THE MAJOR

By Ralph Connor

CONTENTS

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THE MAJOR

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CHAPTER I

THE COWARD

Spring had come. Despite the many wet and gusty days which April had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world proclaimed that spring had come. The yearly miracle had been performed. The leaves of the maple trees lining the village street unbound from their winter casings, the violets that lifted brave blue eyes from the vivid grass carpeting the roadside banks, the cherry and plum blossoms in the orchards decking the still leafless trees with their pink and white favours, the timid grain tingeing with green the brown fields that ran up to the village street on every side—all shouted in chorus that spring had come. And all the things with new blood running wild in their veins, the lambs of a few days still wobbly on ridiculous legs skipping over and upon the huge boulders in farmer Martin's meadow, the birds thronging the orchard trees, the humming insects rioting in the genial sun, all of them gave token of strange new impulses calling for something more than mere living because spring had come.

Upon the topmost tip of the taller of the twin poplars that flanked the picket gate opening upon the Gwynnes' little garden sat a robin, his head thrown back to give full throat to the song that was like to burst his heart, monotonous, unceasing, rapturous. On the door step of the Gwynnes' house, arrested on the threshold by the robin's song, stood the Gwynne boy of ten years, his eager face uplifted, himself poised like a bird for flight.

“Law-r-ence,” clear as a bird call came the voice from within.

“Mo-th-er,” rang the boy's voice in reply, high, joyous and shrill.

“Ear-ly! Remember!”

“Ri-ght a-way af-ter school. Good-bye, mo-ther, dear,” called the boy.

“W-a-i-t,” came the clear, birdlike call again, and in a moment the mother came running, stood beside the boy, and followed his eye to the robin on the poplar tree. “A brave little bird,” she said. “That is the way to meet the day, with a brave heart and a bright song. Goodbye, boy.” She kissed him as she spoke, giving him a slight pat on the shoulder. “Away you go.”

But the boy stood fascinated by the bird so gallantly facing his day. His mother's words awoke in him a strange feeling. “A brave heart and a bright song”—so the knights in the brave days of old, according to his Stories of the Round Table, were wont to go forth. In imitation of the bird, the boy threw back his head, and with another cheery good-bye to his mother, sprang clear of the steps and ran down the grass edged path, through the gate and out onto the village street. There he stood first looking up the country road which in the village became a street. There was nothing to be seen except that in the Martin orchard “Ol' Martin” was working with his team under the trees which came in rows down to the road. Finding nothing to interest him there, he turned toward the village and his eyes searched the street. Opposite the Gwynnes' gate, Dr. Bush's house stood back among the trees, but there was no sign of life about it. Further down on the same side of the street, the Widow Martin's cottage, with porch vine covered and windows bright with flowers, hid itself under a great spreading maple. In front of the cottage the Widow Martin herself was busy in the garden. He liked the Widow Martin but found her not sufficiently exciting to hold him this spring morning. A vacant lot or two and still on the same side came the blacksmith's shop just at the crossroads, and across the street from it his father's store. But neither at the blacksmith's shop nor at the store across from it was there anything to awaken even a passing interest. Some farmers' teams and dogs, Pat Larkin's milk wagon with its load of great cans on its way to the cheese factory and some stray villagers here and there upon the street intent upon their business. Up the street his eye travelled beyond the crossroads where stood on the left Cheatley's butcher shop and on the right McKenny's hotel with attached sheds and outhouses. Over the bridge and up the hill the street went straight away, past the stone built Episcopal Church whose spire lifted itself above the maple trees, past the Rectory, solid, square and built of stone, past the mill standing on the right back from the street beside the dam, over the hill, and so disappeared. The whole village seemed asleep and dreaming among its maple trees in the bright sunlight.

Throwing another glance at the robin still singing on the treetop overhead, the boy took from his pocket a mouth-organ, threw back his head, squared his elbows out from his sides to give him the lung room he needed, and in obedience to a sharp word of command after a preliminary tum, tum, tum, struck up the ancient triumph hymn in memory of that hero of the underground railroad by which so many slaves of the South in bygone days made their escape “up No'th” to Canada and to freedom.

“Glory, glory, hallelujah, his soul goes marching on.” By means of “double-tongueing,” a recently acquired accomplishment, he was able to give a full brass band effect to his hymn of freedom. Many villagers from door or window cast a kindly and admiring eye upon the gallant little figure stepping to his own music down the street. He was brass band, conductor, brigadier general all in one, and behind him marched an army of heroes off for war and deathless glory, invisible and invincible. To the Widow Martin as he swung past the leader flung a wave of his hand. With a tender light in her old eyes the Widow Martin waved back at him. “God bless his bright face,” she murmured, pausing in her work to watch the upright little figure as he passed along. At the blacksmith's shop the band paused.

Tink, tink, tink, tink,
Tink, tink-a-tink-tink-tink.
Tink tink, tink, tink,
Tink, tink-a-tink-tink-tink.

The conductor graduated the tempo so as to include the rhythmic beat of the hammer with the other instruments in his band. The blacksmith looked, smiled and let his hammer fall in consonance with the beat of the boy's hand, and for some moments there was glorious harmony between anvil and mouth organ and the band invisible. At the store door across the street the band paused long enough simply to give and receive an answering salute from the storekeeper, who smiled upon his boy as he marched past. At the crossroads the band paused, marking time. There was evidently a momentary uncertainty in the leader's mind as to direction. The road to the right led straight, direct, but treeless, dusty, uninviting, to the school. It held no lure for the leader and his knightly following. Further on a path led in a curve under shady trees and away from the street. It made the way to school longer, but the lure of the curving, shady path was irresistible. Still stepping bravely to the old abolitionist hymn, the procession moved along, swung into the path under the trees and suddenly came to a halt. With a magnificent flourish the band concluded its triumphant hymn and with the conductor and brigadier the whole brigade stood rigidly at attention. The cause of this sudden halt was to be seen at the foot of a maple tree in the person of a fat lump of good natured boy flesh supine upon the ground.

“Hello, Joe; coming to school?”

“Ugh,” grunted Joe, from the repose of limitless calm.

“Come on, then, quick, march.” Once more the band struck up its hymn.

“Hol' on, Larry, it's plenty tam again,” said Joe. The band came to a stop. “I don' lak dat school me,” he continued, still immersed in calm.

Joe's struggles with an English education were indeed tragically pathetic. His attempts with aspirates were a continual humiliation to himself and a joy to the whole school. No wonder he “no lak dat school.” Besides, Joe was a creature of the open fields. His French Canadian father, Joe Gagneau, “Ol' Joe,” was a survival of a bygone age, the glorious golden age of the river and the bush, of the shanty and the raft, of the axe and the gun, the age of Canadian romance, of daring deed, of wild adventure.

“An' it ees half-hour too queek,” persisted Joe. “Come on hup to de dam.” A little worn path invited their feet from the curving road, and following their feet, they found themselves upon a steep embankment which dammed the waters into a pond that formed the driving power for the grist mill standing near. At the farther end of the pond a cedar bush interposed a barrier to the sight and suggested mysterious things beyond. Back of the cedar barrier a woods of great trees, spruce, balsam, with tall elms and maples on the higher ground beyond, offered deeper mysteries and delights unutterable. They knew well the cedar swamp and the woods beyond. Partridges drummed there, rabbits darted along their beaten runways, and Joe had seen a woodcock, that shyest of all shy birds, disappear in glancing, shadowy flight, a ghostly, silent denizen of the ghostly, silent spaces of the forest. Even as they gazed upon that inviting line of woods, the boys could see and hear the bluejays flash in swift flight from tree to tree and scream their joy of rage and love. From the farther side of the pond two boys put out in a flat-bottomed boat.

“There's big Ben and Mop,” cried Larry eagerly. “Hello, Ben,” he called across the pond. “Goin' to school?”

“Yap,” cried Mop, so denominated from the quantity and cut of the hair that crowned his head. Ben was at the oars which creaked and thumped between the pins, but were steadily driving the snub-nosed craft on its toilsome way past the boys.

“Hello, Ben,” cried Larry. “Take us in too.”

“All right,” said Ben, heading the boat for the bank. “Let me take an oar, Ben,” said Larry, whose experience upon the world of waters was not any too wide.

“Here, where you goin',” cried Mop, as the boat slowly but surely pointed toward the cedars. “You stop pulling, Ben. Now, Larry, pull around again. There now, she's right. Pull, Ben.” But Ben sat rigid with his eyes intent upon the cedars.

“What's the matter, Ben?” said Larry. Still Ben sat with fixed gaze.

“By gum, he's in, boys,” said Ben in a low voice. “I thought he had his nest in one of them stubs.”

“What is it—in what stub?” inquired Larry, his voice shrill with excitement.

“That big middle stub, there,” said Ben. “It's a woodpecker. Say, let's pull down and see it.” Under Mop's direction the old scow gradually made its way toward the big stub.

They explored the stub, finding in it a hole and in the hole a nest, the mother and father woodpeckers meanwhile flying in wild agitation from stub to stub and protesting with shrill cries against the intruders. Then they each must climb up and feel the eggs lying soft and snug in their comfy cavity. After that they all must discuss the probable time of hatching, the likelihood of there being other nests in other stubs which they proceeded to visit. So the eager moments gaily passed into minutes all unheeded, till inevitable recollection dragged them back from the world of adventure and romance to that of stern duty and dull toil.

“Say, boys, we'll be late,” cried Larry, in sudden panic, seizing his oar. “Come on, Ben, let's go.”

“I guess it's pretty late now,” replied Ben, slowly taking up his oar.

“Dat bell, I hear him long tam,” said Joe placidly. “Oh, Joe!” cried Larry in distress. “Why didn't you tell us?”

Joe shrugged his shoulders. He was his own master and superbly indifferent to the flight of time. With him attendance at school was a thing of more or less incidental obligation.

“We'll catch it all right,” said Mop with dark foreboding. “He was awful mad last time and said he'd lick any one who came late again and keep him in for noon too.”

The prospect was sufficiently gloomy.

“Aw, let's hurry up anyway,” cried Larry, who during his school career had achieved a perfect record for prompt and punctual attendance.

In ever deepening dejection the discussion proceeded until at length Mop came forward with a daring suggestion.

“Say, boys, let's wait until noon. He won't notice anything. We can easily fool him.”

This brought no comfort to Larry, however, whose previous virtues would only render this lapse the more conspicuous. A suggestion of Joe's turned the scale.

“Dat woodchuck,” he said, “he's got one hole on de hill by dere. He's big feller. We dron heem out.”

“Come on, let's,” cried Mop. “It will be awful fun to drown the beggar out.”

“Guess we can't do much this morning, anyway,” said Ben, philosophically making the best of a bad job. “Let's go, Larry.” And much against his will, but seeing no way out of the dilemma, Larry agreed.

They explored the woodchuck hole, failing to drown out that cunning subterranean architect who apparently had provided lines of retreat for just such emergencies as confronted him now. Wearied of the woodchuck, they ranged the bush seeking and finding the nests of bluejays and of woodpeckers, and in a gravel pit those of the sand martens. Joe led them to the haunts of the woodcock, but that shy bird they failed to glimpse. Long before the noon hour they felt the need of sustenance and found that Larry's lunch divided among the four went but a small way in satisfying their pangs of hunger. The other three, carefree and unconcerned for what the future might hold, roamed the woods during the afternoon, but to Larry what in other circumstances would have been a day of unalloyed joy, brought him only a present misery and a dread for the future. The question of school for the afternoon was only mentioned to be dismissed. They were too dirty and muddy to venture into the presence of the master. Consequently the obvious course was to wait until four o'clock when joining the other children they might slip home unnoticed.

The afternoon soon began to lag. The woods had lost their first glamour. Their games grew to be burdensome. They were weary and hungry, and becoming correspondingly brittle in temper. Already Nemesis was on their trail. Sick at heart and weighted with forebodings, Larry listened to the plans of the other boys by which they expected to elude the consequences of their truancy. In the discussion of their plans Larry took no part. They offered him no hope. He knew that if he were prepared to lie, as they had cheerfully decided, his simple word would carry him through at home. But there the difficulty arose. Was he willing to lie? He had never lied to his mother in all his life. He visualised her face as she listened to him recounting his falsified tale of the day's doings and unconsciously he groaned aloud.

“What's the matter with you, Larry?” inquired Mop, noticing his pale face.

“Oh, nothing; it's getting a little cold, I guess.”

“Cold!” laughed Mop. “I guess you're getting scared all right.”

To this Larry made no reply. He was too miserable, too tired to explain his state of mind. He was doubtful whether he could explain to Mop or to Joe his unwillingness to lie to his mother.

“It don't take much to scare you anyway,” said Mop with an ugly grin.

The situation was not without its anxieties to Mop, for while he felt fairly confident as to his ability to meet successfully his mother's cross examination, there was always a possibility of his father's taking a hand, and that filled him with a real dismay. For Mr. Sam Cheatley, the village butcher, was a man of violent temper, hasty in his judgments and merciless in his punishment. There was a possibility of unhappy consequences for Mop in spite of his practiced ability in deception. Hence his nerves were set a-jangling, and his temper, never very certain, was rather on edge. The pale face of the little boy annoyed him, and the little whimsical smile which never quite left his face confronted him like an insult.

“You're scared,” reiterated Mop with increasing contempt, “and you know you're scared. You ain't got any spunk anyway. You ain't got the spunk of a louse.” With a quick grip he caught the boy by the collar (he was almost twice Larry's size), and with a jerk landed him on his back in a brush heap. The fall brought Larry no physical hurt, but the laughter of Joe and especially of big Ben, who in his eyes was something of a hero, wounded and humiliated him. The little smile, however, did not leave his face and he picked himself up and settled his coat about his collar.

“You ain't no good anyway,” continued Mop, with the native instinct of the bully to worry his victim. “You can't play nothin' and you can't lick nobody in the whole school.”

Both of these charges Larry felt were true. He was not fond of games and never had he experienced a desire to win fame as a fighter.

“Aw, let him alone, can't you, Mop?” said big Ben. “He ain't hurtin' you none.”

“Hurtin' me,” cried Mop, who for some unaccountable reason had worked himself into a rage. “He couldn't hurt me if he tried. I could lick him on my knees with one hand behind my back. I believe Joe there could lick him with one hand tied behind his back.”

“I bet he can't,” said Ben, measuring Larry with his eye and desiring to defend him from this degrading accusation. “I bet he'd put up a pretty fine scrap,” continued Ben, “if he had to.” Larry's heart warmed to his champion.

“Yes, if he had to,” replied Mop with a sneer. “But he would never have to. He wouldn't fight a flea. Joe can lick him with one hand, can't you, Joe?”

“I donno. I don' want fight me,” said Joe.

“No, I know you don't want to, but you could, couldn't you?” persisted Mop. Joe shrugged his shoulders. “Ha, I told you so. Hurrah for my man,” cried Mop, clapping Joe on the back and pushing him toward Larry.

Ben began to scent sport. He was also conscious of a rising resentment against Mop's exultant tone and manner.

“I bet you,” he said, “if Larry wanted to, he could lick Joe even if he had both hands, but if Joe's one hand is tied behind his back, why Larry would just whale the tar out of him. But Larry does not want to fight.”

“No,” jeered Mop, “you bet he don't, he ain't got it in him. I bet you he daren't knock a chip off Joe's shoulder, and I will tie Joe's hand behind his back with his belt. Now there he is, bring your man on. There's a chip on his shoulder too.”

Larry looked at Joe, the little smile still on his face. “I don't want to fight Joe. What would I fight Joe for?” he said.

“I told you so,” cried Mop, dancing about. “He ain't got no fight in him.

Take a dare,
Take a dare,
Chase a cat,
And hunt a hare.”

Ben looked critically at Larry as if appraising the quality of his soul. “Joe can't lick you with one hand tied behind his back, can he, Larry?”

“I don't want to fight Joe,” persisted Larry still smiling.

“Ya, ya,” persisted Mop. “Here, Joe, you knock this chip off Larry's shoulder.” Mop placed the gauge of battle on Larry's shoulder. “Go ahead, Joe.”

To Joe a fight with a friend or a foe was an event of common occurrence. With even a more dangerous opponent than Larry he would not have hesitated. For to decline a fight was with Joe utterly despicable. So placing himself in readiness for the blow that should have been the inevitable consequence, he knocked the chip off Larry's shoulder. Still Larry smiled at him.

“Aw, your man's no good. He won't fight,” cried Mop with unspeakable disgust. “I told you he wouldn't fight. Do you know why he won't fight? His mother belongs to that people, them Quakers, that won't fight for anything. He's a coward an' his mother's a coward before him.”

The smile faded from Larry's lips. His face which had been pale flamed a quick red, then as quickly became dead white. He turned from Joe and looked at the boy who was tormenting him. Mop was at least four years older, strongly and heavily built. For a moment Larry stood as though estimating Mop's fighting qualities. Then apparently making up his mind that on ordinary terms, owing to his lack in size and in strength, he was quite unequal to his foe, he looked quickly about him and his eye fell upon a stout and serviceable beechwood stake. With quiet deliberation he seized the club and began walking slowly toward Mop, his eyes glittering as if with madness, his face white as that of the dead. So terrifying was his appearance that Mop began to back away. “Here you, look out,” he cried, “I will smash you.” But Larry still moved steadily upon him. His white face, his burning eyes, his steady advance was more than Mop could endure. His courage broke. He turned and incontinently fled. Whirling the stick over his head, Larry flung the club with all his might after him. The club caught the fleeing Mop fairly between the shoulders. At the same time his foot caught a root. Down he went upon his face, uttering cries of deadly terror.

“Keep him off, keep him off. He will kill me, he will kill me.”

But Larry having shot his bolt ignored his fallen enemy, and without a glance at him, or at either of the other boys, or without a word to any of them, he walked away through the wood, and deaf to their calling disappeared through the cedar swamp and made straight for home and to his mother. With even, passionless voice, with almost no sign of penitence, he told her the story of the day's truancy.

As her discriminating eye was quick in discerning his penitence, so her forgiveness was quick in meeting his sin. But though her forgiveness brought the boy a certain measure of relief he seemed almost to take it for granted, and there still remained on his face a look of pain and of more than pain that puzzled his mother. He seemed to be in a maze of uncertainty and doubt and fear. His mother could not understand his distress, for Larry had told her nothing of his encounter with Mop. Throughout the evening there pounded through the boy's memory the terrible words, “He is a coward and his mother is a coward before him.” Through his father's prayer at evening worship those words continued to beat upon his brain. He tried to prepare his school lessons for the day following, but upon the page before his eyes the same words took shape. He could not analyse his unutterable sense of shame. He had been afraid to fight. He knew he was a coward, but there was a deeper shame in which his mother was involved. She was a Quaker, he knew, and he had a more or less vague idea that Quakers would not fight. Was she then a coward? That any reflection should be made upon his mother stabbed him to the heart. Again and again Mop's sneering, grinning face appeared before his eyes. He felt that he could have gladly killed him in the woods, but after all, the paralysing thought ever recurred that what Mop said was true. His mother was a coward! He put his head down upon his books and groaned aloud.

“What is it, dear?” inquired his mother.

“I am going to bed, mother,” he said.

“Is your head bad?” she asked.

“No, no, mother. It is nothing. I am tired,” he said, and went upstairs.

Before she went to sleep the mother, as was her custom, looked in upon him. The boy was lying upon his face with his arms flung over his head, and when she turned him over to an easier position, on the pillow and on his cheeks were the marks of tears. Gently she pushed back the thick, black, wavy locks from his forehead, and kissed him once and again. The boy turned his face toward her. A long sobbing sigh came from his parted lips. He opened his eyes.

“That you, mother?” he asked, the old whimsical smile at his lips. “Good-night.”

He settled down into the clothes and in a moment was fast asleep. The mother stood looking down upon her boy. He had not told her his trouble, but her touch had brought him comfort, and for the rest she was content to wait.

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CHAPTER II

A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

The village schoolhouse was packed to the door. Over the crowded forms there fell a murky light from the smoky swinging lamp that left dark unexplored depths in the corners of the room. On the walls hung dilapidated maps at angles suggesting the interior of a ship's cabin during a storm, or a party of revellers, returning homeward, after the night before, gravely hilarious. Behind the platform a blackboard, cracked into irregular spaces, preserved the mental processes of the pupils during their working hours, and in sharp contrast to these the terribly depressing perfection of the teacher's exemplar in penmanship, which reminded the self-complacent slacker that “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”

It was an evangelistic meeting. Behind the table, his face illumined by the lamp thereon, stood a man turning over the leaves of a hymn book. His aspect suggested a soul, gentle, mild and somewhat abstracted from its material environment. The lofty forehead gave promise of an idealism capable of high courage, indeed of sacrifice—a promise, however, belied somewhat by an irresolute chin partly hidden by a straggling beard. But the face was sincere and tenderly human. At his side upon the platform sat his wife behind a little portable organ, her face equally gentle, sincere and irresolute.

The assembly—with the extraordinary patience that characterises public assemblies—waited for the opening of the meeting, following with attentive eyes the vague and trifling movements of the man at the table. Occasionally there was a rumble of deep voices in conversation, and in the dark corners subdued laughter—while on the front benches the animated and giggling whispering of three little girls tended to relieve the hour from an almost superhuman gravity.

