II

From the day they left Washington Jim put his life and his fate in his

wife's hands. He meant to follow her judgment, and, self-willed and strong

in intellect as he was, he said that she should have a fair chance of

fulfilling her purpose. There had been many _pour parlers_ as to what Jim

should do. There was farming. She set that aside, because it meant

capital, and it also meant monotony and loneliness; and capital was

limited, and monotony and loneliness were bad for Jim, deadening an active

brain which must not be deprived of stimulants--stimulants of a different

sort, however, from those which had heretofore mastered it. There was the

law. But Jim would have to become a citizen of Canada, change his flag,

and where they meant to go--to the outskirts--there would be few

opportunities for the law; and with not enough to _do_ there would be

danger. Railway construction? That seemed good in many ways, but Jim had

not the professional knowledge necessary; his railway experience with his

father had only been financial. Above all else he must have

responsibility, discipline, and strict order in his life.

"Something that will be good for my natural vanity, and knock the nonsense

out of me," Jim agreed, as they drew farther and farther away from

Washington and the past, and nearer and nearer to the Far North and their

future. Never did two more honest souls put their hands in each other's,

and set forth upon the thorniest path to a goal which was their heart's

desire. Since they had become one, there had come into Sally's face that

illumination which belongs only to souls possessed of an idea greater than

themselves, outside themselves--saints, patriots; faces which have been

washed in the salt tears dropped for others' sorrows and lighted by the

fire of self-sacrifice. Sally Seabrook, the high-spirited, the radiant,

the sweetly wilful, the provoking, to concentrate herself upon this narrow

theme--to reconquer the lost paradise of one vexed mortal soul!

What did Jim's life mean? It was only one in the millions coming and

going, and every man must work out his own salvation. Why should she cramp

her soul to this one issue, when the same soul could spend itself upon the

greater motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of influence had

opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could all have been

hers, as John Appleton and Jim's father had said. She might have moved in

well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure, lived a life where all

would be made easy, where she would be shielded at every turn, and her

beauty would be flattered by luxury into a constant glow. She was not so

primitive, so unintellectual, as not to have thought of this, else her

decision would have had less importance; she would have been no more than

an infatuated, emotional woman with a touch of second-class drama in her

nature. She had thought of it all, and she had made her choice. The easier

course was the course for meaner souls, and she had not one vein of thin

blood nor a small idea in her whole nature. She had a heart and mind for

great issues. She believed that Jim had a great brain, and would and could

accomplish great things. She knew that he had in him the strain of

hereditary instinct--his mother's father had ended a brief life in a

drunken duel on the Mississippi, and Jim's boyhood had never had

discipline or direction, or any strenuous order. He might never acquire

order, and the power that order and habit and the daily iteration of

necessary thoughts and acts bring; but the prospect did not appal her. She

had taken the risk with her eyes wide open; had set her own life and

happiness in the hazard. But Jim must be saved, must be what his talents,

his genius, entitled him to be. And the long game must have the long

thought.

So, as they drew into the great Saskatchewan Valley, her hand in his, and

hope in his eyes, and such a look of confidence and pride in her as

brought back his old, strong beauty of face and smoothed the careworn

lines of self-indulgence, she gave him his course: as a private he must

join the North-West Mounted Police, the red-coated riders of the plains,

and work his way up through every stage of responsibility, beginning at

the foot of the ladder of humbleness and self-control. She believed that

he would agree with her proposal; but her hands clasped his a little more

firmly and solicitously--there was a faint, womanly fear at her heart--as

she asked him if he would do it. The life meant more than occasional

separation; it meant that there would be periods when she would not be

with him; and there was great danger in that; but she knew that the risks

must be taken, and he must not be wholly reliant on her presence for his

moral strength.

His face fell for a moment when she made the suggestion, but it cleared

presently, and he said, with a dry laugh: "Well, I guess they must make me

a sergeant pretty quick. I'm a colonel in the Kentucky Carbineers!"

She laughed, too; then a moment afterward, womanlike, wondered if she was

right, and was a little frightened. But that was only because she was not

self-opinionated, and was anxious, more anxious than any woman in all the

North.

