Corporal Cameron

R >> Ralph Connor >> Corporal Cameron


"Before you go? Where?" Her voice was hardly above a whisper; her face
was white, her lips beyond her control.

"Out West to seek my fortune." His voice was jaunty and he feigned not
to see her distress. "I shall be walking in a couple of weeks or so, eh,
nurse?"

"A couple of weeks?" replied the nurse, who had just entered. "Yes, if
you are good."

Mandy hastily rose.

"But if you are not," continued the nurse severely, "it may be months.
Stay, Miss Haley, I am going to bring Mr. Cameron his afternoon tea and
you can have some with him. Indeed, you look quite done up. I am sure
all that work you have been telling me about is too much for you."

Her kindly tones broke the last shred of Mandy's self-control. She sank
into her chair, covered her face with her great red hands and burst into
tempestuous weeping. Cameron sat up quickly.

"What in the name of goodness is wrong, Mandy?"

"Lie down at once, Mr. Cameron!" said the nurse sternly. "Hush, hush,
Miss Haley! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Don't you know that you
are hurting him?"

She could have chosen no better word. In an instant Mandy was on her
feet, mopping off her face and choking down her sobs.

"Ain't I a fool?" she cried angrily. "A blamed fool. Well, I won't
bother you any longer. Guess I'll go now. Good-by all." Without another
look at Cameron she was gone.

Cameron lay back upon his pillows, white and nerveless.

"Now can you tell me," he panted, "what's up?"

"Search me!" said the nurse gaily, "but I forbid you to speak a single
word for half an hour. Here, drink this right off! Now, not a word! What
will Dr. Martin say? Not a word! Yes, I shall see her safely off the
place. Quiet now!" She kept up a continuous stream of sprightly chatter
to cover her own anxiety and to turn the current of her patient's
thoughts. By the time she had reached the entrance hall, however, Mandy
had vanished.

"Great silly goose!" said the indignant nurse. "I'd see myself far
enough before I'd give myself away like that. Little fool! He'll have
a temperature sure and I will catch it. Bah! These girls! Next time she
sees him it will not be here. I hope the doctor will just give me an
hour to get him quiet again."

But in this hope she was disappointed, for upon her return to her
patient she found Dr. Martin in the room. His face was grave.

"What's up, nurse? What is the meaning of this rotten pulse? What has he
been having to eat?"

"Well, Dr. Martin, I may as well confess my sins," replied the nurse,
"for there is no use trying to deceive you anyway. Mr. Cameron has had a
visitor and she has excited him."

"Ah!" said the doctor in a relieved tone. "A visitor! A lady visitor! A
charming, sympathetic, interested, and interesting visitor."

"Exactly!" said the nurse with a giggle.

"It was Miss Haley, Martin," said Cameron gravely.

The doctor looked puzzled.

"The daughter of the farmer with whom I was working," explained Cameron.

"Ah, I remember her," said the doctor. "And a deuce of a time I had with
her, too, getting you away from her, if I remember aright. I trust there
is nothing seriously wrong in that quarter?" said Martin with unusual
gravity.

"Oh, quit it, Martin!" said Cameron impatiently. "Don't rag. She's an
awful decent sort. Her looks are not the best of her."

"Ah! I am relieved to hear that," said the doctor earnestly.

"She is very kind, indeed," said the nurse. "For these six weeks she has
fed us up with eggs and cream so that both my patient and myself have
fared sumptuously every day. Indeed, if it should continue much longer
I shall have to ask an additional allowance for a new uniform. I have
promised that Mr. Cameron shall visit the farm within two weeks if he
behaves well."

"Exactly!" replied the doctor. "In two weeks if he is good. The only
question that troubles me is--is it quite safe? You see in his present
weak condition his susceptibility is decidedly emphasised, his resisting
power is low, and who knows what might happen, especially if she should
insist? I shall not soon forget the look in her eye when she dared me to
lay a finger upon his person."

"Oh, cut it out, Martin!" said Cameron. "You make me weary." He lay back
on his pillow and closed his eyes.

The nurse threw a signal to the doctor.

"All right, old man, we must stop this chaff. Buck up and in two weeks
we will let you go where you like. I have something in mind for you, but
we won't speak of it to-day."

The harvest was safely stored. The yellow stubble showed the fields
at rest, but the vivid green of the new fall wheat proclaimed the
astounding and familiar fact that once more Nature had begun her ancient
perennial miracle. For in those fields of vivid green the harvest of
the coming year was already on the way. On these green fields the snowy
mantle would lie soft and protecting all the long winter through and
when the spring suns would shine again the fall wheat would be a month
or more on the way towards maturity.