At length with a sudden acquisition of resolution the evangelist glanced at his watch, rose, and catching up a bundle of hymn books from the table thrust them with unnecessary energy into the hands of a boy who sat on the side bench beside his mother. The boy was Lawrence Gwynne.

“Take these,” said the man, “and distribute them, please.”

Lawrence taken thus by surprise paled, then flushed a quick red. He glanced up at his mother and at her slight nod took the books and distributed them among the audience on one side of the room while the evangelist took the other. As the lad passed from bench to bench with his books he was greeted with jocular and slightly jeering remarks in undertone by the younger members of the company, which had the effect of obviously increasing the ineptitude of his thin nervous fingers, but could not quite dispel the whimsical smile that lingered about the corners of his mouth and glanced from the corners of his grey-blue eyes.

The meeting opened with the singing of a popular hymn which carried a refrain catchy enough but running to doggerel. Another hymn followed and another. Then abruptly the evangelist announced,

“Now we shall have a truly GREAT hymn, a hymn you must sing in a truly great way, in what we call the grand style, number three hundred and sixty-seven.”

Then in a voice, deep, thrilling, vibrant with a noble emotion, he read the words:

“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”

They sang the verse, and when they had finished he stood looking at them in silence for a moment or two, then announced solemnly:

“Friends, that will not do for this hymn. Sing it with your hearts. Listen to me.”

Then he sang a verse in a deep, strong baritone.

“Now try.”

Timidly they obeyed him.

“No, no, not at all,” he shouted at them. “Listen.”

Again with exquisitely distinct articulation and in a tone rich in emotion and carrying in it the noble, penetrating pathos of the great words in which is embodied the passion of that heart subduing world tragedy. He would not let them try it again, but alone sang the hymn to the end. By the spell of his voice he had gripped them by the heart. The giggling girls in the front seat sat gazing at him with open mouths and lifted eyes. From every corner of the room faces once dull were filled with a great expectant look.

“You will never sing those words as you should,” he cried, “until you know and feel the glory of that wondrous cross. Never, never, never.” His voice rose in a passionate crescendo.

After he had finished singing the last great verse, he let his eyes wander over the benches until they rested upon the face of the lad on the side bench near him.

“Aha, boy,” he cried. “You can sing those words. Try that last verse.”

The boy stared, fascinated, at him.

“Sing the last verse, boy,” commanded the evangelist, “sing.”

As if impelled by another will than his own, the boy slowly, with his eyes still fastened on the man's face, threw back his head and began to sing. His voice rose, full, strong, in a quaint imitation in method of articulation and in voice production of the evangelist himself. At the third line of the verse the evangelist joined in great massive tones, beating time vigorously in a rallentando.

“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

The effect was a great emotional climax, the spiritual atmosphere was charged with fervour. The people sat rigid, fixed in their places, incapable of motion, until released by the invitation of the leader, “Let us pray.” The boy seemed to wake as from a sleep, glanced at his mother, then at the faces of the people in the room, sat down, and quickly covered his face with his hands and so remained during the prayer.

The dramatic effect of the singing was gradually dispelled in the prayer and in a Scripture reading which followed. By the time the leader was about to begin his address, the people had almost relapsed into their normal mental and spiritual condition of benevolent neutrality. A second time a text was announced, when abruptly the door opened and up the aisle, with portentous impressiveness as of a stately ocean liner coming to berth, a man advanced whose presence seemed to fill the room and give it the feeling of being unpleasantly crowded. A buzz went through the seats. “The Rector! The Rector!” The evangelist gazed upon the approaching form and stood as if incapable of proceeding until this impressive personage should come to rest. Deliberately the Rector advanced to the side bench upon which Larry and his mother were seated, and slowly swinging into position calmly viewed the man upon the platform, the woman at the organ, the audience filling the room and then definitely came to anchor upon the bench.

The preacher waited until this manoeuvre had been successfully accomplished, coughed nervously, made as if to move in the direction of the important personage on the side bench, hesitated, and finally with an air of embarrassment once more announced his text. At once the Rector was upon his feet.

“Will you pardon me, sir,” he began with elaborate politeness. “Do I understand you're a clergyman?”

“Oh, no, sir,” replied the evangelist, “just a plain preacher.”

“You are not in any Holy Orders then?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Are you an ordained or accredited minister of any of the—ah—dissenting bodies?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“Then, sir,” demanded the Rector, “may I ask by what authority you presume to exercise the functions of the holy ministry and in my parish?”

“Well—really—sir, I do not know why I—”

“Then, sir, let me tell you this will not be permitted,” said the Rector sternly. “There are regularly ordained and accredited ministers of the Church and of all religious bodies represented in this neighbourhood, and your ministrations are not required.”

“But surely, sir,” said the evangelist hurriedly as if anxious to get in a word, “I may be permitted in this free country to preach the Gospel.”

“Sir, there are regularly ordained and approved ministers of the Gospel who are quite capable of performing this duty. I won't have it, sir. I must protect these people from unlicensed, unregulated—ah—persons, of whose character and antecedents we have no knowledge. Pray, sir,” cried the Rector, taking a step toward the man on the platform, “whom do you represent?”

The evangelist drew himself up quietly and said, “My Lord and Master, sir. May I ask whom do you represent?”

It was a deadly thrust. For the first time during the encounter the Rector palpably gave ground.

“Eh? Ah—sir—I—ah—ahem—my standing in this community is perfectly assured as an ordained clergyman of the Church of England in Canada. Have you any organisation or church, any organised Christian body to which you adhere and to which you are responsible?”

“Yes.”

“What is that body?”

“The Church of Christ—the body of believers.”

“Is that an organised body with ordained ministers and holy sacraments?”

“We do not believe in a paid ministry with special privileges and powers,” said the evangelist. “We believe that every disciple has a right to preach the glorious Gospel.”

“Ah, then you receive no support from any source in this ministry of yours?”

The evangelist hesitated. “I receive no salary, sir.”

“No support?”

“I receive no regular salary,” reiterated the evangelist.

“Do not quibble, sir,” said the Rector sternly. “Do you receive any financial support from any source whatever in your mission about the country?”

“I receive—” began the evangelist.

“Do you or do you not?” thundered the Rector.

“I was about to say that my expenses are paid by my society.”

“Thank you, no more need be said. These people can judge for themselves.”

“I am willing that they should judge, but I remind you that there is another Judge.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the Rector with portentous solemnity, “there is, before whom both you and I must stand.”

“And now then,” said the evangelist, taking up the Bible, “we may proceed with our meeting.”

“No, sir,” replied the Rector, stepping upon the platform. “I will not permit it.”

“You have no right to—”

“I have every right to protect this community from heretical and disingenuous, not to say dishonest, persons.”

“You call me dishonest?”

“I said disingenuous.”

The evangelist turned toward the audience. “I protest against this intrusion upon this meeting. I appeal to the audience for British fair play.”

Murmurs were heard from the audience and subdued signs of approval. The Rector glanced upon the people.

“Fair play,” he cried, “you will get as will any man who appears properly accredited and properly qualified to proclaim the Gospel, but in the name of this Christian community, I will prevent the exploitation of an unwary and trusting people.”

“Liberty of speech!” called a voice from a dark corner.

“Liberty of speech,” roared the Rector. “Who of you wants liberty of speech? Let him stand forth.”

There followed a strained and breathless silence. The champion of free speech retreated behind his discretion.

“Ah, I thought so,” said the Rector in grim contempt.

But even as he spoke a quiet voice invaded the tense silence like a bell in a quiet night. It was Mrs. Gwynne, her slight girlish figure standing quietly erect, her face glowing as with an inner light, her eyes resting in calm fearlessness upon the Rector's heated countenance.

“Sir,” she said, “my conscience will not permit me to sit in silence in the presence of what I feel to be an infringement of the rights of free people. I venture very humbly to protest against this injustice, and to say that this gentleman has a right to be heard.”

An even more intense silence fell upon the people. The Rector stood speechless, gazing upon the little woman who had thus broken every tradition of the community in lifting her voice in a public assembly and who had dared to challenge the authority of one who for nearly twenty years had been recognised as the autocrat of the village and of the whole countryside. But the Rector was an alert and gallant fighter. He quickly recovered his poise.

“If Mrs. Gwynne, our good friend and neighbour, desires to address this meeting,” he said with a courteous and elaborate bow, “and I am sure by training and tradition she is quite capable of doing so, I am confident that all of us will be delighted to listen to her. But the question in hand is not quite so simple as she imagines. It is—”

“Liberty of speech,” said the voice again from the dark corner.

The Rector wheeled fiercely in the direction from which the interruption came.

“Who speaks,” he cried; “why does he shrink into the darkness? Let him come forth.”

Again discretion held the interrupter silent.

“As for you—you, sir,” continued the Rector, turning upon the evangelist, “if you desire—”

But at this point there was a sudden commotion from the opposite side of the room. A quaint dwarfish figure, crippled but full of vigour, stumped up to the platform.

“My son,” he said, grandly waving the Rector to one side, “allow me, my son. You have done well. Now I shall deal with this gentleman.”

The owner of the misshapen body had a noble head, a face marked with intellectual quality, but the glitter in the large blue eye told the same tale of mental anarchy. Startled and astonished, the evangelist backed away from the extraordinary creature that continued to advance upon him.

“Sir,” cried the dwarf, “by what right do you proclaim the divine message to your fellowmen? Have you known the cross, have you felt the piercing crown, do you bear upon your body the mark of the spear?” At this with a swift upward hitch of his shirt the dwarf exposed his bare side. The evangelist continued to back away from his new assailant, who continued vigorously to follow him up. The youngsters in the crowd broke into laughter. The scene passed swiftly from tragedy to farce. At this point the Rector interposed.

“Come, come, John,” he said, laying a firm, but gentle, hand upon the dwarf's shoulder. “That will do now. He is perfectly harmless, sir,” he said, addressing the evangelist. Then turning to the audience, “I think we may dismiss this meeting,” and, raising his hands, he pronounced the benediction, and the people dispersed in disorder.

With a strained “Good-night, sir,” to the evangelist and a courteous bow to Mrs. Gwynne, the Rector followed the people, leaving the evangelist and his wife behind packing up their hymn books and organ, their faces only too clearly showing the distress which they felt. Mrs. Gwynne moved toward them.

“I am truly grieved,” she said, addressing the evangelist, “that you were not given an opportunity to deliver your message.”

“What a terrible creature that is,” he exclaimed in a tone indicating nervous anxiety.

“Oh, you mean poor John?” said Mrs. Gwynne. “The poor man is quite harmless. He became excited with the unusual character of the meeting. He will disturb you no more.”

“I fear it is useless,” said the evangelist. “I cannot continue in the face of this opposition.”

“It may be difficult, but not useless,” replied Mrs. Gwynne, the light of battle glowing in her grey eyes.

“Ah, I do not know. It may not be wise to stir up bad feeling in a community, to bring the name of religion into disrepute by strife. But,” he continued, offering his hand, “let me thank you warmly for your sympathy. It was splendidly courageous of you. Do you—do you attend his church?”

“Yes, we worship with the Episcopal Church. I am a Friend myself.”

“Ah, then it was a splendidly courageous act. I honour you for it.”

“But you will continue your mission?” she replied earnestly.

“Alas, I can hardly see how the mission can be continued. There seems to be no opening.”

Mrs. Gwynne apparently lost interest. “Good-bye,” she said simply, shaking hands with them both, and without further words left the room with her boy. For some distance they walked together along the dark road in silence. Then in an awed voice the boy said:

“How could you do it, mother? You were not a bit afraid.”

“Afraid of what, the Rector?”

“No, not the Rector—but to speak up that way before all the people.”

“It was hard to speak,” said his mother, “very hard, but it was harder to keep silent. It did not seem right.”

The boy's heart swelled with a new pride in his mother. “Oh, mother,” he said, “you were splendid. You were like a soldier standing there. You were like the martyrs in my book.”

“Oh, no, no, my boy.”

“I tell you yes, mother, I was proud of you.”

The thrilling passion in the little boy's voice went to his mother's heart. “Were you, my boy?” she said, her voice faltering. “I am glad you were.”

Hand in hand they walked along, the boy exulting in his restored pride in his mother and in her courage. But a new feeling soon stirred within him. He remembered with a pain intolerable that he had allowed the word of so despicable a creature as Mop Cheatley to shake his faith in his mother's courage. Indignation at the wretched creature who had maligned her, but chiefly a passionate self-contempt that he had allowed himself to doubt her, raged tumultuously in his heart and drove him in a silent fury through the dark until they reached their own gate. Then as his mother's hand reached toward the latch, the boy abruptly caught her arm in a fierce grip.

“Mother,” he burst forth in a passionate declaration of faith, “you're not a coward.”

“A coward?” replied his mother, astonished.

The boy's arms went around her, his head pressed into her bosom. In a voice broken with passionate sobs he poured forth his tale of shame and self-contempt.

“He said you were a Quaker, that the Quakers were cowards, and would never fight, and that you were a coward, and that you would never fight. But you would, mother, wouldn't you? And you're not a real Quaker, are you, mother?”

“A Quaker,” said his mother. “Yes, dear, I belong to the Friends, as we call them.”

“And they, won't they ever fight?” demanded the boy anxiously.

“They do not believe that fighting with fists, or sticks, or like wild beasts,” said his mother, “ever wins anything worth while.”

“Never, mother?” cried the boy, anxiety and fear in his tones. “You would fight, you would fight to-night, you would fight the Rector.”

“Yes, my boy,” said his mother quietly, “that kind of fighting we believe in. Our people have never been afraid to stand up for the right, and to suffer for it too. Remember that, my boy,” a certain pride rang out in the mother's voice. She continued, “We must never be afraid to suffer for what we believe to be right. You must never forget that through all your life, Larry.” Her voice grew solemn. “You must never, never go back from what you know to be right, even if you have to suffer for it.”

“Oh, mother,” whispered the boy through his sobs, “I wish I were brave like you.”

“No, no, not like me,” whispered his mother, putting her face down to his. “You will be much braver than your mother, my boy, oh, very much braver than your mother.”

The boy still clung to her as if he feared to let her go. “Oh, mother,” he whispered, “do you think I can be brave?”

“Yes, my boy,” her voice rang out again confident and clear. “It always makes us brave to know that He bore the cross for us and died rather than betray us.”

There were no more words between them, but the memory of that night never faded from the boy's mind. A new standard of heroism was set up within his soul which he might fail to reach but which he could never lower.

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CHAPTER III

THE ESCUTCHEON CLEARED

Mr. Michael Gwynne, the Mapleton storekeeper, was undoubtedly the most popular man not in the village only but in the whole township. To begin with he was a man of high character, which was sufficiently guaranteed by the fact that he was chosen as Rector's Warden in All Saints Episcopal Church. He was moreover the Rector's right-hand man, ready to back up any good cause with personal effort, with a purse always open but not often full, and with a tongue that was irresistible, for he had to an extraordinary degree the gift of persuasive speech. Therefore, the Rector's first move in launching any new scheme was to secure the approval and co-operation of his Warden.

By the whole community too Mr. Gwynne was recognised as a gentleman, a gentleman not in appearance and bearing only, a type calculated to repel plain folk, but a gentleman in heart, with a charm of manner which proceeded from a real interest in and consideration for the welfare of others. This charm of manner proved a valuable asset to him in his business, for behind his counter Mr. Gwynne had a rare gift of investing the very calicoes and muslins which he displayed before the dazzled eyes of the ladies who came to buy with a glamour that never failed to make them appear altogether desirable; and even the hard-headed farmers fell under this spell of his whether he described to them the superexcellent qualities of a newly patented cream separator or the virtues of a new patent medicine for ailing horses whose real complaint was overwork or underfeeding. With all this, moreover, Mr. Gwynne was rigidly honest. No one ever thought of disputing an account whether he paid it or not, and truth demands that with Mr. Gwynne's customers the latter course was more frequently adopted.

It was at this point that Mr. Gwynne failed of success as a business man. He could buy with discrimination, he had a rare gift of salesmanship, but as a collector, in the words of Sam Cheatley, the village butcher, himself a conspicuous star in that department of business activity, “He was not worth a tinker's curse.” His accounts were sent out punctually twice a year. His wife saw to that. At times of desperation when pressure from the wholesale houses became urgent, special statements were sent out by Mr. Gwynne himself. But in such cases the apology accompanying these statements was frequently such as to make immediate payment seem almost an insult. His customers held him in high esteem, respected his intellectual ability—for he was a Trinity man—were fascinated by his charm of manner, loved him for his kindly qualities, but would not pay their bills.

Many years ago, having failed to work harmoniously with his business partner, a shrewd, hard-headed, Belfast draper—hard-hearted Mr. Gwynne considered him—Mr. Gwynne had decided to emigrate to Canada with the remnant of a small fortune which was found to be just sufficient to purchase the Mapleton general store, and with it a small farm of fifty acres on the corner of which the store stood. It was the farm that decided the investment; for Mr. Gwynne was possessed of the town man's infatuation for farm life and of the optimistic conviction that on the farm a living at least for himself and his small family would be assured.

But his years of business in Mapleton had gradually exhausted his fortune and accumulated a staggering load of debt which was the occasion of moments of anxiety, even of fear, to the storekeeper. There was always the thought in his mind that against his indebtedness on the credit side there were his book accounts which ran up into big figures. There was always, if the worst came to the worst, the farm. But if Mr. Gwynne was no business man still less was he a farmer. Tied to his store by reason of his inability to afford a competent assistant, the farming operations were carried on in haphazard fashion by neighbours who were willing to liquidate their store debts with odd days' work at times most convenient to themselves, but not always most seasonable for the crops. Hence in good years, none too good with such haphazard farming, the farm was called upon to make up the deficiency in the financial returns of the store. In bad years notes had to be renewed with formidable accumulations of interest. But such was Mr. Gwynne's invincible optimism that he met every new embarrassment with some new project giving new promise of success.

Meanwhile during these painful years his brave little wife by her garden and her poultry materially helped to keep the family in food and to meet in some degree the household expenses. She was her own servant except that the Widow Martin came to her aid twice a week. Her skill with needle and sewing machine and a certain creative genius which she possessed enabled her to evolve from her husband's old clothes new clothes for her boy, and from her own clothing, when not too utterly worn, dresses for her two little girls. And throughout these years with all their toil and anxiety she met each day with a spirit undaunted and with a face that remained serene as far at least as her husband and her children ever saw. Nor did she allow the whole weight of trials to taint the sweetness of her spirit or to dim her faith in God. Devoted to her husband, she refused to allow herself to criticise his business ability or methods. The failure, which she could not but admit, was not his fault; it was the fault of those debtors who declined to pay their just dues.

In an hour of desperation she ventured to point out to her husband that these farmers were extending their holdings and buying machinery with notes that bore interest. “And besides, Michael,” she said, “Lawrence must go to High School next year. He will pass the Entrance examination this summer, and he must go.”

“He shall go,” said her husband. “I am resolved to make a change in my method of business. I shall go after these men. They shall no longer use my money for their business and for their families while my business and my family suffer. You need not look that way, I have made up my mind and I shall begin at once.”

Unfortunately the season was not suitable for collections. The farmers were engrossed with their harvesting, and after that with the fall ploughing, and later with the marketing of their grain. And as the weeks passed Mr. Gwynne's indignant resolve that his customers should not do business on his money gradually cooled down. The accounts were sent out as usual, and with the usual disappointing result.

Meantime Mr. Gwynne's attention was diverted from his delinquent debtors by an enterprise which to an unusual degree awakened his sympathy and kindled his imagination. The Reverend Heber Harding, ever since his unfortunate encounter with the travelling evangelist, was haunted with the uneasy feeling that he and his church were not completely fulfilling their functions in the community and justifying their existence. The impression had been the more painfully deepened in him by the sudden eruption of a spirit of recklessness and a certain tendency to general lawlessness in some of the young men of the village. As a result of a conference with the leading men of his congregation, he had decided to organise a young men's club. The business of setting this club in active operation was handed over to Mr. Gwynne, than whom no one in the village was better fitted for the work. The project appealed to Mr. Gwynne's imagination. A room was secured in the disused Orange Hall. Subscriptions were received to make purchase of apparatus and equipment necessary for games of various sorts. With vivid remembrance of his college days, Mr. Gwynne saw to it that as part of the equipment a place should be found for a number of sets of boxing gloves.

There were those who were not too sure of the uplifting influence of the boxing gloves. But after Mr. Gwynne had given an exhibition of the superior advantages of science over brute force in a bout with Mack Morrison before a crowded hall, whatever doubt might exist as to the ethical value of the boxing gloves, there was no doubt at all as to their value as an attractive force in the building up of the membership of the Young Men's Club. The boxing class became immensely popular, and being conducted under Mr. Gwynne's most rigid supervision, it gradually came to exert a most salutary influence upon its members. They learned, for one thing, to take hard knocks without losing their tempers.

