The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail | Page 7

while a thing of wonder, was not the chief wonder to him. His wonder
now was that he should ever have been so besottedly dull of wit and so
stupidly unseeing as to allow the unlovely exterior of the girl to hide
the radiant soul within. That in two brief years she had transformed
herself into a woman of such perfectly balanced efficiency in her
profession as nurse, and a creature of such fascinating comeliness, was
only another proof of his own insensate egotism, and another proof, too,

of those rare powers that slumbered in the girl's soul unknown to
herself and to her world. Small wonder that with her unfolding
Cameron's whole world should become new.
Hard upon this experience the unexpected news of his father's death
and of the consequent winding up of the tangled affairs of the estate
threw upon Cameron the responsibility of caring for his young sister,
now left alone in the Homeland, except for distant kindred of whom
they had but slight knowledge.
A home was immediately and imperatively necessary, and hence he
must at once, as a preliminary, be married. Cameron fortunately
remembered that young Fraser, whom he had known in his Fort
Macleod days, was dead keen to get rid of the "Big Horn Ranch." This
ranch lay nestling cozily among the foothills and in sight of the
towering peaks of the Rockies, and was so well watered with little
lakes and streams that when his eyes fell upon it Cameron was
conscious of a sharp pang of homesickness, so suggestive was it of the
beloved Glen Cuagh Oir of his own Homeland. There would be a
thousand pounds or more left from his father's estate. Everybody said it
was a safe, indeed a most profitable investment.
A week's leave of absence sufficed for Cameron to close the deal with
Fraser, a reckless and gallant young Highlander, whose chivalrous soul,
kindling at Cameron's romantic story, prompted a generous reduction in
the price of the ranch and its outfit complete. Hence when Mandy's
shrewd and experienced head had scanned the contract and cast up the
inventory of steers and horses, with pigs and poultry thrown in, and had
found nothing amiss with the deal--indeed it was rather better than she
had hoped--there was no holding of Cameron any longer. Married he
would be and without delay.
The only drag in the proceedings had come from the Superintendent,
who, on getting wind of Cameron's purpose, had thought, by promptly
promoting him from Corporal to Sergeant, to tie him more tightly to the
Service and hold him, if only for a few months, "till this trouble should
blow over." But Cameron knew of no trouble. The trouble was only in
the Superintendent's mind, or indeed was only a shrewd scheme to hold

Cameron to his duty. A rancher he would be, and a famous rancher's
wife Mandy would make. And as for his sister Moira, had she not
highly specialized in pigs and poultry on the old home farm at the
Cuagh Oir? There was no stopping the resistless rush of his passionate
purpose. Everything combined to urge him on. Even his college mate
and one time football comrade of the old Edinburgh days, the wise,
cool-headed Dr. Martin, now in charge of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Hospital, as also the little nurse who, through those momentous months
of Mandy's transforming, had been to her guide, philosopher and friend,
both had agreed that there was no good reason for delay. True,
Cameron had no means of getting inside the doctor's mind and
therefore had no knowledge of the vision that came nightly to torment
him in his dreams and the memory that came daily to haunt his waking
hours; a vision and a memory of a trim little figure in a blue serge
gown, of eyes brown, now sunny with laughing light, now soft with
unshed tears, of hair that got itself into a most bewildering perplexity of
waves and curls, of lips curving deliciously, of a voice with a
wonderfully soft Highland accent; the vision and memory of Moira,
Cameron's sister, as she had appeared to him in the Glen Cuagh Oir at
her father's door. Had Cameron known of this tormenting vision and
this haunting memory he might have questioned the perfect sincerity of
his friend's counsel. But Dr. Martin kept his secret well and none
shared with him his visions and his dreams.
So there had been only the Superintendent to oppose.
Hence, because no really valid objection could be offered, the marriage
was made. And with much shrieking of engines--it seemed as if all the
engines with their crews within a hundred miles had gathered to the
celebration--with loud thunder of exploding torpedoes, with tumultuous
cheering of the construction gangs hauled thither on