Somehow the country looked more rested, fresher, cleaner to Cameron than
when he had last looked upon it in late August. The rain had washed the
dust from the earth's face and from the green sward that bordered the
grey ribbon of the high road that led out from the city. The pastures
and the hay meadows and the turnip fields were all in their freshest
green, and beyond the fields the forest stood glorious in all its autumn
splendour, the ash trees bright yellow, the oaks rich brown, and the
maples all the colours of the rainbow. In the orchard--ah, the wonder
and the joy of it! even the bare and bony limbs of the apple trees only
helped to reveal the sumptuous wealth of their luscious fruit. For it
was apple time in the land! The evanescent harvest apples were long
since gone, the snows were past their best, the pippins were mellowing
under the sharp persuasion of the nippy, frosty nights and the brave
gallantry of the sunny days. In this ancient warfare between the frosty
nights and the gallant sunny days the apples ripened rapidly; and well
that they should, for the warfare could not be for long. Already in the
early morning hours the vanguard of winter's fierce hosts was to be seen
flaunting its hoary banners even in the very face of the gallant sun
so bravely making stand against it. But it was the time of the year in
which men felt it good to be alive, for there was in the air that
tang that gives speed to the blood, spring to the muscle, edge to the
appetite, courage to the soul, and zest to life--the apple time of the
year.

It was in apple time that Cameron came back to the farm. Under
compulsion of Mandy, Haley had found it necessary to drive into the
city for some things for the "women folk" and, being in the city, he had
called for Cameron and had brought him out. Under compulsion, not at all
because Haley was indifferent to the prospect of a visit from his former
hired man, not alone because the fall plowing was pressing and the
threshing gang was in the neighbourhood, but chiefly because, through
the channel of Dr. Martin, the little nurse, and Mandy, it had come to
be known in the Haley household and in the country side that the
hired man was a "great swell in the old country," and Haley's sturdy
independence shrank from anything that savoured of "suckin' round a
swell," as he graphically put it. But Mandy scouted this idea and waited
for the coming of the expected guest with no embarrassment from the
knowledge that he had been in the old country "a great swell."

Hence when, through a crack beside the window blind, she saw him, a
poor, pale shadow, descending wearily and painfully from the buggy,
the great mother heart in the girl welled with pity. She could hardly
forbear rushing out to carry him bodily in her strong arms to the spare
room and lay him where she had once helped to lay him the night of the
tragedy some eight weeks before. But in this matter she had learned her
lesson. She remembered the little nurse and her indignant scorn of the
lack of self-control she had shown on the occasion of her last visit to
the hospital. So, instead of rushing forth, she clutched the curtains
and forced herself to stand still, whispering to herself the while, "Oh,
he will die sure! He will die sure!" But when she looked upon him seated
comfortably in the kitchen with a steaming glass of ginger and whiskey,
her mother's unfailing remedy for "anything wrong with the insides," she
knew he would not die and her joy overflowed in boisterous welcome.

For five days they all, from Haley to Tim, gave him of their very best,
seeking to hold him among them for the winter, for they had learned that
his mind was set upon the West, till Cameron was ashamed, knowing that
he must go.

The last afternoon they all spent in the orchard. The Gravensteins, in
which species of apple Haley was a specialist, were being picked, and
picked with the greatest care, Cameron plucking them from the limbs and
dropping them into a basket held by Mandy below. It was one of those
sunny days when, after weeks of chilly absence, summer comes again and
makes the world glow with warmth and kindly life and quickens in the
heart the blood's flow. Cameron was full of talk and fuller of laughter
than his wont; indeed he was vexed to find himself struggling to
maintain unbroken the flow of laughter and of talk. But in Mandy there
was neither speech nor laughter, only a quiet dignity that disturbed and
rebuked him.