In the boxing class thus established, none showed a greater eagerness to learn than did Larry. Every moment of his father's spare time he utilised to add to his knowledge of the various feints and guards and cuts and punches and hooks that appeared necessary to a scientific acquaintance with the manly art. He developed an amazing capacity to accept punishment. Indeed, he appeared almost to welcome rough handling, especially from the young men and boys bigger than himself. Light in weight and not very muscular, he was wiry and quick in eye and in action, and under his father's teaching he learned how to “make his heels save his head.” He was always ready for a go with any one who might offer, and when all others had wearied of the sport Larry would put in an extra half hour with the punching bag. With one boy only he refused to spar. No persuasion, no taunts, no challenge could entice him to put on the gloves with Mop Cheatley. He could never look steadily at Mop for any length of time without seeing again on his face the sneering grin and hearing again the terrible words spoken two years ago in the cedar woods behind the mill pond: “You're a coward and your mother's a coward before you.” He refused to spar with Mop for he knew that once face to face with him he could not spar, he must fight. But circumstances made the contest inevitable. In the working out of a tournament, it chanced that Mop was drawn to face Larry, and although the disparity both in age and weight seemed to handicap the smaller boy to an excessive degree, Larry's friends who were arranging the schedule, among them Mack Morrison with big Ben Hopper and Joe Gagneau as chorus, and who knew something of Larry's skill with his hands and speed on his feet, were not unwilling to allow the draw to stand.

The days preceding the tournament were days of misery for Larry. The decision in the contest would of course be on points and he knew that he could outpoint without much difficulty his antagonist who was clumsy and slow. For the decision Larry cared nothing at all. At the most he had little to lose for it would be but small disgrace to be beaten by a boy so much bigger. The cause of his distress was something quite other than this. He knew that from the first moment of the bout he would be fighting. That this undoubtedly would make Mop fight back, and he was haunted by the fear that in the stress of battle he might play the coward. Would he be able to stand up to Mop when the fight began to go against him? And suppose he should run away, should show himself a coward? How could he ever live after that, how look any of the boys in the face? Worst of all, how could he face his father, whose approval in this boxing game since he had revealed himself as a “fighting man” the boy coveted more than anything else. But his father was not present when the boy stepped into the ring. Impelled by the dread of showing himself a coward and running away, Larry flung to the winds his father's favourite maxim, “Let your heels save your head,” a maxim which ought if ever to be observed in such a bout as this in which he was so out-classed in weight.

At the word “Time” Larry leaped for his opponent and almost before Mop was aware that the battle had begun he was being blinded, staggered and beaten all around the ring, and only a lucky blow, flung wildly into space and landing heavily upon Larry's face, saved him from complete defeat in the first round. That single heavy blow was sufficient to give temporary pause to Larry's impetuosity, but as soon as he got back his wind he once more ran in, feinting, ducking, plunging, but ever pressing hard upon his antagonist, who, having recovered from his first surprise, began to plant heavy blows upon Larry's ribs, until at the end of the round the boy was glad enough to sink back into his corner gasping for breath.

Ben Hopper, who was acting as Larry's second, was filled with surprise and indignation at his principal's fighting tactics. “You blame fool,” he said to Larry as he ministered to his all too apparent necessities. “What do you think you're doing? Do you think he's a sausage machine and you a bloody porker? Keep away from him. You know he's too heavy for you. If he were not so clumsy he would have had you out before this. One good punch from him would do it. Why don't you do your foot work?”

“Corec,” said Joe. “Larree, you fight all the same Mack Morrison's ram. Head down, jump in—head down, jump in. Why you run so queek on dat Mop feller? Why you not make him run after you?”

“He's right, Larry,” said Ben. “Use your feet; make him come after you. You will sure get his wind.”

But Larry stood recovering his breath, glowering meanwhile at his enemy across the ring. He neither heeded nor heard the entreaties of his friends. In his ears one phrase only rang with insistent reiteration. “He's a coward, an' his mother's a coward before him.” Only one obsession possessed him, he must keep hard at his enemy.

“Time!” The second round was on. Like a tiger upon his prey, Larry was upon his foe, driving fast and furious blows upon his head and face. But this time Mop was ready for him, and bearing in, head down, he took on his left guard the driving blows with no apparent injury, and sent back some half a dozen heavy swings that broke down Larry's guard, drove him across the ring and finally brought him gasping to his knees.

“Stay where you are,” yelled Ben. “Take your count, Larry, and keep away from him. Do you hear me? Keep away, always away.”

At the ninth count Larry sprang to his feet, easily eluded Mop's swinging blow, and slipping lightly around the ring, escaped further attack until he had picked up his wind.

“That's the game,” yelled Ben. “Keep it up, old boy, keep it up.”

“C'est bon stuff, Larree,” yelled Joe, dancing wildly in Ben's corner. “C'est bon stuff, Larree, for sure.”

But once more master of his wind, Larry renewed his battering assault upon Mop's head, inflicting some damage indeed, but receiving heavy punishment in return. The close of the round found him exhausted and bleeding. In spite of the adjurations and entreaties of his friends, Larry pursued the same tactics in the third round, which ended even more disastrously than the second. His condition was serious enough to bring Mack Morrison to his side.

“What's up with you, Larry?” said Mack. “Where's your science gone? Why don't you play the game as you know it?”

“Mack, Mack,” panted Larry. “It ain't a game. I'm—I'm fighting, and, Mack, I'm not afraid of him.”

Mack whistled. “Who said you are afraid of him, youngster?”

“He did, Mack, he called me a coward—you remember, Ben, up in the cedar bush that day we played hookey—you remember, Ben?” Ben nodded. “He called me a coward and”—grinding the words between his teeth—“he called my mother a coward. But I am not afraid of him, Mack—he can't make me afraid; he can't make me run away.” What with his rage and his secret fear, the boy had quite lost control of himself.

“So that's it,” said Mack, reading both rage and fear in his eyes. “Listen to me, Larry,” he continued in a voice low and stern. “You quit this monkey work right now or, by the jumping Jehoshaphat, I will lick the tar out of you myself when this is over. You're not afraid of him; I know that—we all know that. But you don't want to kill him, eh? No. What you want is to make him look like a fool. Well, then, fight, if you want to fight, but remember your rules. Play with him, make him follow you round until you get his wind; there's your chance. Then get him hard and get away.”

But the boy spoke no word in reply. He was staring gloomily, desperately, before him into space.

Mack seized him, and shaking him impatiently, said, “Larry boy, listen to me. Don't you care for anybody but yourself? Don't you care for me at all?”

At that Larry appeared to wake up as from a sleep.

“What did you say, Mack?” he answered. “Of course I care, you know that, Mack.”

“Then,” said Mack, “for God's sake, get a smile on your face. Smile, confound you, smile.”

The boy passed his gloved hand over his face, looked for a moment into Mack's eyes, and the old smile came back to his lips.

“Now you're all right,” cried Mack in triumph. “Remember your father's rule, 'Keep your head with your heels.'” And Larry did remember! For on the call of “Time” he slipped from Ben's knees and began to circle lightly about Mop, smiling upon him and waiting his chance. His chance soon came, for Mop, thinking that his enemy had had about enough and was ready to quit, adopted aggressive tactics, and, feinting with his right, swung heavily with his left at the smiling face. But the face proved elusive, and upon Mop's undefended head a series of blows dealt with savage fury took all the heart out of him. So he cried to the referee as he ducked into his corner:

“He's fightin'. He's fightin'. I'm not fightin'.”

“You'd better get busy then,” called Ben derisively from his corner. “Now, Larry, sail into him,” and Larry sailed in with such vehemence that Mop fairly turned tail and ran around the ring, Larry pursuing him amid the delighted shouts of the spectators.

This ended the contest, the judges giving the decision to Mop, who, though obviously beaten at the finish, had showed a distinct superiority on points. As for Larry, the decision grieved him not at all. He carried home a face slightly disfigured but triumphant, his sole comment to his mother upon the contest being, “I was not afraid of him anyway, mother; he could not make me run.”

“I am not so sure of this boxing, Lawrence,” she said, but the boy caught the glint in her eyes and was well enough content.

In the late evening Ben, with Larry and Joe following him, took occasion to look in upon Mop at the butcher shop.

“Say, Mop,” said Ben pleasantly, “what do you think of Larry now? Would you say he was a coward?”

“What do you mean?” asked Mop, suspecting trouble.

“Just what I say,” said Ben, while Larry moved up within range, his face white, his eyes gleaming.

“I ain't saying nothing about nobody,” replied Mop sullenly, with the tail of his eye upon Larry's white face and gleaming eyes.

“You say him one tam—in de cedar swamp,” said Joe.

“Would you say Larry was a coward?” repeated Ben.

“No, I wouldn't say nothing of the sort,” replied Mop promptly.

“Do you think he is a coward?” persisted Ben.

“No,” said Mop, “I know he ain't no coward. He don't fight like no coward.”

This appeared to satisfy Ben, but Larry, moving slightly nearer, took up the word for himself.

“And would you say my mother was a coward?” he asked in a tense voice, his body gathered as if for a spring.

“Larry, I wouldn't say nothing about your mother,” replied Mop earnestly. “I think your mother's a bully good woman. She was awfully good to my mother last winter, I know.”

The spring went out of Larry's body. He backed away from Mop and the boys.

“Who said your mother was a coward?” inquired Mop indignantly. “If anybody says so, you bring him to me, and I'll punch his head good, I will.”

Larry looked foolishly at Ben, who looked foolishly back at him.

“Say, Mop,” said Larry, a smile like a warm light passing over his face, “come on up and see my new rabbits.”

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CHAPTER IV

SALVAGE

Another and greater enterprise was diverting Mr. Gwynne's attention from the delinquencies of his debtors, namely: the entrance of the National Machine Company into the remote and placid life of Mapleton and its district. The manager of this company, having spent an afternoon with Mr. Gwynne in his store and having been impressed by his charm and power of persuasive talk, made him a proposition that he should act as agent of the National Machine Company. The arrangement suggested was one that appealed to Mr. Gwynne's highly optimistic temperament. He was not to work for a mere salary, but was to purchase outright the various productions of the National Machine Company and receive a commission upon all his sales. The figures placed before Mr. Gwynne by the manager of the company were sufficiently impressive, indeed so impressive that Mr. Gwynne at once accepted the proposition, and the Mapleton branch of the National Machine Company became an established fact.

There was no longer any question as to the education of his family. In another year when his boy had passed his entrance examinations he would be able to send him to the high school in the neighbouring town of Easton, properly equipped and relieved of those handicaps with which poverty can so easily wash all the colour out of young life. A brilliant picture the father drew before the eyes of his wife of the educational career of their boy, who had already given promise of exceptional ability. But while she listened, charmed, delighted and filled with proud anticipation, the mother with none the less painful care saved her garden and poultry money, cut to bare necessity her household expenses, skimped herself and her children in the matter of dress, and by every device which she had learned in the bitter school of experience during the ten years of her Canadian life, made such preparation for the expenses of her boy's education as would render it unnecessary to call upon the wealth realised from the National Machine Company's business.

In the matter of providing for the expense of his education Larry himself began to take a not unimportant part. During the past two years he had gained not only in size but in the vigour of his health, and in almost every kind of work on the farm he could now take a man's place. His mother would not permit him to give his time and strength to their own farming operations for the sufficient reason that from these there would be no return in ready money, and ready money was absolutely essential to the success of her plans. The boy was quick, eager and well-mannered, and in consequence had no difficulty in finding employment with the neighbouring farmers. So much was this the case that long before the closing of school in the early summer Larry was offered work for the whole summer by their neighbour, Mr. Martin, at one dollar a day. He could hardly believe his good fortune inasmuch as he had never in all his life been paid at a rate exceeding half that amount.

“I shall have a lot of money, mother,” he said, “for my high school now. I wonder how much it will cost me for the term.”

Thereupon his mother seized the opportunity to discuss the problem with him which she knew they must face together.

“Let us see,” said his mother.

Then each with pencil and paper they drew up to the table, but after the most careful paring down of expenses and the most optimistic estimate of their resources consistent with fact, they made the rather discouraging discovery that they were still fifty dollars short.

“I can't do it, mother,” said Larry, in bitter disappointment.

“We shall not give up yet,” said his mother. “Indeed, I think with what we can make out of the farm and garden and poultry, we ought to be able to manage.”

But a new and chilling thought had come to the lad. He pondered silently, and as he pondered his face became heavily shadowed.

“Say, mother,” he said suddenly, “we can't do it. How much are you going to spend on your clothes?”

“All I need,” said his mother brightly.

“But how much?”

“I don't know.”

“How much did you spend last year?”

“Oh, never mind, Lawrence; that really does not matter.”

But the boy insisted. “Did you spend thirty-one dollars?” His mother laughed at him.

“Did you spend twenty?”

“No.”

“Did you spend fifteen?”

“I do not know,” said his mother, “and I am not going to talk about it. My clothes and the girls' clothes will be all right for this year.”

“Mother,” said Larry, “I am not going to school this year. I am not going to spend thirty-one dollars for clothes while you and the girls spend nothing. I am going to work first, and then go to school. I am not going to school this year.” The boy rose from his chair and stood and faced his mother with quivering lips, fighting to keep back the tears.

Mother reached out her hand and drew him toward her. “My darling boy,” she said in a low voice, “I love to hear you, but listen to me. Are you listening? You must be educated. Nothing must interfere with that. No suffering is too great to be endured by all of us. The time for education is youth; first because your mind works more quickly and retains better what it acquires, and second because it is a better investment, and you will sooner be able to pay us all back what we spend now. So you will go to school this year, boy, if we can manage it, and I think we can. Some day,” she added, patting him on the shoulder, and holding him off from her, “when you are rich you will give me a silk dress.”

“Won't I just,” cried the boy passionately, “and the girls too, and everything you want, and I will give you a good time yet, mother. You deserve the best a woman ever had and I will give it to you.”

The mother turned her face away from him and looked out of the window. She saw not the fields of growing grain but a long vista of happy days ever growing in beauty and in glory until she could see no more for the tears that quietly fell. The boy dropped on his knees beside her.

“Oh, mother, mother,” he said. “You have been wonderful to us all, and you have had an awfully hard time. A fellow never knows, does he?”

“A hard time? A hard time?” said his mother, a great surprise in her voice and in her face. “No, my boy, no hard time for me. A dear, dear, lovely time with you all, every day, every day. Never do I want a better time than I have had with you.”

The event proved the wisdom of Mrs. Gwynne's determination to put little faith in the optimistic confidence of her husband in regard to the profits to be expected from the operations of the National Machine Company. A year's business was sufficient to demonstrate that the Mapleton branch of the National Machine Company was bankrupt. By every law of life it ought to be bankrupt. With all his many excellent qualities Mr. Gwynne possessed certain fatal defects as a business man. With him the supreme consideration was simply the getting rid of the machines purchased by him as rapidly and in such large numbers as possible. He cheerfully ignored the laws that governed the elemental item of profit. Hence the relentless Nemesis that sooner or later overtakes those who, whether ignorantly or maliciously, break laws, fell upon the National Machine Company and upon those who had the misfortune to be associated with it.

In the wreck of the business Mr. Gwynne's store, upon which the National Machine Company had taken the precaution to secure a mortgage, was also involved. The business went into the hands of a receiver and was bought up at about fifty cents on the dollar by a man recently from western Canada whose specialty was the handling of business wreckage. No one after even a cursory glance at his face would suspect Mr. H. P. Sleighter of deficiency in business qualities. The snap in the cold grey eye, the firm lines in the long jaw, the thin lips pressed hard together, all proclaimed the hard-headed, cold-hearted, iron-willed man of business. Mr. Sleighter, moreover, had a remarkable instinct for values, more especially for salvage values. It was this instinct that led him to the purchase of the National Machine Company wreckage, which included as well the Mapleton general store, with its assets in stock and book debts.

Mr. Sleighter's methods with the easy-going debtors of the company in Mapleton and the surrounding district were of such galvanic vigour that even so practiced a procrastinator as Farmer Martin found himself actually drawing money from his hoarded bank account to pay his store debts—a thing unheard of in that community—and to meet overdue payments upon the various implements which he had purchased from the National Machine Company. It was not until after the money had been drawn and actually paid that Mr. Martin came fully to realise the extraordinary nature of his act.

“That there feller,” he said, looking from the receipt in his hand to the store door through which the form of Mr. Sleighter had just vanished, “that there feller, he's too swift fer me. He ain't got any innards to speak of; he'd steal the pants off a dog, he would.”

The application of these same galvanically vigorous methods to Mr. Gwynne's debtors produced surprising results. Mr. Sleighter made the astounding discovery that Mr. Gwynne's business instead of being bankrupt would produce not only one hundred cents on the dollar, but a slight profit as well. This discovery annoyed Mr. Sleighter. He hated to confess a mistake in business judgment, and he frankly confessed he “hated to see good money roll past him.” Hence with something of a grudge he prepared to hand over to Mr. Gwynne some twelve hundred and fifty dollars of salvage money.

“I suppose he will be selling out his farm,” said Mr. Sleighter in conversation with Mr. Martin. “What's land worth about here?”

“Oh, somewhere about a hundred.”

“A hundred dollars an acre!” exclaimed Mr. Sleighter. “Don't try to put anything over on me. Personally I admire your generous, kindly nature, but as a financial adviser you don't shine. I guess I won't bother about that farm anyway.”

Mr. Sleighter's question awakened earnest thought in Mr. Martin, and the next morning he approached Mr. Gwynne with a proposition to purchase his farm with its attached buildings. Mr. Martin made it clear that he was chiefly anxious to do a neighbourly turn.

“The house and the stable ain't worth much,” he said, “but the farm bein' handy to my property, I own up is worth more to me than to other folks, perhaps. So bein' old neighbours, I am willin' to give four thousand dollars, half cash down, for the hull business.”

“Surely that is a low figure,” said Mr. Gwynne.

“Low figure!” exclaimed Mr. Martin. “All right, I ain't pressin' it on you; but if you could get any one in this neighbourhood to offer four thousand dollars for your farm, I will give you five hundred extra. But,” he continued, “I ain't pressin' you. Don't much matter to me.”

The offer came at a psychologically critical moment, when Mr. Gwynne was desperately seeking escape from an intolerable environment.

“I shall consult Mrs. Gwynne,” he said, “and let you know in a few days.”

“Don't know as I can wait that long,” said Mr. Martin. “I made the offer to oblige you, and besides I got a chance at the Monroe fifty.”

“Call to-morrow night,” said Mr. Gwynne, and carried the proposal home to his wife.

The suggestion to break up her home to a woman of Mrs. Gwynne's type is almost shattering. In the big world full of nameless terrors the one spot offering shelter and safety for herself and her family was her home. But after all, her husband was her great concern, and she could see he was eager for the change. She made up her mind to the sacrifice and decided that she would break up the home in Mapleton and with her husband try again their fortune.

“But four thousand dollars,” she said, “is surely a small price.”

“Small? I know it is small, but Martin knows I am in a corner. He is a highway robber.”

It was a bitter experience for him to be forced to confess himself a business failure, and with this bitterness there mingled a feeling of hostility toward all successful business men. To him it seemed that in order to win success in business a man must become, like Mr. Martin, a highway robber. In this mood of bitterness and hostility toward successful men, Mr. Sleighter found him the next day.

“Couldn't find you at the store,” said that gentleman, walking in with his hat on his head. “I wanted to get this business straightened up, so I just came in. Won't take more than five minutes. I guess you won't mind taking a little check from me. Your business turned out better than that fool of an assignee thought. Don't hurt me any, of course. I got all that was comin' to me out of it, but here's this check. Perhaps you'll sign the receipt. I guess they been puttin' it over you all right. You're a little too soft with 'em.”

Mr. Gwynne was an even-tempered man, but Mr. Sleighter's patronising manner and his criticism of his business ability wrought in him a rage that he could with difficulty control. He remembered he was in his own house, however, and that the man before him was a stranger. While he was searching for pen and ink the door opened and his wife entered the room. Mr. Sleighter, with his hat still upon his head, was intently gazing out of the window, easily rocking on the two hind legs of the chair. The door opened behind him.

“My dear,” said Mr. Gwynne, “will you excuse me? I am engaged.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn't know any one was here. I merely wanted—”

Mr. Sleighter glanced over his shoulder.

“Mr. Sleighter,” said Mr. Gwynne. “My wife.”

It was not his tone, however, that brought Mr. Sleighter hurriedly to his feet with his hat in his hand. It was something in the bearing of the little lady standing behind him.

“Pleased to meet you, ma'am. I hope you are well,” he said, bowing elaborately before her.

“Thank you very much, I am quite well. I have heard a great deal about you, Mr. Sleighter. I am glad to meet you.”

Mr. Sleighter held her hand a moment while her eyes rested quietly and kindly, if searchingly, upon his face. This was the man who had profited by her husband's loss. Was he too a highway robber? Mr. Sleighter somehow felt as if his soul were being exposed to a searchlight. It made him uncomfortable.

“It's a fine day, ma'am,” he remarked, seeking cover for his soul in conversation. “A little warm for the time,” he continued, wiping his forehead with a highly coloured silk handkerchief.

“Won't you sit down, Mr. Sleighter? Do you find it warm? I thought there was quite a chilly wind to-day. But then you are more accustomed to the wind than I.”

The searching eyes were holding him steadily, but the face was kindly and full of genuine interest.