It happened as Jim said; he was made a sergeant at once--Sally managed

that; for, when it came to the point, she saw the conditions in which the

privates lived, and realized that Jim must be one of them, and clean out

the stables, and groom his horse and the officers' horses, and fetch and

carry, her heart failed her, and she thought that she was making her

remedy needlessly heroical. So, she went to see the commissioner, who was

on a tour of scrutiny on their arrival at the post, and, as better men

than he had done in more knowing circles, he fell under her spell. If she

had asked for a lieutenancy, he would probably have corrupted some member

of Parliament into securing it for Jim.

But Jim was made a sergeant, and the commissioner and the captain of the

troop kept their eyes on him. So did other members of the troop who did

not quite know their man, and attempted, figuratively, to pinch him here

and there. They found that his actions were greater than his words, and

both were in perfect harmony in the end, though his words often seemed

pointless to their minds, until they understood that they had conveyed

truths through a medium more like a heliograph than a telephone. By-and-by

they began to understand his heliographing, and, when they did that, they

began to swear by him, not at him.

In time it was found that the troop never had a better disciplinarian than

Jim. He knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open. To

non-essentials he kept his eyes shut; to essentials he kept them very wide

open. There were some men of good birth from England and elsewhere among

them, and these mostly understood him first. But they all understood Sally

from the beginning, and after a little they were glad enough to be

permitted to come, on occasion, to the five-roomed little house near the

barracks, and hear her talk, then answer her questions, and, as men had

done at Washington, open out their hearts to her. They noticed, however,

that while she made them barley-water, and all kinds of soft drinks from

citric acid, sarsaparilla, and the like, and had one special drink of her

own invention, which she called cream-nectar, no spirits were to be had.

They also noticed that Jim never drank a drop of liquor, and by-and-by,

one way or another, they got a glimmer of the real truth, before it became

known who he really was or anything of his story. And the interest in the

two, and in Jim's reformation, spread through the country, while Jim

gained reputation as the smartest man in the force.

They were on the outskirts of civilization--as Jim used to say, "One step

ahead of the procession." Jim's duty was to guard the columns of

settlement and progress, and to see that every man got his own rights and

not more than his rights; that justice should be the plumb-line of march

and settlement. His principle was embodied in certain words which he

quoted once to Sally from the prophet Amos--"_And the Lord said unto me,

Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumb-line_."

On the day that Jim became a lieutenant his family increased by one. It

was a girl, and they called her Nancy, after Jim's mother. It was the

anniversary of their marriage, and, so far, Jim had won, with what

fightings and strugglings and wrestlings of the spirit only Sally and

himself knew. And she knew as well as he, and always saw the storm coming

before it broke--a restlessness, then a moodiness, then a hungry, eager,

helpless look, and afterward an agony of longing, a feverish desire to

break away and get the thrilling thing which would still the demon within

him.

There had been moments when his doom seemed certain--he knew and she knew

that if he once got drunk again he would fall never to rise. On one

occasion, after a hard, long, hungry ride, he was half-mad with desire,

but even as he seized the flask that was offered to him by his only enemy,

the captain of B Troop, at the next station eastward, there came a sudden

call to duty, two hundred Indians having gone upon the war-path. It saved

him, it broke the spell. He had to mount and away, with the antidote and

stimulant of responsibility driving him on.

Another occasion was equally perilous to his safety. They had been idle

for days in a hot week in summer, waiting for orders to return from the

rail-head where they had gone to quell a riot, and where drink and

hilarity were common. Suddenly--more suddenly than it had ever come, the

demon of his thirst had Jim by the throat. Sergeant Sewell, of the

gray-stubble head, who loved him more than his sour heart had loved

anybody in all his life, was holding himself ready for the physical

assault he must make upon his superior officer if he raised a glass to his

lips, when salvation came once again. An accident had occurred far down on

the railway line, and the operator of the telegraph-office had that very

day been stricken down with pleurisy and pneumonia. In despair the manager

had sent to Jim, eagerly hoping that he might help them, for the Riders of

the Plains were a sort of court of appeal for every trouble in the Far

North.

Instantly Jim was in the saddle with his troop. Out of curiosity he had

learned telegraphy when a boy, as he had learned many things, and, arrived

at the scene of the accident, he sent messages and received them--by

sound, not on paper as did the official operator, to the amazement and

pride of the troop. Then, between caring for the injured in the accident,

against the coming of the relief train, and nursing the sick operator

through the dark moments of his dangerous illness, he passed a crisis of

his own disease triumphantly; but not the last crisis.

So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety.