"Get him?  S'pose I could.  But as to bringin' him here, I'd prefer
wild cats myself.  The last I seen of him he was hikin' for the
Rockies with a blue haze round his hair."

"But what in the world is wrong with him, Billy?" said Mandy
anxiously.  "I've never seen him this way."

"No, nor me," said Billy.  "The Doc's a pretty level headed cuss.
There's somethin' workin' on him, if you ask me."

"Billy, you get him and tell him we want to see him at breakfast,
will you?"

Billy shook his head.

"Tell him, Billy, I want him to see my husband then."

"Sure thing!  That'll catch him, I guess.  He's dead stuck on his
work."

And it did catch him, for, after breakfast was over, clean-shaven,
calm and controlled, and in his very best professional style, Dr.
Martin made his morning call on his patient.  Rigidly he eliminated
from his manner anything beyond a severe professional interest.
Mandy, who for two years had served with him as nurse, and who
thought she knew his every mood, was much perplexed.  Do what she
could, she was unable to break through the barrier of his
professional reserve.  He was kindly courteous and perfectly
correct.

"I would suggest a quiet day for him, Mrs. Cameron," was his
verdict after examining the patient.  "He will be quite able to get
up in the afternoon and go about, but not to set off on a hundred
and fifty mile drive.  A quiet day, sleep, cheerful company, such
as you can furnish here, will fix him up."

"Doctor, we will secure the quiet day if you will furnish the
cheerful company," said Mandy, beaming on him.

"I have a very busy day before me, and as for cheerful company,
with you two ladies he will have all the company that is good for
him."

"CHEERFUL company, you said, Doctor.  If you desert us how can we
be cheerful?"

"Exactly for that reason," replied the doctor.

"Say, Martin," interposed Cameron, "take them out for a drive this
afternoon and leave me in peace."

"A drive!" cried Mandy, "with one hundred and fifty miles behind me
and another hundred and fifty miles before me!"

"A ride then," said Cameron.  "Moira, you used to be fond of
riding."

"And am still," cried the girl, with sparkling eyes.

"A ride!" cried Mandy.  "Great!  This is the country for riding.
But have you a habit?"

"My habit is in one of my boxes," replied Moira.

"I can get a habit," said the doctor, "and two of them."

"That's settled, then," cried Mandy.  "I am not very keen.  We
shall do some shopping, Allan, you and I this afternoon and you two
can go off to the hills.  The hills! th--ink of that, Moira, for a
highlander!"  She glanced at Moira's face and read refusal there.
"But I insist you must go.  A whole week in an awful stuffy train.
This is the very thing for you."

"Yes, the very thing, Moira," cried her brother.  "We will have a
long talk this morning then in the afternoon we will do some
business here, Mandy and I, and you can go up the Bow."

"The Bow?"

"The Bow River.  A glorious ride.  Nothing like it even in
Scotland, and that's saying a good deal," said her brother with
emphasis.

This arrangement appeared to give complete satisfaction to all
parties except those most immediately interested, but there seemed
to be no very sufficient reason with either to decline, hence they
agreed.



CHAPTER IX

THE RIDE UP THE BOW


Having once agreed to the proposal of a ride up the Bow, the doctor
lost no time in making the necessary preparations.  Half an hour
later he found himself in the stable consulting with Billy.  His
mood was gloomy and his language reflected his mood.  Gladly would
he have escaped what to him, he felt, would be a trying and
prolonged ordeal.  But he could not do this without exciting the
surprise of his friends and possibly wounding the sensitive girl
whom he would gladly give his life to serve.  He resolved that at
all costs he would go through with the thing.

"I'll give her a good time, by Jingo! if I bust something," he
muttered as he walked up and down the stable picking out his
mounts.  "But for a compound, double-opposed, self-adjusting
jackass, I'm your choice.  Lost my first chance.  Threw it clean
away and queered myself with her first shot.  I say, Billy," he
called, "come here."

"What's up, Doc?" said Billy.

"Kick me, Billy," said the doctor solemnly.

"Well now, Doc, I--"

"Kick me, Billy, good and swift."

"Don't believe I could give no satisfaction, Doc.  But there's that
Hiram mule, he's a high class artist.  You might back up to him."

"No use being kicked, Billy, by something that wouldn't appreciate
it," said Martin.

"Don't guess that way, Doc.  He's an ornery cuss, he'd appreciate
it all right, that old mule.  But Doc, what's eatin' you?"

"Oh, nothing, Billy, except that I'm an ass, an infernal ass."

"An ass, eh?  Then I guess I couldn't give you no satisfaction.
You better try that mule."