“I guess so,” he said with a little laugh. He would have scorned to acknowledge that his laugh was nervous and thin. “I come from the windy side of the earth.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, I am from out West—Alberta. We have got all the winds there is and the Chinook besides for a change.”

“Alberta? The Chinook?” The eyes became less searching.

“Yes, that's the wind that comes down from the mountains and licks up the snow at ten miles an hour.”

“Oh!”

“It was an Alberta man, you know, who invented a rig with runners in front and wheels behind.” The lady was bewildered. “To catch up with the Chinook, you see. One of my kid's jokes. Not much of a joke I guess, but he's always ringin' 'em in.”

“You have a son, Mr. Sleighter? He's in Alberta now?”

“No, the missis and the kids, three of them, are in Winnipeg. She got tired of it out there; she was always wantin' the city, so I gave in.”

“I hear it's a beautiful country out there.”

“Now you're talkin', ma'am.” She had touched Mr. Sleighter's favourite theme. Indeed, the absorbing passion of his life, next to the picking up of good salvage bargains, was his home in the Foothill country of the West.

While he was engaged in an enthusiastic description of the glories of that wonderland the children came in and were presented. Mr. Gwynne handed his visitor his receipt and stood suggestively awaiting his departure. But Mr. Sleighter was fairly started on his subject and was not to be denied. The little girls drew shyly near him with eyes aglow while Mr. Sleighter's words roiled forth like a mountain flood. Eloquently he described the beauty of the rolling lands, the splendour of the mountains, the richness of the soil, the health-giving qualities of the climate, the warm-hearted hospitality of the settlers.

“None of your pin-head two-by-four shysters that you see here in the East,” exclaimed Mr. Sleighter. “I mean some folks, of course,” he explained in some confusion.

“And the children, did they like it?” inquired Mrs. Gwynne.

“You bet they did. Why, they was all over the hull prairie, all day and all night, too, mostly—on ponies you know.”

“Ponies!” exclaimed Larry. “Did they have ponies? Could they ride? How big are they?”

“How big? Blamed if I know. Let's see. There's Tom. He's just about a man, or thinks he is. He's sixteen or seventeen. Just now he's in the high school at Winnipeg. He don't like it though.” Here a shadow fell on Mr. Sleighter's face. “And the girls—there's Hazel, she's fifteen, and Ethel Mary, she's eleven or somewhere thereabouts. I never can keep track of them. They keep againin' on me all the time.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Gwynne. “It is hard to realise that they are growing up and will soon be away from us.”

“That's so,” said Mr. Sleighter.

“And the schools,” continued Mrs. Gwynne, “are there good schools?”

“Schools?” exclaimed Mr. Sleighter. “There's a real good school not more than a couple of miles away.”

“Two miles,” exclaimed the mother aghast.

“Oh, that's nothin'. They ride, of course. But we ain't got much of a master now. He's rather—you know.” Mr. Sleighter significantly tipped up with his little finger and winked toward Mr. Gwynne.

“But you love that country,” she said.

“Yes, I love it and I hated to leave it. But the missis never liked it. She was city born and bred. She wanted the lights, I guess, and the shows. I don't blame her, though,” he continued rapidly. “It's kind of lonely for women, you know. They've got to have amusements and things. But it's God's own country, believe me, and I would go back to-morrow, if I could.”

“You still own your ranch?”

“Yes; can't sell easily. You see there's not much broke on it—only a hundred acres or so.”

“Why, how big is the ranch?”

“Five hundred acres and a wood lot. I did not farm much, though—mostly cattle and horses. I was away a good deal on the trail.”

“The trail?”

“Yes, buying cattle and selling again. That was the worst of it. I am not much of a farmer, though farming's all right there, and I was away almost all of the time. I guess that made it pretty hard for the missis and the kids.”

At this point the Widow Martin came in to lay the table for tea. Mr. Sleighter took the hint and rose to go.

“You will do us the pleasure of staying for tea, Mr. Sleighter?” said Mrs. Gwynne earnestly.

“Oh, do,” said the youngest little girl, Nora, whose snapping black eyes gleamed with eager desire to hear more of the wonderful western land.

“Yes, do, and tell us more,” said the boy.

“I hope you will be able to stay,” continued Mrs. Gwynne.

Mr. Sleighter glanced at her husband. “Why, certainly,” said Mr. Gwynne, “we would be glad to have you.”

Still Mr. Sleighter hesitated. “Say, I don't know what's come over me. I feel as if I had been on the stump,” he said in an embarrassed voice. “I ain't talked to a soul about that country since I left. I guess I got pretty full, and when you pulled the cork, out she come.”

During the tea hour Mrs. Gwynne tried to draw her visitor out to talk about his family, but here she failed. Indeed a restraint appeared to fall upon him that nothing could dispel. Immediately after tea Mrs. Gwynne placed the Bible and Book of Prayers on the table, saying, “We follow the custom of reading prayers every evening after tea, Mr. Sleighter. We shall be glad to have you join us.”

“Sure thing, ma'am,” said Mr. Sleighter, pushing back his chair and beginning to rock on its hind legs, picking his teeth with his pen knife, to the staring horror of the little girls.

The reading was from the Scripture to which throughout the centuries the Christian Church has gone for authority and guidance in the exercise of charity and in the performance of social service, the story of the Samaritan gentleman to whom the unhappy traveller whose misfortune it was to be sorely mishandled by thieves owed his rescue and his life.

Throughout the reading Mr. Sleighter paid the strictest attention and joined in the prayers with every sign of reverence. At the close he stood awkwardly shifting from one foot to another.

“Well, I'll be goin',” he said. “Don't know how you roped me in for this here visit, ma'am. I ain't et in any one's house since I left home, and I ain't heard any family prayers since my old dad had 'em—a regular old Methodist exhorter he was. He used to pray until all was blue, though most times, specially at night, I used to fall asleep. He was great on religion.”

“I don't suppose he was any the worse for that,” said Mrs. Gwynne.

“Not a mite, not a mite, ma'am. A little strict, but straight as a string, ma'am. No one could say anythin' against Hiram Sleighter—H. P. Sleighter. I was named for him. He used to pray to beat creation, and then some, but he was a straight man all right. And to-night your kids and your family prayers made me think of them old days. Well, good-night and thank you for the good time you gave me. Best I've had in a dog's age.”

“You will come again, Mr. Sleighter,” said Mrs. Gwynne, giving him her hand.

“Yes, and tell us more about that new country,” added her son. “My, I'd like to go out there!”

“It's a wonderful country all right and you might do a hull lot worse.”

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER V

WESTWARD HO!

Mr. Gwynne accompanied Mr. Sleighter to the door. “Will you walk down to the store?” said Mr. Sleighter.

“Very well,” said Mr. Gwynne, setting off with him.

Mr. Sleighter evidently had something on his mind. The usual fountain of his speech seemed to be dried up. As they drew near to the store, he seized Mr. Gwynne by the arm, arrested him, and said:

“Say, Mr. Gwynne, you ain't got any right to be in business. You ain't got the parts, and that Machine Company and the rest of 'em put it all over you.”

“We needn't go into that now, I suppose,” said Mr. Gwynne.

“No, I guess I am buttin' in—a thing I don't often do—but I am off my stride to-night anyway, and I am doin' what I never did in all my life before. I guess it was them kids of yours and your missis. I know it ain't my business, but what are you goin' to do with yourself?”

“I don't know yet,” replied Mr. Gwynne, declining to be confidential.

“Not goin' into business, I hope. You ain't got the parts. Some people ain't got 'em, and you ain't. Goin' to farm?”

“No, I think not. The fact is I'm about selling my farm.”

“Selling it?”

“Yes, I had an offer to-day which I am thinking of accepting.”

“An offer, eh, from a feller named Martin, I suppose?”

“How did you know?”

“I don't know. I just figgered. Offered you about a hundred dollars, eh?”

“No; I wish he had. It's worth a hundred with the house and buildings—they are good buildings.”

“Say, I don't like to butt in on any man's business, but is the price a secret?”

“Oh, no; he offers four thousand, half cash.”

“And how much for the buildings?”

“Four thousand for everything, it's not enough but there are not many buyers in this neighbourhood.”

“Say, there's nothing rash about that feller. When do you close?”

“Must close to-morrow night. He has a chance of another place.”

“Oh, he has, eh? Big rush on, eh? Well, don't you close until I see you some time to-morrow, partner.”

Mr. Sleighter scented another salvage deal, his keen eyes gleamed a bit, the firm lips were pressed a little more closely together.

“And say,” he said, turning back, “I don't wonder you can't do business. I couldn't do anything myself with a missis like yours. I couldn't get any smooth work over with her lookin' at me like that, durned if I could. Well, good-night; see you to-morrow.”

Mr. Sleighter spent the early hours of the following day among the farmers with whom his salvage deal had brought him into contact. The wrecker's instinct was strong in him, and besides he regarded with abhorrence the tactics of Mr. Martin and welcomed an opportunity to beat that gentleman at his own game. He could easily outbid the Martin offer and still buy the farm at a low price. As a result of his inquiries he had made up his mind that the land was worth at the very least eighty dollars an acre and the buildings at least two thousand more. Five thousand would be a ridiculously low figure and six thousand not extravagantly high for both buildings and farm. The farm with the store and machine business attached might offer a fair opening to his son, who was already weary of school and anxious to engage in business for himself.

“Guess I'll take a whirl out of the old boy,” he said to himself. “He's a durn fool anyway and if I don't get his money some one else will.”

In the afternoon he made his way to the store. “Boss ain't in?” he inquired of the clerk.

“No, he's at the house, I guess.”

“Back soon?”

“Don't know. Guess he's busy over there.”

“Seen Mr. Martin around?”

“Yes, he was here a while ago. Said he would be in again later.”

Mr. Sleighter greatly disliked the idea of doing business with Mr. Gwynne at his own house. “Can't do no business with his missis and kids around,” he said to himself. “Can't get no action with that woman lookin' on seemingly. But that there old Martin geyser is on the job and he might close things up. I guess I will wander over.”

To his great relief he found Mr. Gwynne alone and without preliminaries, and with the design of getting “quick action” before the disturbing element of Mrs. Gwynne's presence should be introduced, he made his offer. He explained his purpose in purchasing, and with something of a flourish offered five thousand for “the hull plant, lock, stock and barrel,” cash down if specially desired, but he would prefer to pay half in six months. He must have his answer immediately; was not anxious to buy, but if Mr. Gwynne wanted to close up, he only had to say so. He was not going to monkey with the thing.

“You have made me a much better offer than the one I received from Mr. Martin, and I am inclined to accept it, but inasmuch as I have promised to give him an answer to-day, I feel that it's due to him that I should meet him with the bargain still unclosed.”

“Why?” enquired Mr. Sleighter in surprise.

“Well, you see I asked him to hold the offer open until this afternoon. I feel I ought to go to him with the matter still open.”

“Want to screw him up, eh?” said Mr. Sleighter, his lips drawing close together.

“No, sir.” Mr. Gwynne's voice had a little ring in it. “I consider it fairer to Mr. Martin.”

“Don't see as how he has much claim on you,” replied Mr. Sleighter. “But that's your own business. Say, there he comes now. Look here, my offer is open until six o'clock. After that it's a new deal. Take it or leave it. I will be at your store.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Gwynne stiffly.

Mr. Sleighter was distinctly annoyed and disappointed. A few minutes' longer pressure, he was convinced, would have practically closed a deal which would have netted him a considerable profit. “Durn old fool,” he muttered to himself as he passed out of the room.

In the hallway Mrs. Gwynne's kindly welcome halted him. She greeted him as she would a friend. Would he not sit down for a few moments. No, he was busy. Mr. Sleighter was quite determined to get away from her presence.

“The children were delighted with your description of your western home,” she said. “The free life, the beautiful hills, the mountains in the distance—it must indeed be a lovely country.”

Mr. Sleighter was taken off his guard. “Yes, ma'am, that's lovely country all right. They'd like it fine out there, and healthy too. It would make a man of that little kid of yours. He looks a little on the weak side to me. A few months in the open and you wouldn't know him. The girls too—”

“Come in here and sit down, won't you, Mr. Sleighter?” said Mrs. Gwynne.

Mr. Sleighter reluctantly passed into the room and sat down. He knew he was taking a risk. However, his offer was already made and the deal he believed would be closed in the store by six o'clock.

“I suppose the land is all taken up out there?” said Mrs. Gwynne.

“Oh, yes, mostly, unless away back. Folks are comin' in all the time, but there's still lots of cheap land around.”

“Cheap land, is there?” inquired Mrs. Gwynne with a certain eagerness in her voice. “Indeed I should have thought that that beautiful land would be very dear.”

“Why, bless your heart, no. I know good land going for six—seven—eight—ten dollars an acre. Ten dollars is high for good farm lands; for cattle runs four dollars is good. No, there's lots of good land lying around out of doors there. If these people around here could get their heads up long enough from grubbing in the muck they wouldn't stay here over night. They'd be hittin' the trail for the west, you bet.”

Mrs. Gwynne turned her honest eyes upon him. “Mr. Sleighter, I want to ask your advice. I feel I can rely upon you [“Durn it all, she's gettin' her work in all right,” thought Mr. Sleighter to himself], and I am getting quite anxious in the matter. You see, my husband is determined to leave this place. He wishes to try something else. Indeed, he must try something else. We must make a living, Mr. Sleighter.” Mrs. Gwynne's voice became hurried and anxious. “We were delighted last night by your description of that wonderful country in the West, and the children especially. I have been wondering if we might venture to try a small farm in that country—quite a small farm. We have a little money to invest. I thought I might be bold enough to ask you. I know your judgment would be good and I felt somehow that we could trust you. I hope I am not taking a liberty, but somehow I feel that you are not a stranger.”

“No, ma'am, certainly not,” said Mr. Sleighter in a loud voice, his hope of securing “quick action on that deal” growing dim.

“Do you happen to know any farm—a small farm—which we might be able to buy? We hope to receive four thousand dollars for this place. I feel that it is worth a good deal more, but there are not many buyers about here. Then, of course, perhaps we value our place too highly. Then by your kind help we have got something out of the business—twelve hundred and fifty dollars I think Mr. Gwynne said. We are most grateful to you for that, Mr. Sleighter.” Her eyes beamed on him in a most disconcerting way. “And so after our obligations here are met we might have about forty-five hundred dollars clear. Could we do anything with that?”

“I donno, I donno,” said Mr. Sleighter quickly and rising from his chair, “I will think it over. I have got to go now.”

At this moment Mr. Gwynne came into the room. “Oh, I am glad you are not gone, Mr. Sleighter. I have just told Mr. Martin that I cannot accept his offer.”

“Cannot accept, Michael!” said Mrs. Gwynne, dismay in her voice and in her eyes.

“I believe you said your offer was good until six, Mr. Sleighter?”

“Oh, I say, Gwynne, let's get out, let's get over to the store. It's kind of hot here, and I've got to go. Come on over and we'll clean up.” Without a farewell word to either of them Mr. Sleighter passed rapidly from the room.

“I do hope there's nothing wrong, Michael,” said his wife. “I fear I have made a mistake. I spoke to Mr. Sleighter about the possibility of getting a small farm in the West. You were so eager about it, Michael dear, and I spoke to Mr. Sleighter about it. I hope there is nothing wrong.”

“Don't worry, mother. I have his offer for five thousand dollars. Of course he is rather peculiar, I confess, but I believe—” The door opened abruptly upon them, admitting Mr. Sleighter.

“See here, Mr. Gwynne, I can't do no business with you.”

“Sir, you made me an offer for my farm,” said Mr. Gwynne indignantly, “and I have just refused an offer from Mr. Martin on account of yours.”

“Oh, we'll cut that all out,” said Mr. Sleighter, whose voice and manner indicated strong excitement. “Now don't talk. Listen to me, my son. You ain't got any right to be playing around with business men anyhow. Now I am going to do a little business for you, if you will allow me, ma'am. I take it you want to get away from here.” Mr. Gwynne nodded, gazing at him in astonishment. “You want to go West.” Again Mr. Gwynne nodded. “Well, there's only one spot in the West—Alberta. You want a farm.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gwynne.

“Yes, certainly,” said Mrs. Gwynne.

“There's just one farm that will suit you, an' that's Lakeside Farm, Wolf Willow, Alberta, owned by H. P. Sleighter, Esq., who's going to stump you to a trade. Five hundred acres, one hundred broke an' a timber lot; a granary; stables and corral, no good; house, fair to middlin'. Two hundred an' fifty acres worth ten dollars at least, best out of doors; cattle run, two hundred acres worth five; swamp and sleugh, fifty acres, only good to look at but mighty pretty in the mornin' at sun-up. Not much money in scenery though. Building worth between two and three thousand. Your plant here is worth about six thousand. I know I offered you five thousand, but I was buyin' then and now I am buyin' and sellin'. Anyway, I guess it's about even, an' we'll save you a lot of trouble an' time an' money. An' so, if you really want a western farm, you might just as well have mine. I did not think to sell. Of course I knew I must sell in the long run, but couldn't just see my place in anybody else's hands. Somehow it seems different though to see you folks on it. You seem to fit. Anyway, there's the offer. What do you say?”

“Sit down, Mr. Sleighter,” said Mr. Gwynne. “This is a rather surprising proposition.”

Mrs. Gwynne's eyes grew soft. “Michael, I think it is wonderful.”

But Mr. Gwynne would not look at his wife. “Let me see, Mr. Sleighter, your farm, you say, with buildings, is worth about six thousand to sixty-five hundred. Mine is worth from fifty-five hundred to six thousand. I will take your offer and pay the difference.”

“Oh, come off your perch,” said Mr. Sleighter. “You're doin' the highfalutin' Vere de Vere act now. Listen to me. The deal is as level as I can figger it. Your farm and store with the machine business suit me all right. I feel I can place my boy right here for a while anyway. My farm, I believe, would suit you better than anythin' else you can get. There's my offer. Take it or leave it.”

“I think we will take it, Mr. Sleighter,” said Mrs. Gwynne. “Michael dear, I feel Mr. Sleighter is right, and besides I know he is doing us a great kindness.”

“Kindness, ma'am, not at all. Business is business, and that's all there is to it. Well, I'll be goin'. Think it over, get the papers fixed up by to-morrow. No, don't thank me. Good-bye.”

Mrs. Gwynne followed him to the door, her face flushed, her eyes aglow, a smile hovering uncertainly about her lips. “Mr. Sleighter,” she said, “the Lord sent you to us because He knew we were in need of guiding.”

“Ho, ho!” laughed Mr. Sleighter. “Like that Samaritan chap in the reading, eh? I guess you had got among thieves all right, more of 'em perhaps than you recognised too.”

“He sent you to us,” repeated Mrs. Gwynne, offering him her hand.

“Well, I donno but that He steered me to you. But all the same I guess the advantage is to me all right.” Mr. Sleighter looked hard down the street, then turned and faced her squarely. “I want to say that it's done me a pile of good to have seen you, ma'am. It's made things look different.”

“You are a good man, Mr. Sleighter,” she said, looking at him with misty eyes.

“A good man!” Mr. Sleighter was seized with a cough. “A good man! Good Lord, ma'am! nobody never found it out but you—durn that cough anyway.” And still troubled by his cough, Mr. Sleighter hurried down the path to the gate and out on to the road.

Once resolved to break up their home in Eastern Canada, the Gwynnes lost no time in completing their arrangements for the transportation of themselves and their household gods and such of their household goods as Mr. Sleighter advised, to the new western country.

Mr. Sleighter appeared to regard the migration of the Gwynne family to the western country as an enterprise in which he had made an investment from which he was bound to secure the greatest possible return. The principle of exchange which had been the basis of the deal as far as the farms were concerned was made to apply as far as possible to farm implements and equipment, household goods and chattels.

“What's the use of your packin' a hull bunch of stuff West an' my packin' a hull bunch of stuff East. We'll just tote up the stock an' stuff we have got and make a deal on it. I know all my stuff an' yours is here. We'll make a trade.”

To this Mr. Gwynne gladly agreed. The arrangement would save trouble and useless expenditure. Hence the car was packed with such goods as Mr. Sleighter considered especially useful in the new home, and with such household furniture as the new home lacked and such articles as were precious from family or personal associations.

“What about the pictures and curtains?” inquired Mr. Gwynne. “We don't need them.”

“Take 'em all,” said Mr. Sleighter. “Pictures are like folks. They got faces an' looks. And curtains—my missis got hers all packed. Curtains are like clothes—they only fit them that owns them.”

“And the piano?”

“Sure thing. Say, a piano in that country is like the village pump—the hull country gets about it. Take things to eat an' things to wear an' things to make the shack look pretty an' interestin' and comfortable. They don't take much room and they take the bareness off. That's what kills the women folk in the West, the bareness inside and outside. Nothin' but chairs, table an' stove inside; nothin' but grass an' sand outside. That's what makes 'em go crazy.”

So the car was filled with things to eat and to wear, and things “to take the bareness off.” Somewhere in the car was found a place for Rosie, the cow, a remarkable milker and “worth her weight in butter,” as Mr. Sleighter said, and for Rover, Larry's collie dog, who stood to him as comrade almost as a brother. A place in the car too was found for Joe Gagneau who from the first moment of the announced departure had expressed his determination to accompany Larry no matter at what cost or against whose opposition.

