let this thing get too strong a hold on you, or life here after she has gone will be hellish. You’ve got to put her out of your mind, my son—or just keep her as a lovely dream not to be taken in earnest. Hardly likely, after seeing the world, that she’d look twice at a sergeant of police!”
In his innocence Stonor adopted the best possible way of attracting her attention to himself. More than once, when he was not looking, her eyes sought him out curiously. In answer to her questions of the other men it appeared that it was Stonor who had sent the natives out in advance to drive the game past them: it was Stonor who surprised them with a cloth already spread under a poplar tree: it was Stonor who cooked the birds so deliciously. She was neither vain nor silly, but at the same time in a company where every man lay down at her feet, so to speak, and begged her to tread on him, it could not but seem peculiar to her that the best-looking man of them all should so studiously avoid her.
Next day they all crossed the river and rode up to Simon Grampierre’s place, where the half-breeds repeated the Victoria Day games for the amusement of the visitors. (These days are still talked of at Fort Enterprise.) Stonor was finally induced to give an exhibition of high-school riding as taught to the police recruits, and thereby threw all the other events in the shade. But their plaudits overwhelmed him. He disappeared and was seen no more that day.
Sunday followed. Mr. Pringle and his sister had got the little church in order, and services were held there for the first time in many months. The mission was half a mile east of the Company buildings, and after church they walked home beside the fields of sprouting grain, in a comfortable Sabbath peace that was much the same at Enterprise as elsewhere in the world.
The procession travelled in the following order: First, four surveyors marching with their heads over their shoulders, at imminent risk of an undignified stumble in the trail; next, Clare Starling, flanked on one side by Gaviller, on the other by Doc Giddings, with two more surveyors on the outlying wings, peering forward to get a glimpse of her; then Captain Stinson, Mathews, and Sergeant Stonor in a line, talking about the state of the crops, and making believe to pay no attention to what was going on ahead; lastly, Mr. Pringle and his sister hurrying to catch up.
Half-way home Miss Starling, à propos of nothing, suddenly stopped and turned her head. “Sergeant Stonor,” she said. He stepped to her side. Since she clearly showed in her manner that she intended holding converse with the policeman, there was nothing for Gaviller et al. to do but proceed, which they did with none too good a grace. This left Stonor and the girl walking together in the middle of the procession. Stinson and Mathews, who were supposed to be out of it anyway, winked at each other portentously.