The last tree of Gravensteins was picked and then there came the time
of parting. Cameron, with a man's selfish desire for some token of a
woman's adoration, even although he well knew that he could make no
return, lingered in the farewell, hoping for some sign in the plain
quiet face and the wonderful eyes with their new mystery that when
he had gone he would not be forgotten; but though the lips quivered
pitifully and the heavy face grew drawn and old and the eyes glowed
with a deeper fire, the words, when they came, came quietly and the eyes
looked steadily upon him, except that for one brief moment a fire leaped
in them and quickly died down. But when the buggy, with Tim driving,
had passed down the lane, behind the curtain of the spare room the
girl stood looking through the crack beside the blind, with both
hands pressed upon her bosom, her breath coming in sobs, her blue lips
murmuring brokenly, "Good-by, good-by! Oh, why did you come at all? But,
oh, I'm glad you came! God help me, I'm glad you came!" Then, when the
buggy had turned down the side lane and out of sight, she knelt beside
the bed and kissed, again and again, with tender, reverent kisses, the
pillow where his head had lain.




BOOK THREE



CHAPTER I

THE CAMP BY THE GAP


On the foot-hills' side of The Gap, on a grassy plain bounded on three
sides by the Bow River and on the other by ragged hills and broken
timber, stood Surveyor McIvor's camp, three white tents, seeming
wondrously insignificant in the shadow of the mighty Rockies, but cosy
enough. For on this April day the sun was riding high in the heavens in
all his new spring glory, where a few days ago and for many months past
the storm king with relentless rigour had raged, searching with pitiless
fury these rock-ribbed hills and threatening these white tents and their
dwellers with dire destruction. But threaten though he might and pin
them though he did beneath their frail canvas covers, he could not make
that gang beat retreat. McIvor was of the kind that takes no back trail.
In the late fall he had set out to run the line through The Gap, and
after many wanderings through the coulees of the foothills and after
many vain attempts, he had finally made choice of his route and had
brought his men, burnt black with chinook and frost and sun, hither to
The Gap's mouth. Every chain length in those weary marches was a battle
ground, every pillar, every picket stood a monument of victory. McIvor's
advance through the foot-hill country to The Gap had been one unbroken
succession of fierce fights with Nature's most terrifying forces, a
triumphal march of heroes who bore on their faces and on their bodies
the scars and laurels of the campaign. But to McIvor and his gang it was
all in the day's work.

To Cameron the winter had brought an experience of a life hitherto
undreamed of, but never even in its wildest blizzards did he cherish
anything but gratitude to his friend Martin, who had got him attached to
McIvor's survey party. For McIvor was a man to "tie to," as Martin said,
and to Cameron he was a continual cause of wonder and admiration. He was
a big man, with a big man's quiet strength, patient, fearless of men
and things, reverent toward Nature's forces, which it was his life's
business to know, to measure, to control, and, if need be, to fight,
careful of his men, whether amid the perils of the march, or amid
the more deadly perils of trading post and railway construction camp.
Cameron never could forget the thrill of admiration that swept his soul
one night in Taylor's billiard and gambling "joint" down at the post
where the Elbow joins the Bow, when McIvor, without bluff or bluster,
took his chainman and his French-Canadian cook, the latter frothing mad
with "Jamaica Ginger" and "Pain-killer," out of the hands of the gang
of bad men from across the line who had marked them as lambs for the
fleecing. It was not the courage of his big chief so much that
had filled Cameron with amazed respect and admiration as the calm
indifference to every consideration but that of getting his men out of
harm's way, and the cool-headed directness of the method he employed.

"Come along, boys," McIvor had said, gripping them by their coat
collars. "I don't pay you good money for this sort of thing." And so
saying he had lifted them clear from their seats, upsetting the table,
ignoring utterly the roaring oaths of the discomfited gamblers. What
would have been the result none could say, for one of the gamblers had
whipped out his gun and with sulphurous oaths was conducting a vigourous
demonstration behind the unconscious back of McIvor, when there strolled
into the room and through the crowd of men scattering to cover, a tall
slim youngster in the red jacket and pill-box cap of that world-famous
body of military guardians of law and order, the North West Mounted
Police. Not while he lived would Cameron forget the scene that followed.
With an air of lazy nonchalance the youngster strode quietly up to
the desperado flourishing his gun and asked in a tone that indicated
curiosity more than anything else, "What are you doing with that thing?"

"I'll show yeh!" roared the man in his face, continuing to pour forth a
torrent of oaths.

"Put it down there!" said the youngster in a smooth and silky voice,
pointing to a table near by. "You don't need that in this country."

The man paused in his demonstration and for a moment or two stood in
amazed silence. The audacity of the youngster appeared to paralyse his
powers of speech and action.

