Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/23

Rh pest, heavily staggering over the beaten trail, came the vision of what home-lights mean to a man in this land of the last West. For these are very truly the home-lights of Canada; of the mother who breeds and binds her sons from the East to the West and takes into sonship those who come to her from the outer seas. By the naked frame-house on the ocean of prairie she sits waiting; by the lone shack of yellow pine in the Rockies; at the door of the Indian tepee in the forest; at the white tent in the white silence of the Barren Lands. And night by night they come home to her, those sons; going with the tread of tired men across the blowing prairie-grass, stepping sure-foot among the towering glaciers of the ranges, brushing quick feet through the fallen gold of the forest-trails, kicking powdered dust or snow as powder-dry before them out where the trees fail and the winds stand up and scream at the silence and the tent-ropes squeal to the strain.

They come home: to sleep, and to tell of the day's lessons in the knowledge of men who have learnt first-hand in this merciful, merciless great nursery of beginnings which we call Life. And she sits and listens, the mother; heartening the weak, who fear and slide round the edges of understanding, scarifying the cheat in the night when the big lonely places do their talking, giving comfort to the gallant courage that could not win out, and boisterous laughter to the daring men who have stripped themselves naked that they may buy broadcloth and joy of the gambler Chance.

Tempest stood aside with his heart watching those home-lights while the scow was run up, the freight unloaded, and Moonias put into a large shed with a lock and a running door.

"Reckon that'll holt him safe," said Randal. "The linemen kep' all their lumber into it when they was layin' this section. Come right along to the shack."

Over the door-sill Dick trod on something soft that gave, making no sound. Lifted up it proved itself an Indian baby, staring with black, placid eyes and round, pursed mouth.

"Yours?" he asked idly, and saw Randal's eyes go suddenly bloodshot.