"Well, Billy, the horses at two," said the doctor briskly, "the
broncho and that dandy little pinto."

"All serene, Doc.  Hope you'll have a good time.  Brace up, Doc,
it's comin' to you."  Billy's wink conveyed infinitely more than
his words.

"Look here, Billy, you cut that all out," said the doctor.

"All right, Doc, if that's the way you feel.  You'll see no monkey-
work on me.  I'll make a preacher look like a sideshow."

And truly Billy's manner was irreproachable as he stood with the
ponies at the hotel door and helped their riders to mount.  There
was an almost sad gravity in his demeanor that suggested a mind
preoccupied with solemn and unworldly thoughts with which the
doctor and his affairs had not even the remotest association.

As Cameron who, with his wife, watched their departure from the
balcony above, waved them farewell, he cried, "Keep your eyes
skinned for an Indian, Martin.  Bring him in if you find him."

"I've got no gun on me," replied the doctor, "and if I get sight of
him, you hear me, I'll make for the timber quick.  No heroic
captures for me this trip."

"What is all this about the Indian, Dr. Martin?" inquired the girl
at his side as they cantered down the street.

"Didn't your brother tell you?"

"No."

"Well, I've done enough to you with that Indian already to-day."

"To me?"

"Didn't I like a fool frighten you nearly to death with him?"

"Well, I was startled.  I was silly to show it.  But an Indian to
an Old Country person familiar with Fenimore Cooper, well--"

"Oh, I was a proper idiot all round this morning," grumbled the
doctor.  "I didn't know what I was doing."

The brown eyes were open wide upon him.

"You see," continued the doctor desperately, "I'd looked forward to
meeting you for so long."  The brown eyes grew wider.  "And then to
think that I actually didn't know you."

"You didn't look at me," cried Moira.

"No, I was looking for the girl I saw that day, almost three years
ago, in the Glen.  I have never forgotten that day."

"No, nor I," replied the girl softly.  "That is how I knew you.  It
was a terrible day to us all in the Glen, my brother going to leave
us and under that dreadful cloud, and you came with the letter that
cleared it all away.  Oh, it was like the coming of an angel from
heaven, and I have often thought, Mr. Martin--Dr. Martin you are
now, of course--that I never thanked you as I ought that day.  I
was thinking of Allan.  I have often wished to do it.  I should
like to do it now."

"Get at it," cried the doctor with great emphasis, "I need it.  It
might help me a bit.  I behaved so stupidly this morning.  The
truth is, I was completely knocked out, flabbergasted."

"Was that it?" cried Moira with a bright smile.  "I thought--"  A
faint color tinged her pale cheek and she paused a moment.  "But
tell me about the Indian.  My brother just made little of it.  It
is his way with me.  He thinks me just a little girl not to be
trusted with things."

"He doesn't know you, then," said the doctor.

She laughed gayly.  "And do you?"

"I know you better than that, at least."

"What can you know about me?"

"I know you are to be trusted with that or with anything else that
calls for nerve.  Besides, sooner or later you must know about this
Indian.  Wait till we cross the bridge and reach the top of the
hill yonder, it will be better going."

The hillside gave them a stiff scramble, for the trail went
straight up.  But the sure-footed ponies, scrambling over stones
and gravel, reached the top safely, with no worse result than an
obvious disarrangement of the girl's hair, so that around the
Scotch bonnet which she had pinned on her head the little brown
curls were peeping in a way that quite shook the heart of Dr.
Martin.

"Now you look a little more like yourself," he cried, his eyes
fastened upon the curls with unmistakable admiration, "more like
the girl I remember."

"Oh," she said, "it is my bonnet.  I put on this old thing for the
ride."

"No," said the doctor, "you wore no bonnet that day.  It is your
face, your hair, you are not quite--so--so proper."

"My hair!"  Her hands went up to her head.  "Oh, my silly curls, I
suppose.  They are my bane."  ("My joy," the doctor nearly had
said.)  "But now for the Indian story."

Then the doctor grew grave.

"It is not a pleasant thing to greet a guest with," he said, "but
you must know it and I may as well give it to you.  And, mind you,
this is altogether a new thing with us."

For the next half hour as they rode westward toward the big hills,
steadily climbing as they went, the story of the disturbance in the
north country, of the unrest among the Indians, of the part played
in it by the Indian Copperhead, and of the appeal by the
Superintendent to Cameron for assistance, furnished the topic for
conversation.  The girl listened with serious face, but there was
no fear in the brown eyes, nor tremor in the quiet voice, as they
talked it over.