“A'm goin' be in dat car' me, by gar!” was his ultimatum, and the various authorities interested recognised the inevitable and accepted it, to the great delight of both boys. Joe had a mouth organ and so had Larry, and they were both in the same key. Joe too had an old fiddle of his father's on which he could scrape with joy to himself, and with more or less agony to others, the dance tunes of local celebrity, the “Red River Jig,” picked up from his father, “Money Musk” and “The Deil Amang the Tailors,” the two latter from Dan Monroe at the country dances.

In due time the car, packed with the Gwynne household goods and treasures and in charge of the two superlatively happy boys, with Rosie and Rover to aid in providing them with sustenance and protection, set forth, Westward Ho! Mr. Gwynne rode in the caboose of the train to which his car was attached. Mrs. Gwynne and the girls were to follow by passenger train and would doubtless be found awaiting them on their arrival at Winnipeg.

The journey westward was to the boys full of interest and adventure. At Toronto they picked up a stowaway, who, taking advantage of their absence, boarded the car and made himself a bed behind some bales of hay. Upon discovery by Rover, he made so piteous an appeal for refuge from some pursuing terror which he declined to specify, that the boys agreed to conceal him a night and a day till they were well on their way along the north shore of Lake Superior. When Larry's conscience made further concealment a burden greater than could be borne, Mr. Gwynne was taken into the boys' confidence and, after protest, agreed to make arrangement with the railroad authorities whereby Sam—for that was the stowaway's name—might retain his place in the car.

He was a poor, wretched creature, reminding Larry of the scarecrow which he had put up in their garden the summer before. He was thin beyond anything the boys had ever seen. His face was worn and old and came to a peak at the nose, which gave him the appearance of a monster rat, a resemblance emphasised by the little blinking, red-rimmed eyes. His hair was closely cropped and of brilliant carrotty colour.

But he had seen life in a great city and had gathered a store of worldly wisdom, not all of which was for his good, and a repertoire of accomplishments that won him admiration and wonder from the simple country boys. He had all the new ragtime songs and dances, which he rendered to his own accompaniment on an old battered banjo. He was a contortionist of quite unusual cleverness, while his fund of stories never ran dry throughout the seven days' journey to Winnipeg. He set himself with the greatest assiduity to impart his accomplishments to the boys, and by the time the party had reached the end of the first stage in their westward journey, Sam had the satisfaction of observing that his pupils had made very satisfactory progress, both with the clog dancing and with the ragtime songs. Besides this, he had made for himself an assured place in their affection, and even Mr. Gwynne had come to feel such an interest in the bit of human driftwood flung up against him, that he decided to offer the waif a chance to try his fortune in the West.

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER VI

JANE BROWN

Mr. Brown was a busy man, but he never failed to be in his place at the foot of the table every day punctually at half past twelve, solely because at that hour his little daughter, Jane, would show her grave and earnest and dark brown, almost swarthy, face at the head. Eight years ago another face used to appear there, also grave, earnest, but very fair and very lovely to look upon, to the doctor the fairest of all faces on the earth. The little, plain, swarthy-faced child the next day after that lovely face had been forever shut away from the doctor's eyes was placed in her high chair at the head of the table, at first only at the lunch hour, but later at all meal times before the doctor to look at. And it was an ever-recurring joy to the lonely man to discover in the little grave face before him fleeting glimpses of the other face so tenderly loved and so long vanished. These glimpses were to be discovered now in the deep blue eyes, deep in colour and in setting, now in the smile that lit up the dark, irregular features like the sudden break of sunlight upon the rough landscape, transforming it into loveliness, now in the knitting of the heavy eyebrows, and in the firm pressing of the lips in moments of puzzled thought. In all the moods and tenses of the little maid the doctor looked for and found reminiscences of her mother.

Through those eight lonely years the little girl had divided with his profession the doctor's days. Every morning after breakfast he stood to watch the trim, sturdy, round little figure dance down the steps, step primly down the walk, turn at the gate to throw a kiss, and then march away along the street to the corner where another kiss would greet him before the final vanishing. Every day they met at noon to exchange on equal terms the experiences of the morning. Every night they closed the day with dinner and family prayers, the little girl gravely taking her part in the reading during the last year from her mother's Bible. And so it came that with the years their friendship grew in depth, in frankness and in tenderness. The doctor was widely read beyond the literature of his profession, and every day for a half hour it was his custom to share with the little girl the treasures of his library. The little maid repaid him with a passionate love and a quaint mothering care tender and infinitely comforting to the lonely man.

The forenoon had been hot and trying, and Dr. Brown, having been detained in his office beyond his regular hour, had been more than usually hurried in his round of morning calls, and hence was more than ordinarily tired with his morning's work. At his door the little girl met him.

“Come in, Papa, I know you're hot,” she said, love and reproach in her face, “because I was hot myself, and you will need a nice, cool drink. I had one and yours is in here.” She led him into the study, hovering about him with little touches and pushes. “You ought not to have taken so long a round this morning,” she said with gentle severity. “I know you went out to St. James to see Mrs. Kale, and you know quite well she doesn't need you. It would do in the afternoon. And it was awful hot in school.”

“Awful?” said the doctor.

“Well, very exceedingly then—and the kids were very tired and Miss Mutton was as cross as anything.”

“It was no wonder. How many kids were there for her to watch?”

“Oh, Papa, you said 'kids!'”

“I was just quoting my young daughter.”

“And she said we were to get out this afternoon an hour earlier,” continued Jane, ignoring his criticism, “and so I am going to take my bicycle and go with Nora and the girls down to the freight sheds.”

“The freight sheds?”

“Yes, Larry and Joe have come in, and Rover and Rosie—she's the cow, and they milked her every day twice and drank the milk and they used to have their meals together in the car.”

“Rosie, too? Very interesting indeed.”

“Now, Papa, you must not laugh at me. It is very interesting. They all came for days and days together in the car from somewhere down East, Ontario, I think. And Mr. Gwynne says they are just like a circus. And they play instiments and dance.”

“What, Rosie too? How clever of her!”

The child's laugh rang out joyously. “Oh, Papa, that's awfully funny. And we're going down on our wheels. Nora can ride now, you know, and she's going to take Ethel May's wheel. It's awfully hard to ride, but Nora's as strong as Kathleen.”

“Well, well,” said her father, greatly interested in this exciting but somewhat confused tale. “Just wait until I wash my hands and then you shall tell me what it all means. Thank you for this deliciously cool lemonade. It is very refreshing. You will tell me all about it at lunch.”

The lunch hour was devoted first of all to disentangling from the mass the individual members of the car party, which after an adventurous journey across half a continent had apparently made camp at the Winnipeg freight sheds. Then followed the elucidation of the details of the plan by which this camp was to be attacked and raided during the afternoon.

“Now that I have a fairly clear conception of whom Larry, Joe, Sam, Rosie and Rover are—I think I have them right—”

“Exactly, Papa.”

“I wish to find out just who are to form the advance party, the scouting party.”

“The scouting party? I don't know what you mean. But Nora—you know Nora?”

“Certainly, the little black-eyed Irish Terrier—terror, I mean.”

“Oh, Papa, she's just lovely and she's my friend.”

“Is she, dear, then I apologise, but indeed I meant nothing derogatory to her. I greatly like her, she is so spunky.”

“Yes, there's Nora, and Kathleen, Nora's sister.”

“Oh, Kathleen, the tall beautiful girl with the wonderful hair?”

The little girl sighed. “Oh, such lovely long yellow hair.” The little maid's hair was none of these. “And she is not a bit proud—just nice, you know—just as if she were not so lovely, but like—only like me.”

“Like you, indeed!” exclaimed the doctor indignantly. “Like my little girl? I don't see any one quite like my little girl. There is not one of them with all their yellow hair and things that is to be compared with my own little girl.”

“Oh, Papa. I know you think so, and I wish it was so. And I am awfully glad you think so, but of course you are prejuist, you know.”

“Prejudiced? Not a bit, not a bit.”

“Well, that's Kathleen and Nora, and—and perhaps Hazel—you know Hazel, Papa, Hazel Sleighter?”

“The western girl—not at all wild and woolly though. A very modern and very advanced young lady, isn't she?”

“Oh, I don't know what you mean, Papa. She says she may go down, but I don't think she likes going with a lot of kids. You know she has her hair up. She has to have it up in the store. She says the man would not have her behind the counter if she had not her hair up.”

“Oh, that's it. I thought perhaps the maturity of her age made it necessary.”

“I don't know what maturevy means, but she is awfully old. She is going on sixteen.”

“Dear me, as old as that?” inquired her father.

“Yes, but she said she wanted to see that circus car. That's what she calls Mr. Gwynne's car. And she says she wants to see the elephunts perform. There are not any elephunts. There's only Rosie and Rover. But she may get off. She can get off if she can fool her boss, she says. So we're all going down and we may bring Larry home with us, Mrs. Sleighter says. Though Mrs. Gwynne says there's not any room, they're so filled up now. And I said Larry could come here and Joe, too. But I am not so sure about Sam. I think he must be awfully queer. Mr. Gwynne thinks he's queer.”

“It is quite possible, indeed probable, my dear,” assented her father.

“Yes, Mr. Gwynne said he looked like a third-rate how-do-you-feel performer.”

“A what, exactly?”

“A how-do-you-feel performer.”

“Oh, a vaudeville performer.”

“Yes, a fodefeel performer. I don't know what that means, but he must be queer. But I think Larry would be all right, and Joe. You see, we know THEM.”

“Oh, do we?”

“Yes, certainly, Papa. Larry is Nora's brother. He's awfully clever. He's only fifteen and he passed the Entrance in Ontario and that's ever so much harder than here. He passed it before he was fourteen.”

“Before he was fourteen!” replied her father. “Amazing!”

“Yes, and he plays the mouth organ and the tin whistle and the fiddle, and Mr. Gwynne says he has learned some stunts from Sam. I think he must be awfully nice. So I said he could come here. And Mrs. Gwynne thanked me so nicely, and she's just lovely, Papa.”

“I have not seen her,” said her father, “but I have heard her voice, and I quite agree with you. The voice always tells. Have you noticed that? The voice gives the keynote of the soul.”

“I don't know, Papa. There's Mrs. Sleighter's voice. I don't like it very much, but I think she's nice inside.”

“Ah, you are right, my dear. Perhaps I should have said that a certain kind of voice always goes with a beautiful soul.”

“I know,” replied his daughter. “That's like Mrs. Gwynne's voice. And so we'll go down to the car and bring Larry home with us, and perhaps his mother will let him come here. She did not say she would and you can't tell. She's quiet, you know, but somehow she isn't like Mrs. Sleighter. I don't think you could coax her to do what she didn't want.”

“And Mrs. Sleighter—can you coax Mrs. Sleighter?”

“Oh, yes, the girls just coax her and coax her, and though she doesn't want to a bit, she just gives in.”

“That's nice of her. That must be very nice for the girls, eh?”

“Oh, I don't know, Papa.”

“What? don't you think it is nice to be able to coax people to do what you want?”

“It is nice to get what you want, but I think REALLY, REALLY, you'd rather you could not coax them to do it just because you coax them.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Yes; you see, you're never really quite sure after you get it whether you ought to get it after all.”

“I see,” said her father; “that rather spoils it.”

“Yes, but you never do that, Papa.”

“Oh, you can't coax me, eh? I am glad to know that. I was afraid, rather.”

“Well, of course, I can coax you, Papa, but you usually find some other way, and then I know it is quite right.”

“I wish I was quite as sure of that, Jane. But you are going to bring Larry home with you?”

“Yes, if Mrs. Gwynne will let him come. I told her we had four rooms and we were only using two, and they are all crowded up in Mrs. Sleighter's, two girls in each room, and Tom's room is so tiny, and I don't think Larry would like to go in Tom's room. And we have two empty rooms, so we might just as well.”

“Yes, certainly, we might just as well. You might perhaps mention it to Anna.”

“Oh, I did, Papa, and she said she would have it all ready.”

“So it is all arranged. I was thinking—but never mind.”

“I know you were thinking, that I ought to have asked you, Papa; and I ought to have. But I knew that when a little boy had no home to go to you would of course—”

“Of course,” replied her father hurriedly. “You were quite right, Jane. And with those two rooms, why not bring them all, Joe and Pete—Pete, is it?”

“Sam, Papa. I am not so sure. I think we should leave Joe and Sam. You see Joe won't mind staying in the car. Nora says he lives in just a shack at home, and Sam—I am a little afraid of Sam. We don't know him very well, you see.”

“I see. We are quite safe in your hands, little woman. You can do just as you and Mrs. Gwynne arrange.”

As the father watched the little, trim, sturdy figure stepping down the street he muttered to himself, “That child grows more like her mother every day.” He heaved a great sigh from the depths of his heart. “Well, God keep her, wise little woman that she is! I wish I were a wiser man. I must be firm with her; it would be a shame to spoil her. Yes, I must be firm.” But he shrugged his shoulders and smiled at himself. “The worst of it is, or the best of it is,” he continued, “the little witch is almost always right, God bless her, just like her mother, just like her mother.” He hastily wiped his eyes, and went off to his office where Mrs. Dean awaited him and her little girl with the burned hand. And the mother wondered at the gentleness of him as he dressed the little girl's wounded hand.

It followed that the scouting party included not only Miss Hazel Sleighter, but also her big brother Tom, who, being temporarily in the high school, more perhaps because of his size and the maturity of his bearing than by virtue of his educational qualifications, was at the present moment most chiefly concerned in getting into form his baseball team for the match the following Saturday in which the High School was to meet All Comers under eighteen. The freight shed being on his way to the practice ground, Tom deigned to join the party and to take in the circus car as he passed. The car dwellers were discovered on the open prairie not far from the freight shed, keeping guard over Rosie, who was stretching her legs after her railway journey. The boys were tossing a baseball to each other as Tom pedalled up on his wheel.

“Hello, there, here you are,” he shouted to Sam, holding up his hands for a catch.

The ball came with such impact that Tom was distinctly jarred, and dropped the ball. With all his force he threw the ball back to Sam, who caught it with the ease of a professional and returned it with such vigour that again Tom dropped it.

“Let's have a knock-up,” he said, hitting a long fly.

Sam flew after the ball with amazing swiftness, his scarecrow garments fluttering and flapping in the air, and caught it with an upward leap that landed him on his back breathless but triumphant.

“Say, you're a crackerjack,” said Tom; “here's another.”

Meanwhile Larry was in the hands of his sisters, who had delightedly kissed him to his shamefaced chagrin, and introduced him to their new-found friends.

“So this is Larry.” said Miss Hazel Sleighter, greeting him with a dazzling smile. “We have heard a lot about you. I think you must be quite wonderful. Come here, Tom, and meet your friends.”

Poor Larry! In the presence of this radiant creature and of her well-dressed brother, he felt terribly conscious of the shabbiness of the second best suit which his mother had thought good enough for the journey in the car. Tom glanced at the slight, poorly dressed, pale-faced lad who stood before him with an embarrassed, almost a beseeching look in his eyes.

“Can you play ball?” asked Tom.

“Not much,” replied Larry; “not like Sam. Come here, Sam,” he called, remembering that he had not introduced his friend. Sam shuffled over with an air of complete nonchalance.

“This is Sam,” said Larry. “Sam—I have forgotten your name.”

“Nolan,” said Sam shortly.

“Miss Hazel Sleighter,” said Larry.

“How do you do, Miss Hazel,” said Sam, sweeping her an elaborate bow, and then gazing boldly into her eyes. “I hope you're well. If you're as smart as you look, I guess you're way up in G.”

“I am quite well, thank you,” returned Miss Hazel, the angle of her chin indicating her most haughty air.

“Say, young lady, pass up the chilly stuff,” replied Sam with a laugh. “It don't go with that mighty fine complexion of yours. Say, did you ever see the leading lady in 'The Spider's Web'? Well, you make me think of her, and she was a peacherino. Never seen her? No? Well, you ought to see her some day and think of me.”

Hazel turned a disgusted shoulder on Sam's impudent face and engaged Larry in vivacious conversation.

“Well, I am off to the ball practice,” said Tom. “Got a match on Saturday—High School against the world. Guess they would like to have you, Sam, only I wouldn't care to have you play against us. You don't play baseball, eh?” continued Tom, addressing Larry. “What do you play—football?”

“Not much; never tried much,” said Larry, flushing over his lack of sporting qualifications.

“He plays the fiddle,” said a quiet little voice.

Larry, flushing violently, turned around and saw a little, brown-faced maid gazing thoughtfully at him.

“Oh, he does, eh? Ha, ha, ha. Good game, eh? Ha, ha, ha.” They all joined in the laugh.

“And he plays the mouth organ, too, and does funny stunts,” sturdily continued the little girl, disdaining Tom's scornful laughter.

“Good for you, Jane.”

“Yes, and he passed his entrance to the High School a year ago when he was fourteen, in Ontario, anyway.” This appeared to check Tom's hilarity.

“My, what a wonder he is! And did he tell you all this himself?”

“No, indeed,” said Jane indignantly.

“Oh, I am glad to hear that,” said Tom with a grin. “Won't you come along, Sam? It's only a little way down.”

“All right,” said Sam cheerfully. “So long, folks. See you later, Larry. Au reservoir, young lady, as the camel said to the elephant when he asked what he'd have. Hope I see you later if not sooner—ta-ta; tinga-ling; honk honk.” Again he swept Miss Hazel an elaborate bow.

“Thinks he's smart,” said that young lady, lifting her nose. “He's a regular scarecrow. Who in the world is he and where did he come from?” she demanded of Larry, who proceeded to account for Sam's presence with their party.

The visitors peered into the car and poked into its recesses, discovered the food supplies for boy and beast, and inspected the dormitories under Larry's guidance, while the boy, who had recovered from his embarrassment, discoursed upon the wonderful experience of the journey. Miss Hazel flashed her great blue eyes and her white teeth upon him, shook all her frizzes in his face, smiled at him, chattered to him, jeered at him, flattered him with all the arts and graces of the practiced flirt she was, until Larry, swept from his bearings, walked the clouds in a wonder world of rosy lights and ravishing airs. His face, his eyes, his eager words, his tremulous lips, were all eloquent of this new passion that possessed him.

As for Miss Hazel, accustomed as she was to the discriminating admiration of her fellow clerks, the sincerity and abandonment of this devotion was as incense to her flirtatious soul. Avid of admiration and experienced in most of the arts and wiles necessary to secure this from contiguous males, small wonder that the unsophisticated Larry became her easy prey long before she had brought to bear the full complement of her enginery of war.

It was a happy afternoon for the boy, but when informed by his sisters of his mother's desire that he should return with them, he was resolute in his refusal, urging many reasons why it was impossible that he should leave the car and his comrades. There was nothing for it but to leave him there and report to his mother their failure.

“I might have known,” she said. “He would never come to a stranger's house in his old clothes. I will just bring down his best suit after tea.”

The dinner hour at Dr. Brown's was fully occupied with an animated recital of the adventures of the afternoon. Each member of the car party was described with an accuracy and fulness of detail that would have surprised him.

“And you know, Papa,” said the little maid, “Tom just laughed at Larry because he could not play baseball and things, and I just told him that Larry could play the mouth organ lovely and the fiddle, and they laughed and laughed. I think they were laughing at me. Tom laughed loudest of all, and he's not so smart himself, and anyway Larry passed the entrance a year ago and I just told him so.”

“Oh, did you,” said her father, “and how did Master Tom take that?”

“He didn't laugh quite as much. I don't think I like him very much.”

“Ah?”

“But Hazel, she was just lovely to Larry. I think she's nice, Papa, and such lovely cheeks and hair.” Here Jane sighed.

“Oh, has she? She is quite a grown-up young lady, is she not?”

“She has her hair up, Papa. She's sixteen, you know.”

“I remember you told me that she had reached that mature age.”

“And I think Larry liked her, too.”

“Ah? And why do you think so?”

“He just looked at her, and looked, and looked.”

“Well, that seems fairly good evidence.”

“And he is coming up here to-night when we bring him his good clothes.”

“Oh, you are to bring him his good clothes, are you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Gwynne and I are taking them down in the carriage.”

“Oh, in the carriage—Mrs. Gwynne—”

“Yes, you know—Oh, here's Nora at the door. Excuse me, Papa. I am sure it is important.”

She ran to the door and in a moment or two returned with a note. “It's for you, Papa, and I know it's about the carriage.” She watched her father somewhat anxiously as he read the note.

“Umm-um. Very good, very nice and proper. Certainly. Just say to Mrs. Gwynne that we are very pleased to be able to serve her with the carriage, and that we hope Larry will do us the honour of coming to us.”

Jane nodded delightedly. “I know, Papa. I told her that already. But I'll tell her this is the answer to the note.”

Under Jane's direction and care they made their visit to the car, but on their return no Larry was with them. He would come after the picnic and baseball game tomorrow, perhaps, but not to-night. His mother was plainly disappointed, and indeed a little hurt. She could not understand her son. It was not his clothes after all as she had thought. She pondered over his last words spoken as he bade her farewell at the car door, and was even more mystified.

