"
"Nor I!" "Nor I!" "Nor I!" rang out voice after voice.
"Run back, you blessed little 'North-West,' and tell mother not to
be scared for the boys. We'll stand by her to a man. She'll never
regret that ship's coming in," said the gallant soldier, slipping
the boy to the ground. And to the credit of the men who wore
buffalo-head buttons, she never did.
And in all her Yukon years the major's wife had but one more
heartache. That agonizing winter had taught her many things, but
the bitterest knowledge to come to her was the fact that her boy
must be sent "to the front." To be sure, he was growing up the pet
of all the police; he was becoming manlier, sturdier, more
self-reliant every day. But education he _must_ have, and another
winter of such deprivation and horror he was too young, too tender,
to endure. It was then that the battle arose in her heart. The boy
was to be sent to college. Was it her place to accompany him to the
distant South-east, to live by herself alone in the college town,
just to be near him and watch over his young life, or was it here
with her pioneer soldier husband, and his little isolated garrison
of "boys" whom she had mothered for two years?
The inevitable day came when she had to shut her teeth and watch
Grahamie go aboard the southward-bound vessel alone, in the care of
a policeman who was returning on sick leave--to watch him stand at
the rail, his little face growing dimmer and more shadowy as the
sea widened between them--watch him through tearless, courageous
eyes, then turn away with the hopelessness of knowing that for one
entire endless year she must wait for word of his arrival.
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