"Now let us forget it for a while," cried the doctor.  "The Police
have rarely, if ever, failed to get their man.  That is their
boast.  And they will get this chap, too.  And as for the row on
the Saskatchewan, I don't take much stock in that.  Now we're
coming to a view in a few minutes, one of the finest I have seen
anywhere."

For half a mile farther they loped along the trail that led them to
the top of a hill that stood a little higher than the others round
about.  Upon the hilltop they drew rein.

"What do you think of that for a view?" said the doctor.

Before them stretched the wide valley of the Bow for many miles,
sweeping up toward the mountains, with rounded hills on either
side, and far beyond the hills the majestic masses of the Rockies
some fifty miles away, snow-capped, some of them, and here and
there upon their faces the great glaciers that looked like patches
of snow.  Through this wide valley wound the swift flowing Bow, and
up from it on either side the hills, rough with rocks and ragged
masses of pine, climbed till they seemed to reach the very bases of
the mountains beyond.  Over all the blue arch of sky spanned the
wide valley and seemed to rest upon the great ranges on either
side, like the dome of a vast cathedral.

Silent, with lips parted and eyes alight with wonder, Moira sat and
gazed upon the glory of that splendid scene.

"What do you think--" began the doctor.

She put out her hand and touched his arm.

"Please don't speak," she breathed, "this is not for words, but for
worship."

Long she continued to gaze in rapt silence upon the picture spread
out before her.  It was, indeed, a place for worship.  She pointed
to a hill some distance in front of them.

"You have been beyond that?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes, I have been all through this country.  I know it well.  From
the top of that hill we get a magnificent sweep toward the south."

"Let us go!" she cried.

Down the hillside they scrambled, across a little valley and up the
farther side, following the trail that wound along the hill but
declined to make the top.  As they rounded the shoulder of the
little mountain Moira cried:

"It would be a great view from the top there beyond the trees.  Can
we reach it?"

"Are you good for a climb?" replied the doctor.  "We could tie the
horses."

For answer she flung herself from her pinto and, gathering up her
habit, began eagerly to climb.  By the time the doctor had tethered
the ponies she was half way to the top.  Putting forth all his
energy he raced after her, and together they parted a screen of
brushwood and stepped out on a clear rock that overhung the deep
canyon that broadened into a great valley sweeping toward the
south.

"Beats Scotland, eh?" cried the doctor, as they stepped out
together.

She laid her hand upon his arm and drew him back into the bushes.

"Hush," she whispered.  Surprised into silence, he stood gazing at
her.  Her face was white and her eyes gleaming.  "An Indian down
there," she whispered.

"An Indian?  Where?  Show me."

"He was looking up at us.  Come this way.  I think he heard us."

She led him by a little detour and on their hands and knees they
crept through the brushwood.  They reached the open rock and peered
down through a screen of bushes into the canyon below.

"There he is," cried Moira.

Across the little stream that flowed at the bottom of the canyon,
and not more than a hundred yards away, stood an Indian, tall,
straight and rigidly attent, obviously listening and gazing
steadily at the point where they had first stood.  For many minutes
he stood thus rigid while they watched him.  Then his attitude
relaxed.  He sat down upon the rocky ledge that sloped up from the
stream toward a great overhanging crag behind him, laid his rifle
beside him and, calmly filling his pipe, began to smoke.  Intently
they followed his every movement.

"I do believe it is our Indian," whispered the doctor.

"Oh, if we could only get him!" replied the girl.

The doctor glanced swiftly at her.  Her face was pale but firm set
with resolve.  Quickly he revolved in his mind the possibilities.

"If I only had a gun," he said to himself, "I'd risk it."

"What is he going to do?"

The Indian was breaking off some dead twigs from the standing pines
about him.

"He's going to light a fire," replied the doctor, "perhaps camp for
the night."

"Then," cried the girl in an excited whisper, "we could get him."

The doctor smiled at her.  The Indian soon had his fire going and,
unrolling his blanket pack, he took thence what looked like a lump
of meat, cut some strips from it and hung them from pointed sticks
over the fire.  He proceeded to gather some poles from the dead
wood lying about.

"What now is he going to do?" inquired Moira.

"Wait," replied the doctor.

The Indian proceeded to place the poles in order against the rock,
keeping his eye on the toasting meat the while and now and again
turning it before the fire.  Then he began to cut branches of
spruce and balsam.

"By the living Jingo!" cried the doctor, greatly excited, "I
declare he's going to camp."

"To sleep?" said Moira.

"Yes," replied the doctor.  "He had no sleep last night."

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