Chapter 15. The Maiden Of The Brown Hair

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_ CHAPTER XV. THE MAIDEN OF THE BROWN HAIR

Rumours of the westward march of civilization had floated from time to time up the country from the main line as far as the Crossing, and had penetrated even to the Night Hawk ranch, only to be allayed by succeeding rumours of postponement of the advance for another year.

It was Mackenzie who brought word of the appearance of the first bona fide scout of the advancing host.

"There was a man with a big flag over the Creek yonder," he announced one spring evening, while the snow was still lying in the hollows, "and another man with a stick or something, and two or three behind him."

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed French, "surveyors, no doubt; they have come at last."

"And what will that be?" said Mackenzie anxiously.

"The men who lay out the route for the railroad," replied French.

Mackenzie looked glum. "And will they be putting a railroad across our ranch?" he asked indignantly.

"Right across," said French, "and just where it suits them."

"Indeed, and it wouldn't be my land they would be putting that railroad over, I'll warrant ye."

"You could not stop them, Mack," said French; "they have got the whole Government behind them."

"I would be putting some slugs into them, whateffer," said Mackenzie. "There will be no room in the country any more, and no sleeping at night for the noise of them injins."

Mackenzie was right. That surveyor's flag was the signal that waved out the old order and waved in the new. The old free life, the only life Mackenzie knew, where each man's will was his law, and where law was enforced by the strength of a man's right hand, was gone forever from the plains. Those great empty spaces of rolling prairie, swept by viewless winds, were to be filled up now with the abodes of men. Mackenzie and his world must now disappear in the wake of the red man and the buffalo before the railroad and the settler. To Jack French the invasion brought mingled feelings. He hated to surrender the untrammelled, unconventional mode of life, for which twenty years ago he had left an ancient and, as it seemed to his adventurous spirit, a worn-out civilization, but he was quick to recognize, and in his heart was glad to welcome, a change that would mean new life and assured prosperity to Kalman, whom he had come to love as a son. To Kalman that surveyor's flag meant the opening up of a new world, a new life, rich in promise of adventure and achievement. French noticed his glowing face and eyes.

"Yes, Kalman, boy," he said, "it will be a great thing for you, great for the country. It means towns and settlements, markets and money, and all the rest."

"We will have no trouble selling our potatoes and our oats now," said the boy.

"Not a bit," said French; "we could sell ten times what we have to sell."

"And why not get ten times the stuff?" cried the boy.

French shrugged his shoulders. It was hard to throw off the old laissez faire of the pioneer.

"All right, Kalman, you go on. I will give you a free hand. Mackenzie and I will back you up; only don't ask too much of us. There will be hundreds of teams at work here next year."

"One hundred teams!" exclaimed Kalman. "How much oats do you think they will need? One thousand bushels?"

"One thousand! yes, ten thousand, twenty thousand."

Kalman made a rapid calculation.

"Why, that would mean three hundred acres of oats at least, and we have only twenty acres in our field. Oh! Jack!" he continued, "let us get every horse and every man we can, and make ready for the oats. Just think! one hundred acres of oats, five or six thousand bushels, perhaps more, besides the potatoes."

"Oh, well, they won't be along to-day, Kalman, so keep cool."

"But we will have to break this year for next," said the boy, "and it will take us a long time to break one hundred acres."

"That's so," said Jack; "it will take all our forces hard at it all summer to get one hundred acres ready."

Eagerly the boy's mind sprang forward into plans for the summer's campaign. His enthusiasm stirred French to something like vigorous action, and even waked old Mackenzie out of his aboriginal lethargy. That very day Kalman rode down to Wakota to consult his friend Brown, upon whose guidance in all matters he had come more and more to depend. Brown's Canadian training on an Ontario farm before he entered college had greatly enriched his experience, and his equipment for the battle of life. He knew all about farming operations, and to him, rather than to French or to Mackenzie, Kalman had come to look for advice on all practical details connected with cattle, horses, and crops. The breach between the two men was an unspeakable grief to the lad, and all the greater because he had an instinctive feeling that the fault lay with the man to whom from the first he had given the complete and unswerving devotion of his heart. Without explaining to Kalman, French had suddenly ceased his visits to Wakota, but he had taken care to indicate his desire that Kalman continue his studies with Brown, and that he should assist him in every way possible with the work he was seeking to carry on among the Galicians. This desire both Brown and Kalman were only too eager to gratify, for the two had grown into a friendship that became a large part of the lives of both. Every Sunday Kalman was to be found at Wakota. There, in the hospitable home of the Browns, he came into contact with a phase of life new and delightful to him. Brown's wife, and Brown's baby, and Brown's home were to him never-ending sources of wonder and joy. That French was shut out from all this was the abiding grief of Kalman's life, and this grief was emphasized by the all-too-evident effect of this exclusion. For with growing frequency French would ride off on Sunday afternoon to the Crossing, and often stay for three or four days at a time. On such occasions life would be to Kalman one long agony of anxiety. Through the summer he bore his grief in silence, never speaking of it even to Brown; but on one occasion, when French's absence had been extended from one Sunday to the next, his anxiety and grief became unsupportable, and he poured it forth to Brown.

