Discomfited, Cheerio lost the use of his tongue. After a moment he inquired, somewhat dejectedly:
“Sh-shall we c-c-c-call them off then?”
Hilda was unprepared for this. Though she would not have admitted it to herself for anything in the world, those evening rides were becoming the most important events in her life. Indeed, she found herself looking forward to and thinking of them all day. Faced now with the possibility of their being ended, she said hurriedly and with a slight catching of her breath that made Cheerio look at her with an odd fixity of expression:
“No, no—of course not. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my brother, b-but I can’t trust that boy alone. I’ve always taken care of Sandy. That’s why I come along. Sandy’s just a little boy, you know.”
How that “little boy” would have snarled with wrath at his sister’s designation! Even Cheerio’s eyes twinkled, and Hilda, to cover up her own embarrassment, hastily pressed her heel into her horse’s flank, and for the first time she suffered him to ride along beside her.
It was intensely still and a dim golden haze lay like a dream over all the sky and the land, merging them into one. Into this glow rode the girl of the ranching country and the man from the old land across the sea. The air was balmy and full of the essence of summer. There was the sweet odour of recently-cut hay and green feed and a suave wind whispered and fragrantly fanned the perfumed air about them. They came out of the woods directly into the hay lands and passed through fields of thick oats already turning golden. A strange new emotion, a feeling that pained by its very sweetness was slowly growing into being in the untutored heart of the girl of the foothills. Glancing sideways at the man’s fine, clean-cut profile, his gaze bent straight ahead, Hilda caught her breath with a sudden fear of she knew not what. Why was it, she asked herself passionately, that she was unable to speak to this man as to other men? Why could she scarcely meet his clear, straight glance, which seemed always to question her own so wistfully? What was the matter with her and with him that his mere presence near her moved her so strangely? Why was she riding alone with him now in this strange, electrical silence? As the troubled questions came tumbling over one another through the girl’s mind, Cheerio suddenly turned in his saddle and directly sought her gaze. A wonderful, a winning smile, which made Hilda think of the sunshine about them, broke over the man’s face. She was conscious of the terrifying fact that that smile awoke in her breast tumultuous alarms and clamours. She feared it more than a hostile glance. Feared the very friendly and winning quality of it.
Impetuously the girl dug her little spurred heels into her horse’s flanks and rode swiftly ahead.
It was nearly ten o’clock, yet the skies were incredibly bright and in the west above the wide range of mountains, shone the splendour of a late sunset, red, gold, purple, magenta and blue. All of the country seemed tinted by the reflected glow of the night sun. Hilda, riding breathlessly along, had the sense of one in a race, running to escape that which was pursuing her. On and on, neck and neck with the galloping horse beside her, and feeling its rider’s gaze still bent solely upon her.
Presently there was a slackening of the running speed; gradually the galloping turned to the shorter trot. Daisy and Jim Crow, panting from the long race, slowed down to a lope. Some of the fever had run out of Hilda’s blood and she had recovered her composure.
Silence for a long interval, while they rode steadily on into the immense sun glow. Then:
“R-ripping, isn’t it?” said the man, softly.
“Meaning what?” demanded the girl, angry with herself that her voice was tremulous.
Almost they seemed to be riding into the sky itself. Sky and earth had the curious phenomenon of being one.
“Everything,” he replied, with an eloquent motion of his hand. “It’s a r-ripping—land! I’m jolly glad I came.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Hilda, “that you have skies like this in England.”
“Hardly.”
“It’s foggy and dark there, I’ve heard,” said Hilda.
He glanced at her, as if slightly surprised.
“Why no, that hardly describes it, you know.”
He was thoughtful a moment, and then said, with a smile, as if glad to reassure her:
“It’s a dashed fine place, all the same. C-carn’t beat it, you know.”
That brought the girl’s chin up. For some reason, she could not have analyzed, it hurt and offended her to hear him praising the land from which he had come.
“Hm! I wonder why Englishmen who think so darned much of their own old land bother to come to wild outlandish places like Canada.”
If she had expected him to deny that Canada was wild and outlandish she was to be disappointed, for he replied eagerly:
“Oh, by Jove! th-that’s wh-why we like it, you know. It’s—it’s exhilarating—the difference—the change from things over there. One gets in a rut in the old land and travel is our only antidote.”
Hilda had never travelled. She had never been outside the Province of Alberta. Calgary and Banff were the only cities Hilda had ever been in. She was conscious now of a sense of extreme bitterness and pain. Like some young wounded creature who strikes out blindly when hurt, Hilda said:
“Look here, Mr.—er—Whatever your name is, if you Englishmen just come out to Canada out of curiosity and to—”
“But, my dear child, Canada is part of us! We’re all one family. I’m at home here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a fish out of water.”
“I s-say—”
“And look here, I don’t let anyone call me ‘dear child.’ I won’t be patronized by you or anyone like you. I’m not a child anyway. I’m eighteen and that’s being of age, if you want to know.”
He could not restrain the smile that came despite