“I'll be glad when we get to our own place again,” he said. “I hate to be beholden to anybody. We're as good as any of them anyway.” The bitterness in his tone mystified her still more.

It was little Jane who supplied the key to the mystery. “I don't think he likes Tom very much,” said the little girl. “He likes Hazel, though. But he might have come to our house; I did not laugh.” And then the mother thought she understood.

That sudden intensity of bitterness in her boy's voice startled her a little, but deep down in her heart she was conscious of a queer feeling of satisfaction, almost of pride. “He's just like his father,” she said to herself. “He likes to be independent.” Strict honesty in thought made her add, “And like me, too, I fear.”

The picnic day was one of those intensely hot June days when the whole world seems to stand quivering and breathlessly attent while Nature works out one of her miracles over fields of grain, over prairie flowers, over umbrageous trees and all things borne upon the bosom of Mother Earth, checking the succulence of precocious overgrowths, hardening fibre, turning plant energy away from selfish exuberance in mere stalk building into the altruistic sacrament of ripening fruit and hardening grain. A wise old alchemist is Mother Earth, working in time but ever for eternity.

The picnickers who went out to the park early in the day were driven for refuge from the blazing sun to the trees and bushes, where prostrated by the heat they lay limp and flaccid upon the grass. Miss Hazel Sleighter, who for some reason which she could not explain to herself had joined the first contingent of picnickers, was cross, distinctly and obviously cross. The heat was trying to her nerves, but worse, it made her face red—red all over. Her pink parasol intensified the glow upon her face.

“What a fool I was to come, in this awful heat,” she said to herself. “They won't be here for hours, and I will be just like a wash-rag.”

Nor was Larry enjoying the picnic. The material comforts in the form of sandwiches, cakes and pies, gloriously culminating in lemonade and ice cream, while contributing a temporary pleasure, could not obliterate a sense of misery wrought in him by Miss Hazel's chilly indifference. That young lady, whose smiles so lavishly bestowed only yesterday had made for him a new heaven and a new earth, had to-day merely thrown him a passing glance and a careless “Hello,” as she floated by intent on bigger game.

In addition, the boy was conscious of an overpowering lassitude that increased as the day wore on. His misery and its chief cause had not escaped the observing eyes of the little maid, Jane Brown, whose clear and incisive voice was distinctly audible as she confided to her friend Nora her disappointment in Miss Hazel.

“She won't look at him to-day,” she said. “She's just waiting for the boys to come. She'll be nicer then.”

There was no animus in the voice, only surprise and disappointment. To Larry, however, the fact that the secret tragedy of his soul was thus laid bare, filled him with a sudden rage. He cast a wrathful eye upon the little maid. She met his glance with a placid smile, volunteering the cheerful remark, “They won't be long now.”

A fury possessed the boy. “Oh shut your mouth, will you?” he said, glaring at her.

For a moment little Jane looked at him, surprise, dismay, finally pity succeeding each other in the deep blue eyes. Hastily she glanced about to see if the others had heard the awful outburst. She was relieved to note that only Joe and Nora were near enough to hear. She settled herself down in a position of greater comfort and confided to her friend Nora with an air of almost maternal solicitude, “I believe he has a pain. I am sure he has a pain.”

Larry sprang to his feet, and without a glance at his anxious tormentor said, “Come on, Joe, let's go for a hunt in the woods.”

Jane looked wistfully after the departing boys. “I wish they would ask us, Nora. Don't you? I think he is nice when he isn't mad,” she said. To which Nora firmly assented.

A breeze from the west and the arrival of the High School team, resplendent in their new baseball uniforms, brought to the limp loiterers under the trees a reviving life and interest in the day's doings.

It was due to Jane that Sam got into the game, for when young Frank Smart was searching for a suitable left fielder to complete the All Comers team, he spied seated among the boys the little girl.

“Hello, Jane; in your usual place, I see!” he called out to her as he passed.

“Hello, Frank!” she called to him brightly. “Frank! Frank!” she cried, after the young man had passed, springing up and running after him.

“I am in a hurry, Jane; I must get a man for left field.”

“But, Frank,” she said, catching his arm, for young Smart was a great friend of hers and of her father's. “I want to tell you. You see that funny boy under the tree,” she continued, lowering her voice. “Well, he's a splendid player. Tom doesn't want him to play, and I don't either, because I want the High School to beat. But it would not be fair not to tell you, would it?”

Young Smart looked at her curiously. “Say, little girl, you're a sport. And is he a good player?”

“Oh, he's splendid, but he's queer—I mean he looks queer. He's awfully funny. But that doesn't matter, does it?”

“Not a hair, if he can play ball. What's his name?”

“Sam—something.”

“Sam Something? That is a funny name.”

“Oh, you know, Sam. I don't know his other name.”

“Well, I'll try him, Jane,” said young Smart, moving toward the boy and followed by the eager eyes of the little girl.

“I say, Sam,” said Smart, “we want a man for left field. Will you take a go at it?”

“Too hot,” grunted Sam.

“Oh, you won't find it too hot when you get started. Rip off your coat and get into the game. You can play, can't you?”

“Aw, what yer givin' us. I guess I can give them ginks a few pointers.”

“Well, come on.”

“Too hot,” said Sam.

Jane pulled young Smart by the sleeve. “Tell him you will give him a jersey,” she said in a low voice. “His shirt is torn.”

Again young Smart looked at Jane with scrutinising eyes. “You're a wonder,” he said.

“Come along, Sam. You haven't got your sweater with you, but I will get one for you. Get into the bush there and change.”

With apparent reluctance, but with a gleam in his little red eyes, Sam slouched into the woods to make the change, and in a few moments came forth and ran to take his position at left field.

The baseball match turned out to be a mere setting for the display of the eccentricities and superior baseball qualities of Sam, which apparently quite outclassed those of his teammates in the match. After three disastrous innings, Sam caused himself to be moved first to the position of short stop, and later to the pitcher's box, to the immense advantage of his side. But although, owing to the lead obtained by the enemy, his prowess was unable to ward off defeat from All Comers, yet under his inspiration and skilful generalship, the team made such a brilliant recovery of form and came so near victory that Sam was carried from the field in triumph shoulder high and departed with his new and enthusiastically grateful comrades to a celebration.

Larry, however, was much too miserable and much too unhappy for anything like a celebration. The boy was oppressed with a feeling of loneliness, and was conscious chiefly of a desire to reach his car and crawl into his bed there among the straw. Stumbling blindly along the dusty road; a cheery voice hailed him.

“Hello, Larry!” It was Jane seated beside her father in his car.

“Hello!” he answered faintly and just glanced at her as the car passed.

But soon the car pulled up. “Come on, Larry, we'll take you home,” said Jane.

“Oh, I'm all right,” said Larry, forcing his lips into his old smile and resolutely plodding on.

“Better come up, my boy,” said the doctor.

“I don't mind walking, sir,” replied Larry, stubbornly determined to go his lonely way.

“Come here, boy,” said the doctor, regarding him keenly. Larry came over to the wheel. “Why, boy, what is the matter?” The doctor took hold of his hand.

Larry gripped the wheel hard. He was feeling desperately ill and unsteady on his legs, but still his lips twisted themselves into a smile. “I'm all right, sir,” he said; “I've got a headache and it was pretty hot out there.”

But even as he spoke his face grew white and he swayed on his feet. In an instant the doctor was out of his car. “Get in, lad,” he said briefly, and Larry, surrendering, climbed into the back seat, fighting fiercely meanwhile to prevent the tears from showing in his eyes. Keeping up a brisk and cheerful conversation with Jane in regard to the game, the doctor drove rapidly toward his home.

“You will come in with us, my boy,” said the doctor as they reached his door.

By this time Larry was past all power of resistance and yielded himself to the authority of the doctor, who had him upstairs and into bed within a few minutes of his arrival. A single word Larry uttered during this process, “Tell my mother,” and then sank into a long nightmare, through which there mingled dim shapes and quiet voices, followed by dreamless sleep, and an awakening to weakness that made the lifting of his eyelids an effort and the movement of his hand a weariness. The first object that loomed intelligible through the fog in which he seemed to move was a little plain face with great blue eyes carrying in them a cloud of maternal anxiety. Suddenly the cloud broke and the sun burst through in a joyous riot, for in a voice that seemed to him unfamiliar and remote Larry uttered the single word, “Jane.”

“Oh!” cried the little girl rapturously. “Oh, Larry, wait.” She slipped from the room and returned in a moment with his mother, who quickly came to his side.

“You are rested, dear,” she said, putting her hand under his head. “Drink this. No, don't lift your head. Now then, go to sleep again, darling,” and, stooping down, she kissed him softly.

“Why—are—you—crying?” he asked faintly. “What's the—matter?”

“Nothing, darling; you are better. Just sleep.”

“Better?—Have—I—been—sick?”

“Yes, you have been sick,” said his mother.

“Awfully sick,” said Jane solemnly. “A whole week sick. But you are all right now,” she added brightly, “and so is Joe, and Sam, and Rover and Rosie. I saw them all this morning and you know we have been praying and praying and—”

“Now he will sleep, Jane,” said his mother, gently touching the little girl's brown tangle of hair.

“Yes, he will sleep; oh, I'm just awful thankful,” said Jane, suddenly rushing out of the room.

“Dear little girl,” said the mother. “She has been so anxious and so helpful—a wonderful little nurse.”

But Larry was fast asleep, and before he was interested enough to make inquiry about his comrades in travel the car in charge of Joe and Sam, with Mr. Gwynne in the caboose, was far on its way to Alberta. After some days Jane was allowed to entertain the sick boy, as was her custom with her father, by giving an account of her day's doings. These were happy days for them both. Between the boy and the girl the beginnings of a great friendship sprang up.

“Larry, I think you are queer,” said Jane to him gravely one day. “You are not a bit like you were in the car.”

A quick flush appeared on the boy's face. “I guess I was queer that day, Jane,” he said. “I know I felt queer.”

“Yes, that's it,” said Jane, delighted by some sudden recollection. “You were queer then, and now you're just ornary. My, you were sick and you were cross, too, awful cross that day. I guess it was the headick. I get awfully cross, too, when I have the headick. I don't think you will be cross again ever, will you, Larry?”

Larry, smiling at her, replied, “I'll never be cross with you, Jane, anyway, never again.”

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER VII

THE GIRL OF THE WOOD LOT

June, and the sun flooding with a golden shimmer a land of tawny prairie, billowy hills, wooded valleys and mountain peaks white with eternal snows, touching with silver a stream which, glacier-born, hurled itself down mountain sides in fairy films of mist, rushed through canyons in a mad torrent, hurried between hills in a swollen flood, meandered along wide valleys in a full-lipped tide, lingered in a placid lake in a bit of lowland banked with poplar bluffs, and so onward past ranch-stead and homestead to the great Saskatchewan and Father Ocean, prairie and hills, valleys and mountains, river and lake, making a wonder world of light and warmth and colour and joyous life.

Two riders on rangey bronchos, followed by two Russian boarhounds, climbed the trail that went winding up among the hills towards a height which broke abruptly into a ridge of bare rock. Upon the ridge they paused.

“There! Can you beat that? If so, where?” The lady swept her gauntletted hand toward the scene below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt was tall, strongly made, handsome with that comeliness which perfect health and out-of-doors life combine to give, her dark hair, dark flashing eyes, straight nose, wide, full-lipped curving mouth, and a chin whose chiselled firmness was softened but not weakened by a dimple, making a picture good to look upon.

“There!” she cried again, “tell me, can you beat it?”

“Glorious! Sybil, utterly and splendidly glorious!” said her brother, his eyes sweeping the picture below. “And you too, Sybil,” he said, turning his eyes upon her. “This country has done you well. By jove, what a transformation from the white-faced, willowy—”

“Weedy,” said she.

“Well, as it's no longer true, weedy—woman that faded out of London, how many—eight years ago!”

“Ten years, ten long, glorious, splendid years.”

“Ten years! Surely not ten!”

“Yes, ten beautiful years.”

“I wish to God I had come with you then. I might have been—well, I should have been saved some bumps and a ghastly cropper at last.”

“'Cut it out,' Jack, as the boys say here. En avant! We never look back in this land, but ever forward. Oh, now isn't this worth while?” Again she swept her hand toward the scene below her. “Look at that waving line in the east, that broad sweep; and here at our left, those great, majestic things. I love them. I love every scar in their old grey faces. They have been good friends to me. But for them some days might have been hard to live through, but they were always there like friends, watching, understanding. They kept me steady.”

“You must have had some difficult days, old girl, in this awful land. Yes, yes, I know it's glorious, especially on a day like this and in a light like this; but after all, you are away from the world, away from everybody, and shut off from everything, from life, art—how could you stick it?”

“Jack are you sympathising with me? Let me tell you your sympathy is wasted. I have had lonely days in this land, of course. When Tom was off on business—Oh! that man has been perfectly splendid. Jack! He's been—well, I can't tell you all he has been to me—father, mother, husband, chum, he's been to me, and more. And he's made good in the country, too. Now look again at this view. We always stop to look at it, Tom and I, from this point. Tell me if you have ever seen anything quite as wonderful!”

“Yes, it's glorious, a little like the veldt, with, of course, the mountains extra, and they do rather finish the thing in the grand style.”

“Grand style, well, rather! A great traveller who has seen most of the world's beautiful spots told me he had never looked on anything quite so splendid as the view from here—so spacious, so varied, so majestic. Ah, I love it, and the country has been good to me!

“I don't mean physically only, but in every way—in body, soul and mind. And for Tom, too, the country has done much. In England, you know, he was just loafing, filling in time with one useless thing after another, and on the way to get fat and lazy. Here he is doing things, things worth while. His ranch is quite a success. Then he is always busy organising various sorts of industries in the country—dairying, lumbering and that sort of thing. He has introduced thoroughbred stock. He helps with the schools, the churches, the Agricultural Institutes. In short, he is doing his part to bring this country to its best. And this, you know, is the finest bit of all Canada!”

Her brother laughed. “Pardon me,” he said, “there are so many of these 'finest bits.' In Nova Scotia, in Quebec, I have found them. The people of Ontario are certain that the 'finest bit' is in their province, while in British Columbia they are ready to fight if one suggests anything to the contrary.”

“I know. I know. It is perfectly splendid of them. You know we Canadians are quite foolish about our country.”

“WE Canadians!”

“Yes. WE Canadians. What else? We are quite mad about the future of our country. And that is why I wanted you to come out here, Jack. There is so much a man like you might do with your brains and training. Yes. Your Oxford training is none too good for this country, and your brain none too clever for this big work of laying the foundations of a great Empire. This is big enough for the biggest of you. Bigger, even, than the thing you were doing at home, Jack. Oh, I heard all about it!”

“You heard all about it? I hope not. I hope you have not heard of the awful mess I made of things.”

“Nonsense, Jack! 'Forward' is the word here. Here is an Empire in the making, another Britain, greater, finer, and without the hideous inequalities, injustices and foolish class distinctions of the old.”

“My God! Sybil, you sound like Lloyd George himself! Please don't recall that ghastly radicalism to me.”

“Never mind what it sounds like. You will get it too. We all catch it here, especially Old Country folk. For instance, look away to the left there. See that little clump of buildings beside the lake just through the poplars. There is a family of Canadians typical of the best, the Gwynnes, our closest neighbours. Good Irish stock, they are. They came two years after we came. Lost their little bit of money. Suffered, my! how they must have suffered! though they were too proud to tell any of us. The father is a gentleman, finely educated, but with no business ability. The mother all gold and grit, heroic little woman who kept the family together. The eldest boy of fifteen or sixteen, rather delicate when he came, but fearfully plucky, has helped amazingly. He taught the school, putting his money into the farm year after year. While teaching the school he somehow managed to grip hold of the social life of this community in a wonderful way, preached for Mr. Rhye, taught a Bible Class for him, quite unique in its way; organised a kind of Literary-Social-Choral-Minstrel Club and has added tremendously to the life and gaiety of the neighbourhood. What we shall do when he leaves, I know not. You will like them, I am sure. We shall drop in there on our way, if you like.”

“Ah, well, perhaps sometime later. They all sound rather terribly industrious and efficient for a mere slacker like myself.”

Along the trail they galloped, following the dogs for a mile or so until checked by a full flowing stream.

“I say, Willow Creek is really quite in flood,” said his sister. “The hot sun has brought down the snows, you know. The logs are running, too. We will have to go a bit carefully. Hold well up to the stream and watch the logs. Keep your eye on the bank opposite. No, no, keep up, follow me. Look out, or you will get into deep water. Keep to the right. There, that's better.”

“I say,” said her brother, as his horse clambered out of the swollen stream. “That's rather a close thing to a ducking. Awfully like the veldt streams, you know. Ice cold, too, I fancy.”

“Ice cold, indeed, glacier water, you know, and these logs make it very awkward. The Gwynnes must be running down their timber and firewood. We might just run up and look in on them. It's only a mile or so. Nora will be there. She will be 'bossing the job,' as she says. It will be rather interesting.”

“Well, I hope it is not too far, for I assure you I am getting quite ravenous.”

“No, come along, there's a good trail here.”

A smart canter brought them to a rather pretentious homestead with considerable barns and outbuildings attached. “This is the Switzers' place,” said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. “German-Americans, old settlers and quite well off. The father owned the land on which Wolf Willow village stands. He made quite a lot of money in real estate—village lots and farm lands, you know. He is an excellent farmer and ambitious for his family—one son and one daughter. They are quite plain people. They live like—well, like Germans, you know. The mother is a regular hausfrau; the daughter, quite nice, plays the violin beautifully. It was from her young Gwynne got his violining. The son went to college in the States, then to Germany for a couple of years. He came back here a year ago, terribly German and terribly military, heel clicking, ram-rod back, and all that sort of thing. Musical, too, awfully clever; rather think he has political ambitions. We'll not go in to-day. Some day, perhaps. Indeed, we must be neighbourly in this country. But the Switzers are a little trying.”

“Why know them at all?”

“There you are!” cried his sister. “Fancy living beside people in this country and not knowing them. Can't you see that we must not let things get awry that way? We must all pull together. Tom is fearfully strong on that, and he is right, too, I suppose, although it is trying at times. Now we begin to climb a bit here. Then there are good stretches further along where we can hurry.”

But it seemed to her brother that the good stretches were rather fewer and shorter than the others, for the sun was overhead when they pulled up their horses, steaming and ready enough to halt, in a small clearing in the midst of a thick bit of forest. The timber was for the main part of soft woods, poplar, yellow and black, cottonwood, and further up among hills spruce and red pine. In the centre of the clearing stood a rough log cabin with a wide porch running around two sides. Upon this porch a young girl was to be seen busy over a cook stove. At the noise of the approaching horses the girl turned from her work and looked across the clearing at them.

“Heavens above! who is that, Sybil?” gasped her brother.

Mrs. Waring-Gaunt gave a delighted little cry. “Oh, my dear, you are really back.” In a moment she was off her horse and rushing toward the girl with her arms outstretched. “Kathleen, darling! Is it you? And you have really grown, I believe! Or is it your hair? Come let me introduce you to my brother.”

Jack Romayne was a young man with thirty years of experience of the normal life of the well-born Englishman, during which time he had often known what it was to have his senses stirred and his pulses quickened by the sight of one of England's fair women, than whom none of fresher and fairer beauty are to be found in all the world; yet never had he found himself anything but master of his speech and behaviour. But to-day, when, in obedience to his sister's call, he moved across the little clearing toward the girl standing at her side, he seemed to lose consciousness of himself and control of his powers of action. He was instead faintly conscious that a girl of tall and slender grace, with an aura of golden hair about a face lovelier than he had ever known, was looking at him out of eyes as blue as the prairie crocus and as shy and sweet, that she laid her hand in his as if giving him something of herself, that holding her hand how long he knew not, he found himself gazing through those eyes of translucent blue into a soul of unstained purity as one might gaze into a shrine, and that he continued gazing until the blue eyes clouded and the fair face flushed crimson, that then, without a word, he turned from her, thrilling with a new gladness which seemed to fill not only his soul but the whole world as well. When he came to himself he found his trembling fingers fumbling with the bridle of his horse. For a few moments he became aware of a blind rage possessing him and he cursed deeply his stupidity and the gaucherie of his manner. But soon he forgot his rage for thinking of her eyes and of what he had seen behind their translucent blue.

“My dear child,” again exclaimed Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, “I declare you have actually grown taller and grown—a great many other things that I may not tell you. What have they done to you at that wonderful school? Did you love it?”

The girl flushed with a quick emotion. “Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, it was really wonderful. I had such a good time and every one was lovely to me. I did not know people could be so kind. But it is good to get back home again to them all, and to you, and to all this.” She waved her hand to the forest about her.

“And who are up here to-day, and what are you doing?” inquired Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.

“In the meantime I am preparing dinner,” said the girl with a laugh.

“Dinner!” exclaimed Jack Romayne, who had meantime drawn near, determined to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of this girl as a man familiar with the decencies of polite society. “Dinner! It smells so good and we are desperately hungry.”

“Yes,” cried Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. “My brother declared he was quite faint more than an hour ago, and now I am sure he is.”

