But his thought was without cynicism. He had no time for cynicism. Besides, the goal of his career lay yet before him.
His thought drifted further. His whole fate had suddenly become bound up in that valley. Nor was the fact without a certain irony. For him it was the valley of destiny. Within its spacious confines lay the two great factors of life—his life—love and duty. They were confronting him. They were standing there waiting for him to possess himself of his victorious hold.
Stanley Fyles felt rather like a ticket-of-leave criminal, instead of a law officer, as he gazed out from the doorway of the frame hut, which formed the temporary quarters of the police, far out on the western reaches of the valley, five miles above the village of Rocky Springs. He knew he was there to prove himself. His mistakes, or his bad luck, of the past must be remedied before he could return to his superiors with a clean sheet. His hands were free, he knew. But in that freedom he was more surely a prisoner on parole than any man on his given word. He was pitting himself like the gambler against the final throw. It was all, or—ruin. To leave the valley with the work undone, with another mistake to his credit, and his present career must terminate.
Then there was that other side. That wonderful—other side. The human nature in him made the valley more surely his destiny than any charges of his superior officer. The woman was there. The Eve in his Eden. More than all else the thought of her inspired him to the big effort of his life.
He was thinking of Kate Seton now as his gaze roamed at will over the ravishing summer tints. He was thinking wholly of her when his mind might well have been contemplating the terms of the despatches he had just written, the orders he had sent to his troopers, even the events and clues he had obtained on the previous night, pointing the work he had in hand.
A door opened and closed behind him. He was aware of it, but did not turn. A voice addressed him. It was the cold voice of Sergeant McBain.
“The men are saddled up, sir.”
Fyles glanced around without changing his position.
“The despatches are on the table,” he replied, with a sharp inclination of the head in the direction.
“Any other instructions, sir?”