Johnstone of the Border

"They won't see her smashed," he said quietly.

"I'm not sure of it, after reading the English newspapers."

"You don't know us yet," Andrew replied.

Whitney smiled, for he knew that his comrade would carry out an obligation to the farthest limit; but he said nothing, and for the next few minutes Andrew thoughtfully looked about.

The sun was getting low, and dark shadows stretched across the glassy lake, but in the distance a small gray dot moved amidst a ring of widening ripples. A loon was fishing. Presently a wild, unearthly cry rang through the stillness as the bird called its mate; and after that everything was very quiet except for a soft splash of falling water a long way off. The dew was settling on the brush about the camp, and the cooling air was heavy with the fragrance of the pines. It all appealed to Andrew; the lonely woods had a strange charm for him.

"I'm lame and not much use, but it doesn't seem quite the thing to stay here enjoying myself, just now," he said. "Perhaps something I could do might turn up when I got home."

"But you haven't a home! You lived in a boat for some years, didn't you?"

"I thought of living in one again. It's cheap and gives you liberty; you can move about where you like. Then there's good wildfowl shooting in the bays, along our coast. That would keep me occupied – if I could find nothing else."

"Pretty lonely though, isn't it?"

"Sometimes. When you're wind-bound in a desolate gut among the sands, the winter nights seem long. Then, if you have to clear out in a hurry, with a sudden breeze sending the sea inshore and there's the anchor and kedge to get, you feel you'd like an extra hand."

"Then why don't you ship one?"

"It's hard to find the right man. Living on board a small cruiser hasn't much attraction, unless you're used to it."

Whitney chuckled.

"That's easily understood. I think you need a partner. How'd I do?"

Andrew gave him an eager look, and then answered discouragingly:

"It's rough work; you're often wet through and can't dry your clothes; and sometimes there's not much to eat. You can't cook on a miniature stove when she's rolling hard. Then there's no head-room and you get cramped because you can't stand up straight."

"Well," Whitney declared smilingly, "it can't be much rougher than clambering over rock ledges and smashing through the brush with a canoe on your head. So, my friend, if you have no marked objection, I'm coming along. For one thing, an English friend of ours who lived in New York has a shooting lodge in the Galloway district and my mother and sister are over there. I can plant myself on them, if I get tired of you."

Andrew said nothing and Whitney thought him reluctant to take advantage of his rash offer.

"It's settled, old man," Whitney went on lightly. "We'll pull out at sun-up and get on to the Canadian Pacific at Whitefish Creek. I'll try to catch a trout now, and then we'll go to sleep."

He launched the canoe, and when he paddled out across the darkening lake, Andrew sat by the sinking fire, feeling quietly satisfied. He did not know what he might find to do when he reached Scotland, but he would have a partner in whom he had confidence.

CHAPTER II

A PAINFUL MEMORY

A week after leaving Sable Lake, Andrew and Whitney stood one night on Portage Avenue, Winnipeg. The air was hot and oppressive, as it often is in the prairie city during late summer, and smooth sidewalks and roadway, wet with heavy rain, glistened like ice in the lamplight. The downpour had now slackened to a scattered splashing of big, warm drops, and thunder rumbled in the distance. At one place, the imposing avenue was blocked by a crowd through which the street-cars crept slowly with clanging bells. The crowd seemed bent on holding its ground, but there was not much jostling, and its general air was one of stern interest rather than excitement. The small dark figures that filled the gap between the towering buildings were significantly quiet, and where a ray of light fell across them, the rows of faces were all turned in one direction.

Andrew studied them as he stood on the outskirts of the throng. Human nature always interested him. He noticed first that these men were better dressed and looked more prosperous than the members of similar gatherings he had watched in the Old Country. It was, however, not altogether their clothes that conveyed the impression: there was a hint of self-confident optimism in their faces and bearing; though one could see that they were graver than usual. Their appearance was rather American than British, and although this was mainly suggested by certain mannerisms and the cut of their clothes, Andrew was conscious of a subtle difference he could not explain. For one thing, an English street crowd is generally drawn from one particular walk of life, and if units of different rank join it they stand apart and separate. This gathering in Winnipeg included men of widely different callings – farmers from the plains, merchants, artisans, clerks, and flour-mill hands – but they had, somehow, an air of common purpose and solidarity.