“Fairly ravenous.”

“But I don't know,” said the girl with serious anxiety on her face. “You see, we have only pork and fried potatoes, and Nora just shot a chicken—only one—and they are always so hungry. But we have plenty of bread and tea. Would you stay?”

“It sounds really very nice,” said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.

“It would be awfully jolly of you, and I promise not to eat too much,” said the young man. “I am actually faint with hunger, and a cup of tea appears necessary to revive me.”

“Of course, stay,” said the girl with quick sympathy. “We can't give you much, but we can give you something.”

“Oh——ho!”

“O-h-o-o-o-h! O-h-o-o-o-h!” A loud call came from the woods.

“There's Nora,” said Kathleen. “O-o-o-o-o-h! O-o-o-o-o-h!” The girl's answering call was like the winding of a silver horn. “Here she is.”

Out from the woods, striding into the clearing, came a young girl dressed in workmanlike garb in short skirt, leggings and jersey, with a soft black hat on the black tumbled locks. “Hello, Kathleen, dinner ready? I'm famished. Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, glad to see you.”

“And my brother, Nora, Mr. Jack Romayne, just come from England, and hungry as a bear.”

“Just from England? And hungry? Well, we are glad to see you, Mr. Romayne.” The girl came forward with a quick step and frankly offered her brown, strong hand. “We're awfully glad to see you, Mr. Romayne,” she repeated. “I ought to be embarrassed, I know, only I am so hungry.”

“Just my fix, Miss Nora,” said the young man. “I am really anxious to be polite. I feel we should decline the invitation to dinner which your sister has pressed upon us; we know it is a shame to drop in on you like this all unprepared, but I am so hungry, and really that smell is so irresistible that I feel I simply cannot be polite.”

“Don't!” cried the girl, “or rather, do, and stay. There's enough of something, and Joe will look after the horses.” She put her hands to her lips and called, “J-o-o-e!”

A voice from the woods answered her, followed by Joe himself. “Here, Joe, take the horses and unsaddle them and tether them out somewhere.”

Despite Kathleen's fears there was dinner enough for all.

“This is perfectly stunning!” said Romayne, glancing round the little clearing and up at the trees waving overhead, through the interstices of whose leafy canopy showed patches of blue sky. “Gorgeous, by Jove! Words are futile things for really great moments.”

“Ripping,” said Nora, smiling impudently into his face. “Awfully jolly! A-1! Top hole! That's the lot, I think, according to the best authorities. Do you know any others?”

“I beg pardon, what?” said Romayne, looking up from his fried pork and potatoes.

“Those are all I have learned in English at least,” said Nora. “I am keen for some more. They are Oxford, I believe. Have you any others?”

Mr. Romayne diverted his attention from his dinner. “What is she talking about, Miss Gwynne? I confess to be entirely absorbed in these fried potatoes.”

“Words, words, Mr. Romayne, vocabulary, adjectives,” replied Nora.

“Ah,” said Romayne, “but why should one worry about words, especially adjectives, when one has such divine realities as these to deal with?”

“Have some muffles, Mr. Romayne,” said Nora.

“Muffles? Now what may muffles be?”

“Muffles are a cross between muffins and waffles.”

“Please elucidate their nature and origin,” said Mr. Romayne.

“Let me show you,” said Kathleen. She sprang up, dived into the cabin and returned with a large, round, hard biscuit in her hand. “This is Hudson Bay hard tack, the stand-by of all western people—Hudson Bay freighters and cowboys, old timers and tenderfeet alike swear by it. See, you moisten it slightly in water, fry it in boiling fat, sugar it and keep hot till served. Thus Hudson Bay hard tack becomes muffles.”

“Marvellous!” exclaimed Mr. Romayne, “and truly delicious! And to think that the Savoy chef knows nothing about muffles! But now that my first faintness is removed and the mystery of muffles is solved, may I inquire just what you are doing up here to-day, Miss Gwynne? What is the business on hand, I mean?”

“Oh, Nora is getting out some logs for building and firewood for next winter. The logs, you see, are cut during the winter and hauled to the dump there.”

“Dump!” exclaimed Mr. Romayne faintly.

“Yes. The bank there where you dump the logs into the creek below.”

“But what exactly has Miss Nora to do with all this?”

“I?” enquired Nora, “I only boss the job.”

“Don't you believe her,” said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. “I happen to remember one winter day coming upon this young lady in these very woods driving her team and hauling logs to the dump while Sam and Joe did the cutting. Ask the boys there? And why shouldn't she?” continued Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. “She can run a farm, with garden, pigs and poultry thrown in; open a coal mine and—”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Nora, “the boys here do it all. Mother furnishes the head work.”

“Oh, Nora!” protested Kathleen, “you know you manage everything. Isn't that true, boys?”

“She's the hull works herself,” said Sam. “Ain't she, Joe?”

“You bet yeh,” said Joe, husky with the muffles.

“She's a corker,” continued Sam, “double compressed, compensating, forty horsepower, ain't she, Joe?”

“You bet yeh!” adding, for purpose of emphasis, “By gar!”

“Six cylinder, self-starter,” continued Sam with increasing enthusiasm.

“Self-starter,” echoed Joe, going off into a series of choking chuckles. “Sure t'ing, by gar!” Joe, having safely disposed of the muffles, gave himself up to unrestrained laughter, throwing back his head, slapping his knees and repeating at intervals, “Self-starter, by gar!”

So infectious was his laughter that the whole company joined in.

“Cut it out, boys,” said Nora. “You are all talking rot, you know; and what about you,” she added, turning swiftly upon her sister. “Who runs the house, I'd like to know, and looks after everything inside, and does the sewing? This outfit of mine, for instance? And her own outfit?”

“Oh, Nora,” protested Kathleen, the colour rising in her face.

“Did you make your own costume?” inquired Mr. Romayne.

“She did that,” said Nora, “and mine and mother's, and she makes father's working shirts.”

“Oh, Nora, stop, please. You know I do very little.”

“She makes the butter as well.”

“They're a pair,” said Sam in a low growl, but perfectly audible to the company, “a regular pair, eh, Joe?”

“Sure t'ing,” replied Joe, threatening to go off again into laughter, but held in check by a glance from Nora.

For an hour they lingered over the meal. Then Nora, jumping up quickly, took Mrs. Waring-Gaunt with her to superintend the work at the dump, leaving Mr. Romayne reclining on the grass smoking his pipe in abandoned content, while Kathleen busied herself clearing away and washing up the dishes.

“May I help?” inquired Mr. Romayne, when the others had gone.

“Oh, no,” replied Kathleen. “Just rest where you are, please; just take it easy; I'd really rather you would, and there's nothing to do.”

“I am not an expert at this sort of thing,” said Mr. Romayne, “but at least I can dry dishes. I learned that much on the veldt.”

“In South Africa? You were in the war?” replied Kathleen, giving him a towel.

“Yes, I had a go at it.”

“It must have been terrible—to think of actually killing men.”

“It is not pleasant,” replied Romayne, shrugging his shoulders, “but it has to be done sometimes.”

“Oh, do you think so? It does not seem as if it should be necessary at any time,” said the girl with great earnestness. “I can't believe it is either right or necessary ever to kill men; and as for the Boer War, don't you think everybody agrees now that it was unnecessary?”

Mr. Romayne was always prepared to defend with the ardour of a British soldier the righteousness of every war in which the British Army has ever been engaged. But somehow he found it difficult to conduct an argument in favour of war against this girl who stood fronting him with a look of horror in her face.

“Well,” said Mr. Romayne, “I believe there is something to be said on both sides. No doubt there were blunders in the early part of the trouble, but eventually war had to come.”

“But that's just it,” cried the girl. “Isn't that the way it is always? In the early stages of a quarrel it is so easy to come to an understanding and to make peace; but after the quarrel has gone on, then war becomes inevitable. If only every dispute could be submitted to the judgment of some independent tribunal. Nations are just like people. They see things solely from their own point of view. Do you know, Mr. Romayne, there is no subject upon which I feel so keenly as upon the subject of war. I just loathe and hate and dread the thought of war. I think perhaps I inherit this. My mother, you know, belongs to the Friends, and she sees so clearly the wickedness and the folly of war. And don't you think that all the world is seeing this more clearly to-day than ever before?”

There was nothing new in this argument or in this position to Mr. Romayne, but somehow, as he looked at the girl's eager, enthusiastic face, and heard her passionate denunciation of war, he found it difficult to defend the justice of war under any circumstances whatever.

“I entirely agree with you, Miss Gwynne, that war is utterly horrible, that it is silly, that it is wicked. I would rather not discuss it with you, but I can't help feeling that there are circumstances that make it necessary and right for men to fight.”

“You don't wish to discuss this with me?” said Kathleen. “I am sorry, for I have always wished to hear a soldier who is also”—the girl hesitated for a moment—“a gentleman and a Christian—”

“Thank you, Miss Gwynne,” said Romayne, with quiet earnestness.

“Discuss the reasons why war is ever necessary.”

“It is a very big subject,” said Mr. Romayne, “and some day I should like to give you my point of view. There are multitudes of people in Britain to-day, Miss Gwynne, who would agree with you. Lots of books have been written on both sides. I have listened to hours and hours of discussion, so that you can easily see that there is much to be said on both sides. I always come back, however, to the point that among nations of similar ethical standards and who are equally anxious to preserve the peace of the world, arbitration as a method of settling disputes ought to be perfectly simple and easy. It is only when you have to deal with nations whose standards of ethics are widely dissimilar or who are possessed with another ambition than that of preserving the peace of the world that you get into difficulty.”

“I see your point,” replied Kathleen, “but I also see that just there you allow for all sorts of prejudice to enter and for the indulgence in unfair argument and special pleading. But there, we are finished,” she said, “and you do not wish to discuss this just now.”

“Some time, Miss Gwynne, we shall have this out, and I have some literature on the subject that I should like to give you.”

“And so have I,” cried the girl, with a smile that rendered Mr. Romayne for some moments quite incapable of consecutive thought. “And now shall we look up the others?”

At the dump they found Joe and Sam rolling the logs, which during the winter had been piled high upon the bank, down the steep declivity or “dump” into the stream below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt and Nora were seated on a log beside them engaged in talk.

“May I inquire if you are bossing the job as usual?” said Mr. Romayne, after he had watched the operation for a few moments.

“Oh, no, there's no bossing going on to-day. But,” said the girl, “I rather think the boys like to have me around.”

“I don't wonder,” said Mr. Romayne, enthusiastically.

“Are you making fun of me, Mr. Romayne?” said the girl, her face indicating that she was prepared for battle.

“God forbid,” replied Mr. Romayne, fervently.

“Not a bit of it, Nora dear,” said his sister. “He is simply consumed with envy. He has just come from a country, you know, where only the men do things; I mean things that really count. And it makes him furiously jealous to see a young woman calmly doing things that he knows quite well he could not attempt to do.”

“Quite true,” replied her brother. “I am humbled to the ground at my own all to obvious ineptitude, and am lost in admiration of the marvellous efficiency of the young ladies of Canada whom it has been my good fortune to meet.”

Nora glanced at him suspiciously. “You talk well,” she said. “I half believe you're just making fun of us.”

“Not a bit, Nora, not a bit,” said his sister. “It is as I have said before. The man is as jealous as he can be, and, like all men, he hates to discover himself inferior in any particular to a woman. But we must be going. I am so glad you are home again, dear,” she said, turning to Kathleen. “We shall hope to see a great deal of you. Thank you for the delightful lunch. It was so good of you to have us.”

“Yes, indeed,” added the young man. “You saved my life. I had just about reached the final stage of exhaustion. I, too, hope to see you again very soon and often, for you know we must finish that discussion and settle that question.”

“What question is that,” inquired his sister, “if I may ask?”

“Oh, the old question,” said her brother, “the eternal question—war.”

“I suppose,” said Nora, “Kathleen has been giving you some of her peace talk. I want you to know, Mr. Romayne, that I don't agree with her in the least, and I am quite sure you don't either.”

“I am not so sure of that,” replied the young man. “We have not finished it out yet. I feel confident, however, that we shall come to an agreement on it.”

“I hope not,” replied Nora, “for in that case you would become a pacifist, for Kathleen, just like mother, you know, is a terrible peace person. Indeed, our family is divided on that question—Daddy and I opposed to the rest. And you know pacifists have this characteristic, that they are always ready to fight.”

“Yes,” said her sister. “We are always ready to fight for peace. But do not let us get into that discussion now. I shall walk with you a little way.”

Arm in arm she and Mrs. Waring-Gaunt walked down the steep trail, Mr. Romayne following behind, leading the horses. As they walked together, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt talked to the girl of her brother.

“You know he was in the Diplomatic Service, went in after the South African War, and did awfully well there in the reconstruction work, was very popular with the Boers, though he had fought them in the war. He got to know their big men, and some of them are really big men. As a matter of fact, he became very fond of them and helped the Government at Home to see things from their point of view. After that he went to the Continent, was in Italy for a while and then in Germany, where, I believe, he did very good work. He saw a good deal of the men about the Kaiser. He loathed the Crown Prince, I believe, as most of our people there do. Suddenly he was recalled. He refused, of course, to talk about it, but I understand there was some sort of a row. I believe he lost his temper with some exalted personage. At any rate, he was recalled, chucked the whole service, and came out here. He felt awfully cut up about it. And now he has no faith in the German Government, says they mean war. He's awfully keen on preparation and that sort of thing. I thought I would just tell you, especially since I heard you had been discussing war with him.”

As they neared the Switzer place they saw a young man standing on the little pier which jutted out into the stream with a pike-pole in his hand, keeping the logs from jambing at the turn.

“It's Ernest Switzer,” cried Kathleen. “I have not seen him for ever so long. How splendidly he is looking! Hello, Ernest!” she cried, waving her hand and running forward to meet him, followed by the critical eyes of Jack Romayne.

The young man came hurrying toward her. “Kathleen!” he cried. “Is it really you?” He threw down his pole as he spoke and took her hand in both of his, the flush on his fair face spreading to the roots of his hair.

“You know Mrs. Waring-Gaunt,” said Kathleen to him, for he paid no attention at all to the others. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt acknowledged Switzer's heel clicks, as also did her brother when introduced.

“You have been keeping the logs running, Ernest, I see. That is very good of you,” said Kathleen.

“Yes, there was the beginning of a nice little jamb here,” said Switzer. “They are running right enough now. But when did you return?” he continued, dropping into a confidential tone and turning his back upon the others. “Do you know I have not seen you for nine months?”

“Nine months?” said Kathleen. “I was away seven months.”

“Yes, but I was away two months before you went. You forget that,” he added reproachfully. “But I do not forget. Nine months—nine long months. And are you glad to be back, Kathleen, glad to see all your friends again, glad to see me?”

“I am glad to be at home, Ernest, glad to see all of my friends, of course, glad to get to the West again, to the woods here and the mountains and all.”

“And you did not come in to see us as you passed,” gazing at her with reproachful eyes and edging her still further away from the others.

“Oh, we intended to come in on our way back.”

“Let's move on,” said Romayne to his sister.

“We must be going, Kathleen dear,” said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. “You will soon be coming to see us?”

“Yes, indeed, you may be sure. It is so good to see you,” replied the girl warmly, as Mrs. Waring-Gaunt kissed her good-bye. “Good-bye, Mr. Romayne; we must finish our discussion another time.”

“Always at your service,” replied Mr. Romayne, “although I am rather afraid of you. Thank you again for your hospitality. Good-bye.” He held her hand, looking down into the blue depths of her eyes until as before the crimson in her face recalled him. “Good-bye. This has been a wonderful day to me.” He mounted his horse, lifted his hat, and rode off after his sister.

“What sort of a chap is the Johnnie?” said Jack to his sister as they rode away.

“Not a bad sort at all; very bright fellow, quite popular in this community with the young fellows. He has lots of money, you know, and spends it. Of course, he is fearfully German, military style and all that.”

“Seems to own that girl, eh?” said Jack, glancing back over his shoulder at the pair.

“Oh, the two families are quite intimate. Ernest and his sister were in Larry's musical organisations and they are quite good friends.”

“By Jove, Sybil, she is wonderful! Why didn't you give me a hint?”

“I did. But really, she has come on amazingly. That college in Winnipeg—”

“Oh, college! It is not a question of college!” said her brother impatiently. “It's herself. Why, Sybil, think of that girl in London in a Worth frock. But no! That would spoil her. She is better just as she is. Jove, she completely knocked me out! I made a fool of myself.”

“She has changed indeed,” said his sister. “She is a lovely girl and so simple and unaffected. I have come really to love her. We must see a lot of her.”

“But where did she get that perfectly charming manner? Do you realise what a perfectly stunning girl she is? Where did she get that style of hers?”

“You must see her mother, Jack. She is a charming woman, simple, quiet, a Quaker, I believe, but quite beautiful manners. Her father, too, is a gentleman, a Trinity man, I understand.”

“Well,” said her brother with a laugh, “I foresee myself falling in love with that girl in the most approved style.”

“You might do worse,” replied his sister, “though I doubt if you are not too late.”

“Why? That German Johnnie?”

“Well, it is never wise to despise the enemy. He really is a fine chap, his prospects are very good; he has known her for a long while, and he is quite mad about her.”

“But, good Lord, Sybil, he's a German!”

“A German,” said his sister, “yes. But what difference does that make? He is a German, but he is also a Canadian. We are all Canadians here whatever else we may be or have ever been. We are all sorts and classes, high and low, rich and poor, and of all nationalities—Germans, French, Swedes, Galicians, Russians—but we all shake down into good Canadian citizens. We are just Canadians, and that is good enough for me. We are loyal to Canada first.”

“You may be right as far as other nationalities are concerned, but, Sybil, believe me, you do not know the German. I know him and there is no such thing as a German loyal to Canada first.”

“But, Jack, you are so terribly insular. You must really get rid of all that. I used to think like you, but here we have got to the place where we can laugh at all that sort of thing.”

“I know, Sybil. I know. They are laughing in England to-day at Roberts and Charlie Beresford. But I know Germany and the German mind and the German aim and purpose, and I confess to you that I am in a horrible funk at the state of things in our country. And this chap Switzer—you say he has been in Germany for two years? Well, he has every mark characteristic of the German. He reproduces the young German that I have seen the world over—in Germany, in the Crown Prince's coterie (don't I know them?), in South Africa, in West Africa, in China. He has every mark, the same military style, the same arrogant self-assertion, the same brutal disregard of the ordinary decencies.”

“Why, Jack, how you talk! You are actually excited.”

“Did you not notice his manner with that girl? He calmly took possession of her and ignored us who were of her party, actually isolated her from us.”

“But, Jack, this seems to me quite outrageous.”

“Yes, Sybil, and there are more like you. But I happen to know from experience what I am talking about. The elementary governing principle of life for the young German of to-day is very simple and is easily recognised, and it is this: when you see anything you want, go for it and take it, no matter if all the decencies of life are outraged.”

“Jack, I cannot, frankly, I cannot agree with you in regard to young Switzer. I know him fairly well and—”

“Let's not talk about it, Sybil,” said her brother, quietly.

“Oh, all right, Jack.”

They rode on in silence, Romayne gloomily keeping his eye on the trail before him until they neared the Gwynne gate, when the young man exclaimed abruptly:

“My God, it would be a crime!”

“Whatever do you mean, Jack?”

“To allow that brute to get possession of that lovely girl.”

“But, Jack,” persisted his sister. “Brute?”

“Sybil, I have seen them with women, their own and other women; and, now listen to me, I have yet to see the German who regards or treats his frau as an English gentleman treats his wife. That is putting it mildly.”

“Oh, Jack!”

“It ought to be stopped.”

“Well, stop it then.”

“I wish to God I could,” said her brother.

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER VIII

YOU FORGOT ME

The Lakeside House, substantially built of logs, with “frame” kitchen attached, stood cosily among the clump of trees, poplar and spruce, locally described as a bluff. The bluff ran down to the little lake a hundred yards away, itself an expansion of Wolf Willow Creek. The whitewashed walls gleaming through its festoons of Virginia creeper, a little lawn bordered with beds filled with hollyhocks, larkspur, sweet-william and other old-fashioned flowers and flanked by a heavy border of gorgeous towering sunflowers, gave a general air, not only of comfort and thrift, but of refinement as well, too seldom found in connection with the raw homesteads of the new western country.

At a little distance from the house, at the end of a lane leading through the bluff, were visible the stables, granary and other outhouses, with corral attached.

Within, the house fulfilled the promise of its external appearance and surroundings. There was dignity without stiffness, comfort without luxury, simplicity without any suggestion of the poverty that painfully obtrudes itself.

At the open window whose vine shade at once softened the light and invited the summer airs, sat Mrs. Gwynne, with her basket of mending at her side. Eight years of life on an Alberta ranch had set their mark upon her. The summers' suns and winters' frosts and the eternal summer and winter winds had burned and browned the soft, fair skin of her earlier days. The anxieties inevitable to the struggle with poverty had lined her face and whitened her hair. But her eyes shone still with the serene light of a soul that carries within it the secret of triumph over the carking cares of life.

Seated beside her was her eldest daughter Kathleen, sewing; and stretched upon the floor lay Nora, frankly idle and half asleep, listening to the talk of the other two. Their talk turned upon the theme never long absent from their thought—that of ways and means.

“Tell you what, Mummie,” droned Nora, lazily extending her lithe young body to its utmost limits, “there is a simple way out of our never ending worries, namely, a man, a rich man, if handsome, so much the better, but rich he must be, for Kathleen. They say they are hanging round the Gateway City of the West in bunches. How about it, Kate?”

“My dear Nora,” gently chided her mother, “I wish you would not talk in that way. It is not quite nice. In my young days—”

“In your young days I know just exactly what happened, Mother. There was always a long queue of eligible young men dangling after the awfully lovely young Miss Meredith, and before she was well out of her teens the gallant young Gwynne carried her off.”

“We never talked about those things, my dear,” said her mother, shaking her head at her.

“You didn't need to, Mother.”

“Well, if it comes to that, Nora,” said her sister, “I don't think you need to, very much, either. You have only got to look at—”

“Halt!” cried Nora, springing to her feet. “But seriously, Mother dear, I think we can weather this winter right enough. Our food supply is practically visible. We have oats enough for man and beast, a couple of pigs to kill, a steer also, not to speak of chickens and ducks. We shall have some cattle to sell, and if our crops are good we ought to be able to pay off those notes. Oh, why will Dad buy machinery?”

“My dear,” said her mother with gentle reproach, “your father says machinery is cheaper than men and we really cannot do without machines.”

“That's all right, Mother. I'm not criticising father. He is a perfect dear and I am awfully glad he has got that Inspectorship.”

“Yes,” replied her mother, “your father is suited to his new work and likes it. And Larry will be finishing his college this year, I think. And he has earned it too,” continued the mother. “When I think of all he has done and how generously he has turned his salary into the family fund, and how often he has been disappointed—” Here her voice trembled a little.

Nora dropped quickly to her knees, taking her mother in her arms. “Don't we all know, Mother, what he has done? Shall I ever forget those first two awful years, the winter mornings when he had to get up before daylight to get the house warm, and that awful school. Every day he had to face it, rain, sleet, or forty below. How often I have watched him in the school, always so white and tired. But he never gave up. He just would not give up. And when those big boys were unruly—I could have killed those boys—he would always keep his temper and joke and jolly them into good order. And all the time I knew how terribly his head was aching. What are you sniffling about, Kate?”

“I think it was splendid, just splendid, Nora,” cried Kathleen, swiftly wiping away her tears. “But I can't help crying, it was all so terrible. He never thought of himself, and year after year he gave up his money—”

“Hello!” cried a voice at the door. “Who gave up his money and to whom and is there any more around?” His eye glanced around the group. “What's up, people? Mummie, are these girls behaving badly? Let me catch them at it!” The youth stood smiling down upon them. His years in the West had done much for him. He was still slight, but though his face was pale and his body thin, his movements suggested muscular strength and sound health. He had not grown handsome. His features were irregular, mouth wide, cheek bones prominent, ears large; yet withal there was a singular attractiveness about his appearance and manner. His eyes were good; grey-blue, humorous, straight-looking eyes they were, deep set under overhanging brows, and with a whimsical humour ever lingering about them; over the eyes a fore-head, broad, suggesting intellect, and set off by heavy, waving, dark hair.

“Who gave his money? I insist upon knowing. No reply, eh? I have evidently come upon a deep and deadly plot. Mother?—no use asking you. Kathleen, out with it.”

“You gave your money,” burst forth Nora in a kind of passion as she flew at him, “and everything else. But now that's all over. You are going to finish your college course this year, that's what.”

“Oh, that's it, eh? I knew there was some women's scheme afloat. Well, children,” said the youth, waving his hand over them in paternal benediction, “since this thing is up we might as well settle it 'right here and n-a-o-w,' as our American friend, Mr. Ralph Waldo Farwell, would say, and a decent sort he is too. I have thought this all out. Why should not a man gifted with a truly great brain replete with grey matter (again in the style of the aforesaid Farwell) do the thinking for his wimmin folk? Why not? Hence the problem is already solved. The result is hereby submitted, not for discussion but for acceptance, for acceptance you understand, to-wit and namely, as Dad's J. P. law books have it: I shall continue the school another year.”

“You shan't,” shouted Nora, seizing him by the arm and shaking him with all the strength of her vigorous young body.

“Larry, dear!” said his mother.

“Oh, Larry!” exclaimed Kathleen.

“We shall then be able to pay off all our indebtedness,” continued Larry, ignoring their protests, “and that is a most important achievement. This new job of Dad's means an addition to our income. The farm management will remain in the present capable hands. No, Miss Nora, I am not thinking of the boss, but of the head, the general manager.” He waved his hand toward his mother. “The only change will be in the foreman. A new appointment will be made, one who will bring to her task not only experience and with it a practical knowledge, but the advantage of intellectual discipline recently acquired at a famous educational centre; and the whole concern will go on with its usual verve, swing, snap, toward another year's success. Then next year me for the giddy lights of the metropolitan city and the sacred halls of learning.”

“And me,” said Nora, “what does your high mightiness plan for me this winter, pray?”

“Not quite so much truculence, young lady,” replied her brother. “For you, the wide, wide world, a visit to the seat of light and learning already referred to, namely, Winnipeg.”

For one single moment Nora looked at him. Then, throwing back her head, she said with unsteady voice: “Not this time, old boy. One man can lead a horse to water but ten cannot make him drink, and you may as well understand now as later that this continual postponement of your college career is about to cease. We have settled it otherwise. Kathleen will take your school—an awful drop for the kids, but what joy for the big boys. She and I will read together in the evenings. The farm will go on. Sam and Joe are really very good and steady; Joe at least, and Sam most of the time. Dad's new work will not take him from home so much, he says. And next year me for the fine arts and the white lights of Winnipeg. That's all that needs to be said.”

“I think, dear,” said the mother, looking at her son, “Nora is right.”

“Now, Mother,” exclaimed Larry, “I don't like to hear your foot come down just yet. I know that tone of finality, but listen—”

“We have listened,” said Kathleen, “and we know we are right. I shall take the school, Mr. Farwell—”

“Mr. Farwell, eh?—” exclaimed Nora significantly.

“Mr. Farwell has promised me,” continued Kathleen, “indeed has offered me, the school. Nora and I can study together. I shall keep up my music. Nora will keep things going outside, mother will look after every thing as usual, Dad will help us outside and in. So that's settled.”

“Settled!” cried her brother. “You are all terribly settling. It seems to me that you apparently forget—”

Once more the mother interposed. “Larry, dear, Kathleen has put it very well. Your father and I have talked it over”—the young people glanced at each other and smiled at this ancient and well-worn phrase—“we have agreed that it is better that you should finish your college this winter. Of course we know you would suggest delay, but we are anxious that you should complete your course.”

“But, Mother, listen—” began Larry.

“Nonsense, Larry, 'children, obey your parents' is still valid,” said Nora. “What are you but a child after all, though with your teaching and your choral society conducting, and your nigger show business, and your preaching in the church, and your popularity, you are getting so uplifted that there's no holding you. Just make up your mind to do your duty, do you hear? Your duty. Give up this selfish determination to have your own way, this selfish pleasing of yourself.” Abruptly she paused, rushed at him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “You darling old humbug,” she said with a very unsteady voice. “There, I will be blubbering in a minute. I am off for the timber lot. What do you say, Katty? It's cooler now. We'll go up the cool road. Are you coming?”

“Yes; wait until I change.”

“All right, I will saddle up. You coming, Larry?”

“No, I'll catch up later.”

“Now, Mother,” warned Nora, “I know his ways and wiles. Remember your duty to your children. You are also inclined to be horribly selfish. Be firm. Hurry up, Kate.”

Left alone with his mother, Larry went deliberately to work with her. Well he knew the immovable quality of her resolution when once her mind was made up. Patiently, quietly, steadily, he argued with her, urging Nora's claims for a year at college.

“She needs a change after her years of hard work.”

Her education was incomplete; the ground work was sound enough, but she had come to the age when she must have those finishing touches that girls require to fit them for their place in life. “She is a splendid girl, but in some ways still a child needing discipline; in other ways mature, too mature. She ought to have her chance and ought to have it now.” One never knew what would happen in the case of girls.

His mother sighed. “Poor Nora, she has had discipline enough of a kind, and hard discipline it has been indeed for you all.”

“Nonsense, Mother, we have had a perfectly fine time together, all of us. God knows if any one has had a hard time it is not the children in this home. I do not like to think of those awful winters, Mother, and of the hard time you had with us all.”

“A hard time!” exclaimed his mother. “I, a hard time, and with you all here beside me, and all so well and strong? What more could I want?” The amazed surprise in her face stirred in her son a quick rush of emotion.

“Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother,” he whispered in her ear. “There is no one like you. Did you ever in all your life seek one thing for yourself, one thing, one little thing? Away back there in Ontario you slaved and slaved and went without things yourself that all the rest of us might get them. Here it has been just the same. Haven't I seen your face and your hands, your poor hands,”—here the boy's voice broke with an indignant passion—“blue with the cold when you could not get furs to protect them? Never, never shall I forget those days.” The boy stopped abruptly, unable to go on.

Quickly the mother drew her son toward her. “Larry, my son, my son, you must never think that a hard time. Did ever a woman have such joy as I? When I think of other mothers and of other children, and then think of you all here, I thank God every day and many times a day that he has given us each other. And, Larry, my son, let me say this, and you will remember it afterwards. You have been a continual joy to me, always, always. You have never given me a moment's anxiety or pain. Remember that. I continually thank God for you. You have made my life very happy.”

The boy put his face down on her lap with his arms tight around her waist. Never in their life together had they been able to open these deep, sacred chambers in their souls to each other's gaze. For some moments he remained thus, then lifting up his face, he kissed her again and again, her forehead, her eyes, her lips. Then rising to his feet, he stood with his usual smile about his lips. “You always beat me. But will you not think this all over again carefully, and we will do what you say? But will you promise, Mother, to think it over again and look at my side of it too?”

“Yes, Larry, I promise,” said his mother. “Now run after the girls, and I shall have tea ready for you.”

As Larry rode down the lane he saw the young German, Ernest Switzer, and his sister riding down the trail and gave them a call. They pulled up and waited.

“Hello, Ernest; whither bound? How are you, Dorothea?”

“Home,” said the young man, “and you?”

“Going up by the timber lot, around by the cool road. The girls are on before.”

“Ah, so?” said the young man, evidently waiting for an invitation.

“Do you care to come? It's not much longer that way,” said Larry.

“I might,” said the young man. Then looking doubtfully at his sister, “You cannot come very well, Dorothea, can you?”

“No, that is, I'm afraid not,” she replied. She was a pretty girl with masses of yellow hair, light blue eyes, a plump, kindly face and a timid manner. As she spoke she, true to her German training, evidently waited for an indication of her brother's desire.

“There are the cows, you know,” continued her brother.

“Yes, there are the cows,” her face clouding as she spoke.

“Oh, rot!” said Larry, “you don't milk until evening, and we get back before tea. Come along.”

Still the girl hesitated. “Well,” said her brother brusquely, “do you want to come?”

She glanced timidly at his rather set face and then at Larry. “I don't know. I am afraid that—”

“Oh, come along, Dorothea, do you hear me telling you? You will be in plenty of time and your brother will help you with the milking.”

“Ernest help! Oh, no!”

“Not on your life!” said that young man. “I never milk. I haven't for years. Well, come along then,” he added in a grudging voice.

“That is fine,” said Larry. “But, Dorothea, you ought to make him learn to milk. Why shouldn't he? The lazy beggar. Do you mean to say that he never helps with the milking?”

“Oh, never,” said Dorothea.

“Our men don't do women's work,” said Ernest. “It is not the German way. It is not fitting.”

“And what about women doing men's work?” said Larry. “It seems to me I have seen German women at work in the fields up in the Settlement.”

“I have no doubt you have,” replied Ernest stiffly. “It is the German custom.”

“You make me tired,” said Larry, “the German custom indeed! Does that make it right?”

“For us, yes,” replied Ernest calmly.

“But you are Canadians, are you not? Are there to be different standards in Canada for different nationalities?”

“Oh, the Germans will follow the German way. Because it is German, and demonstrated through experience to be the best. Look at our people. Look at our prosperity at home, at our growth in population, at our wealth, at our expansion in industry and commerce abroad. Look at our social conditions and compare them with those in this country or in any other country in the world. Who will dare to say that German methods and German customs are not best, at least for Germans? But let us move a little faster, otherwise we shall never catch up with them.” He touched his splendid broncho into a sharp gallop, the other horses following more slowly behind.

“He is very German, my brother,” said Dorothea. “He thinks he is Canadian, but he is not the same since he went over Home. He is talking all the time about Germany, Germany, Germany. I hate it.” Her blue eyes flashed fire and her usually timid voice vibrated with an intense feeling. Larry gazed at her in astonishment.

“You may look at me, Larry,” she cried. “I am German but I do not like the German ways. I like the Canadian ways. The Germans treat their women like their cows. They feed them well, they keep them warm because—because—they have calves—I mean the cows—and the women have kids. I hate the German ways. Look at my mother. What is she in that house? Day and night she has worked, day and night, saving money—and what for? For Ernest. Running to wait on him and on Father and they never know it. It's women's work with us to wait on men, and that is the way in the Settlement up there. Look at your mother and you. Mein Gott! I could kill them, those men!”

“Why, Dorothea, you amaze me. What's up with you? I never heard you talk like this. I never knew that you felt like this.”

“No, how could you know? Who would tell you? Not Ernest,” she replied bitterly.

“But, Dorothea, you are happy, are you not?”

“Happy, I was until I knew better, till two years ago when I saw your mother and you with her. Then Ernest came back thinking himself a German officer—he is an officer, you know—and the way he treated our mother and me!”

“Treated your mother! Surely he is not unkind to your mother?” Larry had a vision of a meek, round-faced, kindly, contented woman, who was obviously proud of her only son.

“Kind, kind,” cried Dorothea, “he is kind as German sons are kind. But you cannot understand. Why did I speak to you of this? Yes, I will tell you why,” she added, apparently taking a sudden resolve. “Let's go slowly. Ernest is gone anyway. I will tell you why. Before Ernest went away he was more like a Canadian boy. He was good to his mother. He is good enough still but—oh, it is so hard to show you. I have seen you and your mother. You would not let your mother brush your boots for you, you would not sit smoking and let her carry in wood in the winter time, you would not stand leaning over the fence and watch your mother milk the cow. Mein Gott! Ernest, since he came back—the women are only good for waiting on him, for working in the house or on the farm. His wife, she will not work in the fields; Ernest is too rich for that. But she will not be like”—here the girl paused abruptly, a vivid colour dyeing her fair skin—“like your wife. I would die sooner than marry a German man.”

“But Ernest is not like that, Dorothea. He is not like that with my sisters. Why, he is rather the other way, awfully polite and all that sort of thing, you know.”

“Yes, that's the way with young German gentlemen to young ladies, that is, other people's ladies. But to their own, no. And I must tell you. Oh, I am afraid to tell you,” she added breathlessly. “But I will tell you, you have been so kind, so good to me. You are my friend, and you will not tell. Promise me you will never tell.” The girl's usually red face was pale, her voice was hoarse and trembling.

“What is the matter, Dorothea? Of course I won't tell.”

“Ernest wants to marry your sister, Kathleen. He is just mad to get her, and he always gets his way too. I would not like to see your sister his wife. He would break her heart and,” she added in a lower voice, “yours too. But remember you are not to tell. You are not to let him know I told you.” A real terror shone in her eyes. “Do you hear me?” she cried. “He would beat me with his whip. He would, he would.”

“Beat you, beat you?” Larry pulled up his horse short. “Beat you in this country—oh, Dorothea!”

“They do. Our men do beat their women, and Ernest would too. The women do not think the same way about it as your women. You will not tell?” she urged.

“What do you think I am, Dorothea? And as for beating you, let me catch him. By George, I'd, I'd—”

“What?” said Dorothea, turning her eyes full upon him, her pale face flushing.

Larry laughed. “Well, he's a big chap, but I'd try to knock his block off. But it's nonsense. Ernest is not that kind. He's an awfully good sort.”

“He is, he is a good sort, but he is also a German officer and, ah, you cannot understand, but do not let him have your sister. I have told you. Come, let us go quickly.”

They rode on in silence, but did not overtake the others until they reached the timber lot where they found the party waiting. With what Dorothea had just told him in his mind, Larry could not help a keen searching of Kathleen's face. She was quietly chatting with the young German, with face serene and quite untouched with anything but the slightest animation. “She is not worrying over anything,” said Larry to himself. Then he turned and looked upon the face of the young man at her side. A shock of surprise, of consternation, thrilled him. The young man's face was alight with an intensity of eagerness, of desire, that startled Larry and filled him with a new feeling of anxiety, indeed of dismay.

“Oh, you people are slow,” cried Nora. “What is keeping you? Come along or we shall be late. Shall we go through the woods straight to the dump, or shall we go around?”

“Let's go around,” cried Kathleen. “Do you know I have not been around for ever so long?”

“Yes,” said Larry, “let's go around by Nora's mine.”

“Nora's mine!” exclaimed Ernest. “Do you know I've heard about that mine a great deal but I have never seen Nora's mine?”

“Come along, then,” said Nora, “but there's almost no trail and we shall have to hurry while we can. There's only a cow track.”

“Move along then,” said her brother; “show us the way and we will follow. Go on, Ernest.”

But Ernest apparently had difficulty with his broncho so that he was found at the rear of the line with Kathleen immediately in front of him. The cow trail led out of the coolee over a shoulder of a wooded hill and down into a ravine whose sharp sides made the riding even to those experienced westerners a matter of difficulty, in places of danger. At the bottom of the ravine a little torrent boiled and foamed on its way to join Wolf Willow Creek a mile further down. After an hour's struggle with the brushwood and fallen timber the party was halted by a huge spruce tree which had fallen fair across the trail.

“Where now, boss?” cried Larry to Nora, who from her superior knowledge of the ground, had been leading the party.

“This is something new,” answered Nora. “I think we should cross the water and try to break through to the left around the top of the tree.”

“No,” said Ernest, “the right looks better to me, around the root here. It is something of a scramble, but it is better than the left.”

“Come along,” said Nora; “this is the way of the trail, and we can get through the brush of that top all right.”

“I am for the right. Come, let's try it, Kathleen, shall we?” said Ernest.

Kathleen hesitated. “Come, we'll beat them out. Right turn, march.”

The commanding tones of the young man appeared to dominate the girl. She set her horse to the steep hillside, following her companion to the right. A steep climb through a tangle of underbrush brought them into the cleared woods, where they paused to breathe their animals.

“Ah, that was splendidly done. You are a good horsewoman,” said Ernest. “If you only had a horse as good as mine we could go anywhere together. You deserve a better horse, too. I wonder if you know how fine you look.”

“My dear old Kitty is not very quick nor very beautiful, but she is very faithful, and so kind,” said Kathleen, reaching down and patting her mare on the nose. “Shall we go on?”

“We need not hurry,” replied her companion. “We have beaten them already. I love the woods here, and, Kathleen, I have not seen you for ever so long, for nine long months. And since your return fifteen days ago I have seen you only once, only once.”

“I am sorry,” said Kathleen, hurrying her horse a little. “We happened to be out every time you called.”

“Other people have seen you,” continued the young man with a note almost of anger in his voice. “Everywhere I hear of you, but I cannot see you. At church—I go to church to see you—but that, that Englishman is with you. He walks with you, you go in his motor car, he is in your house every day.”

“What are you talking about, Ernest? Mr. Romayne? Of course. Mother likes him so much, and we all like him.”

“Your mother, ah!” Ernest's tone was full of scorn.

“Yes, my mother—we all like him, and his sister, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, you know. They are our nearest neighbours, and we have come to know them very well. Shall we go on?”

“Kathleen, listen to me,” said the young man.

At this point a long call came across the ravine.

“Ah, there they are,” cried the girl. “Let's hurry, please do.” She brought her whip down unexpectedly on Kitty's shoulders. The mare, surprised at such unusual treatment from her mistress, sprang forward, slipped on the moss-covered sloping rock, plunged, recovered herself, slipped again, and fell over on her side. At her first slip, the young man was off his horse, and before the mare finally pitched forward was at her head, and had caught the girl from the saddle into his arms. For a moment she lay there white and breathing hard.

“My God, Kathleen!” he cried. “You are hurt? You might have been killed.” His eyes burned like two blazing lights, his voice was husky, his face white. Suddenly crushing her to him, he kissed her on the cheek and again on her lips. The girl struggled to get free.

“Oh, let me go, let me go,” she cried. “How can you, how can you?”

But his arms were like steel about her, and again and again he continued to kiss her, until, suddenly relaxing, she lay white and shuddering in his arms.

“Kathleen,” he said, his voice hoarse with passion, “I love you, I love you. I want you. Gott in Himmel, I want you. Open your eyes, Kathleen, my darling. Speak to me. Open your eyes. Look at me. Tell me you love me.” But still she lay white and shuddering. Suddenly he released her and set her on her feet. She stood looking at him with quiet, searching eyes.