"He has not been home for a week, Mr. Brown, and oh! I can't stand it any longer," cried the distracted boy. "I can't stay here while Jack is over there in such a terrible way. I must go to him."

"He won't like it, Kalman," said Brown; "he won't stand it, I am afraid. I would go, but I know it would only offend him."

"I am going down to the Crossing to-day," said Kalman. "I don't care if he kills me, I must go."

But his experience was such that he never went again, for Jack French in his madness nearly killed the boy, who was brought sadly battered to Brown's hospital, where he lay for a week or more. Every day, French, penetrated with penitence, visited him, lavishing on the boy a new tenderness. But when Kalman was on his feet again, French laid it upon him, and bound him by a solemn promise that he should never again follow him to the Crossing, or interfere when he was not master of himself. It was a hard promise to give, but once given, that settled the matter for both. With Brown he never discussed Jack French's weakness, but every Sunday afternoon, when in his own home Brown prayed for friends near and dear, committing them into the Heavenly Father's keeping, in their minds, chiefly and before all others was the man whom they had all come to love as an elder brother, and for whose redemption they were ready to lay down their lives. And this was the strongest strand in the bond that bound Kalman and his friend together. So to Brown Kalman went with his plans for the coming summer, and with most happy results. For through the spring and summer, following Brown's advice and under Kalman's immediate directions, a strong force of Galicians with horse teams and ox teams were kept hard at work, breaking and back-setting, in anticipation of an early sowing in the following spring. In the meantime Brown himself was full of work. The addition to his hospital was almost always full of patients; his school had begun to come back to him again, for the gratitude of his warm-hearted Galician people, in return for his many services to their sick and suffering, sufficed to overcome their fear of the Polish priest, whose unpriestly habits and whose mercenary spirit were fast turning against him even the most loyal of his people. In the expressive words of old Portnoff, who, it is to be feared, had little religion in his soul, was summed up the general opinion: "Dat Klazowski bad man. He drink, drink all time, take money, money for everyting. He damn school, send doctor man hell fire," the meaning of which was abundantly obvious to both Brown and his wife.

So full of work were they all, both at the ranch and at Wakota, that almost without their knowing it the summer had gone, and autumn, with its golden glorious days, nippy evenings, and brilliant starry nights, Canada's most delightful season, was upon them. Throughout the summer the construction gangs had steadily worked their way north and west, and had crossed the Saskatchewan, and were approaching the Eagle Hill country. Preceding the construction army, and following it, were camp followers and attendants of various kinds. On the one hand the unlicensed trader and whiskey pedlar, the bane of the contractor and engineer; on the other hand the tourist, the capitalist, and the speculator, whom engineers and contractors received with welcome or with scant tolerance, according to the letters of introduction they brought from the great men in the East.

Attached to the camp of Engineer Harris was a small and influential party, consisting of Mr. Robert Menzies of Glasgow, capitalist, and, therefore, possible investor in Canadian lands, mines, and railroads, --consequently, a man to be considered; with him, his daughter Marjorie, a brown-haired maid of seventeen, out for the good of her health and much the better of her outing, and Aunt Janet, maiden sister to Mr. Menzies, and guardian to both brother and niece. With this party travelled Mr. Edgar Penny, a young English gentleman of considerable means, who, having been a year in the country, felt himself eminently qualified to act as adviser and guide to the party. At present, however, Mr. Penny was far more deeply interested in the study of the lights that lurked in Miss Marjorie's brown eyes, and the bronze tints of her abundant hair, than in the opportunities for investments offered by Canadian lands, railroads, and mines.

With an elaborate equipment, this party had spent three months travelling as far as Edmonton, and now, on their way back, were attached to the camp of Engineer Harris, in order that the Scotch capitalist might personally investigate methods of railway construction as practised in Western Canada. At present, the party were encamped at a little distance from the Wakota trail, and upon the sunny side of a poplar bluff, for it was growing late in the year.

