第7章

A-FISHING WE WILL GO

But Sergeant Cameron was done with the Service for ever.An accumulating current of events had swept him from his place in the Force, as an unheeding traveler crossing a mountain torrent is swept from his feet by a raging freshet.The sudden blazing of his smoldering love into a consuming flame for the clumsy country girl, for whom two years ago he had cherished a pitying affection, threw up upon the horizon of his life and into startling clearness a new and absorbing objective.In one brief quarter of an hour his life had gathered itself into a single purpose; a purpose, to wit, to make a home to which he might bring this girl he had come to love with such swift and fierce intensity, to make a home for her where she could be his own, and for ever.All the vehement passion of his Highland nature was concentrated upon the accomplishing of this purpose.That he should ever have come to love Mandy Haley, the overworked slattern on her father's Ontario farm, while a thing of wonder, was not the chief wonder to him.His wonder now was that he should ever have been so besottedly dull of wit and so stupidly unseeing as to allow the unlovely exterior of the girl to hide the radiant soul within.That in two brief years she had transformed herself into a woman of such perfectly balanced efficiency in her profession as nurse, and a creature of such fascinating comeliness, was only another proof of his own insensate egotism, and another proof, too, of those rare powers that slumbered in the girl's soul unknown to herself and to her world.Small wonder that with her unfolding Cameron's whole world should become new.

Hard upon this experience the unexpected news of his father's death and of the consequent winding up of the tangled affairs of the estate threw upon Cameron the responsibility of caring for his young sister, now left alone in the Homeland, except for distant kindred of whom they had but slight knowledge.

A home was immediately and imperatively necessary, and hence he must at once, as a preliminary, be married.Cameron fortunately remembered that young Fraser, whom he had known in his Fort Macleod days, was dead keen to get rid of the "Big Horn Ranch." This ranch lay nestling cozily among the foothills and in sight of the towering peaks of the Rockies, and was so well watered with little lakes and streams that when his eyes fell upon it Cameron was conscious of a sharp pang of homesickness, so suggestive was it of the beloved Glen Cuagh Oir of his own Homeland.There would be a thousand pounds or more left from his father's estate.Everybody said it was a safe, indeed a most profitable investment.

A week's leave of absence sufficed for Cameron to close the deal with Fraser, a reckless and gallant young Highlander, whose chivalrous soul, kindling at Cameron's romantic story, prompted a generous reduction in the price of the ranch and its outfit complete.Hence when Mandy's shrewd and experienced head had scanned the contract and cast up the inventory of steers and horses, with pigs and poultry thrown in, and had found nothing amiss with the deal--indeed it was rather better than she had hoped--there was no holding of Cameron any longer.Married he would be and without delay.

The only drag in the proceedings had come from the Superintendent, who, on getting wind of Cameron's purpose, had thought, by promptly promoting him from Corporal to Sergeant, to tie him more tightly to the Service and hold him, if only for a few months, "till this trouble should blow over." But Cameron knew of no trouble.The trouble was only in the Superintendent's mind, or indeed was only a shrewd scheme to hold Cameron to his duty.A rancher he would be, and a famous rancher's wife Mandy would make.And as for his sister Moira, had she not highly specialized in pigs and poultry on the old home farm at the Cuagh Oir? There was no stopping the resistless rush of his passionate purpose.Everything combined to urge him on.Even his college mate and one time football comrade of the old Edinburgh days, the wise, cool-headed Dr.Martin, now in charge of the Canadian Pacific Railway Hospital, as also the little nurse who, through those momentous months of Mandy's transforming, had been to her guide, philosopher and friend, both had agreed that there was no good reason for delay.True, Cameron had no means of getting inside the doctor's mind and therefore had no knowledge of the vision that came nightly to torment him in his dreams and the memory that came daily to haunt his waking hours; a vision and a memory of a trim little figure in a blue serge gown, of eyes brown, now sunny with laughing light, now soft with unshed tears, of hair that got itself into a most bewildering perplexity of waves and curls, of lips curving deliciously, of a voice with a wonderfully soft Highland accent; the vision and memory of Moira, Cameron's sister, as she had appeared to him in the Glen Cuagh Oir at her father's door.Had Cameron known of this tormenting vision and this haunting memory he might have questioned the perfect sincerity of his friend's counsel.But Dr.Martin kept his secret well and none shared with him his visions and his dreams.

So there had been only the Superintendent to oppose.

Hence, because no really valid objection could be offered, the marriage was made.And with much shrieking of engines--it seemed as if all the engines with their crews within a hundred miles had gathered to the celebration--with loud thunder of exploding torpedoes, with tumultuous cheering of the construction gangs hauled thither on gravel trains, with congratulations of railroad officials and of the doctor, with the tearful smiles of the little nurse, and with grudging but finally hearty good wishes of the Superintendent, they had ridden off down the Kootenay Trail for their honeymoon, on their way to the Big Horn Ranch some hundreds of miles across the mountains.