Part 7 (1/2)

”No, rather not! Very much alive. Here's the pater; but first, tell me, why should I be dead?”

Gerald and I began to speak simultaneously, and in the midst of our explanations mother and father arrived, so we had to tell them all over again.

”The question is, who _is_ your lunatic?” said father, ”and----”

But just at that moment we heard frantic shouts from Gerald's bedroom window, and found the sham Mr. Marriott leaning out of it in a state of frenzy.

He was absolutely furious; but we gathered from his incoherent remarks that he was getting very late for a conjuring performance which he had promised to give at a friend's house. He vowed that there was some conspiracy to prevent him going there at all; first his bag was lost, then some one pretended to be his friend's daughter, whom he had never seen, and finally he was locked in a room with no means of escape!

[Sidenote: Our Little Mistake]

Then, and only then, did we realise our mistake! The others seemed to find it very amusing and shrieked with laughter, but the humour of it didn't strike Gerald and me any more than it did the irate conjuror, who was promptly released with profuse apologies, and sent in our car to his destination. It transpired that his conversation which had so alarmed me referred only to a favourite dog of his, and I, of course, had unconsciously misled Gerald.

Mr. Marriott proved to be most interesting and amusing, anything but eccentric; but I shall _never_ hear the last of my mistake, and to this day he and Jack tease me unmercifully about my ”dangerous maniac!”

[Sidenote: A story of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police, founded on fact.]

Jim Rattray, Trooper

BY

KELSO B. JOHNSON

”Our Lady of the Snows” resents the t.i.tle. It is so liable, she complains, to give strangers an utterly wrong idea of her climate. And yet, at times, when the blizzard piles the swirling snow over fence and hollow, until boundaries are lost, and the bewildered wayfarer knows not which way to turn, he is apt to think, if he is in a condition to think at all, that there is some justice in the description.

But there was no sign of the stern side of nature as Jim Rattray made his way westward. The sun shone on the wide, rolling plains, the fresh green of the pasture lands, and the young wheat; the blue sky covered all with a dome of heaven's own blue, and Jim's heart rejoiced within him.

A strapping young fellow was Jim, not long out from the Old Country--the sort of young fellow whose bright eyes and fresh open face do one good to look at. North-country farming in England was the life to which he had looked forward; vigorous sports and hard work in the keen air of the c.u.mberland fells had knit his frame and hardened his muscles; and his parents, as they noticed with pride their boy's st.u.r.dy limbs, and listened in wonder to the bits of learning he brought home from school, had looked forward half-unconsciously to the days when he in his turn would be master of the farm which Rattrays had held for generations.

Bad days, however, had come for English farmers; the c.u.mbrian farm had to be given up, and Jim's father never recovered from the shock of having to leave it. Within a few years Jim was an orphan, alone in the world.

[Sidenote: The Great New World]

There was nothing to keep him in England; why should he not try his fortune in the great new world beyond the seas, which was crying out for stout hearts and hands to develop its treasures? He was young and strong: Canada was a land of great possibilities. There was room and a chance for all there. His life was before him--what might he not achieve!

”What do you propose doing?” asked a fellow-voyager as they landed.

”I really don't quite know,” replied Jim. ”As soon as possible I must get employment on a farm, I suppose, but I hardly know how to set about it.”

”There won't be much difficulty about that. All you have to do is to let it be known at the bureau that you want farm work, and you'll find plenty of farmers willing to take you--and glad to get you,” he added, as his eyes roved over Jim's stalwart figure. ”But have you thought of the police?”

”The police? No--what have I done?”

His friend laughed.

”I mean the North-West Mounted Police. Why don't you try to join it? If they'll take you, you'll take to the life like a duck to water. You could join, if you liked, for a short term of years; you would roam about over hundreds of miles of country, and get a general knowledge of it such as you could hardly get otherwise; then, if you'd like to settle down to farming or ranching, the information you had picked up would be useful.”

Jim pondered over the advice, and finally resolved to follow it. He hoped to make his way in the world, and the more knowledge he could gain the better.