Whitney indicated them after he had lighted a cigarette.

"It's almost an hour before our train goes out, and these fellows evidently expect a new bulletin to be posted up soon," he said. "They interest me because I don't know how to class them. They're developing themselves on our lines, but they don't belong to us. If this were a city in the United States, there'd be something doing: joshing and pushing, or somebody would start a song. Yet I guess they wouldn't like you to call them Englishmen."

"That's true," Andrew agreed.

"Then they're pretty good customers of ours and anxious to trade," went on Whitney, "and yet when we offered them reciprocity they wouldn't have it. They had all to gain, because the natural outlet for their commerce is to the south, but they said they were British and shut the door on us. On the other hand, I get on with them better than you can, and if we wanted a job in this city, I'd get it before you. Now our States are sovereign, but they're all American."

"Ours are sovereign, but not English," Andrew replied. "One's strictly Canadian, another frankly Australian, and so on. We're an individualistic race, and our different branches grow their own way. It looks like a loose arrangement, but we've found we hold together well. You'll see when the bulletin comes out – if it's what I expect."

"We'll wait. What's this fellow talking about?"

A short, dark-skinned man had buttonholed a neighbor and was speaking vivaciously, his dark eyes snapping.

"But, mossieu', the alliance, la belle alliance!" he exclaimed, and wheeled around to Andrew. "Is it not determine in London that we fight?"

"Spotted you first time, partner," Whitney laughed, and then turned to the man: "When did you come over?"

For a moment the fellow looked puzzled.

"Two hundred year, mossieu'. That is, the family she arrive. Me, I am born in Kebec."

Whitney smiled at Andrew.

"You haven't made much of a Britisher of him yet. They'll speak better German in Alsace in much less time, if the Prussians keep their grip."

"Alsace!" cried the French-Canadian. "Attendez, mais attendez; the great day come. Together we take her back. It is an obligation, Mossieu'. Vive la belle alliance!"

"Your people claim there isn't an alliance," Whitney said to Andrew.

"I don't know. This is certain: if our friend's attacked, we step into the ring."

There was a sudden movement in the crowd, which pressed closer upon the newspaper office opposite, and a cry was raised as a lighted car came clanging down the street:

"Hold that driver up!"

The car slowed, but still came on, until a well-dressed citizen stepped quietly in front of it.

"Stop!" he said. "You can't get through."

The car stopped and as the passengers got out, a window in the tall building opposite was opened. A bulletin board was hoisted in, and for the next two minutes the crowd stood silent and motionless. Andrew felt his nerves tingle and noted that Whitney's face was tense, though his interest in the matter could hardly be personal. There was something that stirred the imagination in the sight of the intent, quiet throng that awaited the result of a crisis not of their making. They had had no say in the quarrel that began far off in the obscure East; but one could not doubt that they meant to make it their own. Their stern gravity caused Andrew a half-conscious thrill of pride.

After all, they sprang from British stock and he knew what kind of men they were. He had seen the miles of wheat that covered the broken, prairie waste, cities that rose as if by magic in a few months' time, and railroads flung across quaking muskegs and driven through towering rocks, at a speed unthought of in the mother country. He had heard the freight-trains roaring through the great desolation between the Ottawa and the Western plains, where no traffic would ever be found, and had wondered at the optimism which, in spite of tremendous obstacles, had built eight hundred miles of track to link the St. Lawrence to the rich land beyond. These Canadians were hard men who tempered with cool judgment a vast energy and enthusiasm, and the mother country's foes would have to reckon with them.

There was a strange, dead silence, as the board was replaced and the bold black letters stood out in the lamplight. So far as Andrew could afterward remember, the bulletin read:

War inevitable. England must keep her word!

Kaiser's armies marching. British fleet sails with sealed orders.

A few cablegrams followed, and when they were read a deep murmur rose from the crowd; but there was no strong excitement. These were not the men to indulge in emotional sentiment; their attitude indicated relief from suspense, and steady resolve. Perhaps it was characteristic that the man who had stopped the car waved his hand to the driver.