It was on a rare October morning that Kalman, rising before the sun, set out upon his broncho to round up the horses for their morning feed in preparation for the day's back-setting. With his dogs at his horse's heels, he rode down to the Night Hawk, and crossed to the opposite side of the ravine. As he came out upon the open prairie, Captain, the noble and worthy son of Blucher, caught sight of a prairie wolf not more than one hundred yards distant, and was off after him like the wind.

"Aha! my boy," cried Kalman, getting between the coyote and the bluff, and turning him towards the open country, "you have got your last chicken, I guess. It is our turn now."

Headed off from the woods that marked the banks of the Night Hawk Creek, the coyote in desperation took to the open prairie, with Captain and Queen, a noble fox-hound bitch, closing fast upon him. Two miles across the open country could be seen the poplar bluff, behind which lay the camp of the Engineer and his travelling companions. Steadily the gap between the wolf and the pursuing hounds grew less, till at length, fearing the inevitable, the hunted beast turned towards the little bluff, and entered it with the dogs only a few yards behind. Alas! for him, the bluff afforded no shelter. Right through the little belt of timber dashed the wolf with the dogs and Kalman hard upon his trail. At the very instant that the wolf came opposite the door of Aunt Janet's tent, Captain reached for the extreme point of the beast's extended tail. Like a flash, the brute doubled upon his pursuer, snapping fiercely as the hound dashed past. With a howl of rage and pain, Captain clawed the ground in his effort to recover himself, but before he could renew his attack, and just as the wolf was setting forth again, like a cyclone Queen was upon them. So terrific was her impact, that dogs and wolf rolled under the tent door in one snarling, fighting, snapping mass of legs and tails and squirming bodies. Immediately from within rose a wild shriek of terror.

"Mercy sakes alive! What, what is this? Help! Help! Help! Where are you all? Will some one not come to my help?" Kalman sprang from his horse, rushed forward, and lifted the tent door. A new outcry greeted his ear.

"Get out, get out, you man!" He dropped the flap, fled aghast before the appalling vision of Aunt Janet in night attire, with a ring of curl-papers round her head, driven back into the corner of the tent, and crouched upon a box, her gown drawn tight about her, while she gazed in unspeakable horror at the whirling, fighting mass upon the tent floor at her feet. Higher and higher rose her shrieks above the din of the fight. From a neighbouring tent there rushed forth a portly, middle-aged gentleman in pyjamas, gun in hand.

"What is it, Katharine? Where are you, Katharine?"

"Where am I? Where but here, ye gowk! Oh, Robert! Robert! I shall be devoured alive."

The stout gentleman ran to the door of the tent, lifted the flap, and plunged in. With equal celerity he plunged back again, shouting, "Whatever is all yon?"

"Robert! Robert!" screamed the voice, "come back and save me."

"What is this, sir?" indignantly turning upon Kalman, who stood in bewildered uncertainty.

"It is a wolf, sir, that my dogs--"

"A wolf!" screamed the portly gentleman, springing back from the door.

"Go in, sir; go in at once and save my sister! What are you looking at, sir? She will be devoured alive. I beseech you. I am in no state to attack a savage beast."

From another tent appeared a young man, rotund of form and with a chubby face. He was partly dressed, his night-robe being stuffed hastily into his trousers, and he held the camp axe in his hand.

"What the deuce is the row?" he exclaimed. "By Jove! sounds like a beastly dog fight."

"Aunt Janet! Aunt Janet! What is the matter?" A girl in a dressing-gown, with her hair streaming behind her, came rushing from another tent, and sprang towards the door of the tent, from which came the mingled clamour of the fighting dogs and the terror-stricken woman. Kalman stepped quickly in front of her, caught her round the waist, and swung her behind him.

"Go back!" he cried. "Get away, all of you." There was an immediate clearance of the space in front of the tent. Seizing a club, he sprang among the fighting beasts.

"Oh! you good man! Come here and save me," cried Aunt Janet in a frenzy of relief. But Kalman was too busy for the moment to give heed to her cries. As he entered, a fiercer howl arose above the din. The wolf had seized hold of Captain's upper lip and was grimly hanging on, while Queen was gripping savagely for the beast's throat. With his club Kalman struck the wolf a heavy blow, stunning it so that it released its hold on the dog. Then, catching it by the hind leg, he hauled wolf and hounds out of the tent in one squirming mass.