"Put it down there, my man. Do you hear?" The voice was still smooth,
but through the silky tones there ran a fibre of steel. Still the
desperado stood gazing at him. "Quick, do you hear?" There was a
sudden sharp ring of imperious, of overwhelming authority, and, to the
amazement of the crowd of men who stood breathless and silent about,
there followed one of those phenomena which experts in psychology
delight to explain, but which no man can understand. Without a word the
gambler slowly laid upon the table his gun, upon whose handle were many
notches, the tally of human lives it had accounted for in the hands of
this same desperado.

"What is this for?" continued the young man, gently touching the belt of
cartridges. "Take it off!"

The belt found its place beside the gun.

"Now, listen!" gravely continued the youngster. "I give you twenty-four
hours to leave this post, and if after twenty-four hours you are found
here it will be bad for you. Get out!"

The man, still silent, slunk out from the room. Irresistible authority
seemed to go with the word that sent him forth, and rightly so, for
behind that word lay the full weight of Great Britain's mighty empire.
It was Cameron's first experience of the North West Mounted Police, that
famous corps of frontier riders who for more than a quarter of a century
have ridden the marches of Great Britain's territories in the far
northwest land, keeping intact the Pax Britannica amid the wild turmoil
of pioneer days. To the North West Mounted Police and to the pioneer
missionary it is due that Canada has never had within her borders what
is known as a "wild and wicked West." It was doubtless owing to the
presence of that slim youngster in his scarlet jacket and pill-box cap
that McIvor got his men safely away without a hole in his back and that
his gang were quietly finishing their morning meal this shining April
day, in their camp by the Bow River in the shadow of the big white peaks
that guard The Gap.

Breakfast over, McIvor heaved his great form to the perpendicular.

"How is the foot, Cameron?" he asked, filling his pipe preparatory to
the march.

"Just about fit," replied Cameron.

"Better take another day," replied the chief. "You can get up wood and
get supper ready. Benoit will be glad enough to go out and take your
place for another day on the line."

"Sure ting," cried Benoit, the jolly French-Canadian cook. "Good for
my healt. He's tak off my front porsch here." And the cook patted
affectionately the little round paunch that marred the symmetry of his
figure.

"You ought to get Cameron to swap jobs with you, Benny," said one of the
axemen. "You would be a dandy in about another month."

Benoit let his eye run critically over the line of his person.

"Bon! Dat's true, for sure. In tree, four mont I mak de beeg spark on de
girl, me."

"You bet, Benny!" cried the axeman. "You'll break 'em all up."

"Sure ting!" cried Benny, catching up a coal for his pipe. "By by,
Cameron. Au revoir. I go for tak some more slice from my porsch."

"Good-bye, Benny," cried Cameron. "It is your last chance, for to-morrow
I give you back your job. I don't want any 'front porsch' on me."

"Ho! ho!" laughed Benny scornfully, as he turned to hurry after
his chief. "Dat's not moch front porsch on you. Dat's one rail
fence--clabbord."

And indeed Benoit was right, for there was no "porsch" or sign of one on
Cameron's lean and muscular frame. The daily battle with winter's fierce
frosts and blizzards, the strenuous toil, the hard food had done their
work on him. Strong, firm-knit, clean and sound, hard and fit, he had
come through his first Canadian winter. No man in the camp, not even
the chief himself, could "bush" him in a day's work. He had gained
enormously in strength lately, and though the lines of his frame still
ran to angles, he had gained in weight as well. Never in the days of his
finest training was he as fit to get the best out of himself as now.
An injured foot had held him in camp for a week, but the injury was now
almost completely repaired and the week's change of work only served to
replenish his store of snap and vim.

An hour or two sufficed to put the camp in the perfect order that he
knew Benoit would consider ideal and to get all in readiness for the
evening meal when the gang should return. He had the day before him
and what a day it was! Cameron lay upon a buffalo skin in front of the
cook-tent, content with all the world and for the moment with himself.
Six months ago he had engaged as an axeman in the surveyors' gang at
$30 per month and "found," being regarded more in the light of a
supernumerary and more or less of a burden than anything else. Now
he was drawing double the wage as rodman, and, of all the gang, stood
second to none in McIvor's regard. In this new venture he had come
nearer to making good than ever before in his life. So in full content
with himself he allowed his eyes to roam over the brown grassy plain
that sloped to the Bow in front, and over the Bow to the successive
lines of hills, rounded except where the black rocks broke jagged
through the turf, and upward over the rounded hills to the grey sides of
the mighty masses of the mountains, and still upward to where the white
peaks lost themselves in the shining blue of the sky. Behind him a
coulee ran back between hills to a line of timber, and beyond the timber
more hills and more valleys, and ever growing higher and deeper till
they ran into the bases of the great Rockies.

