Part 7 (1/2)

Jake saw us off, and we remonstrated with him over the speed, or rather the lack of speed, of which his highly recommended oxen gave evidence.

”You said they had the speed of a scared rabbit,” Jack reproached him.

”So they have,” said Jake, barefacedly. ”When a rabbit's plumb scairt he can't move at all; he jus' humps up an' prays. When Buck an' Bright come to that don' disturb 'em in their devotions; jus' wait fer the spirit to move 'em.”

With such an outfit our progress was much slower than it had been with Jake and his ”flyin' ants,” but it was an experience of unbounded freedom and delight. The days held bright and warm, as it was still too early for the May rains; the nights were cold and starry, with a tang of frost toward morning; the dawns were a rush of color, and the sunsets indescribable. It was an unfolding experience, like the opening of some spring flowers; at times I caught a half wistful, wondering, yearning look in Jean's eyes quite different from anything I had known before. I saw no such glimpse in the eyes of Marjorie, or of Jack; but there it was in Jean's, and, I believe, in mine. Vaguely we two understood; vaguely we felt the stirrings of the soul which refuses to be silenced amid the glories of its Maker. And because we vaguely understood, some fine thread of eternal purpose seemed to wrap itself about our hearts and draw us closer and closer as the days went by.

At nights we pitched the tent and made down blankets for the girls, but Jack and I slept under the stars. We were roughing it, but every muscle in our young bodies was vibrating with the tense new life of the open.

The smell of spring flowers was in our nostrils; the whip of spring winds about our cheeks; the myriad murmurings of the little lives of spring crept up through the silences. When the girls called us to breakfast of fried bacon and potatoes and steaming coffee and milk from our traveling dairy we were more happy and more hungry than anything we had ever known to be possible.

And the girls! We saw them growing browner every day, but with their sunburn they seemed to take on a strange new charm and competence. They treated the whole experience as a high adventure, and after cramped hours on the top of ”the ark” they would race like wild things across the prairies, their hair flying in the breeze, and a vagrant wind tossing the skirts about their shapely limbs.

They had taken the precaution to provide themselves with sunbonnets and a better cosmetic than axle-grease, but the prairie sun is an impetuous lover, and their cheeks and lips showed the mark of his caresses. He was a rival who did not pique my jealousy, for in his embrace I saw the woman Jean bursting forth from the bud of girlhood in a beauty that kept my blood a-tingle.

The prairies were a never-ceasing source of delight and wonder. Almost over-night, it seemed, they had blossomed out in myriads of flowers, mauve and yellow, so thick that at places they almost hid the gra.s.s from sight. The girls plucked handfuls of them and arranged the downy stems in the bands of their sunbonnets. Saucy gophers mounted the little dumps of moist earth in front of their burrows and sent their shrill whistle defiantly forth, save when a well-aimed clod from Jack or me brought the note to an end in a sudden sharp crescendo, accompanied by a flicker of a jaunty tail as the owner took refuge underground. In a moment, if we watched, we would see his sharp eyes levelled on us through the gra.s.s at the mouth of his burrow, or perhaps he would appear from another exit and send forth his shrill challenge more saucily than ever. Coyotes we frequently saw; a badger once or twice, and one day figures at a great distance which we took to be antelope. Innumerable ducks flew overhead, and the nights were at times almost sleepless with the clanging of wild geese, wedging their way to the nesting grounds in the north.

There was just one note that bothered me. It was sounded a day or two after we left Regina in some covert remark which Marjorie made about Jean's Mounted Policeman. It seemed that while Jack and I had been away land hunting the girls, too, had been doing a little prospecting. Regina was the headquarters of the Mounted Police, and the fine figures of these young riders of the plains with their scarlet tunics and trim gold ribboned riding trousers and clanking spurs have turned more heads than Jean's before and since. It seems the girls were walking along a business street when they saw a young policeman coming at a short distance, and they happened to stop to admire something in a window while he approached. He also stopped to admire, and Marjorie said something--which Jean would not have done--and a conversation started up, and the policeman seemed to prefer Jean, perhaps because she had not spoken first. At any rate he saw them safely home, and dallied over his responsibility and the gate post until they said they must go in. He called the next night and wanted to take them to a ”show”, but they would not go; at any rate, Jean would not go.

”But you went walking with him,” Marjorie challenged.

”He asked you, too,” said Jean, her pretty face colouring. ”You started with us, and then went back.”

”I saw how the land lay, or the wind blew, or whatever it was. I had nothing to do at home, but I knew I would be busier there than out walking with you and your policeman.”

”Marjorie! How _can_ you----”

”And he told her he would call on her after we were settled.”

”He did no such thing! He asked me where we were going to settle, and I told him I didn't know, and he said he hoped he would be patrolling there. He's going to be sent out from barracks soon, and he said it would be safer for me--for us--if someone were patrolling our district.”

”Not for you, dear,” said Marjorie, meaningly, and there was a little sting in her words which brought me into action.

”I believe you're jealous, Marjorie,” I said, in tones intended to be severe.

”And aren't you?” she retorted. ”You ought to be.”

The truth is, I was. Jean had always belonged to me so absolutely that I had never thought of the possibility of a rival. Even now I did not think of such a thing seriously. It was true that there was no engagement between us, unless the word of a man of six and a woman of four can be taken as binding, but I looked on Jean as mine, nevertheless, and I resented the action of the Mounted Policeman in seeking her acquaintance. I resented, too, the fact that she had gone walking with him, and I told her so at the first opportunity.

It came that afternoon. Jean said she was tired riding, and got down to walk, on my side of the wagon. We trudged along for some distance in silence, save for my occasional words of rebuke and exhortation to the oxen.

”You're cross at me,” she said at length.

”I'm not.” Why I said that I can't imagine, I was, and I wanted her to know it.

”I didn't mean to offend you,” she went on. ”Marjorie was just a little bit--spiteful.”

”I know she was,” I agreed. ”But you shouldn't have gone walking with him.”

”Why?”

”He was a stranger. You didn't even know his name.”