“Go to it, then, Fraser. I'm rather interested to see your earnest desire for a chaplain. The Lord knows you need one! Go up to Headquarters and use my name. Say what you like.”
Thus it came that the following day Barry was informed by wire of his appointment as chaplain of the new regiment of Alberta rangers.
“It's at least a relief to have the matter settled,” said his father, to whom Barry brought his wire. “Barry, I'm glad of the opportunity to tell you that since yesterday, my mind has undergone considerable change. I am not sure but that you have found your place and your work in the war.”
“No, dad,” answered Barry, “I wasn't responsible for that sermon yesterday. The war was very near and very real to me. Those boys were looking up at me, and you were there, dad. You drew that sermon stuff out of me.”
“If once, why not again? At any rate, it greatly rejoiced me to know that it was there in you. I don't say I was proud of you, my boy. I was proud of you, but that is not the word that I should like to use. I was profoundly grateful that I was privileged to hear a sermon like that from a son of mine. Now, Barry,” continued his father, “this is our last day together for some months, perhaps forever,” he added in a low tone.
“Don't, daddy, don't,” cried Barry, “I can't bear to think of that to-day.”
“All right, Barry, but why not? It is really far better that we should face all the possibilities. But now that we have this day—and what a perfect day it is—for our last day together, what shall we do with it?”
“I know, dad—I think you would wish that we take our ride into the foothills to-day.”
“It was in my mind, my boy. I hesitated to suggest it. So let us go.”
It was one of those rare November days that only Alberta knows, mellow with the warm sun, and yet with a nip in it that suggested the coming frost, without a ripple of the wind that almost constantly sweeps the Alberta ranges. In the blue sky hung motionless, like white ships at sea, bits of cloud. The long grass, brown, yellow and green in a hundred shades, lay like a carpet over the rolling hills and wide spreading valleys, reaching up on every side to the horizon, except toward the west, where it faded into the blue of the foothills at the bases of the mighty Rockies.