A. Paul Gardiner

“ Side by side their bodies rest in the shadow of the village church, while their spirits have joined the angels and are looking down at us now.
“No one at the homestead nor in the village of Darrington knows of my whereabouts, and to them I am as though I had joined my father and mother. Now, Andy, you know my story. If you think I should return with you to your home, I will—but on one condition—that my secret, my identity, be sacred between us.” ”

“ At first the waters down which we glide are clear and bright, but later our course perchance may lie through a troubled country, and in the shallows we encounter the snags which wreck our pleasures in passing. For a time we endeavor to clear the stream down which we have been floating by throwing about us on every side that panacea to unhappiness, speculation or adventure. With me, Andy, the fountain of my happiness lies in the direction of the brooks from the mountains. ”

“ The work of the farmers whom Cameron had seen fit to employ, and who seemed to vie one with another in quickly disposing of the useless materials collected about their farm-yards and disfiguring their homes, progressed so rapidly that ere long whole acres of the frozen river front resembled a congested lumber yard. The fabulous prices paid to them by Cameron for the worthless accumulations of their farm-yards, which he had placed upon the ice to be carried away with the floods in the Spring, caused a storm of comment, the echo of which came over from The Gore in volumes of inquiries. ”

“ Poor Andy sobbed in his happiness upon the shoulder of his mining partner, and then, clutching him by the arm as though awakening from a dream, he half sobbed, half cried: “He won’t get them now, Edmond; he won’t get them now! Laughing Donald stays on where he is, and his invalid wife will have a servant to wait on her. And Barbara—my wife, Edmond, my wife, do you hear?—she shall have a new silk dress, a new straw bonnet, Edmond, with red posies in it, and a new yarn carpet to put in the parlor, my boy. ”

“ Unpretentious and surely uninviting is the cheese factory at The Front, but in local history, in the stories of the feuds waged between the clans of the farmers at The Front and those at The Gore, it plays a vitally important part, for through the lands of the latter flow the waters of the whey-tainted creek, endangering the products of their dairies by polluting the source of the cattle’s water supply. ”

“ Cameron smiled assuringly as he slapped his old fighting friend upon the shoulder. “Bill,” he said, “we will be very busy this Winter and all next Summer, you and I. We will let the waters of the creek flow on to The Gore unmolested. We will let Fraser, the carpenter, go on with his tattling about the neighbors. We will keep them all guessing, Bill. My friend LeClare and I want to see you very soon at Laughing Donald’s—and, by the way, Bill, don’t mention the remark you heard Donald Ban make about some friend of yours having a little spare money.” ”

“ There in this wide expanse stretching across toward the blue irregular mountain line of the Adirondacks, far to the southward, then eastward till the vision meets the water line, lie the islands grouped for beauty by nature’s gardener, called by the writer the Arcadian Archipelago.
The very atmosphere of this enchanted region compels the thoughts of peace and freedom. A restful idleness pervades the life of its people ”

“ The Autumn rains had now set in, and all the way up through the Chilcoten Valley from Quesnel, the wagon train groaned and pitched from side to side. The wheels rolled in mud up to the very hubs, and the horses lagged in their traces, wearied by the excessive burden they were urged to drag. Sandwiched in with the baggage, providing for their comfort as best they could, were the several passengers. Upon the front seat with the driver sat the only woman passenger of the company. ”

“ Defeat we have never acknowledged; sorrow we have borne together side by side in the valley of death. Success and wealth are ours, and happiness, sweetest happiness, Edmond, is yours. Wherever I may be at the call of your wedding bells I will go to add one more good wish for a long journey of life and joy to you.”
At another conference held in the office of Donald Ban, Mr. Cameron had told of his plans for the future. Addressing his friend the lawyer, he had said: “My mission at The Front is finished. The death of Barbara has been avenged. ”

“ In all the transactions of Cameron thus far since his return Nick Perkins was able to discover a piercing dart, truly thrown at the hypocrisy of his own career. The subjects he had chosen from among the people upon whom to lavish such expenditures of money were always certain to be those who had either been oppressed by him in the past or else considered themselves his natural enemies. Perkins knew of the housebuilding to commence in the Spring at The Nole, for already Blakely was completing the contract he held to supply the stone for the masonry of the foundation walls. ”

“ The hypocrites, her tormentors, have been brought very low, the weak are much stronger in person, and justice at last has prevailed. I ask for no thanks or recognition but from our children in Arcadia; in the generations to come may they look awe-inspired as they pass the strange mansion, and be mindful of the moral which was taught when we builded the House of Cariboo. ”