"God help us!" cried the stout gentleman, darting into his own tent and poking his head out through the door. "Keep the brute off. There's my gun."

The girl screamed and ran behind Kalman. The young man with the chubby face dropped his axe and jumped hastily into a convenient wagon.

"Shoot the bloomin' brutes," he cried. "Some one bring me my gun."

But the wolf's days were numbered. Queen's powerful jaws were tearing at his throat, while Captain, having gripped him by the small of the back, was shaking him with savage fury.

"Oh! the poor thing! Call off the dogs!" cried the girl, turning to Kalman.

"No! No! Don't you think of it!" cried the man from the tent door. "He will attack us."

Kalman stepped forward, and beating the dogs from their quarry, drew his pistol and shot the beast through the head.

"Get back, Captain! Back! Back! I say. Down!"

With difficulty he drew the wolf from the jaws of the eager hounds, and swung it into the wagon out of the dogs' reach.

"My word!" exclaimed the young man, leaping from the wagon with precipitate haste. "What are you doing?"

"He won't hurt you, sir. He is dead."

The young man's red, chubby face, out of which peered his little round eyes, his red hair standing in a disordered halo about his head, his strange attire, with trailing braces and tag-ends of his night-robe hanging about his person, made a picture so weirdly funny that the girl went off into peals of laughter.

"Marjorie! Marjorie!" cried an indignant voice, "what are ye daein' there? Tak' shame to yersel', ye hizzie."

Marjorie turned in the direction of the voice, and again her peals of laughter burst forth. "Oh! Aunt Janet, you do look so funny." But at once the head with its aureole of curl-papers was whipped inside the tent.

"Ye're no that fine to look at yersel', ye shameless lassie," cried Aunt Janet.

With a swift motion the girl put her hand to her head, gathered her garments about her, and fled to the cover of her tent, leaving Kalman and the young man together, the latter in a state of indignant wrath, for no man can bear with equanimity the ridicule of a maiden whom he is especially anxious to please.

"By Jove, sir!" he exclaimed. "What the deuce did you mean, running your confounded dogs into a camp like that?"

Kalman heard not a word. He was standing as in a dream, gazing upon the tent into which the girl had vanished. Ignoring the young man, he got his horse and mounted, and calling his dogs, rode off up the trail.

"Hello there!" cried Harris, the engineer, after him. Kalman reined up. "Do you know where I can get any oats?"

"Yes," said Kalman, "up at our ranch."

"And where is that?"

"Ten miles from here, across the Night Hawk Creek." Then, as if taking a sudden resolve, "I'll bring them down to you this afternoon. How much do you want?"

"Twenty-five bushels would do us till we reach the construction camp."

"I'll bring them to-day," said Kalman, riding away, his dogs limping after him.

In a few moments the girl came out of the tent. "Oh!" she cried to the engineer, "is he gone?"

"Yes," said Harris, "but he'll be back this afternoon. He is going to bring me some oats." His smile brought a quick flush to the girl's cheeks.

"Oh! has he?" she said, with elaborate indifference. "What a lovely morning! It's wonderful for so late in the year. You have a splendid country here, Mr. Harris."

"That's right," he said; "and the longer you stay in it, the better you like it. You'll be going to settle in it yourself some day."

"I'm not so sure about that," cried the girl, with a deeper blush, and a saucy toss of her head. "It is a fine country, but it's no' Scotland, ye ken, as my Aunt would say. My! but I'm fair starving."

It happened that the ride to the Galician colony, planned for that afternoon by Mr. Penny the day before, had to be postponed. Miss Marjorie was hardly up to it. "It must be the excitement of the country," she explained carefully to Mr. Penny, "so I'll just bide in the camp."

"Indeed, you are wise for once in your life," said her Aunt Janet. "As for me, I'm fair dune out. With this hurly-burly of such terrible excitement I wonder I did not faint right off."

"Hoots awa', Aunt Janet," said her niece, "it was no time for fainting, I'm thinking, with yon wolf in the tent beside ye."

"Aye, lassie, you may well say so," said Aunt Janet, lapsing into her native tongue, into which in unguarded moments she was rather apt to fall, and which her niece truly loved to use, much to her Aunt's disgust, who considered it a form of vulgarity to be avoided with all care.

As the afternoon was wearing away, a wagon appeared in the distance. The gentlemen were away from camp inspecting the progress of the work down the line.

"There's something coming yonder," said Miss Marjorie, whose eyes had often wandered down the trail that afternoon.

