The two stood staring after him. "He didn't get into a bees' nest did he?" asked Marthy looking around in bewilderment. The Woman threw up her hands in sudden enlightment.
"I'll bet—I'll bet he's off!" she gasped. "He's off to the war an' the hayin's hardly over, an' the harvest jist comin' on! If that don't beat——"
But Trooper gave not a thought to either haying or harvest. He was in frantic haste lest he be too late for that fortunate band of recruits in Algonquin. What if they got off without him? What if the war should end before he got away? He dashed into the stable and flung the saddle upon his horse, fastening it with swift, feverish jerks, while the sympathetic animal watched him with eager eyes, quivering to be away.
"Hooray, Polly!" he shouted as he swung over her back, "Hooray for Berlin!"
He went thundering down the lane, roaring good-bye to the two, still standing, in the field, gazing open-mouthed. Then he went whirling down the road in a cloud of dust, waving his cap and shouting a joyous farewell to everything and everybody along the way.
Joanna was at her gate looking up the street to see which of the Martin children had carried off her watering can, and Marmaduke had stopped to make love to her on his way home to dinner. They were standing laughing and joking when the wild horseman came thundering down the hill.
Trooper shot past them, yelling something that neither understood and before they could recover from their amazement he had stormed past and was up over the hill with only the sharp rap of his horse's hoofs to tell that it had not all been a vision.
Joanna looked at Marmaduke in real concern. He stood for a moment staring at the cloud of dust on the hill top, and then he suddenly slapped his knee.
"He's off to the war!" he shouted. "I bet Trooper's off to enlist. He's the very boy to do it. The Woman stopped here on her way home and said there was a Canadian Army to be raised and they were recruitin' in Algonquin last night. Yes, sir," he ended up heavily. "I just bet you that's what he's up to." He leaned against the fence and suddenly looked old and weary.
Joanna's handsome face had turned white. She turned and without a word walked into the house steady and erect. And it takes some courage and resolution to walk so when your lover has just gone shouting to the wars without so much as a good-bye wave of the hand, because of the very joy of going!