“ In her rational moments during the days when the burning fever [Pg 127] would be lowest, Barbara had told the story of the persecution of the Cameron family by Nick Perkins, the insinuating gossip set afloat by Fraser, the carpenter, the defense in their behalf made by Bill Blakely and the kindnesses offered them by Angus Ferguson and Davy Simpson, the blacksmith. LeClare had divined the truth long before his friend Cameron, that the relentless fever raging in the brain and body of the proud, determined woman must soon burn her life’s taper to the end. ”

“ My purpose in the future at The Front and in Glengarry will be to see justice charitably dispensed: the weak shall be made strong, and from him at The Gore, who has grown powerful by his artful practices against the unfortunates in our community, I will take and return to them whom he has so oppressively wronged. ”

“ You have the right stuff in you to make any man proud to be called your friend, and you not only outwitted your old acquaintance, Nick Perkins from The Gore, causing him the most bitter disappointment of his unenviable career, but you performed a service which, at the time, you did for a poor but honest neighbor. ”

“ Andy, should you wander over there to the southward, past the islands of the Archipelago and the shoals of the marshes, and then follow the mountain streams up their circuitous windings, you will come at last to their head, the fountain from which continually spring the waters, clear and pure, which unite to form the rivers. Down the course toward the finish of their run sometimes the sparkling clearness of these streams has become changed to a dullness of color by the conditions of the [Pg 156] country through which they have passed, and their life and transparency are gone. ”

“ Gone forever from the old tavern are the good times of yore, and like the business prosperity at the landing, they have followed the noisy rivermen down the stream to return again no more to The Front.
To describe the surviving enterprises at The Front—there are, first, the government post-office; then the buckboard stage line plying between The Front and the station to the railway two miles inland; and, lastly, the boat builder’s plant in the bay. ”

“ Time has sped all too swiftly at the little mining camp in the Cariboo Valley. There is now only a month left of the two years set by Andy Cameron for his return to his family, and all indications thus far point to a tragic ending for the ambitions and loves of the unfortunate Glengarry farmer. ”

“ At noon hour the burden of the discussion among the assembled laborers was to ascribe a reason for Cameron and the lawyer being among them in the morning. In the midst of the debate, an exclamation of delight came from one of their number, who had been apart from his fellows in the basement, and he held up to view a ten-dollar gold piece he had found in the dirt at his feet. Immediately a mad hunt was in progress around the foundation walls, and particularly at the corner stones. ”

“ Your brother Andy is a good man; he is a friend of mine. He will be back soon, for that I am telling ye. William Fraser, the carpenter, he’s been telling ye what ‘they say.’ Tell yer wife, Donald, when ye go home, what I say, what Davy says, and what Angus’ wife says for him to say, and don’t you worry about the mortgage.” Then Bill went over to the shop door, and they thought he was going to confide something to Davy, but he hesitated, finally bit off an enormous quid of tobacco and sauntered slowly down the road homeward. ”

“ Laughing Donald is a better man dead than anything you can produce alive in your hull county at The Gore. And Andy Cameron won’t let the wind blow a whiff of ye [Pg 70] to the lee side of his place when he comes back, neither. And that won’t be long from now,” and old Bill threw his quid of tobacco after the retreating wheels of the vehicle as Perkins drove away amid the jeering laughter of the group.
As soon as the tax gatherer was out of hearing distance, Bill turned to Donald, and in a tone serious for him, said, “Donald, I am a-speakin’ fer you. The Camerons are from The Front. ”

“ The timid nature of the man showed itself in each hesitating step, while in his large, fawn-like eyes was an appealing look, as if he were a pet animal wishing to be taken by his master from the tormenting pranks of a gang of youthful bandits. ”

“ Barbara Cameron, the faithful wife to whom Andy went for encouragement when he found that the burdens heaped upon him by the unfortunate [Pg 40] members of his family were greater than the resources of the combined farms could support, listened with a heart full of sympathy while her husband unfolded the plan by which he hoped to retrieve their waning fortunes. Quietly, at first, he began to tell of the circumstances which compelled him to place a mortgage upon their own little farm and homestead. ”

“ Another industry of even greater moment to the community at The Front is the cheese factory, which stands just past the corners and fronting the road, jagged up on the side of a steep embankment, and resting unsteadily upon crazy-looking standards. ”