As Cameron lay thus luxuriating upon his buffalo skin and lazily
watching the hills across the river through the curling wreaths that
gracefully and fragrantly rose from his briar root, there broke from the
line of timber two jumping deer, buck and doe, the latter slow-footed
because heavy with young. Behind them in hot pursuit came a pack of
yelping coyotes. The doe was evidently hard pressed. The buck was
running easily, but gallantly refusing to abandon his mate to her
cowardly foes. Straight for the icy river they made, plunged in, and,
making the crossing, were safe from their pursuing enemy. Cameron,
intent upon fresh meat, ran for McIvor's Winchester, but ere he could
buckle round him a cartridge belt and throw on his hunting jacket the
deer had disappeared over the rounded top of the nearest hill. Up the
coulee he ran to the timber and there waited, but there was no sign of
his game. Cautiously he made his way through the timber and dropped
into the next valley circling westward towards the mountains. The deer,
however, had completely vanished. Turning back upon his tracks, he once
more pierced the thin line of timber, when just across the coulee, some
three hundred yards away, on the sky line, head up and sniffing the
wind, stood the buck in clear view. Taking hurried aim Cameron fired.
The buck dropped as if dead. Marking the spot, Cameron hurried forward,
but to his surprise found only a trail of blood.

"He's badly hit though," he said to himself. "I must get the poor chap
now at all costs." Swiftly he took up the trail, but though the blood
stains continued clear and fresh he could get no sight of the wounded
animal. Hour after hour he kept up the chase, forgetful of everything
but his determination to bring back his game to camp. From the freshness
of the stains he knew that the buck could not be far ahead and from the
footprints it was clear that the animal was going on three legs.

"The beggar is hearing me and so keeps out of sight," said Cameron as
he paused to listen. He resolved to proceed more slowly and with greater
caution, but though he followed this plan for another half hour it
brought him no better success. The day was fast passing and he could
not much longer continue his pursuit. He became conscious of pain in his
injured foot. He sat down to rest and to review his situation. For the
first time he observed that the bright sky of the morning had become
overcast with a film of hazy cloud and that the temperature was rapidly
falling. Prudence suggested that he should at once make his way back to
camp, but with the instinct of the true hunter he was loath to abandon
the poor wounded beast to its unhappy fate. He resolved to make one
further attempt. Refreshed by his brief rest, but with an increasing
sense of pain in his foot, he climbed the slight rising ground before
him, cautiously pushed his way through some scrub, and there, within
easy shot, stood the buck, with drooping head and evidently with
strength nearly done. Cameron took careful aim--there must be no mistake
this time--and fired. The buck leaped high in the air, dropped and lay
still. The first shot had broken his leg, the second had pierced his
heart.

Cameron hurried forward and proceeded to skin the animal. But soon
he abandoned this operation. "We'll come and get him to-morrow," he
muttered, "and he is better with his skin on. Meantime we'll have a
steak, however." He hung a bit of skin from a pole to keep off the
wolves and selected a choice cut for the supper. He worked hurriedly,
for the sudden drop in the temperature was ominous of a serious
disturbance in the weather, but before he had finished he was startled
to observe a large snowflake lazily flutter to the ground beside him.
He glanced towards the sky and found that the filmy clouds were rapidly
assuming definite shape and that the sun had almost disappeared.
Hurriedly he took his bearings and, calculating as best he could the
direction of the camp, set off, well satisfied with the outcome of his
expedition and filled with the pleasing anticipation of a venison supper
for himself and the rest of the gang.

The country was for the most part open except for patches of timber here
and there, and with a clear sky the difficulty of maintaining direction
would have been but slight. With the sky overcast, however, this
difficulty was sensibly increased. He had not kept an accurate reckoning
of his course, but from the character of the ground he knew that he
must be a considerable distance westward of the line of the camp. His
training during the winter in holding a line of march helped him now to
maintain his course steadily in one direction. The temperature was still
dropping rapidly. Over the woods hung a dead stillness, except for the
lonely call of an occasional crow or for the scream of the impudent
whiskey-jack. But soon even these became silent. As he surmounted each
hill top Cameron took his bearings afresh and anxiously scanned the sky
for weather signs. In spite of himself there crept over him a sense of
foreboding, which he impatiently tried to shake off.