"Mercy on us! What can it be, and them all away," said her Aunt in distress. "Put your saddle on and fly for your father or Mr. Harris. I am terrified. It is this awful country. If ever I get out alive!"

"Hoots awa', Aunt, it's just a wagon."

"Marjorie, why will you use such vulgar expressions? Of course, it's a wagon. Wha's--who's in it?"

"Indeed, I'm not caring," said her niece; "they'll no' eat us."

"Marjorie, behave yourself, I'm saying, and speak as you are taught. Run away for your father."

"Indeed, Aunt, how could I do this and leave you here by yourself? A wild Indian might run off with you."

"Mercy me! What a lassie! I'm fair distracted."

"Oh, Auntie dear," said Marjorie, with a change of voice, "it is just a man bringing some oats. Mr. Harris told me he was to get a load this afternoon. We will need to take them from him. Have you any money? We must pay him, I suppose."

"Money?" cried her Aunt. "What is the use of money in this country? No, your father has it all."

"Why," suddenly exclaimed her niece, "it's not the man after all."

"What man are you talking about?" enquired her Aunt. "What man is it not?"

"It's a stranger. I mean--it's--another man," said Marjorie, distinct disappointment in her tone.

"Here, who is it, or who is it no'?"

"Oh," said Marjorie innocently. "Mr. Harris is expecting that young man who was here this morning,--the one who saved us from that awful wolf, you know."

"That man! The impudent thing that he was," cried her Aunt. "Wait till I set my eyes on him. Indeed, I will not look at any one belonging to him." Aunt Janet flounced into the tent, leaving her niece to meet the stranger alone.

"Good afternoon! Am I right in thinking that this is the engineer's camp, for which a load of oats was ordered this morning?" Jack French was standing, hat in hand, looking his admiration and perplexity, for Kalman had not told him anything of this girl.

"Yes, this is the camp. At least, I heard Mr. Harris say he expected a load of oats; but," she added in slight confusion, "it was from another man, a young man, the man, I mean, who was here this morning."

"Confusion, indeed!" came a muffled voice from the closed tent.

Jack French glanced quickly around, but saw no one.

"Oh," said Miss Marjorie, struggling with her laughter, "it's my Aunt; she was much alarmed this morning. You see, the wolf and the dogs ran right into her tent. It was terrible."

"Terrible, indeed," said Jack French, with grave politeness. "I could only get the most incoherent account of the whole matter. I hope your Aunt was not hurt."

"Hurt, indeed!" ejaculated a muffled voice. "It was nearer killed, I was."

Upon this, Miss Marjorie ran to the tent door. "Aunt," she cried, lifting up the flap, "you might as well come out and meet Mr.--"

"French, Jack French, as I am known in this free country."

"My Aunt, Miss Menzies."

"Very happy to meet you, madam." Jack's bow was so inexpressibly elegant that Aunt Janet found herself adopting her most gracious, Glasgow society manner.

French was profuse in his apologies and sympathetic regrets, as he gravely listened to Aunt Janet's excited account of her warm adventure. The perfect gravity and the profuse sympathy with which he heard the tale won Aunt Janet's heart, and she privately decided that here, at last, she had found in this wild and terrible country a man in whom she could entirely confide.

Under Miss Marjorie's direction, French unloaded his oats, the girl pouring forth the while a stream of observations, exclamations, and interrogations upon all subjects imaginable, and with such an abandonment of good fellowship that French, for the first time in twenty years, found himself offering hospitality to a party in which ladies were to be found. Miss Menzies accepted the invitation with eager alacrity.

"Oh! it will be lovely, won't it, Aunt Janet? We have not yet seen a real ranch, and besides," she added, "we have no money to pay for our oats."

"That matters not at all," said French; "but if your Aunt will condescend to grace with her presence my poor bachelor's hall, we shall be most grateful."

Aunt Janet was quite captivated, and before she knew it, she had accepted the invitation for the party.

"Oh, good!" cried Miss Marjorie in ecstasy; "we shall come to-morrow, Mr. French."

And with this news French drove back to the ranch, to the disgust of old Mackenzie, who dreaded "women folks," and to Kalman's alternating delight and dismay. That short visit had established between the young girl and Jack French a warm and abiding friendship that in a more conventional atmosphere it would have taken years to develop. To her French realized at once all her ideals of what a Western rancher should be, and to French the frank, fresh innocence of her unspoiled heart appealed with irresistible force. They had discovered each other in that single hour. _

Read next: Chapter 16. How Kalman Found His Mine

Read previous: Chapter 14. The Break

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